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
GiphyShark 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
GiphyGranny 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
GiphyOn-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
GiphyFree 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
GiphyJapanese 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
GiphyThe 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
GiphyInventing 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
GiphyStand-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
GiphyBeing 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
GiphyHere, 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 MovieGiphyThe 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 GIFGiphyLiving 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 TVGiphyVisual 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 GIFGiphyThe 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 sonybroadwayGiphyNot 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 GIFGiphyPlaying 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 OfficeGiphySpeech 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 EXPENSIVESTGiphyWhat 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 GIFGiphyYou'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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One must really hate their job in order for them to get fired.
Depending on the actual job, it's not that difficult to follow established rules and work protocols. Deviating from them just to get terminated can take more effort.
That is, of course, the employees are completely inept or severely disgruntled and have no problem going on a self-sabotaging mission to be let go.
Why can't they just quit, you ask? Well, that'll be less dramatic.
Strangers online shared what they've witnessed at the workplace when Redditor ImaginaryBank9587 asked:
"How did that one coworker get fired?"
These former employees would do anything for a meal deal.
Egg Thief
"We had an employee cafeteria at a Fortune 500 company. You'd get your food at a counter and bring it, in one of those white foam clamshell containers, to the register where you'd just tell the cashier what you got. This one fellow regularly ordered 3-egg scrambles and told the cashier he had just one egg. He got caught once and told never to do it again. He did it again, and lost a $100k+ job for stealing eggs."
– Yossarian147
Costly Stand-Off
"Similar thing happened at my work, Fortune 500 company, VP of some department, company cafeteria but it was a salad. Would order a salad in line, the kind that they charge by weight and would loiter around until the cashier line got busy and then slip out the exit."
"Cafe worker noticed, told her boss …her boss told corporate security, they start watching for him and due to the guy’s position they watch for a few weeks. 2-3x’s a week he does this for close to a month. Finally they decide ok now it’s ironclad and we can fire him so they walk him out."
"Turns out he thought charging for salad was a ripoff and decided he wasn’t playing the game with the cafe. Well over 300k a year and lost it over a 5.00 salad."
– Due-Pineapple6831
The camera sees all.
Clumsy Ninja
"He was stealing Klondie Bars from the company freezer."
"One of the managers brought in a hidden camera to catch the thief. We all knew the camera was there so he crawled over to the freezer all ninja style to stay under the camera's field of vision."
"It would have worked, except, when he stood back up he tried to do it all fancy, and fell backward back into the camera's view."
– pirateteaparty
He May Have Fooled The GPS Tracker
"Dude would drive to the site, park his work van, then have his GF pick him up and take off for 8 hours, come back and pick up the van, thereby cleverly fooling the GPS tracker in the vehicle..."
"But not the camera pointing directly at the spot where he parked, got picked up, and dropped off. Cost the company a substantial contract. And himself a job."
– Dylsnick
Keep an eye on your baby wherever you go.
Free Baby
"She picked up a customer's baby without permission and walked off with her, the customer was beside herself thinking she'd been kidnapped. Co-worker didn't think she had done anything wrong because she's also a mother...."
– miss_demean0r
Up For Grabs
"My girlfriend had a coworker who did something similar, customer came in with a baby and she just grabbed the baby out of mum's arms and starts rocking it as this was a normal thing in her culture and her fellow co-workers freaked out about it but the mum was actually totally fine with it for some reason. She did not get fired though, they actually gave her a full time contract soon after which was a rare thing where she worked."
– Bubblez4
The Cart Pusher
"We had a cart pusher at target who did the same thing. He def have some mental disabilities, but I wasn’t privy to that info. I just know there were very few tasks he could do and he wasn’t very verbal."
"He was instructed to return carts, so he picked the child up from the child seat in the cart and held it out for the mom to grab after she finished loading the trunk. Mom was mortified, came in to raise hell at guest services. He wasn’t fired, but he also wasn’t allowed to push carts anymore."
– thisisntmyOGaccount
Alcohol and work don't mix.
Workplace Blackout
"Showed up drunk on the job, passed out on a chair in the lobby, then pissed his pants."
– SheZowRaisedByWolves
Sad Story
"At a prior company, we had a programmer who was brilliant. He actually built their computer systems from scratch and was able to update and maintain them. Only problem was, he was a total alcoholic. He was married and his wife did a damn good job getting him to work each day and keeping him reasonably coherent during business hours, probably because he was earning over $300K/year and it was worth her effort."
"Well, I guess she finally had enough of conducting his life and divorced him. He went OFF THE RAILS, like the company sent cops to his house for a wellness check. He was fine, just really drunk. The company paid for him to go to go rehab about three times, they were that invested in him. Each time, he'd stay sober for a bit, but then would be back to his old tricks in a couple of months."
"Eventually, the company hit its breaking point. I think the final straw was when he was in the parking lot, drunk, passed out in his car."
"He was fired and ended up passing from a massive heart attack about six months later, no doubt due to his addiction."
"Very sad story all around as he actually was great guy and an incredible programmer."
– Bleuet73
When I was a young performer in shows at a certain theme park, me and my coworkers got away with a lot of harmless but unprofessional behavior backstage that involved roughhousing and stupid antics out of view of visiting guests.
But when it came to showtime, we were always professional and helped create magical memories for our audiences.
The only time someone was fired was when a coworker tried to sneak a prop–in this case, a wig of a very popular princess–out of the park. Whenever we would "clock out" the security gate, they would always check our belongings for this very reason.
I guess my friend forgot about that part.
The next day, he didn't show up to work and none of us had a clue as to why. The company is so secretive when it comes to stuff like this.
We all eventually found out, and none of this played out dramatically. But one thing was made very clear.
You don't steal a mermaid's wig from this company and think you can get away with it.
For many people, escaping to the woods, either in a tent or a cabin, is just what they need to escape from their current realities and reset their mind.
Allowing themselves to be one with nature, and cut off from technology.
Not everyone finds the woods a peaceful place, however.
Indeed, being cut off from the rest of the world, all the while surrounded by wildlife, it's easy to see why some people find the woods scary, and not at all relaxing.
Particularly if their time in the woods included an experience which made them never want to return, ever again.
"Outdoorsmen of Reddit: What is the most terrifying experience you’ve encountered in the woods?"
In The Company Of Wolves
"Walking in the pitch black out to a deer stand."
"So dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face."
"Heard some circling around me of something large, it was trotting along."
"No big deal, figured it was a deer."
"Then it stopped and let out the most bone chilling howl I have ever heard."
"So loud it was like it was inside of me."
"A few wolves howled back in the distance and it ran off."
"Needed new underwear."- jubstep45
Who's That Cackling?
"I was backwoods camping in Canada with my ex."
"Deep forest, we'd been out there a day or two and hadn't seen anyone."
"That evening we were in the tent playing cards and heard something in the bushes, making a giant racket."
"It was getting steadily closer."
"It got to the area we were in and stopped."
"We debated what to do but finally opened the tent, both completely freaked out, and found... chickens."
"Three chickens, en route home to an organic farm we didn't know was nearby."- Worldly_Salamander_
GiphyIs That Water I Hear?
"An after dark flash flood that roared through camp."
"Twelve of us...five of them were sleeping in the canyon bottom."
"It's amazing nobody died."
"That was 32 years ago and I still sleep lightly and always pack clean underpants."- BrunoGerace
Stranger By The Lake
"When I was about fifteen yrs old me and some of my friends decided to go camping at a nearby lake."
"It was a 3-4 hr hike, and the nearest house was Maybe 3 hr away."
"We brought some homemade wine and drank the whole night and ate poorly grilled hot dogs."
"Life was good."
"We all shared the tent so it was crowded as f*ck in the tent but we all fell asleep around 2 am."
"At 4 I wake up because i can feel someone running their hand down my forearm."
"Not that unlikely that someone brushes up against me since there wasn't any space to move around in the crowded tent."
"But this is the arm that is facing the tent."
"So someone touched me from the outside of the tent."
"I sit up and gets instantly horrified to see that all my friends are sound asleep in the tent with me."
"I put on my deepest voice and shout 'whoever the f*ck you are you need to leave'."
"And a manly low voice answers me 'you should pack up your stuff and leave', not threatening or aggressive."
"Just calmly and in a dead kinda way."
"By now all my friends are awake and are just looking at me."
"No words just pure horror in their eyes."
"I say: 'Okay, we will go, but you need to leave'."
"Hurry up"
"When we get out of the tent this man, who is f*cking huge btw has taken the little row boat that was laying at the bank and gotten into it and is just sitting in the middel of the lake and watching us pack up our stuff and trying to get the f*ck away asap."
"We had to walk around the lake at our way back and he was just sitting there watching us."
"We never went back."
"This was 17 years ago in a rural Scandinavian country."
"We have a 'free to roam law' so we where not trespassing."
"We knew our way around the small town we grew up, everybody knows everybody."
"There have been no people missing and or found dead."
"Never."
"There hasn't been a murder in generations."
"We told our parents who at first tried to calm us down and they said that we where probably overreacting."
"But the way he caressed my arm before he told us to go was not normal."
"When we told them everything and What he said to us we where told to never go back."
"After covid we all met up and the subject came up and we tried to do some digging."
"There are no houses or cabins anywhere near."
"The lake is way too small to fish in."
"When he was sitting dead center in his little boat there was Maybe 60 feet to land on all sides."
"No one has ever seen this man before or after."- Withthisaccountican
Water Band GIF by TennisGiphyLose Lose Situation
"As a Boy Scout, we found a bunch of scorpions in our Adirondack."
"We ran outside screaming our heads off, and then lightening struck a tree like 20 yards away."
"We turned on our heels and ran straight back to the scorpions."- captainkatalis
A Bit Too Much Holiday Spirit
"Many years ago, when I was about 14, I was hiking deep in the woods behind my house with some friends."
"We were miles away from home- further than any of us had ever gone before."
"And we came up to the edge of a clearing and a little further down the tree line, we saw a lump of clothes underneath an old deer stand."
"We got a little closer and we could make out legs and arms and boots."
"They were wet from rain and had been there for a while."
"Obviously, our first thought was that it was a hunter who had an accident and fallen out of his stand and was dead."
"We were freaked out and it took us a little bit to get up the nerve to get a better look."
"It wasn't until we were practically on top of it that we realized that it was a dummy."
"We had wandered all the way up to the edge of a big Christmas Tree farm's property and the dummy was part of their decorations from a haunted hayride thing they did."
"They must have forgotten about it when closing up for the year."
"We had a good laugh but we were all scared sh*tless for a few minutes."- Ocksu2
season 1 premiere GIF by Jersey Shore Family VacationGiphyThe Bear Necessities
"I work in the bush and sometimes spend months out there."
"Most terrifying was seeing a bear start to circle me right as the helicopter pilot radioed me to say he couldn't get to my location because of the weather."
"Luckily I had a shotgun with me, and eventually the pilot got down to me, but yeah, sitting there in the sleet while watching that grizzly slowly and sneakily try to cut around my position in the fading light was absolutely terrifying."
"The whole time I was trying to come up with possible ways to keep from being outflanked and to keep visual contact with it in case I had to shoot it."
"This was in the late fall, so the bear probably hadn't put on enough fat for the year and was looking to supplement it."
"Spooky stuff!"- Psychological_Put395
Not A Terribly Uncommon Discovery In The Woods...
"I was backpacking with my dog and about 12 miles from the road and trailhead."
"So pretty far from people though popular enough that other hikers might be around."
"Though we saw no-one all day."
"About 2 a.m. my dog started this really low deep growl and wakes me up."
"Turn on my headlamp and see his teeth showing and he's right on top of me."
"I hear heavy footsteps (black bear / moose?) near the tent."
"I leash my dog so he doesn't tear thru the tent and the footsteps move further away, but keep circling my tent."
"All of my food and toiletries are hung in a tree in a bear bag - nothing in the tent to draw a bear's attention."
"I clap my hands - something is still slowly circling - not something a moose would do, and a bear might if he wanted food - but I've got nothing and a really big dog with me."
"I decide to step out of the tent with the leash in one hand and bear spray in the other - yelling 'hey bear'."
"The footsteps stop - dog's nose is in the air telling me to look right - but nothing in my headlamp that I can see."
"Didn't hear anything run off, but it's quiet."
"I give it 5 minutes or so, get back in the tent, and it starts up again - slowly circling maybe 50 feet from me."
"Maybe an hour later, I hear the footsteps wander off into the woods."
"At dawn, I take the dog, and the bear spray, and start looking for tracks."
"I find a clear path in the leaves that had been trampled, but no tracks."
"The dogs nose is on the ground, and I follow his lead - and he follows the loop around our campsite."
"We finally see a few human footprint - not shoe tracks - a regular size (not bigfoot) bare human foot."
"Plus - yup a human turd and toilet paper."
"Some a**hole was wandering around the middle of nowhere, near the tent and circling my tent for an hour or more, and left a dump for me to find."
"Hiking and backpacking is incredibly safe. I've been doing this for decades, and this is the only weird experience I've ever had."
"The hiking community is incredibly friendly."
"The trails have become more crowded since covid, and your definitely seeing more people on trails, and less trail courtesy (litter - leaving dog poop bags, pooping too close to the trail and not burying you poop)."
"Also - I was very far away from civilization. "
"Bad guys don't hike 12 miles to do harm, and I'm pretty sure they don't carry toilet paper."
"I've hiked thousand of miles without a single dangerous human interaction."
"What I think happened?"
"Much as I'd love to say it was a young sasquatch, a skin walker or a wendigo - I'm guessing it was a disoriented backpacker that left their tent to crap, and got confused."
"I was hiking a somewhat popular long loop trail, and I believe someone was probably hiking the opposite way, and stopped somewhere off trail ahead of me."
"I was backwoods camping - not at a campground."
"Regulations are that you need to be 200 feet off the trail and into the woods to set up a camp."
"So they could have been a quarter mile ahead on the trail and I wouldn't have known unless they were noisy (or smelly enough for my dog to let me know)."
"The most likely explanation is that they were heavily under the influence, got up to crap, and got lost on their way back to their tent, and found my site."
"They approach my tent and realized they were wrong, and tried to find their way back to their camp."
"Then they heard my dog, and me yelling to scare off a bear, and either thought we were a risk to them, or too lit to answer back."
"The circle around my camp was several hundred feet - and my tent wouldn't be visible for most of the loop - I was camping between several spruce trees."
"I didn't get back to sleep!"
"I couldn't get back to sleep."
"It was late Sept and sunrise was around 6 a.m."
"When we found the poop pile, I relaxed - I really didn't think there would be anyone nearby as we were in a very tough area to get to - requiring going over 2 mountain summits from my direction, and 6 other mountains in the other direction."
"The total hike was about 40 miles IIRC."
"We were going to be out for 3 nights, and 4 days."
"After I realized it was a human, my first assumption was that there was a lost hiker."
"I texted a friend that does Search and Rescue in the area t see if there were any reports of lost or overdue hikers."
"If there had been, I would have had my dog try to follow that trail to see if I could have found their campsite."
"As no one was missing, we broke camp and went on our way."
"He was the best dog ever."
"I lost him about 5 years ago."
"I knew that dog would die for me."
"Several years after this incident, I got diagnosed with cancer. **(**ETA - I've been in remission for several years and things look good)."
"This dog was so in tune with me that he knew how sh*tty I was going to feel before I did."
"He would walk with me to the bathroom, and sit right next to me as a puked my guts up."
"He'd walk me back to bed and let me rest my hand on his back if I needed a little help walking."
"Everyone has a heart dog - he was mine."
"I swear he knew I had cancer before I did."
"He used to sniff me right where my tumor was located."
"I still get teary eye'd thinking of him."
"Rest in peace big guy."- BionicGimpster
What Is It Reaction GIF by Nebraska Humane SocietyGiphyIt's What They Didn't See Or Hear...
"Absolute silence. No wind, no animals, nothing. One second there were all the sounds of nature, then nothing. Lasted for a few seconds that felt like an eternity." Reddit
There's a reason that so many fairy tales and scary stories are set deep in the woods.
For while staying alert and using your best judgment will no doubt keep you safe, the possibilities of what could happen to you are endless, and terrifying.
The older you get, the more you realize that having a worldview can be a disappointing aspect of life.
It's all the knowledge we acquire.
Sure, the more you know, the smarter you get.
But the more you know, the less you can pretend.
History can be difficult to learn.
Everything opinion and thought can change in an instant.
Sometimes that is a great thing.
Sometimes... not so much.
Redditor FlickTheSwitch167 wanted to hear about the times the truth of the world, just ruined it all, so they asked:
"What Historical fact have you learnt that ruined everything you ever thought you knew about this life?"
I feel like all of history is a lie. The more I learn, the less I'm shocked.
Aflame...
awesome rock on GIFGiphy"More of a fun one, but lighters predate strike matches by a couple of centuries. They originated from repurposed flintlock pistols that ignited tinder shoved in the barrel that was set aflame by the trigger mechanism."
Kataphractoi
Ice Ice Baby...
"Ancient Antarctica was actually a rainforest, a lush and verdant paradise, filled with flora and fauna. Despite the interesting fact that there was a whole continent of animals who lived on this planet that we’ll never know about - as their remains are locked beneath miles of ice."
"It blew my mind that Antarctica only fully froze over about 35 million years ago, despite breaking from its supercontinent ~ 180 million years ago."
"That means Antarctica supported independent life for ~ 145 million years, which ruined any sense I have for time and perspective. We really are specks on this planet."
oohaaahz
GONE
"There was a Spanish explorer that first visited the Inca empire and saw lots of prosperous cities and a great civilization, and told his peers about it when he returned home. But when other folks went to visit the said cities they found nothing but jungle and thought the explorer lied about his story."
"The fact that blew my mind is that nowadays we discovered that his story was true and the people he encountered died from diseases brought into the new world. And the cities and civilization they build were consumed by jungle in the span of a few years."
Manu82134
Modern Day
"Can't remember the exact quote but it went something like, If the entirety of human (Homo) history was condensed into a 500-page book, modern anatomical humans wouldn't show up until page 450, and homosapiens wouldn't build empires until page 490, the atomic bomb and the foundation of Rome would be on the final page and only a paragraph apart."
"And yet in all of this, the vast amount of technological advancements from the discovery of the atom to the modern day would fit in the last few sentences, of the last paragraph of the last page. And people wonder why we are reckless, we're still effectively great apes but with shiny toys."
JitterySuperCoffee
Tastes and Colors
All Stars Reaction GIF by LifetimeGiphy"Ruined in an interesting, not bad way: ancient Greek and Roman polychrome. The Parthenon temple looked a bit like Disneyland."
ipakookapi
"Same goes for European churches. Statues were painted in flashy colors. The ones outside got washed blanc but there are still some inside that still have their color. By today's standard, it would be considered tacky and bad taste."
chinchenping
One does want a hint of color. Right?
Part of that World
Happy The Little Mermaid GIF by Disney PrincessGiphy"Prehistoric, but still: Given that humans tend to concentrate along coastlines, and that sea levels have risen a bunch in the last 200 000 years, it is likely that our conception of human prehistory is fantastically distorted due to most of it being lost under the sea."
HaggeHagglin
Pennies and Pennies
"Victorian era London was a terrible place to be alive as a member of the working class. If I recall correctly. You could pay a penny to sit indoors on a bench but no sleeping! Two Pennies and you could swing your arms over a rope and sleep standing up or if you made hella money that day you could pay 4 Pennies and sleep in a coffin. The water is undrinkable and children expected working hours were 12 to 18 a day starting at 4 yrs old. By those standards, a lot of us would look like royalty to them."
UnicornBrainsRPointy
Horrendous Horrors
"Learning about the depth and breadth of slavery in human history was a real eye-opener. We have really detailed documents from more modern history to show WHY that idea is so heinous, but it's always been a significant part of cultures all around the world serving as anything from a social construct to the very currency of war and with autonomy ranging from that of livestock to that of a low caste."
"Evidence of slavery predates written records and is even included in the code of Hammurabi where it was already an established institution and we still haven't stamped it out today, April 10th, 2023, where slavery affects an estimated 46 million people (that's more than the total population of California, and approximately the population of Spain). It's crazy how awful humans have always been to one another and that we still can't seem to hold each other accountable for basic human rights, despite indelible proof."
FridayInc
Far Far Away
"When I learned that NASA had discovered over 100 billion GALAXIES and saw the image to put into perspective that our entire solar system is only about the size of a coin compared to our galaxy which in relation would be the size of the United States. We are so incredibly small within the universe."
cheeseburghers
A Strange Loop
Over It Ugh GIFGiphy"If you look at the history of mankind, you quickly see that nobody ever learned from our history."
Plastik-Mann
"History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man."
Kvesh
If history has taught us anything, it's that we're doomed.
But let's keep learning.
Whether we're huge television watchers or not, most of us have at least one television show that we've really enjoyed.
And all too often, the show ends long before we're ready for that final episode, and we dream of a reunion episode or encore season.
Redditor Putrid_Cry19 asked:
"Which canceled TV show deserved another season?"
Anne with an E
"Anne with an E."
- Unusual-Neck9547
"Three seasons, and just when Gilbert and Anne realize their feelings, it gets canceled. Excuse me, what?!"
- thesnoodlee
"Especially when you have so much source material to work with. Heck, the old adaptation went along with an older Anne and followed her life."
- No_Eyed_Dear
The Black Donnellys
"The Black Donnellys."
- Lookslikeseen
"Did they even get a complete first season? That show was canceled 15 years ago, and I’m still mad about it!! The cast was amazing and all of them fit perfectly in their roles. The story was intriguing. I can’t figure out why it ended so abruptly."
- mandyama
"I always scroll far enough down on these posts until I find 'The Black Donnellys.' F**king great show and I was glad they at least put the final episodes online. They were pulled from TV mid-season and I remember just being really bummed it wasn't on."
- GrimwoldMcTheesbyIV
Lodge 49
"'Lodge 49:' it was the dose of weirdness, reality-bending metaphysics, philosophy, blue-collar camaraderie, and kindness I needed weekly. Great cast, great cameos."
"I guess AMC needed the empty slot so they could have more 'Walking Dead' spinoffs or shows where people talk about the previous show they just aired."
- AdamInvader
The Last Kingdom
"'The Last Kingdom.' They had to rush through so much in Season 5 that it overwhelms you, although it still manages to give a great send-off to the series. F**king Netflix canceling great shows but keeps renewing 'Big Mouth,' lol (laughing out loud)."
"Highly recommend 'The Last Kingdom' if anyone hasn't watched it."
- OneThicBoii
Sense8
"'Sense8.' The writers convinced Netflix to do a special series ending episode but it didn't do the show justice. You could tell it was a rushed ending. One more season and it could have been much better paced."
"If I remember correctly, the reason it was canceled was that it was extremely expensive to make."
- Interjessing-Salary
Stargate Universe
"Stargate Universe."
- Ulkrum
"I was hoping I'd see someone else say 'SGU.' I really did enjoy it, different from SG1 and SGA, but I was enjoying it. Really want to know what happened to Eli after everyone else went to sleep for a bit. Like come on, it's like Schrodinger's cat! I need to know."
- Mad-Ma84
"They literally left this show with the ability to pick it up again."
"S4 episode 1: Eli wakes everyone up from their Cyro sleep. Due to whatever mechanical failure or attack, these pods didn’t work and these characters have been killed off, some of them aged."
"Stargate opens up and new characters board the Destiny."
- Jon_F**kin_Snow
"And someone brings Eli a clean shirt. But just one."
- MrVeazey
The Tick
"The Tick."
- dreadrabbit1
"I agree. And it doesn't matter which version you're talking about, the answer is yes, that version deserved another season."
- Funandgeeky
The Punisher
"The Punisher, with Jon Bernthal."
- xXxLordViperScorpion
"Absolutely hands down! He was crazy good in it."
- MessagefromA
Carnivale
"'Carnivale.' I loved the world that was built in that show."
- m0rris0n_hotel
"This is one that gets me. Thanks for nothing, Management."
- the_murders_of_crowe
"This was the show I came looking for. I think the show creator had three more seasons lined up."
- coolmike69420
The Mick
"The Mick."
- Full-Ask3638
"I said the same!! I love that show."
- No-Teacher9713
"I came here to say this. That show was hilarious. As a Sunny fan, it was great to see Kaitlin Olson take even more of a lead role, and really helped me appreciate what she brought to the show. I was so bummed it got canceled."
- Childish_Calrissian
1899
"1899."
- TheGreyPotato
"I remember when everyone thought it wouldn't get canceled just because 'Dark' was allowed to be fully completed."
"'1899' had so much potential, especially after the ending scene of the Season One finale. Such a shame."
- HahaLookyHere
Santa Clarita Diet
"I'm still salty about 'Santa Clarita Diet' being canceled. I need to see what's next for Joel!"
- lemonjelly88
"Netflix: You should watch Santa Clarita Diet. You really should. You really, really should. Here are 15 gajillion recommendations!"
"Me: Okay, fine! ...Hey, this is really good. When's the next season coming out?"
"Netflix: Oh, we canceled that."
- GarbledReverie
"I love how well Timothy Olyphant portrays a man who's on the edge of a complete breakdown whilst Drew Barrymore is living her best life. Such a great show."
- unluckypig
"One of my all-time favorite shows. I will never forgive Netflix for robbing us of seeing what happens to zombie Joel."
"Timothy Olyphant and Drew Barrymore's chemistry was so on point. This show made me realize what kind of a relationship I want with my spouse, lol (laughing out loud). They were the best 'relationship goals' I've ever seen on TV!"
- thathunzygirl
"This is my answer for every single AskReddit post that asks about canceled TV shows. I will never freaking forgive Netflix for canceling 'Santa Clarita.'"
- spooteeespoothead
My Name Is Earl
"'My Name is Earl.'"
- ftran998
"Greg Garcia did an AMA where he shared how he envisioned the ending:"
"'I had always had an ending to 'Earl,' and I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to see it happen. You’ve got a show about a guy with a list, so not seeing him finish it is a bummer. But the truth is, he wasn’t ever going to finish the list.'"
"'The basic idea of the ending was that while he was stuck on a really hard list item, he was going to start to get frustrated that he was never going to finish it. Then he runs into someone who had a list of their own, and Earl was on it. They needed to make up for something bad they had done to Earl. He asks them where they got the idea of making a list, and they tell him that someone came to them with a list and that person got the idea from someone else...'"
"'Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with lists and that he’s finally put more good into the world than bad. So at that point, he was going to tear up his list and go live his life. Walk into the sunset a free man. With good karma.'"
- edlee98765
"Oh wow, that's such a good wrap-up for the show that even just reading it feels like some solid closure. Wish it had gotten made, but it's the perfect capstone for the series."
- l3rn
The Last Man on Earth
"'The Last Man on Earth.'"
- Historical_Ad2890
"I f**king loved this show. I get that the style of humor and awkwardness wasn’t for everyone, but godd**n, this show made me laugh more than most shows do."
- The_Number_None
"I need closure closure closure."
- Klutzy-Addition5003
The Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency
"Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency."
"A lot of people didn't like the 2nd season, which is completely fair. It's hard to live up to the expectations of such a solid first season."
"The reason I personally would like a 3rd season is that the cliffhanger is so. d**n. tasty. Also, I want more Rowdy 3 (6?), Alan Tudyk, and Tyler Labine."
"I recognize that it deviates completely from the source material, and I understand why a lot of people are upset by that. There are a lot of examples where I hated the adaptation (looking at you, 'World War Z'), but I personally believe this is a perfect example of how you take inspiration and run with it."
"A dark, gritty version where Dirk was the fat slob the books described him as might also be fantastic, and I'd probably watch the shit out of it."
"However, I think this adaptation captures the whimsical nonsense of Douglas Adam's writing perfectly, and I'm ok with it. It's just a shame that the show was attached to such a scumbag. Otherwise, we might have seen that third season that gave us all the answers they teased."
- GrownThenBrewed
"That show is still my absolute favorite."
"With absolute bangers like:"
"'The Rowdy Three!'"
"'But there are four of them!'"
"'I'm WILDLY aware.'"
"They captured Douglas Adams's whimsical nonsense so perfectly in that show."
"I feel like the second series went completely off the rails, but I still loved it."
- Conductor_Cat
"This was so gloriously, bizarrely brilliant. It was completely different from the (excellent) books, but it took on some of the core ideas and added a bunch of its own, then ran with them in multiple directions all at once."
"It was a joy to watch and made me feel an almost childlike wonder. It surprised and delighted me; a modern-day fairy-tale for grown-ups. Gutted me when it was canceled."
- wretched_cretin
Teen Titans
"This may seem a bit childish, but Teen Titans. The original one from 2003."
- Sadblackcat666
"It’s a bummer because every character got one season where they were the focus of the ongoing plot. Season One was Robin, Season Two was Terra, Season Three was Cyborg, Season Four was Raven, and Season Five was Beast Boy."
"It was set up perfectly to have a sixth season focused on Starfire and we never got it."
- JRBehr
"I rewatched the whole series fairly recently. It really was such a unique show for the time. I remember seeing reruns on Boomerang after the series had finished airing on CN. It's unfortunate that they no longer air anything from the original series or movie."
"Season Five absolutely ended in a way that demanded something more, and the movie did not scratch that itch."
- ChrisTheKnight03
This is a great reminder of how entertainment can bring people together, first as a fandom and later for the nostalgia.
And there are quality selections here that absolutely should have gotten more time, and deserve a watch from those who haven't seen these shows before.