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People Share The Weirdest Jobs They Ever Had

People Share The Weirdest Jobs They Ever Had
William Warby/Unsplash

Growing up nobody tells you that there are TONS of jobs out there to choose from.

We're presented options like "teacher" and "doctor" and "lawyer" and "sales person" - but nobody tells you that you can grow up to be a table, someone's fake boyfriend, or a shark-booper.

Yeah, I'm particularly heated about not knowing that last one was an option. Kid me would have chosen a vastly different career path had I known professional shark-booper was an option.


Reddit user CaptainLiv47 asked:

"What was the weirdest job you have ever had?"

They say it's never too late to make a change, so maybe there's still time for me to boop some sharks when I "grow up."

Clearly there are TONS of weird work options, though.

Exactly 12

"I used to work for the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, Weights and Measures Division— I was in charge of making sure all rulers were exactly 12 inches long."

- 0Ring-0

"I work in Quality in manufacturing. This is way more important than people think."

- WET318

"I picture you having this ruler made of pure platinum that is EXACT, then going to like school supply manufactures and just snapping random rulers off the production line to compare them."

"I also picture you with a big mustache and tiny glasses."

- dbatchison

Giphy

Shark Booper

"Underwater videographer for a National Geographic documentary shoot on Tiger Sharks."

"There were always two of us underwater for the filming. One with the camera and the other one just behind and above with a long aluminum pole with a crossbar on the end. We called it 'the Defender Pole'."

"If any shark came too close (these were some very large sharks) to the cameraman, you'd give it a gentle boop on the snoot with 'The Defender Pole'."

"The project was headed by a guy named Greg Marshall, who invented a device called "Crittercam" to attach to wildlife such as sharks, turtles, lions and stuff. He was the Nat Geo producer, and along with the amazing Birgit Buhleier, headed the documentary project."

"Monkey Mia in Shark Bay, Western Australia is a very remote beach resort famous for the wild dolphin population which comes in close to the beach most days. The greater Shark Bay area is home to a huge & diverse range of marine life - including a shitload of sharks of course."

"There is a resident group of international scientists who come from all over the world to study there (dolphins, sharks, turtles). One of the PhD candidates was studying Tiger Sharks (Mike Heithaus) and Nat Geo teamed up with him to film his research as part of the documentary storyline - including putting Crittercams on the dorsal fins of the sharks to see what they did in their natural habitat."

"The sharks would be temporarily caught on static lines, then measured, blood samples taken etc - and then the Cam would be temporarily attached to the fin."

"A lot of our filming work was to be underwater during the catch and release stage - Ian Kellett (the Head Cinematographer and great friend from then on) & myself, one of us filming, the other on Boop Snoot duties with 'The Defender Pole' as the shark swam away."

"The Crittercam would automatically release after some hours, we would retrieve the device and they would study the footage. It was fascinating."

- seavisionburma

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Granny Stripper

"I once asked a guy what he did for work and he told me he 'drove a granny stripper'."

"I assumed this was slang for some road building or agricultural machinery, but nope... He was the driver for a 70 year old stripper."

"I think it was sort of a 'gag gift' situation, for example where she might be hired by the best man at a bucks night to gross out the groom. I can only assume she was ok with that."

- AnchovyMargherita

"I once had a job as a Stripper working for a printer. The job had nothing to do with removing my clothes."

"What that meant was that I took a brush and painted some stuff on tiny holes that would appear in the film they were using to develop the printing plates."

"The printer specialized in making those paper menus and similar things. ONE of our clients was "Busty Rusty" (or was it "Rusty Busty"? I forget...) an actual stripper that wanted some flyers put out on the tables at the strip club she worked for."

- RetiredEpi

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On-Call... Kinda

"I made $30k a year to be this guy's on call driver when he came to LA."

"He only came like twice a year for a day or two at a time and I got to drive his Bentley when he was in town."

"I wasn't an official Bentley chauffeur, though they do exist."

"I got my ARCA racing safety credentials at 16 and my NASCAR credentials at 18. Class A at 21 with every added credential possible and then I gave one of my buddies rich friends a ride home one night."

"We talked on the drive from Hollywood to Santa Barbara to his house and the next day I got a call from someone richer than him thanking me for getting his friend home safely and offering me the job."

- Toof-Less

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Free Samples

"I once got paid to give out free samples of coffee at a gas station."

"I got there at 5am to be given this huge backpack with a giant container of coffee in it, and it had an air compressed nozzle that I would use to spray coffee into sample size cups."

"I was told to approach anyone pumping gas and give them one."

"It was a disaster. The air pressure was too much so the coffee would blast out every time and get all over my clothes. I kept burning myself as a result."

"It was a heatwave so no one really wanted them anyways and people laughed in my face."

"Multiple people also told me I should have gone to college, which I was in. This was just part of a summer job before my senior year."

"It was humiliating and I never went back."

- earthshifts

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Japanese Cabaret Girls

"I used to live down the road from a cabaret club in Japan - like a place where you paid to drink with girls and talk to them, basically. Not overtly sexual but if the cabaret girl was willing it could be."

"I used to stay up late back then so often bumped into them coming back from work around 2-3am. Some of them were basically my neighbors and I offered some supper once."

"They rarely ate properly if at all and drank too much at work so they took to the supper with the type of gusto you only get when you're drunk-peckish."

"I guess they liked my cooking. And I was a decent listener I suppose, so they hung around more and more and got guilty about eating too much of my food."

"That turned into me getting this weird gig where I got paid to essentially make food for 5-6 cabaret girls per night and let them drink bottled tea and bitch about their clients till they sobered up."

"Sometimes they puked or had to crash at mine because they were too wasted; if that happened they often paid me a bit more out of embarrassment despite me insisting they didn't have to."

"Some of them made BANK. 10k to 15k USD per month on average. I was paid like 40 per head so could make 200 per night in cash usually. Did that 2-3 days a week while I was living in Japan. Weird but really not all that bad and supplemented my living costs nicely."

"At the end of the day, they just wanted someone to talk to after a long day and homemade food to come back to."

- threechance

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The Intern

"Internship at a sex shop…. Don’t ask me how but my school managed to find a spot in the financial sector at a sex shop."

"I kid you not, the lady was the only person working there and she had 4 interns managing the whole business whilst she was maybe a few hours each week at the shop."

"At one point she even said f*ck it, you guys are managing the shop as well."

"We had no idea wtf we were supposed to do."

"One time a customer came in and asked us if we could sell some weed. We said we don’t sell that here, he went away and we called our boss explaining what happened. She yelled at us through the phone for not selling him drugs because apparently she sold drugs."

"Note that drugs are allowed in our country but only to be sold at verified stores."

"After that (this was like 1.5/2months into the intern ship and we were supposed to be there for 9 months) we were all like hell no, we ain’t getting paid so we won’t deal with this shit."

"She was unstable as f*ck shouting at us if we did something wrong if she was at the office/shop. We left a note on the door that the shop was closed, locked the door, informed our school and left the fuck out of there."

- Nutella_Cooki

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Inventing Stories

"I spent the summer working a night shift as a writer/editor on the tv series Big Brother. Very strange. I felt like Ed Harris in the Truman Show."

"But the best thing was, we were all at desks on the big sound stage at Elstree Studios, where films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark were made. Under my desk in yellow chalk, it said GOTHAM CITY WEST as they’d just finished filming a Batman film there."

"My job was to follow everything as it happened via a huge bank of loads of monitors. Then write up 'stories' that would go on the site and then be picked up by national tabloids and other websites."

"The problem was, if two housemates had an argument at 2.15am and I wrote about it and uploaded it, then other media would pick up on it pretty much instantly and then the Big Brother TV programme the next evening would have to cover that and show footage."

"So I was essentially the first line of deciding what got on the show the following day. And I would see everything totally live and unedited. Including at one point a drunk woman sticking a wine bottle up herself."

"But there was a lot of narrative shaping as well. You could make someone look funny by only covering the funny things they said/did. Or make someone look clumsy by only showing the times they were clumsy. Or stupid, etc."

"If they filmed you or I for 24hours then it would be easy to pick out the things we did at certain times and create a narrative about us."

- fletchindubai

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Stand-In

"I was a stand-in boyfriend for girls to take home during festival periods. Just so the girl don’t have to deal with the parents / grandparents grilling them for being single / leftover woman."

"Was a fun gig, I got free food, meet some nice and interesting people."

"I stopped now that I’m married, but my wife still wants to pimp me out for that extra $ LOL"

"This is actually very common where I'm currently based (Hong Kong). I hear same stories in China also."

"There are markets for male and female where I have heard people do trades where people go to each other families and after the dinners they go back to their normal life."

"But sometimes people pick people who are more presentable or even speak another language, I don't know why but I assumed it's for a exit strategy to tell parents we broke up afterwards?"

- Icewing

Giphy

Being A Table

"Human buffet table."

"I went to a sex convention to visit some friends who were working and ended up getting tossed a spare vendor badge. Spent the whole weekend hanging out in the Dungeon, chatting with slaves and their Masters and watching the live stage shows."

"Went for a smoke and ended up chatting with a lady who ran a pole dancing studio (they were doing fully clothed pole dancing demos on the stage all weekend) and we were just chatting when her phone rings and it's her employee bailing on a private event in like 2 days."

"She starts complaining about it, and I guess she was hired to MC a new year's event for a BDSM group at a strip club. Her staff was entirely former pro strippers so she had hired a couple of them to be human buffet tables, but everyone bailed. I jokingly said "fuck, that would be cool!" and she offered me the job."

"I got free tickets ($75/each) for me and my boyfriend at the time to the party and had a blast. Then at 11:00, I went in a back room, stripped to just my thong and was wrapped head to toe in saran wrap."

"I laid on a table, they layered all the food on me and then I got carried out on the table like a fucking queen by 4 big bouncers."

"I was told to have fun with it, so I would talk to people a bit as they grabbed the food. A lot of them had no idea it was a real person and thought it was a blow up doll or something until I would say hi."

"I scared a lot of people. Lmfao"

"At 11:45 I got ushered to the strippers change room, removed the saran wrap, had a quick shower, got redressed and went to keep partying."

"I made $750 and met so many awesome people."

- purple-paper-punch

Giphy

Here, Piggy Piggy

"Pig wanker."

"Best paid job. As the lab technician (I could use Google) I got a big house all to myself. Because I have no sense of smell, the job didn't bother me at all."

"All I really had to do was sit on a stool with a pig d*ck in one hand and a cup in the other, then look down a microscope count sperm. $28 an hour and a house to myself. I was f*cking mad to give it up."

"Now as a vet tech in Canada I calculate drugs, monitor for surgery and explain vaccines to morons six days a week 8-10 hours a day and get screamed at for $21."

- Bushtuckapenguin

Happy Illumination Entertainment GIF by Sing MovieGiphy

The Tutor

"I once tutored a lady who ran a whorehouse to help her get her high school equivalency."

"She got it. Then she went on to law school to become a lawyer and represent sex workers."

- CatboyInAMaidOutfit

"Wow thats pretty impressive"

- CaptainLiv47

Alison Brie Community GIFGiphy

Living History

"I worked for a living history farm."

"One day I'd be tending the gardens, the next I'd be in period clothing teaching kids how to make paper stationary or hand dipped candles, and the next I'd be be dressed up pouring wine and serving hor d'oeuvres. No two days were the same."

"On the grounds we had a Victorian house full of antiques, old barns, gardens, ponds, walking trails, chickens, cows, horses, etc."

"I loved that job."

- Moonlight1219

county offaly architecture GIF by Acorn TVGiphy

Visual Verification

"No idea what the title of this job was…but in college my job was part of the athletics department. I was given a list of student athlete pictures and I had to go to each class, stare through the glass in the door, and make sure they were attending."

"They could have been kicked off the team if I didn’t see them. It was really difficult when I had to go to 200+ lectures."

"As an epilogue, that job lost its funding the following semester so then they put me in the athletics study center where athletes had to sign in for so many hours a week."

"I had to police these other college students and make sure they were studying. I was also absolutely NOT ALLOWED to do any schoolwork at this work study job."

"I found so many students sleeping but didn’t say anything."

- SirDaedra

Interested Creep GIFGiphy

The Sessions

"I’m a musician, both live and studio, and I have had some very strange gigs in both settings."

"I did some studio vocal work for a 'songwriter' whose songs were clearly all about him having an affair. They were the corniest, and frankly god awful songs, but a gig is a gig."

"The weirdest part was how he would talk to me between sets. He would be like:"

" 'Hey, that was a really great take man, really great. Hey on this next one, I want you to picture yourself at a swanky hotel bar, and you lock eyes with the girl at the end, she’s just sent a drink your way' blah blah blah.”

"He would just go on and on, 'painting mental pictures' for me. Basically just telling me details about his affair. Very weird, and annoying on many levels, but mostly because I had the worst of those godforsaken non-songs in my head for like a month after."

"He still calls me every now and then to ask me to sing on stuff, and somehow I’m always busy on the day of the session."

- bassocontinubow

Times Square Smile GIF by sonybroadwayGiphy

Not Fun

"Guerilla grower helper."

"Wake up at 3am, drive to the woods, hike in hundreds of pounds of fertilizer. Act like a farmer. Go home."

"Paid $250 a day in the mid 90s. It was so stressful I only did it one season."

"But it did lead me to trim jobs. Pay was great, but a month of trimming 8 hours a day is very tedious."

"Cannabis is one of my favorite things but the farming and processing the product is not fun."

- theironunderneath

half baked smoking GIFGiphy

Playing With An Octopus

"Worked at an aquarium behind the scenes looking after all the fishes. It was wonderful and I miss it, honestly so peaceful."

"Part of the job was 'enrichment' for the octopus."

"This involved building lego food puzzles for him that he would have to take apart to get food, and other such puzzles to get to food. We also got 'octopus cuddles' on rare occasions when he was feeling friendly which was just him saying hello and wrapping a tentacle or two around your arm."

"Most of the rest of the job was tank maintenance, daily water testing, feeding, cleaning etc"

"One time had to assist on a fish post-mortem too, to ensure cause of death was no risk of disease or issue that would harm the remaining fish."

- smolandworried

IT

"I had a 2 week contracted assignment to fill in for an IT support guy who was taking some time off."

"I had no knowledge of the computer system that I was supposed to be supporting. I didn't even have a login. I just sat there and read the newspaper until the day was over."

"Thankfully, the phone never rang once. I think it was some sort of scam position that the manager had running with the IT placement firm."

- dartdoug

Season 6 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphy

Speech To Text

"My weirdest job was also my coolest and best job. I worked for a deaf/Hard-of-Hearing relay center."

"The user would log in to a text system and give us a phone number, and then I would place the call, acting as their mouthpiece."

"It was kind of strange at first because I had to get used to listening and speaking in complete monotone simultaneously, because we relayed the hearing user's part of the conversation via speech-to-text software so we had to be clear and robotic for the software."

"Doing both sides of the conversation was a bit strange. But, I felt like I had a job that was worthwhile, even if I did end up going through the automated system for social security several times a day."

"What made it strange was when we had to relay calls that were obviously pranks, but had to take them anyway because we have no idea if the person in the text system is hearing or not, and even if they're not, we weren't in the business of censoring anyone's phone calls."

"If they want to prank call, that's their business."

"One of my last days there, I had to listen to the older woman who sat behind me say, 'oh. Yes. Orgasm. Orgasm. Orgasm. Yes. F*ck me hard,' in the most robotic monotone for forty-five minutes."

- Silence115

Cant Hear Baby Boomers GIF by MOST EXPENSIVESTGiphy

What Should Have Been A Guy's Dream Come True

"Costume dresser."

"I was around 21 at the time and was beyond excited to be working on a feature. The main costume dresser left because she wasn't getting paid (and later I found I wouldn't either) so I was picked to do the job because I was the only one close in age to the main actresses -- youngest being 18 and oldest being 25."

"The studio thought they'd be more comfortable with me."

"I was stoked because I knew I was about to see f*cking hot and nude college aged girls. That is how I was looking at it as a dude and for a moment that was exactly what I got."

"It was awesome and would be a moment I'd cherish forever...and then it wasn't."

"You see, I learned an important lesson that day -- a life lesson really: dressing women in general sucks."

"Holy crap, as a guy you would not believe how incredibly challenging and difficult it is to get women dressed for a movie! You cannot believe the sh*t they go through.

"Some of the clothes had to be taped to their bodies to be form fitting. They also had to wear pasties, which if you don't get them on correctly you then have to peel off; which is essentially like ripping duct tape off your nipple."

"There's also pins you have to poke in and then sew on. Even more tape was used on their breasts to prevent them from bouncing (bras were a no-no because you can see their outline on the costumes -- not form fitting)."

"Thigh high leather boots are not functional to walk in and are like two sizes too small, and need even more tape to be form fitting."

"Unitards (which is what they wore for the finale) usually means your butt cheeks will hang out, so more tape, needles, and glue there too. Lots of baby powder to get into the costumes quicker."

"The women got hurt, they couldn't breathe, they'd piss themselves because they couldn't get out of the costumes in time."

"Blood and band aids. Sweat filled balloons that were spanx. Tears that could fill a bowl of soup."

"It was unlike any pain I'd ever seen or experience I've ever heard of."

"What should have been a guy's dream come true soon became a walking nightmare that could only be thought up by some gender studies professor with pink hair and a belly. Never before have I understood a concept so completely foreign to me. I'll never experience this in my life ever, but just working around it and having to comfort some of these girls and women because it just got too much."

"So yeah, now anytime I see a movie where a woman is wearing a costume that isn't just clothes, I f*cking wince. Yes, there are sets that have been able to run through these things smoother and less painful. But the one I worked was working on a budget of a college dorm room, so we didn't necessarily have top professionals here."

"Still, the stories I've heard in that part of the film community are not far off from this story either."

- Bellude

Screaming Ashton Kutcher GIFGiphy

You've read what Reddit has done for weird work, but what about you?

We know our readers aren't all working 9-5 jobs.

It's your time to shine, you wonderful weirdos, so tell us what you do!


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People Share Their Very Specific Dating Restrictions

Reddit user AceofSpadesYT asked: 'What is your most specific restriction when it comes to dating?'

silhouette photography of couple
Sean Stratton on Unsplash

When it comes to dating, I have my mental checklist. The guy must be kind, intelligent, funny, and a movie buff. He must be adventurous but also doesn't mind a Netflix and Chill date night.

Most of this is similar to the mental checklists other people have. Of course, I can be flexible. If someone is nice and I'm having fun with them, they don't necessarily have to check all the boxes.

However, I have one specific dating restriction that is a dealbreaker regardless of how many boxes the person checks, and that's religion. I've never been a fan, and now I'm an atheist, and I would want my partner to be as well. That's because I want kids, and the last thing I want is for us to argue about how to raise the kids when it comes to religion.

I'm not the only person who has one specific dating restriction. Everyone has that one thing that is a dealbreaker when it comes to a romantic relationship. Redditors certainly do, and they are ready to share.

It all started when Redditor AceofSpadesYT asked:

"What is your most specific restriction when it comes to dating?"

It's Just A Joke!

"No cruel or rude pranks."

– detective_kiara

"I saw a post by someone whose boyfriend "pranked" her by pretending to be dead on the kitchen floor. That is exactly how she had found her previous partner, dead on the kitchen floor, which her current boyfriend knew. He was surprised she dumped him and didn't think it was funny."

– innocuousspeculation

We're (Not) Gonna Party!

"No party people. Nothing wrong with it, I just ain't dealing with that sh*t."

– PlantBasedStangl

"True. I like planning weekend stuff, but it has to be something meaningful - visiting a different city, movie marathon, mountain hike, fancy lunch, all okay. But... clubbing and drinking? How f**king old are we, 19? No thank you, I'm old and have no energy for listening to music I don't like while being surrounded by 50 people that I don't give a single half of a sh*t about."

– PlantBasedStangl

LOL

"Same sense of humor. I have 0 interest sharing physical space with someone who doesn't laugh with me."

– Legendary_Lamb2020

My Ears Are Bleeding!

"I'm a light sleeper. I cannot date a snorer. I can hear snores through ear plugs AND a fan blowing. It's not you, it's me."

– YourLocalOrca

At that point, it does sound like them 😂

– CuriousRedditor98

Funemployed

"Have a f**king job."

– Cuss-Mustard

"Found this difficult when I was funemployed. Was fortunate enough to be able to live off savings for a bit."

"People reacted oddly to it. “But what do you do???”"

"Was dating at the same time and some girls had the same sentiment. “You don’t have a job?”"

"I had a good enough job that I didn’t need one anymore. And one lined up 8 months from then. But there were two girls specifically who treated it as a deal breaker."

– DigNitty

"I had a similar situation. I worked a high-paying job for a few years that demanded a ton of my time and had crazy hours. It burnt me out badly and I lived off of the savings from that job for a while and tried to date now that I actually had free time. I had more money in my bank account during that time than at any other point in my life but so many people were put off by me being funemployed and assumed I was looking to leech. But I guess there’s really no way to know someone's history and hard not to assume. Now I work full-time and have way less money overall but it looks better..."

– Pinsit

Just Breathe

"No smoking. Ever. I'm not kissing an ashtray, or smelling an ashtray. Instant turn off."

–fishfood19

"100% I broke up with an old gf because she started smoking behind my back knowing I’ve got asthma and it was always a hard pass. She thought I was joking but it showed me that she was also untrustworthy."

– Jonowl89

That'll Do It

"I guess my husband restricts my dating."

– HeinousEncephalon

"My wife has the same rule. But the jokes on her, I get around it by dating her!"

– AuralRapist

Prehistoric Love

"Must like dinosaurs."

– Grungeceratops

"That goes without saying."

– Plain_Chacalaca

What's In A Name?

"Cannot have the same name as any of my relatives."

– Poorly-Drawn-Beagle

"My last ex had the same name as my Dad and I reeeeeeaally didn't like it. So, fair."

– severaltalkingducks

Be Polite

"If they’re rude to people they’ll never see again (Waitstaff, cashiers, etc) I’m out."

"I can’t respect anyone who doesn’t respect themselves, and when you’re not polite to people you’re disrespecting yourself."

– OctopusCandleCompany

God Only Knows

"When I was dating, you had to be an atheist. I don't mess with religion. And I genuinely just don't think atheists + religious people work out."

"And I know... There's going to be someone who comments (assuming there are enough upvotes) who says "I worked out with my spouse who's religious and I'm not!" but you're the exception. When it comes to making decisions long-term, how to spend your money, where you think you'll go after you die, not to mention basic morality (!), and if you have children - that's a huge hurdle."

– Lulu_42

"We worked it out. It's absolutely an exception and not the rule. Don't do it if you can avoid it."

– Alcoraiden

Let's Move Tonight (Literally)

"They need to be ok with cold weather."

"I grew up in the north, live in the south, and I'm tolerating it until I can move back north. If someone says they hate the cold it's an instant turn-off because I don't want to drag someone into a climate they hate."

"The same thing also applies to walkability. I want to move somewhere walkable, and I hope to meet someone with that same goal rather than try to talk them into it."

– ThePresidentCantSwim

"Let me know when you find this mythical northern walkable community."

– Partner-Elijah

My Purr-fect Match

"Cat has to approve."

– Possible-Source-2454

Non-Negotiable

"They need to be male. Kind of important."

– RMHaney

"So weird, I want the complete opposite."

– eightvo

Yeah, the male thing is kind of important for me too!

Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments.

Life is full of shock and surprise.

Apparently, that is part of the fun.

Who hasn't been left stunned by life events?

We always think we're immune to way too many things.

Anything and everything is possible.

It's important to be ready.

Redditor Bob_the_peasant wanted to hear about the things that have left people SHOOK, so they asked:

"What 'That can’t happen to me' thing happened to you?'"

I haven't been left that shocked that often.

I'm always expecting the worst, so I'm prepared.

But you never know.

I'm Dead

Snakes Imacelebau GIF by I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! AustraliaGiphy

"A snake fell out of a tree and bit me on the head."

"ETA: I have always been more scared of snakes than anyone I know, so it’s just so ironic that this happened to me of all people."

amanitachill

Crash Into Me

"A car crashed through my kitchen last year."

aster636

"I woke up to a truck parking in my bathtub 2 weeks before Christmas a few years ago. I watched my sink roll past my bedroom door followed by a hubcap. The driver managed to cross a median, 3-lane road, up an embankment, through an iron fence and between trees. He'd been involved in an altercation nearby and was fleeing the scene."

anjie59k

Hot Air

Swinging Hot Air Balloon GIF by Red BullGiphy

"My family and I were in a hot air balloon crash."

GymDoll2000

"My friend had one crash into her pool when she was a kid."

Environmental-Car481

This is why hot air balloons and skydiving are just a HELL no for me.

Always have. Always will.

Tragic

Cat No GIF by Looney TunesGiphy

"My wife cheated on me with my best friend. They’re moving in together next month. I’m in a new city thousands of miles away. I found out a month ago."

Tssodie

Bad Penguin

"Everyone else’s stories are very sad so here’s something a bit lighter. I’ve mentioned this story before but I got bitten on the neck by a penguin."

"I was at an event where the local zoo had a penguin and owl sitting on tables with handlers so you could take a picture next to them. The penguin went for my glass of wine, I moved the wine, and it bit me on the neck hard enough to bruise. They removed the penguin after that. 😂."

archaeologistbarbie

All Gone

"Our house burned in a wildfire, we lost absolutely everything we owned and only salvaged a single coffee 3 cup."

"On the good side: There was a boy I crushed on all through high school. We went to summer camp together and I adored him. We ended up getting together in our 20s after reconnecting, and have now been together more than 20 years, married almost 17. We’re as madly in love as ever."

toomuchisjustenough

Good Luck

"Homelessness. It came swiftly and out of nowhere. had no savings and the landlord sold the house I was in. couldn’t afford a new place so lived in my car with my dog for a few months. ended up finding community assistance and got into an apartment."

jumbospicyslimjim

"I can’t even imagine being in that situation. Hopefully, this is just the start of things turning around for you. Sending you good energy!"

frappbarqueen

Early Michael Myers

"About 10 years ago, I was stabbed in the arm with a flathead screwdriver. It was a coworker whom I had previously gotten along well with. He had stopped taking benzos and smoking weed a few days before and was on a hair trigger. I said something sarcastic, and he just snapped."

Mr_Spaghetti_Hands

Bad Landing

Bad Day Seagull GIF by Sound FXGiphy

"I was lying on the beach and a seagull flying very high took a poop and it went straight in my mouth."

Competitive_Show6205

This is why I say... "Never trust a seagull!"

They are minions of the devil.

Person cooking in home kitchen
Conscious Design on Unsplash

We've all heard the phrase, "You can't eat at everybody's house," but some of us have a few examples of our own to live by.

From not properly cleaning the environment to questionable hygiene ourselves, there are countless reasons why a person may not want to eat what you've cooked after watching you prepare it.

Bracing themselves, Redditor 195901 asked:

"What is your 'you can't eat at everybody's house' horror story?"

Fly Spray Sandwiches

"I told my dad my sandwich tasted like fly spray at my grandma's house. He didn’t believe me."

"Two days later, I caught my grandma spraying the benches 'clean' with the two-dollar fly spray you find at the cheap store."

"Dad figured it was safe to make sandwiches straight on the countertop because they looked clean. I dragged him over to see and he apologized and took my sister and me for fish and chips for lunch."

- littlehungrygiraffe

Special Seasoning Deviled Eggs

"My crackpot aunt served us a lovely tray of deviled eggs, complete with very old paprika sprinkled on top. So old, in fact, the many weevils mixed in it were dead."

- PhoneboothLynn

A Disturbing Surprise

"I visited a friend's house who was living with his mother, and she asked if I wanted a coffee and I said I would."

"Upon getting to the bottom of the cup and taking the last few gulps, I found there was a used bandaid stuck to the bottom… I never ate or drank there again."

- MrRailton

In Need of Child Protective Services

"I was babysitting a kid in a pretty dirty house. I was told to wake him up, supervise bathing and changing clothes, and feed him. I was welcome to whatever was in the fridge. Okay. The house and his clothes were filthy."

"Then, when I opened the cabinets, floods of roaches poured out. There were roaches in every opened box and container."

"I took him back to my house and returned him later that day. I hope the boy ended up in a better situation. I found out CPS (Child Protective Services) got involved shortly after."

- Alltheprettydresses

Traumatized by Raisins

"I was gonna complain about raisins in the potato salad but the other comments on here are scary. Oh my god."

- tcumber

"When I was a young kid, I stayed over at a friend's place, and his mom made veal or something with godd**n raisins INSIDE the meat somehow. It was so nasty, I never forgot it."

- User2716057

You WISH That Was Vinegar

"My MIL fished around in the green bin (compost bin) with her bare hands, didn't wash them, WIPED her GARBAGE JUICE HANDS on the tea towel, and then WENT BACK TO PREPPING THE SALAD."

"She also got horrifically offended if I didn't want to eat at her house."

- 116843189

Poor Home Hygiene

"My first boyfriend’s parents invited me for Thanksgiving. I came over a few days before Christmas and all the same dirty dishes from Thanksgiving were still in the kitchen. I passed on coming over for Christmas dinner."

- MinimalistHomestead

Every Surface Covered

"I went to a friend's house after school, he was going to teach a group of us to play D&D (Dungeons and Dragons)."

"We got there and his house was disgusting. I'm not the neatest person but the carpet hadn't been vacuumed in forever, clothes were all over the place, and dirty dishes were stacked everywhere."

"I tried to be polite even though the place reeked, but at some point, he was like, 'Who wants snacks!'"

"He picked up a bowl that was crusted with stuff, splashed in some water, wiped it with a towel that clearly hadn't been washed that decade, and poured chips into it. Then he asked if we wanted to stay for dinner. We did not."

- KnittinAndB***hin

O Holy Expiration Dates

"When I was a kid, Christmas Eve was always celebrated at Grandma's. I always got sick afterward. Like, Merry Christmas, you're going to puke now."

"It wasn't until I was all grown up and helping her out in the last weeks of her life that I learned why. She did not believe in expiration dates on anything!"

- SundayMorningTrisha

An Immune System to Remember

"My grandma made me a food phobic from a young age. Whether it was ramen with moths floating on top, or chunky milk in my cereal, it just scarred me for life."

"Dinner at her house was always a fight. Not eating her food was not an option. I'm not sure why that was the hill she would always choose to die on, because she was an amazing grandma other than this."

"Expiration dates aren't a thing. If the cheese was moldy, you cut it off... I think living through the great depression and raising kids in poverty changed her mindset on food."

"I mean obviously, she's doing something right because she's 91. She must have the immunity of a superhero."

- tha_stormin_mormon

Neighborly Love

"I used to help an old neighbor out with grocery shopping, I’d drop the bags at her door and she’d give me a check for the amount of groceries. She’d give me homemade cookies once in a while, chocolate chips."

"I didn’t ever eat them because one time I caught sight of her apartment. It was a large studio, a small kitchen, and tv, and a bed/couch. And there were about 20 cans of cat food, half-eaten, and one million flies and small maggots in different stages of growth, dishes with crusty food stuck to them, and a wall of empty beer cans."

"After I saw that, and got a whiff of her apartment, I started helping her with taking garbage out and putting groceries away, cleaning out her fridge, and making sure her cat was healthy."

"A couple of months later, she got the virus, ended up at a rehab facility, and passed within two weeks."

"Some people need help and a little company…"

- SnooPeripherals6557

No Longer Rice

"A girl I was interested in at the time had cats. I came to her house one day to pick her up for a date and he had a large sack of rice open in her pantry with the pantry door open."

"One of the cats hopped out of the sack of rice and she just casually laughed at it like, 'Oh, they are always getting into things.'"

"I came over the following weekend that SAME sack of rice was in the pantry and I could hear one of them tussling around in it again, we stopped dating sometime after that but anytime she offered to cook for me I immediately pivoted to taking her out to eat instead."

- justad**nfool

"Those cats probably used it as litter."

- Anonymanx

"Yeah, that was my fear."

- justad**nfool

Could Have Warned Her

"My mom told me one about going over to her aunt Virginia's house. She, her parents, and her siblings were sat around the kitchen while her aunt cooked, and my mom could not figure out why no one else was having ANY of this incredibly delicious bread that was on the table."

"She was on her third slice when her aunt stepped out to do something else, and my mom was told by her brother to go look in the flour bin."

"It was absolutely filled with miller moth larvae. Aunt Virginia had been losing her eyesight for years."

- smoothiefruit

"It's f**ked of her parents not to warn her not to eat the bread... like, what the f**k, you KNOW the bread isn't safe, so you're not eating it, but you're fine with letting your daughter have three slices?"

- whydontthissitework

Bad to the Point of Malnutrition

"I graduated high school at 6' 10" tall, but weighing only 120 pounds."

"That's not skinny, that's emaciated."

"The food prepared by my bio-mom was so bad that it wasn't providing me with the nutrients or calories I needed to survive. I went off to college where I had to cook for myself (I wasn't allowed to cook at home because my father insisted that "cooking was women's work")."

"Not only did I discover that food didn't have to be burnt to a crisp, flavorless, or boiled until everything was grey. I also discovered that food can be made to taste good, and using things like salt, or pepper, spices, or various condiments can make it taste amazing."

"The "freshman 15" likely saved my life."

"The thing is, I don't think that my biomom was even aware that her food was that disgusting. Whenever we went out for dinner (which was more often than what my father wanted, but he was the one who insisted on going), she did nothing but complain about how the food was undercooked, 'practically raw,' or 'too spicy,' to eat."

"When she went to other people's houses (including her own extended family) she would criticize them for 'doing it wrong' when she watched them cook anything. She would often end up refusing to eat their food because she 'watched them ruin it,' when they cooked it. We never had guests over to eat her cooking. Ever."

- Galaxy_Ranger_Bob

Clean Hands

"We have a chili contest every year at work around Thanksgiving and I've stopped participating in voting for it because I want to know whose I'm eating before taking any. I work with some great people, but I wouldn't eat at or anything from their house. Strangely enough, the guy I absolutely despise I'll gladly eat his chili because he is clean and well kept and I know his house is."

"I also work with a bunch of people who don't wash their hands after using the bathroom in any capacity and we've secretly kept a list so to avoid any potlucks where they take food or to get food before they do."

- SafewordisJohnCandy

We're left with chills after reading these stories.

Where some people might make some mistakes in the kitchen out of just not knowing, like not properly washing rice before cooking it, most of these are just careless mistakes that have disgusting, if not dangerous, results.

Collection of VHS tapes
Bruno Guerrero/Unsplash

What makes us all unique is our passions and the things we love, whether it's singing in the shower, reading books, or listening to specific music artists.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where we are judged for our various tastes and interests thanks to social media, and it makes us consciously selective about sharing the things we love on the internet.

Curious to hear about people's personal desires under anonymity, Redditor sweet_chick283 asked:

"What do you secretly love that you would never admit to in public?"

These aren't really chores for the following Redditors.

Good Clean Fun

"Mopping, im a janitor and generally hate my work... but damn mopping is so good."

– MrDDog06

"When you have a great rhythm going it is something special. I get the same feeling while I vacuum, but won’t let my wife know I enjoy it."

– Bogus_34

Act Of Unwrinkling

"Ironing clothes. A dozen of them. Can’t explain how it relaxes me. I told one person and they looked at me like I’m crazy."

– eerie_white_glow

"My mum misses the days when dad would be out on a Friday night, my brother out with friends and me upstairs quietly playing PS1. She would pour herself a Bacardi & Coke and do the ironing while watching her TV shows."

"I'm sure she doesn't really miss it now that we've moved out and they've retired but it was her wind-down after a busy working week so I can see how people can find it relaxing."

– xdq

Our solo actions can spark joy.

Big Brother Is Watching

"pretending to be on the Truman show and whenever im in my house i act all inconspicuous so they dont know that i know that they’re watching me."

– Bec_121

"C’mon man, you’re not supposed to let him know. You signed a contract when signing up for live views. I’m reporting you."

– doeswaspsmakehoney

The Multi-Tasker

"Playing video games naked at home while eating cheese."

– thickening_agent

Releasing The Kraken

"I love the feeling when you've eaten good fibre and let out a solid long train log in the toilet. That feeling is heavenly."

– therapoootic

"Even better when it’s a clean wipe and not a poo crayon."

– TheWarmestHugz

Ultimate Comfort

"My (male 41) weekend routine is coming home from work, make hot chocolate, start a fire, dress in a ugly pink nightgown made for old ladies and watch forensic files."

– crazyloomis

Some people are obsessed with collecting things.

So Kawai

"Sanrio stationery stores. All those different multicolor pens, a thousand kinds of erasers, spiral bound notebooks galore... my kids sadly have absolutely no appreciation for this wonderland..."

– HavingNotAttained

It's A Staple

"Office supplies have a weird, special place in my heart ever since I was a kid. They don't even have to be 'cute' necessarily."

"Japan's legendary stationery stores is unironically a reason I want to go."

– _CozyLavender_

Not Caring Anymore

"The older I get the shorter that list gets. Not because I love less things, but because I don't care about hiding it."

– Bi-Beast

"YES!! I'm 53 now. I'm working my first job in public since 2006. Today is Halloween and we're allowed to dress up so I am sitting here waiting to go to work dressed as a VERY bad Wednesday Addams. My bf said I'd 'look stupid' because no one else will probably dress up and I'm like, 'WHO CARES!' My makeup looks horrible and not like I practiced, but I DO NOT CARE! I'm having fun with it anyhow and I don't care if my coworkers dress up or not. I'm bein' ME! :)"

– deanie1970

Honorable mentions start here.

The Savior

"Picking up worms from the street and sidewalks when it rains and moving them into the dirt so they don’t burn in the sun, every time it rains I do this."

– sky_kitten89

Hero Of The Moment

"Yoooo I scoot SO many snails and worms. I work as a tech/mechanic at an automotive shop, I had a peoject car towed to my house the other day and it was covered in snails. I saw them when the tow guy/coworker was unloading and I was like, 'oh! It comes with free snails!' and began moving them. He laughed then realized and said, '... Oh, you're serious. Uh... Okay.'"

"I don't care who knows it. These little things barely can look out for themselves, why shouldn't we if we can take a moment to help? I don't care what happens next, it probably doesn't matter overall but I can help this moment."

– chris14020

Why should some of the hidden desires mentioned above have to be secret?

Redditors opening up about some of these would make them a hit at parties–no shaming.

As a matter of fact, I'll totally be down for a Forensic Files viewing party where we all make hot chocolate, light the fireplace, and cozy up together in our respective pink ugly nightgowns for old ladies.