Schools are like their own little universes. A whole mini-society, complete with its own specific rules and customs, some of which make absolutely no sense whatsoever. You can't help but wonder what the faculty was thinking in some of these cases, or why no one stopped to think about why they were so weird.
While schools are a place of learning, they can also be places of absolute stupidity.
U/SoLe123456 asked:
What's the dumbest rule your school ever enforced?
It really makes you stop and think, what event led to these weird rules being put into place?
Seems counterproductive.
"My school had 3 staircases along a very long corridor. We were banned from using the middle staircase because it got overcrowded. The ban was lifted once they realised it only made the other two staircases just as crowded."
"This road has too much traffic. We should close it."
How did they get to be principal?
late school GIFGiphy"The new Principal made a "morning round-up" rule where anyone arriving to class after the last bell had to go to the cafeteria and listen to a lecture about not being late for class. This took about an extra 15 minutes, making the students even more late to class than they would have otherwise been. Needless to say, everyone hated it, even the teachers. That principal didn't last long..."
"Lmao this sounds similar to a rule at my high school. If you weren't in your 1st period class before O Canada played, you had to head to the cafeteria, miss class (yup cuz THAT's smart) and "sit in silence". The first day it went into practice, I walked in just as the principal was telling everyone over the PA to stand up for the national anthem, so technically O Canada hadn't started yet. Regardless, my teacher said I was late and I had to head to the cafeteria AFTER the national anthem had finished playing (Again, I'm already in the class so what was the f*cking point?)."
"The cafe was FULL with other stragglers and the teachers on duty couldn't have given less of a sh!t. I sat with some friends who were also late and spent the entire time playing cards. The next day the rule was cancelled. Go figure."
No drinking water allowed.
"I was sent to the principal in elementary school for getting a drink of water out of line (as in we walked down the hall in a formation and we had designated water drinking stops). To this day I still remember the principal asking angrily well what if every one started getting water without permission? And I still don't have an answer."
Doesn’t the dean have better things to do?
"Toilet paper rationing. This was in 1997/98, btw. Apparently the high school girls room was going through too much toilet paper so the dean, a woman, stood outside the door and distributed a few squares of 1-ply institutional toilet paper to us as we went in. If she noticed toilet paper on the floor, our ration got cut down. If we asked for more for...bigger jobs...we were told to save it for home."
"There were several episodes of girls stuck in stalls until friends could beg for more TP because of period messes or unexpected bowel incidents. The dean wouldn't even hand it over--she would go in the bathroom and pass it a few squares at a time over the door. If you didn't catch it as it fell and it landed on the floor, well, that's your fault and you're not getting more. If you used more than she thought necessary, tough luck, go to class with blood/sh!t on your body."
"It took about a week of extremely angry parents coming to the school and calling both the school and the school board, but we finally got our toilet paper back, unlimited."
"How did we celebrate?"
"By TPing her car, of course."
It’s incredible how far some schools go to enforce the zero tolerance rule. It’s like they don’t fully understand what it means to be bullied.
Best Excuses For Late Assignments That Were Actually True | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
A bit of the ol’ ultraviolence.
stop it science fiction GIF by FilmStruckGiphy"After 9/11, my school instituted a zero-tolerance policy on bullying and violence. What 9/11 had to do with bullying, I don't know. Anyways, Halloween 2001, I dressed up as the guy from Clockwork Orange. He carries a cane around."
"The principal pulled me aside, told me walking around with a cane could be a weapon, therefore just walking with it is an act of violence, and suspended me for a couple of days, telling me that after 9/11, "we don't mess around with that kind of stuff"."
Neither of these rules make and sense.
"That if you say/do anything back to your bully it becomes a mutual conflict and isn't bullying, so if they start calling you slurs and making you feel bad every day and you call them stupid once or twice the school probably won't help."
"Also dress code required school branded hoodies... they were 50 dollars. If you wore a non school hoodie you got in school suspension."
What kind of gang would that be?
"No beads. Apparently, they thought beaded jewelry was gang-related?"
"Nothing says hardened criminal like matching bead bracelets that say "BFFs <3" ."
And of course, we can’t forget the truly bizarre rules that were put into place by clueless adults.
This is just sad.
Bored Fun GIFGiphy"My school was in a poor area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Not a lot of schools here have money for anything. Because of a huge donation of books at the time I was in school, my school got an absurd number of books, including expensive ones."
"There were a few dumb rules, but the dumbest of them all?"
"We basically couldn't touch the books in the library without permission. It might sound reasonable at first, but check this out."
"The library was huge, and there were lots of books, including contemporary classics, non-fiction like The Last Problem, English Literature like Infinite Jest, How to kill a Mockingbird and whatnot. Dude, there was so much there, that place was probably the most valuable place in the entire school."
"I mean, it was awesome, there were enough books there for each student to lend about 100 every day."
"Here's the problem, the library went all but untouched for the entirety of my time there. Why? The amount of work it took to read one of those books was ridiculous and pretty much made sure not a single student bothered to try."
"First, you couldn't take any of the books home, period. Forget the fact that they had your address and all your parents info, so in the case that someone took it and didn't return it, they could just get it back - it had happened before at least once before the rule was made."
"Second, you couldn't leave the library with them, no matter what."
"Third, if you wanted to read the book, you'd have to do it in the library at the lunch break, which was about 45 minutes, so unless you weren't hungry ever, you had only a few minutes to go to the library. It was only open for a few hours around the break and not at all at any other time, so unless you stayed there for hours until the break for the afternoon classes, you just wouldn't have another chance. (Those hours around the break could be used for you to be tutored by a teacher, which almost never happened)"
"Fourth, once you went through all of that, you could only read the book under the observation of the people that volunteered to work in the library for credit, which was never more than two or three people, sometimes no one. Which means that if you got there and there were already three people there, forget it. Unless you were willing to read it standing up close to where the book was kept and even then they'd check on you every minute or so."
"Fifth, you couldn't get inside the library with a backpack, with food, in groups, speaking, without the appropriate uniform - you couldn't get in with the gym one, for instance -, with other books, earrings, necklaces or anything that could make noise while you were walking. Some were reasonable, but the issue was that one simple mistake and you would get banned."
"Sixth, any banishment from it was permanent. I complained about it once in the second year and was never allowed inside ever again. I even tried to get some teachers to help me, but it didn't work."
"Seventh, and probably the dumbest, only the students that had a certain amount of high grades could get any book at all. If you got something like 4/10 on your last biology exam, you couldn't even get inside the library. The standard was so insane, only six other students and I in my classroom had enough good grades to get books."
"In all my time there, the library was basically deserted for the majority of it. I tried to go there many times, but it was too much work. Out of all the books I only managed to read two Brazilian ones "A guerra do lanche" (The lunch war) and "Blecaute" (Blackout) which I remembered to this day in details. There were times where I legit thought about straight up ditching class to read some of them."
"I tried to get more, like The Last Problem, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Ulysses - which I know I wouldn't have been able to do it, but I was just curious -, A brief history of time, Withering Heights, etc."
"But the amount of work it took was so much that it was just almost impossible to be able to read more than one or two books a year, and even that took dedication, because I basically had to sacrifice part of my lunch time."
"The rumor was that the principals* - we had more than one - basically saw us as "savages" who would destroy the books if we were allowed to touch them and even though they had no reason to believe so - the library worked well without those restrictions a year before I had gotten there, with only minimal incidents and even those didn't result in the books getting destroyed."
The principal did WHAT?
"We were not allowed to have facial hair at all."
"Like to the point where the principal would walk around during lunch with razors and shaving cream and do "Stubble checks"."
"Absolutely ridiculous and he would send tons of us to the bathrooms to shave during lunch, no matter how small the stubble was."
Unnecessary precautions
"It wasn't really the rule that was dumb but the reason for it. In my last year of high school, the school issued a rule that all students had to wear student IDs. If you didn't, you had to immediately go and pay for another ID. While you can see how many students may have saw this a way to skip class, the reason for this was the school shootings that happened the previous year."
"The reasoning was that it would be easier to spot who is a student and who is not a student to then see who has malicious intent.....except that most shooters were students....so..."
It's safe to say that every single one of these rules were entirely unnecessary. Like, worse than the "two finger" rule when it came to wearing tank tops (to prevent girls from, god forbid, wearing spaghetti straps). These rules are completely absurd, and it makes you wonder how the adults in charge got their jobs in the first place.
To all the kids stuck in schools like this- stick it out, because I promise that the real world is nothing like this.
Serving in the military is not for the faint of heart.
There are so many dangerous aspects to the job.
When people discuss it, we think about war and the sacrifice people make with their lives.
But there is a ton of scandal involved with the military.
Over the years, so much information has leaked about bad behavior and just everyday nonsense.
Just because a person becomes a soldier doesn't mean they're perfect.
Redditor AdRealistic03 wanted to discuss the shocking things we've all learned about our armed forces, so they asked:
"What are some NSFW secrets about the military?"
The military is littered with secrets, and I love secrets. Tell me more...
Hey Girl
Fight Dance GIF by tv2norgeGiphy"Been in for a long while now, the most apt descriptor I've heard:"
"'Gayest bunch of straight dudes you'll ever meet.'"
Tak_Jaehon
Baby Guards
"Our Air Force’s most critical asset, nuclear weapons, are primarily guarded by a bunch of really bored teenagers."
it_helper
"Navy is the same. The guy that Naruto runs to the galley is the same one that stands watch over the nuclear reactor."
satanyourdarklord
"Lowest ranks pull guard duties more often."
"Who's the lowest rank? That baby faced 18 year old who just joined up."
"Guard duties are up there as one of the most bone taskings going."
Daewoo40
The Side Hustle
"Sometimes the guy that administers the drug test is the same one that you get the drugs from."
Lazy-Plum-19
"I was our unit's drug test guy. I smoked weed every day because I obviously would not drug test myself. I was also really good at it so they wouldn't give the job to someone else. I could get our tests done and completed without mistakes in like 1/5 of the time of my predecessor. Didn't sell drugs, but I've given plenty away."
Changnesia_survivor
Oh My
"Swingers exist on every single base in the world, in Sigonella, they would use different boxes of detergent in the windows to show what they were into and what age range they were looking for. Patrolling the housing area became much more interesting when you see who lives in the houses and what they’re into."
catfartzz
Multi-Purpose
Hungry Labor Day GIF by BounceGiphy"The food boxes that come in literally say 'For prison and military use only.'"
BlackLotus8888
"My husband was watching a documentary with people in prison and was like hey we have the same blankets on the ship."
PricklyPix
No matter who eats it, it's been said nobody thinks any of that food tastes good.
How many?
Oh My Reaction GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy"I was selected 6 times in a row to be a urinalysis checker. Have seen over 2000 penises involuntarily."
Jarhead-Coffee
Bad Intentions
"The number of people who get sick and tired of being in the service who will go out and do some drug or another to get kicked out. During our Iraq/Afghanistan years, you wouldn't believe how many people would purposely pee hot or, females would intentionally get pregnant to get out of going."
Blackhawk-388
Not Sexy
"A friend of mine in the special forces told me since they are out in the field a lot, they get plenty of ticks. And while you can inspect yourself fairly well, you can’t inspect everything, so they pair up and spread their cheeks, and your mate has to stare into your anus to check you for ticks in there. Not very glamorous."
Litenpes
Health Issues
Okaay What GIF by ABC NetworkGiphy"Looooooottttts of chlamydia."
Triatomine
"My unit in Okinawa had the highest STD rate for the island. I was so glad I wasn't a part of any of that."
FightingNymph
Trashed
"Our oceans are loaded with garbage. LOADED."
"I would watch the long trail of garbage follow my ship, in the wake, as crew dumped the s**t off the fantail. Every single day. Miles and miles of trash. And this was just one ship. This was just one nation. Our oceans are full of garbage that will take centuries to erode. Our waters are littered with sh*t that fish are eating and dying on."
eyehate
Sounds like there is A LOT of fraternization in our Armed services.
Be careful out there.
Things People Learned From Their Parents That They Didn't Realize Were F**ked Up Until Later In Life
It's always nice to think that parents are doing everything they can to raise their children, but as humans, they're all going to make mistakes.
But as many people will discover, their parents also taught them some terrible lessons when they were young.
Redditor timdood3 asked:
"What did your parents teach you as a kid that you didn't realize was actually f**ked up until you were older?"
What Is Self-Love?
"In an effort to teach me to be considerate, or not selfish, I guess, my dad said, 'Love yourself last' more than a few times to me. That’s a mess I’ve been untangling for about 35 years."
- Eauxddeaux
Guard Birds
"My mom told me that, on some buildings, there weren’t guard dogs but rather guard birds. These birds were trained to peck your eyes out if you trespassed. I believed this till I was 16 and have been afraid of birds ever since."
- GudatPickinUsernames
Desensitized
"My grandparents were morticians... I remember sitting on an embalming table, swinging my legs back and forth off the table, while watching my grandfather embalm someone and talk to me about what he was doing. I was seven."
"It's honestly a great memory and the many times I had with him like that taught me a lot about how to deal with death, how life is cherished, how different grief can be from person to person, and how to be emotionally strong for others."
"Good guy... Just was very desensitized to his work's more macabre parts."
"To add to this story, my grandparents were morticians for work, owning their own funeral home, but magicians as a hobby, frequently traveling with and training other magicians."
"When my grandfather passed away, we had a special service just for his magician friends. Some of the most famous magicians in the world showed up for the wand breaking, where my grandfather's wand was broken in two."
- Lord_Blackthorn
The Extensive Scapegoating
"For me, it was after they'd duped a child psychologist. I was in what? Second or third grade?"
"But I realized that they were so good at pretending to be the best people in the world that they could act as if I was the terrible one. They would always find a way to pass me as the monster instead of them."
"It didn't matter who I would have told."
- ThrownToDiscard
"As a former scapegoat child, I can tell you, unequivocally, that you were never the problem. They were the monsters."
- ResultJolly7112
The Truth Behind Child Protective Services
"My mom somehow convinced me that 'child protective services' were the bad guys."
"Finding out (well into adulthood) that they take children away from biological parents' care only as an extreme last resort was a bit of a shocker."
"It also makes me wonder just how much she was doing, that she knew was f**ked up, and I just didn't bother remembering because it had always been that way for me."
- DisposableTires
Don't Be a Burden
"Do not ever be a bother to anyone. Solve all your problems by yourself."
- Soobobaloula
"I feel this one. My parents paired it with 'always be accommodating to others.' Made it so I had very few boundaries and always tried to help others even when I didn't want to, but could never ask or accept help when offered. Not a great mix for the abusive relationships I faced as I got older."
- joyfall
"It really hit me when we were walking on a wide sidewalk. A group approached and my mom shoved me off onto the grass, even though the group had plenty of room. Your own kid gets body-checked so you don’t even have the appearance of slightly inconveniencing strangers."
- Soobobaloula
"My oldest kid asked me once, just out of curiosity, 'How come you always have to hop off the path when people are coming? But they never do?'"
"That hit me like a sack of bricks. That it was that noticeable for my kid to pick up. I never made him move, but I always do. Even now. Hard habit to break."
- ahalfdozen6
Intellectual Awareness
"They made me distrust my own intelligence. They talked down to me and treated me like an airhead, giving me a smirk every time I tried to be serious about anything."
"It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that I am intelligent and gained self-confidence despite the negative self-esteem they had instilled in me."
- Kelbel2525
Drinking and Driving
"My Dad told me he could drink beer in the car if he drank it while the car was stopped. It’s only drinking and driving if the car is in motion. I was like makes sense. I was around four."
- Diggler149
"My dad got me a job when I was 18, so I'd drive in with him. On the way home, he would beeline for the liquor store. He'd drink a half pint and two Budweisers on a 30-minute ride home, three to five times a week. I thought this was just what people did after work on the way home. Crazy."
- dolo_ran6er
Building Credit and Credit Debt
"I was told, 'Don’t get a credit card.'"
"No one ever told me there’s no interest if you pay on time."
"I could’ve built my credit earlier, but they just didn’t want me to spend money I didn’t have and fall into debt with interest."
"Student Loan Debt, however… yeah that was highly encouraged by every adult around me…"
- LetsJerkCircular
"My dad was 'teaching' me about credit cards and said you can just make the minimum payment every month. It blew my mind, and made it seem like free money. Thank god I didn’t take that advice. I pay my credit card off every month and he’s drowning in credit card debt."
- lilmrs-t
Grief is Unacceptable
"If you’re sad, that means the devil is inside you and you need to pray for forgiveness."
"I was six, and my cat had just died."
- AngstyRacc00n
Hold Grudges
"After arguing with a girlfriend and not speaking with her for a few days, BOTH my parents told me separately to hold onto my beef with her like a grudge and use it against her later."
"I've been married to the girlfriend now 25 years this year, never once took my parents' advice, and have NO IDEA how my parent's marriage survived, lol (laughing out loud)."
- mcbrian67
"I have a couple in my family like that. Any time I was at their house, without fail, they would be making passive-aggressive comments, sniping at each other, bringing up all sorts of past s**t, etc..."
"As a kid, I never looked forward to going to their place, because it was always incredibly awkward. Yet, they've been married for close to 50 years. It's like bitching at each other nonstop is their love language."
"My mom always said she was so happy the two of them found each other, if for nothing else than that it spared two other innocent people from having to put up with them."
- DisturbedNocturne
Exposure Therapy
"I always had anxiety as a child, and my mother said the only way to get over it is to deal with the situation head-on. Sounds great until I told her my fear of escalators and she pushed me down, and I fell and almost got my hair caught."
"Another thing she loved to teach me is how self-defense is necessary. Great! Where do I take lessons? There were no lessons.. she said being with my abusive ex was enough of a lesson. I should have learned then."
- throwrathebagelway
Debilitating Perfectionism
"My dad instilled crippling perfectionism in me, which I realized was insane when I got older and people told me to just 'do my best.'"
"When I was in grade school, I would come to my dad with A’s all super excited. But, if it was anything less than a 100%, he would ask for the missing percentage. So, when I had a 98%, he’d say, 'Well, where’s the 2%?' And now, if I do anything less than perfect, I beat myself up."
- Gremlin-o-Chaos
Make It Make Sense
"I was scolded for pouting, stomping my feet, and being sad. I ended up avoiding all of those when I grew up and became secretive about my emotions. Then, they would get mad at me for not opening up."
- sword_of_gibril
While we all like to think the best of our parents, many people have come to terms with the mistakes their parents made, including the false information they were given.
The problem with so much of this information is how hard it is to unlearn, and how deeply traumatizing it can be to discover we were traumatized.
Some people are not destined to be friends, and some are absolutely not compatible to date.
But sometimes we don't find that out until we're already dating them, and they reveal a belief they have that we feel is completely ridiculous.
Redditor Ghost7579ox asked:
"When did you realize that you’re dating an idiot?"
Issues with Big Brother
"She refused to pay taxes, have a bank account, or pay for public transit."
"She told me, 'I change my name every few years so they can't find me.'"
"Like, she'd go to the GOVERNMENT and change her name. Legally. So the GOVERNMENT couldn't find her."
"We broke up for other reasons, but this was the first red flag."
- GreasyBud
Enough Said.
"She pre-heats the microwave."
- seanm3109
Parenting Fail
"When I mentioned WW1, and she asked if that was why they called WW2 'THE SECOND WORLD WAR?!'"
"She had no idea there was a first one."
"Her parents also taught her that a guy masturbating and a girl having a period were basically the same thing as abortions. No wonder she was one of 11 siblings."
- plattman1992
Not a Guitar Player
"It was in high school, but I got an acoustic guitar to try to learn. I asked my boyfriend who claimed to have played if he could tune it for me."
"This motherf**ker literally turned it all the tight that the f**king bridge ripped off and then acted like it was a piece of junk."
"It was a cheap guitar but he literally wasn't listening for the notes or anything and just turning away and acting shocked, when even I thought that's exactly what would happen not knowing anything about guitars."
- aoi4eg
Just Slow Down
"The cops regularly put a speed camera on a corner near his house. They have been doing it a couple of times a month for as long as he lived there, and he got caught by it many times."
"He was crying to me (literally) about how unfair the latest fine was and he had no money to pay it, I was fed up and told him to just slow down around that corner."
"I could tell from the look on his face he hadn't even considered that, and he got angry with me for not being sensitive enough."
- quokkafarts
Stick It to the Man
"She skipped going to community college classes to 'stick it to the professor'..."
"I had to explain that she had already paid to be there and the professor wouldn't care or notice."
- griffinman01
Just Checking
"The day I told my girlfriend I think I broke my toe and her solution was to yank on it with all her might."
"It was gout."
- jangasaurus
A Dealbreaker
"She was struggling with money and being able to save. I came home one day and she had a new 40k car in the driveway. She purchased it without even discussing it with me."
"She essentially sentenced herself to have no savings for the next five years when we were trying to save to buy a house together."
- AccomplishedScar6582
Gas Leak Roulette
"The night I said that I thought I smelled gas, and they grabbed a lighter and struck it without hesitation."
- Usr_145
Sonic: The Horror Movie
"My ex was scared of hedgehogs and convinced himself they could jump over a six-foot fence like a cat."
- victoria-euphoria
The Knife Tip of Narcissism
"When I asked her to hand me a kitchen knife and she threw it at me (underhanded, but still)… and that’s not even the stupidest part."
"When I tried to explain the basics of handing someone a knife, or pair of scissors, she refused to accept that what she did was wrong or unsafe… It was suddenly apparent that she couldn’t possibly ever admit to being wrong."
- saucytopcheddar
Advertising's Version of 'Groundhog Day'
"An ex thought that commercials were recorded live, and the people on TV were employed to do them over and over again."
- KibblesNBixtch3s
How the Cookie Crumbles
"She worked for a specialty decorated cookie shop at the mall. Like where you get those dinner plate-sized cookies with 'Get Well Soon' or whatever written in frosting."
"She texted me a picture from work, proudly showing me a cookie she had decorated for a customer. She was legitimately excited to show me her creation. I had not previously seen any of her masterpieces prior to this."
"Not only did the artwork look like a three-year-old's finger painting, but it said, 'CONRADULATINS,' which aside from the obviously bad spelling, she had clearly not even planned out the spacing in her head first, so it said, 'CONRADU,' across the whole cookie, and then, in tiny letters up the side, 'latins.'"
" She thought it came out pretty well. She was about 30 at the time."
"I'll be honest, I broke things off shortly afterwards because of that cookie."
- Asleep_Onion
Pyramid Schemes
"After her third 'business opportunity' turned out to be another pyramid scheme."
"We didn't date long but knew each other for a while before that. I liked her for her 'work hard, get paid' attitude. Turns out the hard work she was doing was costing her waaay more than she made, and didn't realize it."
- Aelerious
"I broke down how pyramid schemes work to this one girl who got sucked into them all the time. Throughout my explaining, she said, 'That sounds like MLM,' like three times. After, we sat in silence. Can't see the forest for the trees comes to mind."
- IRealEWannaSay
Inexperienced with... Weather?
"One night he turned to me and said, 'You're a bit of a scientist' (I was taking biology in high school, he was in college for music). 'Can you explain how I can take frozen yogurt from the freezer, put it in the fridge, and it melts?'"
"I, already concerned, replied, 'Well, the fridge is warmer. It's not cold enough to keep it frozen.'"
"He then asked, 'But it's still cold?'"
"And I had to explain that there are different levels of cold?"
"Somewhere along the way, I said, 'Cold is the absence of heat like darkness is the absence of light,' and he was so mindblown by that."
- marceliiine
Not every relationship is meant to work out, but there are some that are more obviously destined to continue than others.
At least in most of these cases, the person was saved some time because of their partner's knowledge.
People tend to gravitate toward various celebrities based on the work they do without really knowing who they are in real life.
For example, actors who play nefarious characters may have a legion of fans who love the rebellious persona but can be let down after discovering their personality is actually quite loveable.
We often tend to forget celebrities are people too, and their real-life persona may be contradictory to the type of characters they play in movies.
Curious to hear from those who were in for a pleasant surprise after meeting a star, Redditor BEEPY_BO1 asked:
"Who is the kindest/rudest celebrities you've met IRL?"
These positive chance meetings stayed with Redditors forever.
Not Forgotten
"My sibling has a terminal illness in the 80s and Make A Wish sent our family to the set of Knight Rider to meet David Hasselhoff. Was cool, but that's not what matters."
"Fast forward 30 years and I'm at Heathrow picking up a family member when I see the Hoff standing there on his phone. I approach him and wait for him to end his call. He looks at me and says hello. I tell him that we met. He looks at me and say, 'Was their name ...?' He remembered their name after 30 years."
"That will always stay with me."
– AnsweringLiterally
The Sweet Canadian
"I used to serve Rachel McAdams at a restaurant fairly regularly. She was always super sweet. Very lowkey and soft spoken in person. She and her husband would come in late and keep to themselves."
– overintoxikatied
"I was at a pub in Toronto years ago and we were watching the Blue Jays home opener on the TV. The bar had a long booth seat with a series of tables strung along so you sat pretty close to the next patron."
"Had no idea that Rachel McAdams was sitting next to me the whole time. My friend and I watched the game and chatted with them throughout as they were right next to us. Just regular pub chatter and comments about the game."
"The Jays ended up coming back to win, and Rachel and I high-fived at the conclusion. She and her friend left, and my friend smacked me after they got up and said "that was Rachel f'kin' McAdams!" So yes, she seemingly has the ability to just be low-key and fit right in despite being a beautiful Hollywood actress!"
– skipfairweather
Satisfying His Sweet Tooth
"Ian McKellen came to the spa I worked at and was absolutely lovely. We didn’t sell ice cream but there was a farm shop across the road and I mentioned it and he asked me if I’d take him there."
"My friend who worked in the farm shop had his mouth open the whole time seeing me buying ice cream with Gandalf."
– ClydeinLimbo
They are professionals but are also good with people. A winning combo.
Pure Magic
"Penn and Teller hang out in the lobby after their show in Vegas to chat and sign autographs. Very friendly and yes Teller can talk."
– vandalia
"Teller was really sweet to my brother who is handicapped and in a wheelchair. That meant a lot to me."
– VeryBestMentalHealth
The Perfectionists
"I have worked with Steve Martin and Martin Short, they’re both super nice, respectful, and incredibly dedicated to their craft. They’ll spend hours finessing a couple lines in a show they do every night just to get it right for that evening’s performance."
– snakefest
The Conversationalists
"I was an extra on The Last of Us and met Pedro Pascal. He was super nice. We technically weren’t allowed to talk to the 'talent' and they’d usually ignore us but he and Gabriel Luna talked to us anyway."
– _PlaZma
Talent Recognizes Talent
'Giancarlo Esposito was incredibly warm and also told me I should try and get into voice acting. I have never and will never attempt to do so but it was such a nice compliment for no reason.'
– dronecypher
These Redditors have bragging rights for the best celeb encounter anecdotes.
Congrats Are In Order
"I proposed to my wife at a restaurant in Kauai. Afterwards, Michael Keaton leaned over from his table with his family and enthusiastically congratulated us. Very kind and friendly."
– Warren_Puffitt
Deadpanned By Deadpool
"Ryan Reynolds & Blake Lively live relatively close to my hometown and show up to this Christmas event every now and again that our town puts on. Walked out of the ice cream parlor downtown and sitting on the bench right outside is Ryan Reynolds eating an ice cream cone. I looked up at him as I was walking out and made eye contact, and I looked away, then I looked back to make sure it was him, and he looks me dead in the face and goes 'I know right, isn’t it crazy?' And then he gets up and walks away. 10/10"
– Euuphoriaa
Inspired And Encouraged
"I met Weird Al at a con once. While he was signing the photo I bought, I told him about how he inspired me to write my own parody songs. He seemed genuinely interested and asked if I had a YouTube channel, but I told him I just write them, not record them. Super nice dude (at least for the brief time we spoke)."
– Avandra
A Birthday To Remember
"Jeff Goldblum, after a matinee of 'The Pillowman.' Autographs, photos, asking people where they were from, what else they had seen/were going to see. One girl mentioned they were in the city for her birthday as she was taking a photo of him with her friends, he stopped and said “How can you not be in your own birthday picture,” took her camera and grabbed someone from the crowd to take a picture of the group. Would not leave until he was sure everyone got what they wanted (despite his assistant or handler trying to move him along for dinner before the evening performance)"
– alter_ego19456
I met Keri Russell at one of my favorite restaurants. She was dining alone and reading a book.
I'm not usually not one for invading a celebrity's personal space, but because I was a HUGE Felicity fan, I had to say hi.
I told her she was even more gorgeous in person and that I wanted to tell her I admired her work. She blushed and simply said, "Oh, stawwwp!" and laughed.
She then asked about me, what I thought of the food at this particular establishment, etc. She had such a great, laid-back vibe. Not wanting to take up any more of her time, I excused myself.
When she eventually got up to leave, she came over to where I was sitting with my significant other at the time, and she told us with a wink, "You boys, have a good night."
I almost died.