A birthday, all told, is just another day.
Birthdays are just as subject to bad luck as any other day of the year. It feels more personal because it's your day. But it's not--it's just the randomness of the universe making you randomly suffer.
u/CitrusBay asked:
What's the worst thing that happened to you on your birthday?
Here were some of those answers.
Carmen's Mom... Needs Help
When I turned 15 there was a girl who lived in my apartment complex who I'd flirt with from time to time. On my 18th birthday her mom drunkenly tried to have sex with me. While Stacy's mom may have had it going on, I can assure you that Carmen's mom did not.
Just Awful To A Child
Everyone ignored me and quite some people got gifts for my mom, then I sat in my room and cried. I got scolded for crying and everyone told me to grow up. I was 12.
A Sixteen Candles Situation
So growing up we were poor, lived on a trailer, and not white in the south. My tenth birthday was coming up, and I really wanted a party. A real one like you see on TV shows and whatnot. So I invite everyone in my grade.
The day comes and my dad and I go out and get pizza, and cake, balloons, the whole shebang.
No one showed up.
But my mom, thinking she could save it, invites her friends kids, one was seven, one was a kid who just was super annoying. My older sister invites her friends.
The seven year old totally took over the party, even blew out my candles. My sister and her friends just holed up in our room so I didn't even have a place to get away from the annoying kid, so I spent the afternoon trying to look like I was having fun so my dad wasn't sad.
Or when I was 13 my iguana died. Either one sucked.
Def Not Suspicious
My best friend told me he and my GF weren't going to meet me after I got off work because they were going camping for the weekend, just the two of them.
Just A Little Nicer
I tried to arrange a 19th birthday party over facebook. No-one showed. Sat in a pub alone on uni campus feeling like a right idiot.
My birthdays are generally nicer than that though.
Too Much Emotional Labor
Not anywhere near as bad as some of the comments in this post but in new flat that me and a bunch of friends moved into one of my flatmates had a birthday about 3 weeks before me. everyone made a big fuss about all chipping in money to pay for nice presents ($30 each) then we "had" to go to a fancy restaurant for dinner because the birthday girl had been talking about it. in total the 5 people that lived in the flat spent about $120 each to make the birthday happen (we all had decent paying jobs so we didn't mind splurging once in awhile)
I brought up the fact before we committed that my birthday was next and that we were setting a pretty expensive bar for birthdays in the flat and that it may not be sustainable if everyone had one like this. My flatmates assured me that everyone would get a nice birthday regardless.
my birthday rocked up and I never received any gifts, or dinner, or happy birthdays in person. personally I never wanted to make it a thing.
I would have been happy to get some McDonald's for dinner to be honest. as I was going to bed I heard my flatmates I the other room obviously check facebook (though I couldn't see) and see that it was my birthday and that none of them had made an effort. about 30 seconds later I got happy birthday messages from all of them.
it was the last time I put any real effort into helping them with anything.
Externalized Awkward
This happened last year.
I had a huge party, invited about 30 people. At that time it seemed fun but that wasn't even the worst part.
I invited my best friend, I haven't seen her in 2 months at that point. I know that is not that long but before that we used to see each other everyday and then we couldn't meet each other during summer vacations so it felt really long.
I was really excited to see her obviously, I also felt a little nervous. I finally mustered up the courage to go and talk to her, I went to her to talk and she just said "Im sorry, this is awkward" and she walked away. That hurt. This happened at the start of the party so I was pretty upset throughout the rest of the party.
But I don't really blame her, she didn't talk to anyone much at the party as she was going through some tough times. At that time I didn't know that though.
OUCH For Wine
I had a date over for dinner on my 21st birthday this year. We discovered I, not being a functioning adult, lacked a bottle opener for the wine. We then embarked on a several-block walk to Target, purchasing and returning with a crappy little bottle opener.
Alas, it had a sturdy plastic zip-tie which fastened the screw inside.
Again, I'm a schmuck, and could not locate my own pair of scissors. Already being stoned, I resolved to stab the plastic repeatedly with my roommate's butcher knife. I was eventually successful with significant force, but the knife plunged forwards and I bisected by entire left pointer finger, requiring a dozen stitches.
A jagged, to-this-day nerve-sensitive scar will help identify my body in any hypothetical future mass casualty incidents, so I've got that going for me - which is nice. At least six different medical personnel throughout the night joked, "Did you at least get any wine?" My date stuck with me in the emergency room until five in the morning - and I still got laid afterwards.
Search Party
5 years old. My best friend with social anxiety who lived in the next town over got overwhelmed by the large amount of kids at the party. He tried to run away and got in the car with somebody that knew him and decided to give him a ride home. This was before cellphones and gps tracking of children.
My parents panicked and called the cops and like 50 people got in their vehicles to search for this kid. When he got to his house his parents called mine to inform them of what happened. They all moved shortly after. Super weird...
It's A Way To Change Your Friend Group
I was friends with a narcissist for most of my life. Little did I know that one of the extremely f*cked up things they like to do is ruin birthdays.
They do this because they believe they should be the center of the universe and it pains them to see other people happy, because they don't care about anyone but themselves. You having a birthday is stealing their "spotlight."
I've made plans like going out of town only to be ditched. Like they tried to give me some bull about how they "don't feel like going" at the last second when the night before they pretended like they were pumped. Or they just turned their phone off the entire day when they practically invited themselves.
I don't have friends anymore because of this. I got sick of it. I got to the point where if someone tries to ruin my birthday, they're getting beat up.
Sucks
My parents forgot once. They were under a lot of stress at the time so as an adult I understand. As a kid though, felt pretty bad.
Without Them
I don't live with my parents, only with my grandparents. I am still in touch with them (they are divorced) but they never called or anything like that on my birthday but I got through it. This summer I going to be 18 and I really hope, they realize that and at least message me.
Paid for by....
I paid for my parents birthday gift to me.
Haven't talked to my parents in years, I'm in therapy, getting my meds sorted because growing up like that did a number on my own mental health. Have a kid but kiddo doesn't really know them, and friends parents and other family have been great and stepped up to be surrogate grandparents. I just think I've dealt with everything and then there is that one reddit comment that shows me that there are still things I haven't realized are incredibly messed up.
Can I be 16 Again?
My 17th, my parents picked the day to tell my sister and I they were separating. Mine since have been a card and $25 per parent. They have never even adjusted for inflation! Not once! Ever! (runs off to play My Chemical Romance).
Hey, my 19th was similar! They called to tell me the divorce was finalized. They'd hated each other for years and could have done it any date, but why not ruin someone else's day at the same time?
Over the Years
I got married.
It wasn't a bad thing at the time. It was a joke between me and my future ex wife. She could never remember my birthday, and when we were talking about a date for the wedding one of us (and I don't remember which) said "hey... maybe this will help make the date memorable for a change!"
So we got hitched on my birthday (in Vegas), and everything was cool. Our 2nd Anniversary/my birthday was cool as well.
Our third anniversary was the weekend she moved out. Happy freaking birthday, huh? But it gets worse. She was having an affair (shocking, I know) and in a rare moment of attempted reconciliation she offered to take me out to dinner to smooth over the pain of the birthday/anniversary weekend.
I accepted her invitation. Just about halfway through the appetizers, I asked how she found out about this nice restaurant we were in. "Oh, it's me and (new boyfriend's) favorite restaurant!" Jesus Freaking Christmas are you serious? The rest of the meal was brief and uncomfortable.
Off to England
My parents decided to scoot their trip to England right over my 18th birthday for their anniversary that same month.... their anniversary was 3 weeks after my birthday so I ended up buying my own cake and the dog ate half of it the next day accidentally.
When in China
On my 14th birthday I got stuck in a train somewhere in China during a power outage. No lights, no air conditioning, no flushing toilets, no open windows or doors for about four hours... with food poisoning.
This one should be at the top.
Flames
On my 5th birthday my hair caught on fire while blowing out my candles, then I fell down the stairs. If you all have better spacial awareness than a clumsy 5 year old, you should be okay. Good luck, and happy birthday!
Oh Well
My parents just forgot, I was 12. After that any birthday was usually forgotten or they just said happy birthday at some point of the day. Can't still celebrate my birthday with my partner it's too much for me. No other reason than bad parenting send me in some bad times when I was teenager. I'm great now though. Sorry I think I just had to let it out here.
Six Flags
My mom chose the day after my 20th birthday to tell me in exact terms why she and my dad were splitting up. I had thought that I knew why, seeing as I've basically been her therapist since I was in middle school, but apparently there were some things I didn't know. This was on the way to pick up my sister who'd been caught stealing at Six Flags. I don't celebrate my birthday anymore.
Fevers
I got pneumonia. My parents messed up not taking me to a doctor. Coughed up stuff for two weeks straight until my throat and lungs started bleeding after having a really high fever the day of my birthday. Would have been nice to have gotten antibiotics.
Pops
My grandpa died on my 19th birthday.
Mine died 9 days before my 12th. Greatest man I've ever known. Named my son after him. I feel you though.
My grandpa died just 28 days after I was born. He held me once and that was the day before he passed away.
February
My job caught fire.
It was a family business and I worked there for eight years.
This was in February.
See Scared
I was 14 my parents do their usual crap, went out got drunk come back about 5pm started fighting each other, my brothers were scared I was scared. When fists weren't good enough, out came missiles books, ash trays or whatever was at hand, but then my mother pulled her party trick.... the knife. Eventually she rang the cops to remove my father from the house. After this i then got a kicking off her cause I told her my youngest brother was scared. This was to show me what being scared is like.
20 for the better....
I had to work all day then I got a speeding ticket on my way home only to find my cat died... Turning 19 was awful.
Across Time....
I was in the navy and we crossed the international dateline skipping it completely. We crossed at 11pm so the day just came off the calendar and I went to bed on the 2nd and woke up on the 4th.
Whiskers
My 20-year-old cat died.
My five year old cat died on my birthday last week /: she ate a piece of string and died.
I Love Grandma
My grandma died on my 16th birthday. I knew she had been sick with what we thought was a cold. I called her that morning and thanked her for the flute she had bought me because it was more than my parents could ever had afforded and I really needed an open hole to qualify at all state that year. When I came home from school I was informed she had died and that cold was actually a severe fungal infection in her lungs. The next day I attended an honor choir where we exclusively sang funerary songs from around the world.
Birthdays still suck because my grandma was the person I was closest to in life. She lived across the country from me but I called her twice a week and she sent me a package with little trinkets and books and treats every month and made sure I was able to pursue my musical hobbies. I regret going to all state instead of her funeral. I am thankful the last thing I said to her was "I love you".
Nana rub....
On my 12th birthday I was sick so I was left home alone while my mom took my sisters out for my birthday dinner. Only upside was that my Nana dropped me some vapor rub to help me breathe.
Evil Mom
When I turned 16 my mom told me she was embarrassed of how fat I was. (I was 23% body fat, a competitive swimmer, and I am female.) She canceled my party and forced me to go to a weight watchers meeting. On the way there, someone coming down a driveway lost control of their car and side swiped us on my side. I spent the rest of the night in the hospital having tests.
Everyone Hates Charlotte
I (9f) went to an aquarium with my 6 friends, now i have a very stuck up clumsy friend who i will call Charlotte. Charlotte has caused me many issues through our friendship, but this day i will never forget. We get to the aquarium and everyone is so excited to see the penguins, polar pears etc.
We see them, and everyone is enjoying themselves and is having the time of their lives. Not Charlotte though, the whole time she is complaining that it is " Too cold " and that she is bored. This is itself isn't that bad just very annoying, it gets bad when my Mom brings out the cake she made for me.
It was an ice-aged themed cake, because i was obsessed with one i had seen in a cake store so she remade it for me. Charlotte is furious that my cake is pretty amazing, because apparently her cake at her birthday was just plain and average. So after i have blown out the candles, she proceeds to stick her entire fist into my cake and smash it until it is a big white mess. Then she complains that she got cake all over her and it was my fault. That entitled witch ruined my special day, my cake and she some how decides to blame it on me? Smh.
Tardy Days
One year we all forgot it. I worked all day, my parents both had work, and it was my 17th bday so it was no milestone. It was also in the middle of summer which made the days blend together. We woke up the next day and my mom goes "wasn't it your birthday yesterday?" so we just celebrated a day late.
The American Way
On my 18th birthday, my best friend told my boyfriend to buy me some flowers and bring them to my birthday dinner at a restaurant. He showed up with a half dead potted plant that he bought with his Lowes employee discount. He didn't get me anything else and didn't know why I was upset.
Also, this birthday dinner was at a Mexican restaurant. My grandpa embarrassed us all by ordering himself an AMERICAN hamburger with AMERICAN fries. Everything he ordered needed to be "American." He also told my friend that she was "nice for a black girl."
bad news....
My mom was diagnosed with cancer the day I turned 20. Fortunately, she's cancer free now but it was definitely scary then.
Two years later, also on my birthday, a great uncle passed away.
Off to Disney
Had a hotel at Disneyland, got a call from the front office saying they needed my credit card info. It was like 6am and I was 20 so I didn't think twice about it until like ten minutes after I hung up. It was too late, they had drained my account and I had to deal with the bank stuff and cancel my debit card so I didn't have any money to spend at disney. :(
Ok bye....
I was in a long distance relationship and had driven three hours to spend my birthday with my girlfriend and her son. We had a nice dinner with the kid before he went over to his grandma's house but my girlfriend seemed super tired and distracted the whole night. Didn't think much of it because I was crazy tired from work and the long drive anyway.
We went home, watched a movie, and had some of the most boring going through the motions sex ever. No one was satisfied and sleep was a welcome change.
I go home the next afternoon and then she calls me about nine that night to break up with me. Yay.
Bad 12....
On my 12th birthday, my mom bought me beige horizontal blinds that I hated for my bedroom windows. And then took out the curtains that I liked to put in the blinds that I hated. The blinds that matched all the rest of the blinds in the house that she had just bought for all the other rooms. Pretty sure that doesn't count as a gift. And my super precious lifelong BFF cat had to be put to sleep the very next day after a battle with cancer. It was not a great birthday.
All by Myself
16th birthday. Was living alone, family forgot (no one called), walked to Walgreen's, bought a muffin and 1 candle, walked home, lit it and sang happy birthday to myself, cried, went to bed.
Battling Parties....
My 21st. Was having a party at my house. Nothing big. Just some family and close friends. By 11 Pm only one of said friends had arrived. He kept telling me we had to go around to my friend's house who lived very close by because he had a present for me, but would need my help to carry it. I kept telling him I'd wait a while so other friends could arrive.
Turns out it was his job to get me around to my friend's house where he had organized a surprise party for me, with all my friends and about a dozen people I hadn't invited to my party.
Like my party wasn't good enough?? The friends I had invited eventually came to my house when I refused to go to the other party, but they were all hammered already and I wasn't because I was waiting for my mates before getting too drunk...
So yeah that was a pretty crappy 21st.
Forget It
If anyone bothered to even show up my mom would use some asinine excuse to scream at me. The last party I had as a kid led to months of verbal abuse over a $5 pizza and some soda. The only other times I tried after that no one showed up. I don't bother anymore.
Not so Merry Birthday!
This was back when I was in church, on christmas eve which is my birthday. We were rehearsing for the christmas performance the next day, after rehearsal ended I heard someone singing happy birthday, I turned toward the direction where the singing came from and sure enough there was a birthday cake, for another person who shared the same birthday.
There was also this other time few years later this new friend of mine invited me to a Christmas eve party, and I did not tell him it was my birthday since that's kinda weird. Anyway after the party they brought out cake for not one, but two people whose birthday was also Christmas eve, its super awkward if I say hey it's my birthday too so I just went along with it and didn't say anything. Not a horrible experience really.
Low Quality
I was 21 or 22, I can't remember, and I had booked a hotel room so my then-gf and I could have some quality alone time (we were both living with our parents).
I couldn't get it up. She got insecure and we had a fight. Lots of tears, anger and 50€ down the drain.
Allergic to Happy
A few weeks prior to my 16th birthday, my sister had graduated high school. My dad bought her a car and gave her $1,000 and threw a huge party for her.
He didn't even acknowledge me. My mom yelled at him and told him to do something for me, so he sent me roses, a box of chocolates, and a bottle of perfume.
I'm allergic to all of these things.
He also sent me a birthday card for my 18th birthday..... Six months after my birthday. And told my mom he was happy I was finally an adult so he didn't have to pay child support anymore.
2 in a Row
On my 21st birthday I was on a film set doing free labor after driving 2 and a half hours for the director who was my college professor. He brought along a couple of us students to get real set experience who then promised us paying gigs once the film got picked up (this filming day was for test footage and a trailer)
We spent over 16 hours on this set on this ranch in the middle of farm land.
After that day none of us students heard from our professor ever again and he was no longer working at the college when we went back the following semester.
Then for my 22nd birthday I got laid off from my job at Target with no warning. I finished all my duties for the morning and was about to clock out (I was an early morning shelf stocker). Where they asked me into the office, handed me an envelope of money saying "we're letting you go, here's the money for the days you've worked since your last paycheck, have a good day."
The Loud Day
My parents got into a huge fight (they had started the divorce process about a month prior). Argued loud enough for the entire apartment complex to hear. Both storm off somewhere and leave me and siblings alone.
Guess someone called cops.
Cops just chilling in our apartment until my mom finally comes back.
It was Me
On my 10th birthday my parents set up a treasure hunt for everyone, we had a pretty big piece of land around our house with some notable landmarks around. When we had eaten cake everyone ran outside and found a bunch of clues out of order without the hunt even having started. I was a little witch and started crying and my parents had to cancel the whole thing and everyone's parents had to come get everyone. I still cringe to this day.
Mr. Death
On my 13th birthday, when I came home from school, I was told that a really close family friend had died. And every birthday since then, either someone we know or have heard of passes away. The worst was when Chester Bennington died on my birthday. I feel like an unlucky charm, obviously.
Such Pain
I was in a juvenile detention center for my 14th birthday.
I got a root canal with no sedatives, and somehow the dentist was convinced novocain was a sedative.
Root canal, no pain killers or nerve block. Happy 14th birthday to me.
A Deep Cut
Went to the beach on my 16th birthday and when I ran into the water my foot was impaled by a piece of rebar sticking out of some concrete (within a bordered off safe zone, ironically), which stopped me in my tracks and caused me to faceplant into the water and nearly drown.
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CW: Suicide
There is so much to learn in life.
And once you acquire certain things mentally, you regret it.
How much 411 have you come across over time that made you think... "How can I unlearn that?"
Yeah, not possible.
Knowledge is power and sometimes it's a nightmare.
Don't we have enough to keep us up at night?
Damn curiosity.
Well let's do some learning.
Redditor RedBoyFromNewy wanted to shed some light on creepy issues we need to be discussing. They asked:
"What’s a disturbing fact that not a lot of people know of?"
So who is ready to spill, and where do you find the info?
From the Guts
"Without mucus your stomach would digest itself."
Ddubsquizzee
"The reason you body produces more saliva before vomiting is your bodies way if protecting your mouth from the acidity of the vomit before you actually throw up."
-AntiVegan-
Death
"There are more suicides than homicides in the US every year."
tmsanch
"60% of all gun deaths in fact are suicides. It is estimated that someone offs themselves with a firearm every 20 minutes in the US. And 80% of them are males."
hymnsees
"And what's worse (knowing, as my family just went through this.)... 70% of suicides have no note. It's a common misconception that most people leave a note and it just isn't true. Mainly because a lot of people who write notes realize they don't want to go through with it. Those who are 'successful' just do it."
jdward01
After...
"You can give still 'birth' if you die while pregnant. The decomp process will force the baby out. It’s rare but it does happen."
MelissaAthalie
"This is usually what ends up happening when a pregnant woman gets murdered. They usually find the fetus either completely separate (like in the Lacy and Connor Peterson case) or in the same location as the mother, but clearly birthed (like with the case with Shanann Watts). It's something I never knew happened until very recently and I think it's one of the most horrifying aspects of death."
rivlet
Disaster
"The deadliest ship disaster was the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship built during the Nazi Regime. In January 1945, she was evacuating 10,000 German citizens ahead of the soviet Invasion when (albeit ironically) a Soviet Submarine spotted them, and fired three torpedoes. The ship was on the freezing cold Baltic Sea, and the davits (ropes) for the lifeboats had frozen over."
"Not only that, but the ship was only meant to carry 2,000 people normally. These two factors, coupled with the harsh angle the ship was sinking at, meant only half of the lifeboats could be deployed. 9,400 people drowned to death that night, and nobody knows about it."
TheNonbinaryWren
I See You
"Your eyes have a separate immune system than the rest of your body, and if your normal immune system ever learns about your eyes, it will target them and you'll go blind."
hiruko_uchiha
Oh my eye. How do we protect them? As if I don't have enough stress.
Launched
"Penguins can launch their poop out of their butts like 5-6m far."
Bela_hrn
Despair
"Cotard's delusion, also known as walking corpse syndrome, is a neuropsychiatric disorder in which the person is in eternal damnation. They literally believe they are dead or dying [or don't have organs], the amount of despair is unimaginable and simply can't be grasped by people not suffering from it."
SweetTimpaniofLogic
'hard problem'
"It may seem like we know a lot about the human brain, but our standard way of studying brain activity is an fMRI, where a single pixel contains over 3 million neurons. That is more than many vertebrate animals' entire brains. The truth is, we really have no idea how the brain gives rise to consciousness."
"Edit: Even if we somehow perfectly worked out all the neural correlates of consciousness so we could say a mental state happens if and only if some exact pattern of brain activity happens, we would still have the 'hard problem' of consciousness: Why do these physical processes give rise to raw subjective experience, rather than just happening 'in the dark?'"
zeugenie
2 Minutes...
"If your esophagus closes and you cannot swallow, you have about 2 minutes before saliva starts reaching your windpipe. It is not a long time, but it is long enough to panic..."
grat_is_not_nice
"I have Eosiniphillic Oesophagitis and have had food stuck in the oesophagus for up to 24 hours before. And it’s horrible. You don’t realise how much saliva you swallow, to be constantly choking and vomiting that back up isn’t the best experience!"
AwayFollowing554
Get Lucky
"You’ve probably been closer to dying multiple times in your life then you even know. Just got lucky, or unlucky depending on who you are."
GingeBeardManBro
Well that's enough to disrupt sleep for life. Thanks y'all.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
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Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
The best stories are ones with exciting plot twists.
But the next best type of stories are the ones that continue spiraling out of control.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor _Mitnix_ asked:
"What's your best 'oh you thought this was bad, it gets worse' story?"
It's story time. You may want to buckle up.
It All Started With A Cat
"This is a long one, but I promise it's worth it:"
"A buddy of mine was cat-sitting for a friend of his while the guy was out of town on a vacation. My buddy didn't have a car, so the dude told him that if he needed to go out and pick up more cat food or anything, he could borrow the car."
"At the time, my buddy was living right down the street from this guy, staying at his parents' house. So my buddy was just going over for a few hours each day to feed the cat and keep it company, then going back home."
"Meanwhile, he's also been flirting with this woman online. She lives several states away, but he feels like they seem to be getting pretty serious. So he decides to take some liberties, really push the envelope on where he'll pick up cat food from, and he takes his friend's car on a little multi-state road trip."
"This is insane, right? Just atrociously bad judgement, especially since someone does need to feed the cat. To solve this, he left his parents a note. It read, 'I am camping in the woods behind our house. Please go over to ____'s and feed his cat. I'll let you know when I'm home.'"
"Boom. Problem solved, right?"
"Except that the 'woods behind our house' are about 20 yards deep. It takes less than five minutes to walk through them and come out into the neighboring housing development. So his parents went looking for him, calling out for him, and couldn't find him. They got worried and contacted a family friend, a local police officer. He subsequently got a hold of the fire department. There was a full-on search party combing through about 1/50th of an acre of woods. Unsurprisingly, they were coming up with nothing."
"This was before cell phones were common, so my buddy was completely unaware that his plan had fallen apart. He was cruising along on his 12-hour drive, expecting to get to this girl's house just in time for dinner. Except he didn't have a GPS. So he got lost. Very lost. Like, by the time he turned up at this woman's house, it was almost midnight."
"When he got there, she was crying her eyes out. He assured her that it was okay, he was fine, wasn't hurt or in a wreck or anything, he'd just gotten lost. And she said, 'No, no, I wasn't worried about you. My dad just died in a motorcycle accident.'"
"So he bailed on his cat-sitting duties, stole a car, and inspired his parents to file a missing-persons just so he could awkwardly watch a woman cry for a few hours and then drive back home."
– GavinBelsonsAlexa
The Beekeeper's Nightmare
"I will try to keep it short. I am a beekeeper. My 3rd year of beekeeping, I suddenly developed a severe allergy to bee stings. It was spring and I was installing bees for the beginning of the season. I was up to the last hive, went to install that package of bees and one stung me right in the top of my head."
"I finished up a few minutes after and went up toward the house to do some other things. I started feeling flush and I could feel my heart racing. After I few minutes I realized I was having an anaphylactic reaction."
"If you’ve never had one, aside from the physical symptoms, they also say you will get a feeling of impending doom. That was spot on. I absolutely felt I was going to die and people do die from these reactions."
"So I am now in the house and desperately searching for Benadryl of which I have none. I am also having trouble breathing, my body is going haywire and I feel like I’m going to black out shortly."
"I call my mom, who lives an hour away, to call 911 because I feel like I will be unconscious soon. She says okay, phone rings 30 seconds later. It’s my mom, she goes 'I called 911 but they said you have to call'. This was my first wtf."
"So I call and it’s a very typical 911 call she is trying to keep me talking and I essentially started vomiting and she is still on the line and I am waiting and waiting for this alleged ambulance."
"A full half hour goes by. At this point I am actually coming out of the reaction. So I go to sit at my kitchen counter. I’m still on the line with the 911 dispatcher. I see the ambulance pull up and I say, oh they’re here. She’s like great, are you okay? I’m like yes and then she says goodbye and hangs up."
"I see the EMTs outside but my driveway has a gate so they are just standing there and they ring the bell on my gate and I am just looking at them, dumbfounded. Like I called for an emergency over a half hour ago, and they’re gonna roll up here and ring my bell and wait for me to come out when I more than likely could be unconscious or dead on the floor."
"I literally had to go out and let them in. Then they basically talked me in to going to the hospital to get checked out. Another huge mistake because this took place in the 2 months in my entire life when I didn’t have health insurance. So I ended up paying $4000 for a late ambulance and some IV Benadryl and epinephrine."
"Oh which also reminds me, a paramedic also showed, put the IV in when I agreed to go to the hospital. Then I felt something dripping and turns out he put it in my artery rather than a vein and it was just pushing the fluid out of the IV."
"0/10 would not go through any of that again…but I did 10 years later when I had another anaphylactic reaction due to a bee sting. However this went a lot smoother and I had epi-pens and a responsive ambulance."
– soline
Oil Everywhere
"Arrive home from work, my house reeks of oil."
"Go in the basement, and there's a pool of oil, with my stuff floating in it. The oil filter on my burner rotted out (it was defective and recalled, but the tech never bothered to notify me or replace it). Call up the tech, he throws a new one, charges me the emergency call fee, and advises I call HO insurance before running away (it was his fault, I didn't know it yet)."
"This was February in NY, about 13F out, and obviously the burner wasn't on while sitting in a pool of oil. But, they get there pretty quickly soak it up, and get things running so my pipes don't freeze."
"Only way to get the smell out is to dry clean everything I own, then shampoo all the carpets, run deodorizers, etc. Takes weeks. Had a headache the whole time."
"Turns out, my basement has cracks, most of it leaked through. They had to cut out my foundation and dig out the contaminated soil."
"Oil in soil means DEC gets involved. Whole new can of worms as they now had to monitor the process, test at every step. Big enough deal I have a spill number in their database."
"A 20 yard dumpster, with 20 yards of oil soaked sand, is so heavy that it broke through my driveway, destroying it. They did that twice, took out my entire driveway."
"Remember how I said this was in February? March brought the COVID shutdown."
"I spent over a year with my basement in shambles, holes in my driveway, plastic sheets taped up, no washer/dryer, and all sorts of equipment kicking around."
"The next spring, they're back and working, and screwed everything up. Not going to get into every detail, but after a big fight, I managed to get rid of them and bring in a new company to fix their screwups and finish the job. Old crew got very difficult when the new crew requested permits and reports. Turns out, they never bothered. Had to do all that before they could start working again."
"New company dropped a storage crate on my yard to store my stuff while working, destroyed my grass, took out a sprinkler, took out my neighbor's driveway curb, got concrete all over my brickwork, but at least the nightmare was finally over."
– MyNameIsRay
These Redditors have been dealt with some major blows.
People who say that things will always get better, are partially right. Things do come around, eventually.
But you never know how many curve balls life has to throw at you until there's a resolution.
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Life is full of disappointments. We lose out on a job opportunity or the one designer article of clothing we really wanted is not available in our size.
But we go on.
But the biggest letdowns are the ones we never see coming but must contend with.
Redditor Frequent-Pilot5243 asked:
"What is a depressing truth you have made peace with?"

No matter how much you prize a friendship, not all of them are for forever.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
"A friendship you thought would last forever can end in an instant."
– Febreze4200
The Best Mate Who Quit
"My best mate of 20 years, said that he didn’t want to be my best man and just said he didn’t want to be my friend any more. Hurt like hell."
– Gavindasing
It's Okay To Let Go
"Sometimes people you care deeply about will choose to drop out of your life and all you can really do is have the grace to let them."
"edit. to everyone struggling with being left behind, and to everyone struggling with having to be the one to leave- I hope the pain eases for you soon."
– girlloss
Restarting The Process
"I have a really hard time with this one. Every friendship I've had in my adult life has only lasted a couple years tops. Rarely a falling out or anything, but just drifting apart or sh*t happens type deal. It's hard for me to make friends in the first place because I'm pretty shy, so having to regularly restart that process is really discouraging. Right now I don't really have any friends because I've just kinda given up trying."
– plebeian1523
The harsh reality of losing the people we love hits home for these Redditors.
Grandpa Time
"My grandpa just wanted to get to know me and the man I was becoming during his last year of life. Which I was too young and too selfish to realize."
– MrMunky24
Lost Opportunity
"Yeah, this hits home. I spent 90% of my childhood with my grandparents. I was at their house almost everyday. When I got into my teens and obviously found friends, discovered women, all that stuff and then I just stopped seeing them. They’re both gone now and they died with the memories of me as a child. Although they seen me sometimes while I was older, they didn’t know me because I didn’t give them the chance."
– Loud-Distance-1456
In Grief
"My dad passed away 6 weeks ago and I will NEVER see, hear, chat or get to hug him ever again & that forever is a long time."
– somethinggood19
These sobering facts were huge disappointments.
Truth About CPR
"This is coming from a firefighter:"
"If you have to perform CPR on them, it's most likely over for the patient."
"I'm not sure if I've made peace with it completely, but I've accepted it at least."
– Rukhnul
The After Effects
"I've taken CPR training twice in the past 10 years. The instructors were so completely different... The second one flat out told us 'you're giving them about a 15% chance of living, and even if they live, they will probably have some kind of severe trauma that will dramatically decrease their quality of life.' Wow..."
– DavidAg02
Despite Having Good Intentions...
"No one is coming to help."
– _meddlin_
That Train Has Left The Station
"I'm aging nonstop."
– insaight
Innocence Is Gone
"My childhood is gone, and I have no good memory from that phase of my life."
– anonymoose_mrx
No matter what, life goes on with or without us.
The best that any of us can do while we're passengers on this giant spaceship is to take life as it comes and pick up the pieces the best we can when things don't pan out as we'd hoped.
Sometimes, it's about celebrating the small victories–like finally finding a store that has your shoe size.
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People Describe The Times Someone Mocked Them For Being Wrong But They Were Actually Right
The truth matters.
Something one would think was a given in modern society.
Yet all over the world, there are people so unbelievably stubborn, that they simply refuse to believe the facts.
Sometimes even when presented with evidence.
This could be for something menial, such as refusing to believe that a cotton candy was actually invented by a dentist.
But sometimes, refusing to believe the truth could have serious consequences, up to and including climate change, the effectiveness of masks, and the disproportionate amount of gun violence in the US.
Redditor Lady_Of_The_Water was curious about the many things, both frivolous and serious, people refused to believe were true, leading them to ask:
"Whats something someone thought you were wrong about and ridiculed you for it, but it turns out you were right?"
What's that smell?
"That there really was a gas leak in the apartment building."
"Thankfully, the fire didn't cause much damage."- yamsnavas2.
There's a reason the bill is so high.
"Our water usage at work went up a lot."
"They checked all the toilets, sinks for leaks, couldn't find anything."
"I mentioned that it seemed to coincide with the new water cooler system installation, maybe that should be checked."
"They basically laughed at me."
"That stupid water system never worked good and the guy came in 3 different times and said it was just the filter."
"Every month it needs changed???"
"Didn't seem right."
"Finally a different technician came in and result was it was never installed correctly."
"I asked, 'could that have anything to do with the increased water usage that started when this got installed?'"
" He smiled 'I wondered if anyone caught that, yes the valve was not correct and water has been running'."
"For 5 months!!"
"If only they had listened."
"Total redemption!"- McTee967.
Have you ever looked at a map?
"I had a coworker doubling down repeatedly, claiming that new Zealand is north of Australia."
"I even told her about how I had lived there and she just assumed I was such a huge idiot that I didn't know where on the globe I was living."
"Brought the smartphone out and put an end to that."
"Let me just say, it's ok to not know where all the countries are."
"The problem is if you heavily assert you are right and others are stupid."- PlopPlopPlopsy.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
"My husband told me that I was a 'baby' about my IUD insertion and insisted that it wasn't painful."
"That my concerns about entrusting a stranger to shove a foreign object into my body were paranoid."
"I listened to him because really, the info you'd find online is overwhelmingly positive."
"Long story short: the provider placed it wrong, didn't check/fix it when I asked her to."
"I spent 4 years in pain that I eventually 'got used to."
"It expelled half way out my cervix, had to get it yanked out at the ER."
"That's when I was told that copper IUDs are notorious for breaking inside the uterus."
"Because it broke inside me."
"The cherry on top?"
"The female gyno with three kids I saw to get the broken piece removed told me that 'cervixes don't really feel pain' and that I didn't really need to remove it."
"Goes without saying, I was in severe pain for 2 weeks straight before this appointment."
"Tons of women came out with their stories about lawsuits over IUDs, how they got pregnant with an IUD."
" Stories similar to mine."
"And how women should really be offered anesthesia or pain pills for this procedure."
"And when my husband was surprised to learn about the pain I endured I reminded him 'You called me a baby and everyone else told me it was all in my head'."
"Which is why I didn't talk about it."- PopK0rnAndMMs.
Seems like you could learn something from me.
"In sixth grade chemistry a teacher asked us what element was a gas that was lighter than air, and extremely flammable/explosive."
"I grew up on science because of what my dad does for a living and Bill Nye."
"I knew about the Hindenburg, and so I was really proud of myself when I raised my hand and said 'Hydrogen'."
"The teacher laughed at me and said that no, it was Helium, and the entire rest of the class proceeded to laugh too."
"Almost three decades later I work in a lab now, and f*ck that teacher I was right."- vanyel_ashke.
The dictionary is your friend.
"I have worked as a translator and a proofreader."
"For one of my translations, it went something like 'and he piqued her interest'."
"My proofreader docked me for an inaccuracy and switched it to 'and he peaked her interest'.”
"I’m still salty."
"I tried to get the agency I was working for to remove this person as a proofreader since I question his/her command of the English language."
"Had a similar problem with the phrase “lynch pin” used metaphorically."
"I stopped working with that agency because it pissed me off so much being 'corrected' incorrectly."- spot_o_tea.
No, that's just an illusion.
"When I told my mom that the clouds were moving and she laughed like I was crazy."-
Did you even read the menu?
"I was in the passenger's seat at a Carl's Jr Drive Thru with a friend."
"He asked what I wanted and I requested the Fried Zucchini."
"He puts half his body through the window to the voice box and goes on this 'My friend here thinks you have some kind of food I know you don't have so I am just going to say it for laughs because you will get a kick out of this'."
"She wants FRIED ZUCCHINI' and starts laughing."
" Well guess who ends up eating fried zucchini."- User Deleted.
And how do you spell that?
"Believe it or not, the pronunciation of my own middle name."- ThePlantie.
We have standards in this community...
"Not me but my Mom tells a story about how she wrote a paper for school about how tough her small town makes it for any new people moving in."
"Basically if you didn't grow up there you were a social outcast for decades and were excluded from a lot of things."
"The teacher didn't agree so she got a bad grade and scoffed at."
"A few years later a news paper reporter essentially wrote the same thing and won a local award for calling out the same small town BS that was going on."- Jberg18.
It's pretty amazing that anyone in this day and age would jump to tell someone they're wrong without having any authority.
Particularly when someone can quickly look up the truth on their phone in less than a minute.
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