There are some experiences in life that are truly "you had to be there" moments. Some of them are light, hilarious anecdotes about a friend humiliating themselves or a funny exchange that can't be properly told in story form.

But others, are truly freaky close encounters with the supernatural, or worse yet, violent criminals, and those simultaneously functions as stories and warnings to others.

In a recent Reddit thread, people shared their freakiest encounters and these will make you lock your door and sleep with your eyes open.

1. ASuds_65 was stunned by the sincerity of their jerk roommate's last words.

"I had a roommate who was always a complete asshole. Never was polite or kind to anyone. One night after I helped his drunk ass to bed he turned to me and said "I really appreciate you and I know you dont like seeing me like this. You've been a good roommate and friend, thank you." I found him dead the next morning due to an undiagnosed heart condition that alcohol had amplified."

"Not creepy or freaky in the normal sense, but I will never forget how serious and genuine he was in his last words spoken ever. It was the first time I had ever heard him complement anyone."

2. mattyjets saw their doppelganger before a horrible fate.

"In 1991 I went to a 7-11 by myself when we were at my grandmother's house. There was another kid there about my age, we looked similar, etc. I bought a Slurpee and walked back to my grandma's house and that was that. The other kid was kidnapped and murdered, pretty much right after leaving that 7-11. The only thing I can think of that kept it from being me was maybe I won some sort of cosmic coin toss. The police are pretty sure they know who did it but couldn't prove it, and to this day it still weirds me out. I'm 41 now and live in that neighborhood."

3. YOONA451 dodged a major predator.

"I’ve told this story before but it is still by far the creepiest thing to happen to me.

When I was 16 I had just gotten my license as well as my first after school job. Since school ended about an hour before I had to be at work, I would sometimes park in the adjacent parking lot and take a nap. This was a shopping strip with a grocery store, restaurants, and a bank on a fairly busy Friday afternoon. As I'm sitting there drifting off I see a black Denali pull up behind me blocking my car in the spot. A gentleman jumps out in a business suit and asks if I can help him. He looks nice enough, and I'm assuming he is looking for directions."

"He starts to explain to me that his wife and he were supposed to be signing for a loan at the bank behind us today, so that they can purchase a boat, but she is stuck in a meeting and can't make it. He then asks if I wouldn't mind posing as her and singing the documents for her. I'm completely blown away, but super shy and feel the need to let him down easy (stupid I know). So I tell him I don't think they'll believe I am your wife. He then tells me it's fine, he has her license with him (which he shows me) and she has the same hair/eye color as me, so they won't know. At this point I'm freaking out. I start to notice how disheveled he looks, he's sweating, and surprise surprise...no wedding ring. I just want him away from my car so I start telling him I can't help him, that he needs to go ask someone else."

He says it's fine, it'll be quick, just jump in my truck and I'll take you over there. Like I said this bank was in the same shopping strip...there would be no need to drive to it. Even in my gullible teenage mind I know this story is complete bull. I'm telling him no over and over, while scanning the parking lot for anyone who might be noticing, but of course no one has. He then starts getting irate telling me that I'm perfect and the only one who can do it, how beautiful I am, can he at least take me to dinner, and so on. I start trying to close my window and he REACHES through grabs my shoulder and starts trying the door handle (which was luckily locked.) I'm so frozen I don't even really react, I can't go anywhere as he's blocking me in. Suddenly and I'm not really sure why I just blurt out that I'm only 16...and for some reason THAT freaks him out. He slowly backs away, get in his truck, and leaves.

"I called the police afterwards but they never followed up with me. But I just KNOW he had found that license and made up that story as a way to lure women into his truck, and it scared the hell out of me that he could have convinced someone before. Years later I spotted him on the sex offender registry for assault :/"

4. Evilrybone and their coworker got incepted.

"One night I had a dream that a coworker killed me with an axe and when I got to work the next day she was telling a fellow coworker that she had a dream that she killed me with a knife. Sort of an odd coincidence, she never did try to kill me but it was a little bit creepy."

5. DJTCstatic was sadly right about their childhood paranoia.

"I was about 10 and I had a huge fear of someone being in my house, to the point where I wouldn’t go to the basement because it scared me. But I am glad I had that fear, because one day during the summer I was trying to go to sleep and I heard a noise from above me, and I freaked out. I then noticed over the coming days that my room was really hot, and I thought this was strange because we just got new air vents put in. My dad was checking them out and went to get some sort of tool, when I saw the scariest image possible. There was a skinny man looking at me and my dad from the vent in my ceiling."

"I froze and pretended not to notice him, and I went to get my dad, and me in my ten year old mind was instantly thinking run with him out of the house, but I have two cats and were scared to leave them, so I grabbed a paper towel and a pen and wrote in my chicken scratch handwriting “there is a man in my vent” but he couldn’t read it, and asked what it meant, and thats when we heard a thud, and he looked at it again and must have put it together, because he grabbed me and called the police, when my mom got home she got to see the man being dragged out of the house in cuffs."

"Even though he was caught and I still had a somewhat happy ending, the image of looking up and seeing his face, and being so petrified I couldn’t move or scream still haunts me."

6. nospace98 almost got snatched up in a crowd.

"When I was about 5 I was visiting my grandma in the city with my mum, dad and sister. We were walking towards the city centre so it was pretty crowded."

"I remember letting go of my dad's hand and then feeling him grab back hold of it a few moments later. I kept walking, I don't know how far. I hear my dad shouting from behind me and grabbing my other arm. I hear him say "sorry" and I look up and I realise I was holding hands with an old man that I didn't know."

"My dad assumed that I'd accidentally grabbed onto this man's hand thinking he was my dad. I remember him pulling me away all embarrassed and I was just thinking "but the man grabbed my hand?".

"So basically, I think some guy tried to snatch me out of a crowded area. I still don't understand why my dad thought I grabbed onto his hand. My parents were normally quite paranoid about strangers. He must have been distracted when talking to my grandma."

7. guitarghoul almost got kidnapped by a couple.

"I was probably 9 years old, in about 1995. At that time all the schools and parents were warning us of stranger danger. It seemed like a lot of kids were getting kidnapped because they were being tricked into helping the kidnappers find a lost pet. One day I was it riding my bike alone on our street (a fairly populated street lots of kids out playing and whatnot) and a green two door car pulled up with a woman driving and a guy in the passenger seat. The guy calls out the window to me “hey kid! We lost our dog can you help us find her?”

"I can still remember the feeling I felt. It was like sirens were going off, and I thought for a split second that this was it I was going to be kidnapped. A rush of what felt like BURNING hot adrenaline shit through my body, I felt like I could hear everything 10x louder and see everything 10x better, I’ve never felt anything like that before. I hopped off my bike pulled the front tire up so I could turn around faster and I booked it home. I was shaking and tears were pouring down my face even though I wasn’t “crying”. I got home and told my mom what happened. She called the police, but I’m not sure if the people were ever caught. Crazy."

8. SmuckersBunny and their cousin were approached by bad scammers.

"My cousin and I were probably targeted for a scam, but I still don't know how or why. We are 6 years apart, but went to the same high school at different times. Small school, graduating classes about 60. Years later, we are on a road trip together several states away, and decide to stop at a Huddle House for coffee."

"We walk in, and the guy at the next table turns around and smiles and says "you went to Anytown High School, right?" When we say yes, he says he and his girlfriend (also at the table, smiling and not talking) went there too. We didn't recognize them, but smiled politely, commented it was a small world."

"He starts to rapidly talk about different things from the school, just disjointed comments that were a bit odd. He talked like a salesman, almost. At first, we smile and nod, but he had weird facts wrong. So we ask what year he graduated. He claimed not to remember. So we asked follow up questions and he gets cagey."

"Suddenly the girlfriend goes "this isn't working" and they suddenly pay and leave, food untouched. We since have determined they didnt go to our school, and have tried to figure out how he knew what he did, to no avail."

"Edit: because I got some questions, neither my cousin nor I lived in my hometown by this point, the car wasnt bought in our hometown and didnt have any stickers etc, from there. The guy had just enough facts correct (one or two teachers names, and a diner across the street) totally off the cuff that we really questioned it afterwards."

9. sunshineflouride barely saved their dad's life.

"I came downstairs to tell my grandmother that, "daddy is sleeping with his eyes open"

"He is type 1 and had been drinking. He took insulin to counter the rise in blood sugar but wasn't paying attention and took too much. When the ambulance finally got there (we lived on the outskirts of a small town that didn't have a hospital) he was about five minutes away from death. If we had waited any longer, he would have died."

"Please take care of your diabetic pals!! If something doesn't seem right, it probably isn't. Know what to do in the event of a high or low sugar problem."

10. Vict0r117 was haunted by Taylor Swift's voice.

"I could hear a woman's voice singing almost inaudibly on my daughter's baby monitor. It happened a few nights in a row. I began thinking back over all the doors that opened on thier own, and wierd noises in the house. After a week I had almost convinced myself the house was haunted."

"Then one night I heard the woman's voice singing clearly for the first time. It was taylor swift singing "bad blood." Turns out I just live in an old house and my cheap chinese baby monitor can juuuuuuust hardly pick up the local pop station if its a clear night."

11. Gustaboii still doesn't know who was on the other side of the door.

"I was alone in my house with my step dad, I went to the bathroom, when I sat down on the toilet, that’s when I saw someone was trying to open the door, I pushed it and said “occupied” but whatever was at the other side kept trying to open the door, I called my step dad and I heard him from the kitchen saying “yeah?” At that point I was terrified, it suddenly stopped, I checked the whole house for anyone other than my step dad, didn’t find anybody, the. I went to the other bathroom and then used it, still don’t know what the hell was at the other side of the door."

12. skyflyer8 had a prophetic dream.

"Had a dream that I was going to get into a car accident. Woke up and the feeling that I was going to get into an accident just kinda stayed with me. Later that morning, some idiot ran a red and T-boned the car I was in."

13. PepurrPotts heard their dead mom's voice.

"Mom died 5 months ago, and I moved across the state- into her apartment- to be closer to family. I swear I heard her call my name one night. It felt so natural, hearing her voice in her own apartment, but she'd been dead over a month. I'm sure it was just a nearly-asleep hallucination, but it was spooky."

14. my_diet_starts_tmrw woke up in the middle of fog.

"I would sleepwalk as a child. Usually I’d wake up in the living room, or I would freak myself out and wake up in the basement."

"On one occasion I had wandered outside. I was 7 or 8 and I woke up standing in the middle of my backyard on a super foggy morning right around sunrise. I quickly figured out which direction my house was and ran back to bed. I never told my parents about it because I figured they would be mad at me for going outside when I should have been asleep."

15. CrosswordGuru had a premonition about a former classmate.

"One evening, for some reason, I thought about a person that I had gone to college with but had not seen in more than 30 years. So I decided to google her name to see what she had done with her life."

"I found her obituary. It had been posted earlier that day. If I had googled her one day earlier I would never have known that she had died."

16. mother_of_nerd had a psychic premonition about their mom.

"I was home alone, laying down on my living room floor, and hardcore spacing out at the ceiling. I heard my mother scream on my front porch. I rushed out, but she wasn’t there. I ran around the outside of my house. Not a single person in sight. It 10000% sounded like my mom, and it curdled my bones because it was so raw and animalistic in its sound. I called her right away."

"Mom picks up the phone and I ask her if she is alright. She responds that she is and tells me to hold on for a minute while she pulls over into the parking lot of a business. she was driving and didn’t want to talk on the phone at the same time."

"Seconds later, I hear a lot of noise and my mom screamed. An eternity stretches on before mom is calm enough to say anything coherent. She goes on to tell me how the car in front of her and the one behind her (before she pulled over, the ones that continued on the same path of travel that she had been on) had been struck by a speeding semi that ran a red light at the next intersection. It was a terrible accident with extensive injuries. The semi clipped the rear of the front vehicle and front of the rear vehicle. My mom’s car would have been hit dead center."

"We always joke that we are psychic, as this is not the first instance like it that we have had, but it was definitely the most freaky of the bunch! TL;DR—> I’m psychic and saved my mom’s life."

17. tvp204 and their boyfriend bonded over a shadow figure.

"I used to live in a one bed room apartment with a den. In the den we had a spare bed for visitors or whatever. One night my boyfriend was super sick so I went and slept in the spare bed. In the middle of the night I had what seemed to be sleep paralysis, where I couldn’t move but was seemingly awake. In that state I saw a dark figure walk into the room and just stand over me for a while. Like the dark figure was right over my face."

"The next day I was very freaked out. I told my boyfriend and he asked if I was joking. The same night he saw a dark shadowy figure in our bedroom, pacing in front of the bed. He said he slept with the light on all night. Which had explained why it was on the next morning when I went into the room."

"This happened about a year ago and we haven’t talked about it since. We’d rather forget that entire night happened."

18. FizzingSlit received a terrifying warning.

"I woke up at about 3am with a random mexican woman standing by my door. I angrily stood up (naked by the way) and asked her to leave, she did but 3 seconds later she poked her head in and warned me that I better relock my door."

19. InfamousDoughBoy's 20/20 adult hindsight only makes their experience worse.

"I have a very vivid memory of waking up terrified in the middle of the night and running to my parents room because I saw a ghost when i was a kid. He followed me and stared at me from the doorway as I crawled into their bed and hid under the covers. We looked at each other, for a few minutes and then he left. I was so shaken that I stayed awake the rest of the night until my parents woke up in the morning. I was an adult when I realized that it was not a ghost and actually someone scoping out our house in the middle of the night."

20. spagootibooty realized they had schizophrenia in the scariest way.

"I was home alone sleeping, when all of a sudden i felt a presence crawling up onto my bed. I can hear the sheets ruffling and feel the bed sinking. All while I hear a soft laughter getting louder and more intense as it gets closer to me. Finally, after what felt like it was literally next to my ear, I wake up. As I turned my head to look to see what the hell was laughing at me, I see this non-discript figure hovering over me and burst out in what I could only describe as the most aggressive laughter all while shaking my bed violently."

"My head felt like it was being rattled from all the shaking. At that moment I wanted to scream as loudly as I could but I could not summon the strength to so much as turn my head away from what I was seeing. I was terrified and angry. Angry at myself for being absolutely terrified and not being able to even attempt to defend myself from this creature that had spent what felt like minutes taunting me. When I was finally able to muster the strength to fight back it had already disappeared from the room with its laughs echoing."

"Turns out I have schizophrenia and this was the first of many hallucinations that plagued me throughout my late teens to my mid twenties. With therapy and the early realization that it might be mental illness I was able to keep myself relatively sane. That was almost over 15 years ago. Its gotten better and these days it doesn't happen as often but when it does it usually whenever I get severly stressed in a short period of time or moderately stressed over a prolonged period of time."

21. immyfinalrose luckily got away from their attempted captor.

"Someone attempted to kidnap me in a park. Thankfully I was 13 and a little smarter then. He came up to me and grabbed my wrists and kept screaming “your coming with me”. I don’t think his grip was too hard because I was able to rip away and I ran super fast away. Gave a statement to the police and he was arrested!"

22. QueenSassyPants's child saw the ghost from a fire.

"We moved into a new place. Built around 1930 and sometime in the 70s had a fire. My 3 year old (at the time) started running around the house and playing hide and seek with himself. Kids weren't allowed in our room, but our room was on the first floor and the closet was actually the underside of the stairs. He kept running in there and shouting "found you! Hide better!".

"We didn't think much of it. New house. Kids have imaginary friends... Until that night when he asked if Sam could sleep in his room. He said she was lonely, but they're friends now so she can sleep with him. She doesn't want to sleep in the closet anymore."

"No one else ever saw her and weird things rarely happened. We moved a year later and except for the day after we moved (he asked if she can come too) he has never spoken of her again."

23. chom_pipe is haunted by a golden grid.

"Three times In my life I have awoken to see the same golden grid projected on my wall. Twice in my youth, and once more a few years ago."

"It resembles a projection of light that has passed through a yellow, patterned glass. But that’s not likely, because my 1st bedroom didn’t have windows, the light didn’t move and when I placed my hand in it, the light did not project onto it. It fades after about 1 minute and I go back to sleep.

Edit - made a quick sketch of it https://imgur.com/pCF1Zs8"

24. SmellsLikeGasoline lives near a road with a resident ghost.

"2 friends and I got bored one summer night and decided to drive up into the mountain to a spot that overlooks the town. It's a rough dirt road and we were in a VW Rabbit. We finally make it to the little clearing on the side of the road and pull over. There are no houses on this road for miles and we didn't see any other vehicles the rest of the night."

"So we get out of the car. It's pitch black except the lights of the little town at the bottom of the clearing, miles away. We're all kinda bullshitting as we get out and something gets our attention. We all turn and look at the same time and see this thing running through the woods about 30 feet from us. Now this thing looked like a person, except it was glowing. Remember those glow in the dark stars you could stick to your ceiling? It glowed at about that intensity."

"So we watch this thing run, pushing branches out of its way and what not. We all get back in the car without a word and start driving off in total silence. About 30 seconds later someone finally says "What the fuck did we just see?" The best answer we could come up with, as crazy as it sounds, was that we saw a ghost. All 3 agreed we saw the exact same thing."

"So a couple years go by and I'm with the older brother of one of my best friends and we're just shooting the shit. I bring this story up expecting him to laugh at me and he gets a shocked look on his face and asks if I'm serious. Apparently his teacher in high school had told them he saw the exact same thing run across that road in front of him one night. Made me feel a little less crazy."

25. fireinvestigator113's baby has relationship with an imaginary woman's voice.

"This happened literally Friday night. My son is about 10 months old and absolutely hates sleep. He will sleep in his crib until about 3-4 am then wake up screaming for a bottle then spend the rest of the night in our bed."

"Friday night he woke up screaming and I got up and went to the kitchen to make him a bottle. I turned towards the night light in the kitchen so I could pour the water to the right level when I heard a woman humming in a soothing way behind me. It wasn’t like a quick thing, it was a full ten seconds of “hmmmhmmmhmmMMmHmmmm”.

"My son started screaming even harder as soon as the humming stopped. I dropped the bottle and booked it to our baby’s room to check him and our room to make sure it wasn’t my wife. He was fine and she was dead ass asleep with the door still closed like I left it. I had to wake her up."

"He has no toys that make the humming sound I heard. I still have no idea what the fuck it was. The freakiest part was how hard he screamed when it stopped."

Yesterday, the US women's national soccer team beat the Netherlands 2-0 in the final game of the Women's World Cup. And they had more working against them than just the wrath of the President and his MAGA-klan. Three months earlier, 28 members of the team sued the U.S. soccer federation for gender discrimination, including paying them less than the men's team "for substantially equal work." This is why, at the end of yesterday's championship match, a huge section of the crowd could be heard loudly chanting "Equal pay! Equal Pay!"

As people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed out on Twitter, the victorious team deserves to paid at least as much as the men's team.

The lack of equal pay seems especially unfair given that the U.S. Women's National Team has outperformed the men's team consistently, dating back to the first women's World Cup in 1991. Just look at these stats:

AOC is not the only person who thinks the U.S. Women's Team should make more.

Even U.S. Presidential nominee Kamala Harris weighed in.

Last year, the 2018 men’s World Cup prize money was $400 million, compared to the $30 million the winning female team will receive this year. FIFA President Gianni Infantino said the organization will double the pay for the next women’s World Cup in 2023, but even then the pay will be far from equal. “It certainly is not fair,” said U.S. soccer star/national treasure Megan Rapinoe. “We should double it now and use that number to double it or quadruple it for the next time.”

Unfortunately FIFA is not known for prioritizing the needs and rights of the women's team. Rapinoe also called them out for the extremely unchill move of scheduling two other matches the same day as the Women's World Cup final this year.

But even outside of FIFA, a lot of people believe that the men's team should make more than the women's team. The reasoning has to do with how much revenue the men's games bring in compared to the women's games. Quite a few men are making this point on Twitter, some more tactfully than others:

This may be true at the World Cup level, but actually it is no longer true within the U.S. Turns out, women's soccer generates more money domestically than men's soccer, but women are still paid less. So while the fight for World Cup equal pay may take many years, there is no excuse to pay the women's team less for U.S. games. Either way, one thing remains certain: Megan Rapinoe is the President of the United States.

"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and lie about your age."
- Lucille Ball

Anyone who is sick and tired of adulting will crack up at these hilarious memes. Just don't laugh too hard or you may pull something.

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It's hard to imagine what it must be like to be freed from prison, especially if you've spent a significant amount of time locked up and society has changed in your absence. I have no idea what it's like myself, but people on Reddit are sharing their experiences and the experiences of people they've met, and they are utterly eye-opening. Here are 25 stories of things in the "real" world that many of us take for granted, that were shocking to someone who had spent a long time behind bars.

1) Via stuckondense:

No matter what year you go in when you come out and stand on carpet for the first time is the most disturbing feeling.

2) Via moosecatoe:

Darkness. Being (able to be) in 100% darkness (again) freaked me tf out for a while.

3) Via Bmjslider:

Darkness, complete silence, showering without sandals, couches / chairs with cushions, and a bed that's actually long enough for me.

Those were such odd yet amazing things/feelings to experience again.

4) Via dirtystinkinaep:

No longer having to go to a friend's house to play video games together. And the fact that everyone has cell phones now means you don't have to go to a friend's house and hope they're home.

Also, computers. Everyone has some sort of computer in their home or access to one. I remember being told that I needed to learn cursive because all your papers are done in blue or black ink in cursive once you get to high school. My mom taught me cursive in 1st and I never ended up using it because my school started teaching us how to type in 3rd grade. By the time I reached middle school, we were turning in typed papers.

5) Via rocknrollnobody:

My friend's older brother was jailed in 1994, and served 15 years.

He said when he went in, anyone with an in car phone was super rich, and to then see absolutely everyone have a completely cordless, pocket-sized phone, was amazing.

He also said that all the TV adverts had websites to visit, or were for completely online stores, which were a bit of an alien concept, as he'd never really seen or used the internet.

He also found the chip and pin process of paying for things on a bank card, extremely exciting.

EDIT: I'm unfortunately not in touch with the friend anymore after an incident with the haddock and the umbrella, so I can't get any further answers to your questions about his brother. Last I heard was around 2012, and he seemed to be doing OK, and had a job and a place to live.

6) Via litttup1:

Knew a guy who was blown away by digital cameras. He had purchased an old, terrible one and couldn't get over how amazing it was.

7) Via MissMyCrownVic:

Prisoner transfer I did one time for this man who was sentenced to life in 1968, and it’s the first time he’d driven past the CN tower in Toronto and he couldn’t believe how tall it was. That and he was blown away by how many different car brands there were.

8) Via sharkkkk:

I was talking to a lady who runs the education for a federal prison in Florida. She said when they start getting rambunctious or off topic, she mentions a new feature of the newest iPhone and all the sudden they’re very interested in what she has to say again.

9) Via if_I_absolutely_must:

I hired a guy that was released after 17 years (circa 2005). A week after he started working he bought a phone. He had a child like wonder with push to talk and texting. A week later he was pissed off that he couldn't text his order in to Hungry Howies.

10) Via RooR_:

I remember getting the bus years ago and this old bloke got on heading away from town centre towards the more residential areas.

Without a second thought he sparked up a cigar, one of the passengers told him you can't smoke on a bus! He apologized and quickly stubbed it out but said he got discharged from prison that day, and when he went in you could smoke anywhere you wanted so this was a massive culture shock to him.

11) Via mixedbreeds:

My friend just came home two weeks ago. And I tried to prepare him the best I knew how for the excessive use of cellphones by EVERYONE. I explained that he's going to be amazed by the amount of people glued to/looking at their phone 24/7 in the store, in the car, on the sidewalk, sitting in the house watching TV, like literally ALL. THE. TIME.

I also, let him know that the technology is going to be really different since he went in over 13-years ago, so cellphones were still flip-phones and definitely not as interactive (touch screens) and internet accessible.

Needless to say, the second day home he called me angry as fuck! LOL He hated how he felt "stupid" and how he felt "like a child" because he could barely figure out how to call someone let alone video chat/FaceTime. At one point he couldn't figure out how our phonecall ended up on the radio when his friend turned on the car. -_-

He didn't like having his kids teach him how to use the technology and just was getting really discouraged. :( Basically, reiterating the "feeling stupid" mentality.

I just tried to reassure him that when we all were exposed to this technology, we had to learn it. And many people forget what it was like to not know how to use something like a smartphone (we take for granted how we learned something and how we were once new to a process).

Today it seems he's being more patient with himself but it is a daily struggle and one I try to be positive and kind to him so he knows ..if no one else, at least he can rely on/call on me to just listen to him vent.

12) Via Scottolan:

Got a call from a woman filing a claim on some abandoned funds.. I got all her information and then asked for an email address and she said “What’s email? I keep hearing about it, but you gotta understand I’ve been in prison a looooong time.”

13) Via baxtermcsnuggle:

My cousin's husband(that she married while he was serving 10 years beginning around 2008) wanted the first thing he did as a free man was to go to Hollywood Video, and rent movies to watch with her. Then she blew his mind with Netflix. At least the idea of netflix and chill wasn't far from his original plan, but he was shocked about there not being video stores anymore.

14) Via Freezyfast20:

A friends said his dad's friend tried vr after about 30 years in prison for like 2nd degree murder or something and he got scared, fell over and broke the headset

15) Via chinslapped:

My uncle went away when fanny packs were in and when he got out in the mid 2000s we had to break the news to him.

Good news: they're back!!!!!!

16) Via bigmac22077:

A co worker a few years ago had spent 10 years in jail. He got out right when blue tooth headsets for phones were huge. He’d talk about all the random conversations he thought people were trying to have with him, and smart phones freaked him the hell out.

17) Via Intertops:

Communication. It used to be only the rich had phones, now even kids have phones!

18) Via Stannis-and-Bobby-B:

My dad would always tell me stories, like how he got out, walked into Walmart, and ended up crying because he didn’t have to ask to use the restroom. A couple other family members did really long time and couldn’t use the bathroom without asking permission.

19) Via Shooshookle:

My first job I worked with this guy who went to prison for a long time. I think he was on parole at the time. Dude made some pretty messed up choices (selling heroin and coke, I think he threatened to murder his ex wife).. anyway, this was around 2012 and we chatted often.

When the radio played in the store he would only sing the songs from the 90’s. I always thought it was because he liked that music the most. Nope, that was the last music he heard before going to prison for years. He didn’t know what Google was. He didn’t know Youtube. “What’s a Facebook?” Never heard of Twitter. He barely knew how to operate the internet at all. It was so.. shocking to me, to meet someone who was much older than me (I wanna say late thirties, early 40s) and not know these things. Anytime I hear Hootie and the Blowfish or Blues Traveler I always see his face in my mind, just singing along.

He had a really good attitude with things. He really wanted to put himself on the right track and I hope he did. I wonder what happened to him. He always had something funny to say about something. Good sense of humor. I really hope he got his life together and is somewhere good.

And that he’s found out that Youtube is a goldmine for cat videos.

20) Via YourCautionaryTale:

Obligatory "not me, but..."

In the early 2000's I worked with a guy that was sentenced in the mid-80's and had just come out. He told me the first time he went to a men's room he spent several minutes looking for the handle to flush. Motion sensor toilets was completely alien to him.

21) Via RoaldDahling:

What happened with Legos? They used to be simple. Oh come on, I know you know what I’m talking about. Legos were simple. Something happened out here while I was inside. Harry Potter Legos, Star Wars Legos, complicated kits, tiny little blocks. I mean I’m not saying its bad I just wanna know what happened.

22) Via Patrickocean401:

Weeds legal now...

23) Via imyownpeople:

My late husband was absolutely blown away that he could order food to be delivered to him. We lived in a big city so anything he wanted he could get it. He was so used to Chinese food being the only thing that he was just mind blown.

It made his house arrest a lot easier.

Edit: And porn. A whoooole Lotta porn. Apparently animation has gotten a hell of a lot better than the early 00's.

24) Via sallyappleton:

My cousin was in jail from 2002 and was released this year. I went to his house and caught him up on some political history in the past decade with YouTube videos and his mind was already blown by YouTube. He was kind of disappoint he missed Obama's presidency. He was in prison at 17 years old so I caught him up a little on the pop culture he missed also with YouTube videos. Netflix and Hulu made him really excited to catch up on shows he never got to finish. His teenage daughter showed up and we showed him how to facetime her. When she left he cried because he could see and talk to her whenever he wanted instead of imagining what her face looks like over a phone call.

25) Via kwack250:

My friend got locked up in 2008 and was released at the beginning of this year.

Second night out of prison I took him for some food and he noticed someone taking a picture of their dinner before they ate it.

He couldn't believe people take pictures of what they're about to eat to post online.

You and me both, buddy! You and me both.

Leaving an abusive relationship is harder than it looks. But when you do manage to escape one, you might become adept at spotting the warning signs and red flags of potential abusers.

This applies not only to real-life dating, but also the fictional world. Abusive behavior not only runs rampant but is often portrayed as romantic and passionate in TV and film.

Evan Rachel Wood, who has endured an abusive relationship herself, pointed out on Twitter that the beloved character of Chief Hopper from "Stranger Things" sure checks a lot of boxes when it comes to abusive behavior.

She added:

Yes I am aware its “just a show” and its set “in the 80s” even though this stuff was unacceptable then too, but thats exactly my point. Its just a show and this is a gentle reminder not to fall for this crap in real life. Red flags galore.

Seems like pretty solid advice — but half of Twitter lost their minds.

It didn't take long for people to completely miss her point — and stick up for the character's abusive behavior.

The excuses came rolling in, and will sound familiar to anyone who's ever tried to leave an abuser but found friends and family sticking up for the guy because he "always seemed so nice."

There was also the old "some people are just yellers!!" chestnut.

(Actually, no one has to tolerate yelling if they don't want to but go off.)

It wouldn't be a conversation about abuse if there wasn't an apparently older woman telling a millennial to grin and bear it.

Some agreed with Wood, though.

And pointed out how the idealization of abusive men runs rampant in media created for kids.

But others still didn't get the point, chalking his emotional manipulation up to protection. Yiiiiiikes!

Wood was apparently not surprised or amused by all the caping going on for this seemingly abusive character.

Some people tried to turn it around on Wood by asking if they should date her character, Dolores, from "Westworld."

The obvious response is... um, no, she's a murderous robot.

No one is romanticizing her behavior and she's not portrayed as a love interest on the show. Also, her actions are set off by years of abuse.

She also pointed out that she has very public experience with abusive relationships, so she at least knows how to spot them.

Finally, Wood decided to log off so her mentions would live another day.

"You cannot be mad at somebody who makes you laugh - it's as simple as that."

-Jay Leno

You can't be mad at these hilarious memes, although I'm sure people in the comment section will try their best. Starting your day off with a laugh is the best way to feel good all day.

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Luckily, the real Ariel is just as sweet as we imagined she'd be.

Jodi Benson, OG Ariel in the 1989 "The Little Mermaid," has finally spoken about the choice to cast Halle Bailey in the live-action remake and what she had to say is pretty amazing. "Bright young women, sick of swimmin', ready to stand?" Hell yes.

Since the announcement of black singer and actress Halle Bailey portraying the redheaded pale skinned mythical creature of the sea, most people have been excited and supportive. After all, Halle is adorable and has the voice of an angel. Here's evidence:

However, the internet can bring out the most hateful of hateful people and some even went as far as to make a petition against Halle. A petition. For a character that is half-fish...

Fear not, though, Jodi Benson set the record straight at a convention in Florida when she showed her support for Halle:

The most important thing is to tell the story. And we have, as a family, we have raised our children, and for ourselves, that we don’t see anything that’s different on the outside. I think that the spirit of a character is what really matters. What you bring to the table in a character as far as their heart, and their spirit, is what really counts. And the outside package—'cause let’s face it, I’m really, really old—and so when I’m singing ‘Part of Your World,’ if you were to judge me on the way that I look on the outside, it might change the way that you interpret the song. But if you close your eyes, you can still hear the spirit of Ariel.

We need to be storytellers. And no matter what we look like on the outside, no matter our race, our nation, the color of our skin, our dialect, whether I’m tall or thin, whether I’m overweight or underweight, or my hair is whatever color, we really need to tell the story. And that’s what we want to do, we want to make a connection to the audience. So I know for Disney that they have the heart of storytelling, that’s really what they’re trying to do. They want to communicate with all of us in the audience so that we can fall in love with the film again.

Jodi, princess of the land and sea, thank you for passing the Ariel torch with such grace. While the haters get their act together, please enjoy this video of Jodi Benson surprising a hardcore "Little Mermaid" fan at her wedding by singing "Part of Your World." It's ok, we're all crying...

On Sunday, the U.S.women's national soccer team beat the Netherlands 2-0, and secured themselves the World Cup.

Just three months ago, 28 team members sued the U.S. soccer federation for gender discrimination, specifically, paying the women's team a fraction of what their male counterparts receive. While the women's team scored 13 goals in a single game against Thailand, more than the men's team has scored during all of their World Cups combined since 2006, female players are still paid 38 cents to their male counterparts' dollar.

The prize money for the 2018 men’s World Cup was $400 million, while the women’s team will only get paid $30 million for winning the 2019 World Cup.

So, when the women's team secured the World Cup on Sunday, many of their fans cheered and started an equal pay chant in solidarity with the players.

The dialogue over why the women's team deserves not only equal pay, but better pay than the men's team (due to their superior performance) has continued online, and the rapper and entrepreneur Snoop Dogg weighed in with a supportive Instagram video demanding the women get their due.

Snoop immediately got to the point, laying out how much the men's team receives vs. the women's team, and why it's deeply messed up:

"What I want to talk about is that they only get $90,000 per player, but the men, if they win it, they get $500,000 per player. The sorry ass f--king men from the US men's soccer team may never win s--t, ain't ever win s--t, can't even get out the f--king first round. Man, pay them ladies, man. Pay the girls what they're worth."

He laid into how it's not only unequal at face value, but the women's team deserves more money if anything:

"The women should be getting $500,000 per athlete. Snoop Dogg says so. Yeah, I’m rocking with that. Them girls have won four World Cups and $90,000? Man, please. Play them $500,000 apiece."

Hopefully, as more people speak up in support online, and public figures like Snoop use their platforms to express solidarity with the players, FIFA will stop messing around and pay the women what they deserve.

Quitting drinking is hard enough on its own. But it's even harder in a society that frequently fosters the idea that alcohol=community, alcohol=connection, and alcohol=fun. This may be why a recent post by mom blogger Celeste Yvonne resonated with so many people.

Celeste reveals that her decision to quit drinking a year-and-a-half ago has put her in some uncomfortable social situations in which she is forced to explain why she doesn't drink.

She documented one of these recent awkward interactions in a Facebook post, which has since gone viral.

The interaction began when she brought her kid to another woman's house for a playdate.

She writes:

I went to a play date the other day at someone's house. Almost the moment I stepped through the front door, the mom giggled "Mimosa time!" and my body froze up.

I wasn't prepared for this.

Most times, when I'm heading to a social gathering, I have time to prepare. I mentally prepare, I physically prepare (I always bring a kombucha with me), I emotionally prepare.

I think about what I will say when someone asks why I'm not drinking. I think about how deep I want to get in the conversation -- because some days I'm ready to go there, and other days I want to talk about anything BUT that.

Usually, she "prepares" for situations where there will be drinking. But this time she wasn't expecting it, what with it being morning and all.

She continues:

Today, because I was so caught off guard, I probably looked like a deer in headlights. I almost said "Yes" and thought about just pretending to sip it. But I said "Not right now, I'm good thank you" and the conversation veered to something else.

But it came up again about 15 minutes later. And again another 15 minutes later. And I was practically banging my head against the wall mentally thinking "why don't I just tell her I don't drink?"

But I didn't. I was afraid she would think I wasn't fun. I was afraid she wouldn't want to have more play dates with me.

Celeste's story reveals the way our alcohol-obsessed culture, especially as it pertains to mom life, can be alienating to moms who don't drink.

She writes:

I read a meme yesterday that said "I determine my kids play dates by which mom I want to drink wine with".

Being alcohol free can truly feel ostracizing. And it's strange to think that alcohol is the only drug that we have to explain NOT using.

Time to change the narrative. Alcohol free is a choice that should not require an explanation, embarrassment or fear of condemnation.#changethenarrative

Celeste ends her post by saying we need to "change the narrative" around the way we discuss and use alcohol in social situations. And her message has resonated with people all over the internet, with more than 53 thousand shares.

Many commenters are sharing their own experiences navigating sobriety as parents.

Clearly, Celeste's post has helped a lot of people. Like this woman, who is newly sober:

And this isn't Celeste's first time using social media to change the conversation around alcohol and sobriety. Over on Instagram, she frequently opens up about her recovery and her drinking past and marks her sober milestones.

Addiction and recovery are becoming less stigmatized in recent years, but we still have a long way to go. And Celeste's posts serve as an important reminder, especially to parents, that while it may be fun to get sloshed with other moms to take the "edge off" and have some laughs, alcohol is not for everyone. And some people's reasons for not drinking may be painful or personal. So if someone doesn't want to drink, be respectful, don't obsess over their decision, and offer them a seltzer or—if you want to make a friend for life—a kombucha. Cheers!

The Fyre Festival.Anna Delvey.The Trump presidency.

We're living in a new golden age of famous scammers, but there are lesser-known scams creeping out of every corner of the internet. A recent Reddit thread had people confessing the times they fell for grifters and swindlers

A scam could really happen to anybody, but that doesn't mean you can't scoff and feel superior.

Pro tip: Don’t go to an "air traffic controller aptitude test" you found on Craigslist.

1. Hopefully ocean_wavez's IQ has improved since the Disney days.

When I was 11 my favorite Disney Channel star tweeted a link to take an IQ test and see how your score compared to hers. A credit card number was needed to see the results, so I put in my parents’. Of course she had been hacked and it was a scam, so I had to go sheepishly tell my parents I accidentally charged their credit card...they were not happy.

2. Don't worry, burnt-cookie's story has a happy ending. Candy.

I bought $300+ tickets to see Knicks at MSG from Craigslist (dumb I know) that turned out to be fake. I got so pissed I walked into an nyc precinct and told them i want to file a complaint.

The detective at the time said they’re busting a lot of people in these fake ticket rings and we could bust him if we set up another sale. The next day I contacted the same guy from another number and we set up to meet him; the detective was dressed casually and I pretended to be his gf. He gave us the tickets by Dylan’s Candy bar and was busted right there. It was fun.

3. You almost have to respect the hustle, orangey41.

I was 19 and looking for jobs on Craigslist. Came across an ad for air traffic controller training. Take an aptitude test, and if you pass you'll be eligible for government-paid job training.

The scam was actually brilliant. The test was in a hotel banquet room and cost $200 to take. You pay at the door, and are directed to wait in the room and not talk to anyone. They pass out an actual test, tell you to finish in as fast a time as you can, then leave. Before it starts they tell you that only the top 10% will be contacted for follow-up.

There were about 100 of us taking the test. Easy $20,000 for the scammers.

4. The only way to make dougiebgood's story more 90s is if it ended with "WAZZZZZUP."

In the 90's my friend got all of these letters saying he was a part of a contest, and he just had to keep mailing letters in to enter the "drawing."

The wording they put in the later letters was something like "You've made it to the final round," and "Congratulations, we are now prepared to write you a check for $10,000!"

All he had to do was call a 1-900 number that charged $2 a minute. It took him about 10 minutes to navigate the automated menus once they told him he was a winner and it ended with "And you have won... (drum roll)... ONE DOLLAR!"

5. Hysterical_Realist knows a good scammer when they see one.

I've had my debit card number stolen twice. Once I was charged for over $700 in women's shoes (I'm not a woman.) Another time, just a couple of months ago, I had five different $100 transfers on Western Union, at different convenience stores in my city that I'd never visited.

But the funniest one was the one I actually fell for in person. A guy on the street in New Orleans told me:

"I bet you ten bucks I can tell you where you got your shoes."

"You're on", I said.

"OK. You got 'em right there. On your feet."

I gave him the ten bucks out of pure admiration.

6. She could have been the one, elezraita!!!

I met a girl on OKCupid who said she lived in New York City, but was planning a trip to Africa for a charity trip with her university. We talked for a while. She was cute and she claimed to like the same things I liked. She had weird English, though. Eventually, she went on her “trip”. When she got to Africa, we kept talking and eventually she told me a story about some terrible thing that had happened to her and she needed money. She tried to get me to send her $100. I had been suspicious for a while. Her English was often not like I would have expected from a native speaker from NYC. She made a lot of mistakes, but I just assumed that she was brought up in a home where English wasn’t the first language, or spelling and grammar just weren’t her thing. I actually asked her about it as diplomatically as I could, and she claimed to be a native English speaker. Also, I could never verify anything about her travel program or her family online. I did my research. There were other things, but I won’t go into them. Asking me to send money to Africa via Western Union was the last straw. I noped out of that lickity split. Ghosted that filthy scammer completely.

7. "Armitage" sounds fashionable too, woke_trans_former.

Got scammed by this guy selling "Armani" jackets in NYC from his car at 9PM on a Saturday. I happened to be in the market for these at the time, so I was very eager. He must have smelled a sucker. He slowed his car and asked me for directions to the Lincoln Tunnel. While I was looking that up on my phone, he gave his pitch about how he just came from an Armani show and had 2 extra jackets he couldn't fit in his luggage back to Italy. So I bought 2 jackets for $300 and thought I got a fantastic deal (they retail for more than $1000 each), all the way until I got to the train back to CT, when I noticed that the logo was not quite the Armani logo, but some other eagle logo. It also didn't say Armani, but Armitage. To be fair, he never said they were Armani jackets, only that he was coming from an Armani show. My 24-year-old-fresh-out-of-college dumbass brain filled in the non-existent gaps. The icing on the cake is that I actually had to withdraw cash from an ATM and I ended up overdrawing my account.

8. Hang this Met scam in the Louvre, h3llp0p.

Best scam I've ever witnessed:

I was working a job at the Metropolitan Museum in New York for a week around the sculpture garden area. There was an old man I noticed towards the end of every day sketching one of the more prominent sculptures. It was a very detailed pencil sketch that was quite beautiful. Towards the close of day a group of people would gather around the man who was nearly finished with his art. I began to notice that he would show up at the same time every day and the same sketch was at the same point of completion - every day. Turns out he was selling his "sketches" for a couple hundred bucks a pop, but they were actually high-res copies that he would trace over for an hour or so before unloading them on a romantic tourist looking for an authentic piece of art.

9. Poor snoof123. Screw those popcorn bandits.

My first job was working at a movie theater. I was at the concessions stand and 1 guy came up, he ordered like a soda and popcorn. He handed me a $50 bill and during the same time his friend walked up and started asking me a lot of questions about the menu and crap. They purposely distracted me very skillfully and managed to walk away with the $50 bill and the change... I felt like a total idiot. They probably have been doing that for a long time.

10. Always check the date, sortajamie.

Bought football tickets outside the venue. Looked right, GA vs LSU and appropriate pics on the tickets. Tickets turned out to be two years old.

11. Damn, x3young3x's isn't funny, it's just elder abuse.

One time my girlfriends grandma got scammed bad. (Keep in mind she is a very old lady and gets confused easily.) She received a phone call one day and the person on the other end claimed to be a lawyer. This person convinced her that her granddaughter (my girlfriend) had mistakenly been arrested in Mexico. (We are from Iowa.) The “lawyer” said she was in Mexico on a school field trip when she was arrested. He said that she was wrongfully arrested and that if she was bailed out he could get her on her way home. At first her grandma didn’t believe any of it, but this scammer had done his research. He knew my girlfriends name. The grandma asked if she could talk to my girlfriend. At this point the “lawyer” handed the phone to a younger woman that claimed to be my girlfriend. This fake then proceeded to cry on the phone claiming to be my girlfriend and create false urgency. The grandma bought it and was instructed to wire them money. She did. All $4000 of it. I’m assuming they got a lot of their information to set up the scam from Facebook. Yes this was reported to the police and no they weren’t caught.

Take advice with a grain of salt. And maybe a few more grains of salt. And some tequila.

Everyone loves to give advice. It gives our past mistakes some meaning to try and prevent others from falling into the same traps. Taking advice can be cathartic and helpful, steering you towards a new direction in life or simply helping to solve a challenging obstacle. However, not all advice is good...

Sometimes your friends and family have the best intentions, but it doesn't change the fact that what they're telling you to do is bad. Sometimes, very bad. And wrong. So wrong...

When a recent Reddit user asked, "What’s the absolute worst piece of advice you ever received?" the internet was more than ready to share their tales of truly terrible advice.

1. Ugh, "athun."

I was told multiple times by her family that having a child would help fix our marriage. "You'll both be focused on the kid , it'll help you bond." When I explained that I didn't want to bring a child into an unstable environment based on a gamble, the prevailing thought was that I was being selfish. Unreal.

2. OH NO, "Dontwannabeawake."

"Just get pregnant and marry him. He will have to stop cheating if you do" God am I glad I didn't listen to that."

3. Ha, "Olorin919."

Don't worry about the cost of the wedding you'll make it back in the gifts.

4. YIkes, "curiouserthangeorge."

My dad told me to get a goddamn balloon lease on a fucking car as soon as I graduated college. I had NO idea what was going on and thought I’d bought the car. Imagine my surprise 4 years later when not only did I own zero cars i also owed $20k or had to get a new car.

Fucked my finances for years.

My dad is not good with money.

5. THEY'RE HUNGRY ALL THE TIME, "theairo."

“You only need to feed newborns once a day”

Fucking. what.

6. But ask and you shall receive, "callmedashil."

When I was young a teacher said to me “it’s rude if you ask for something, you have to let them offer it first”

7. Student loans are a curse from hell, "coscojo."

"Don't worry about how much you take out for a student loan, the interest is so low it will be easy to pay off"

8. It's a trap! "pienoceros."

Tell HR.

9. People are dumb, "PmButtPics4ADrawing."

"You should try washing your face more"

Thanks, I never thought of that

cries into 15 bottles of moisturizers, exfoliators, and facial cleansers

10. Forgive, but never forget. "amandaSF."

Forgive and forget. My family has always said this and it only kept abusive people in my life, they were never held accountable for their actions and I was supposed to forgive them and never bring it up again because they’re family. Cutting out toxic family members and remembering why I did it was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.

11. This is terrible advice, "DONT_CALL_ME_NEGRO."

To smoke marijuana when I was having a bad anxiety/panic attack. Shit made it 1000 times worse. It felt like time had stopped and I was dying

12. Being old doesn't always mean wise, "blooberrycheesecake."

“With age comes wisdom so you must always listen to your elders. They always have your best interests at heart.”

This is not always true. They’re all still human, no matter how old they are. They also make mistakes/act selfish/are spiteful.

13. Get her back! "AccountSoMyGFcanDMmE."

In college I broke up with my girlfriend over the summer despite it being the wrong decision. She was the sweetest most loving girl I'd ever met. She sent me a package of really thoughtful gifts for my birthday and I was going to call her and thank her. I honestly think we would have gotten back together.

My roommate convinced me I shouldn't call her and give her false hope. I felt horrible and didn't call... I still regret that to this day.

14. Ew, "Funeral_Goose."

I had never had a boyfriend before and my friend told me it’s because I’m too intimidating and I should dumb it down when talking to men to make them like me more.

15. OH NO, "Sora33o."

"You don't have to pay medical bills. Just tell them you can't pay them and ignore their calls." My mom told me this before I knew what credit was. Now I can't rent an apartment or get a decent loan for a car thanks mom!

16. You can crush on someone without being mean! "EmiraldCity."

"If a boy is mean to you that means he really likes you." Thanks for that one Auntie. Totally didnt fuck me up at 7 years old when I told you a classmate punched me in the nose.

17. Class grandma advice, "just_moss."

My grandmother always used to tell me "you can never be too rich or too thin." Which is just questionable all around really.

"The moments that make life worth living are when things are at their worst and you find a way to laugh."

-Amy Schumer

Being a woman isn't always easy, but laughing at memes is. This list is guaranteed to put a smile on that beautiful face.

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It's impossible to navigate this chaotic planet without interacting with countless strangers. Most run-ins with strangers are largely forgettable, you sit next to them silently on a train, you serve them food at your service job, you nod at each other in recognition on the sidewalk.

However, not all strangers fade into the abyss of our clogged memories. There are the few, the rare interactions with strangers that echo in our brains forever. Whether it's the silly spectacle of a nude musician, an unlikely meet-cute on the Greyhound, or a guardian angel who swoops in to save our lives, some strangers leave permanent impressions.

In a recent Reddit thread, people shared stories about the strangers they'll never forget, and they range from heartwarming to weird as hell.

1. Crimsonrox will never forget one of their worst customers yet.

"The lady on my plane (I’m a flight attendant) who got really mad I gave her too much coffee and then poured it into the seat back pocket."

"I realized that day that some people will get mad at whatever they can. And there’s nothing I can do about that."

2. KingKarlTheSecond still remembers the kind stranger who comforted them while their mom went to the hospital.

"When I was probably 3 or 4 I went to the bank with my mom and she passed out flat on the floor while talking to the teller. An ambulance came to take her away and I remember well a woman who held me and comforted me as I watched firemen put my mom on a stretcher and in the ambulance. My mom was ok, just had low blood sugar. I still remember her voice and her face."

3. Maryhadayam remembers the woman God sent to give their mom money.

"When I was a little kid, small enough to be in a shopping cart still, I remember being at Walmart with my mom and two sisters. This random black lady comes up to mom and says "God told me to give this to you." She smiled at her and clasped some money into my mother's hand. My mom was thanking her, and me being a kid I kinda realized what was going on but kinda didn't. At the time, my father had just left, and my mother was on her own raising three little kids. A few years later, my mom would bring up the lady a couple times, I remember she told my grandma about it, but after that, she hasn't said anything at all about her."

"That was probably like 15 years ago. I'm 21 now. Looking back, I wonder if that's one of my mom's reasons for helping me out with money at times ... But I don't know. It does make me look back and think wow, how kind people can be. And how weird that situation was too in a way. A woman saying she heard God talk to her and helped another person in need.... My mother is super successful now, and she did most of it on her own, but she is super humble. I have many more weird and heartfelt stories about strangers, but this one came to my head first."

4. dunnowhatredditis still thinks about the kind woman at the bus stop.

"When I was about 13 or 14 my phone ran out when I was waiting for a bus, but I realised my bus wasn’t arriving for two hours as it was a Sunday night and I don’t live in a big city, so bus times are varied."

"I knew I had to call my parents but I was very shy and too nervous to ask anybody. But a really lovely mother noticed I was looking very anxious and came and asked if i was okay."

"She let me use her phone, but then she also stayed with me until my bus came because it was late at night and she didn’t want me there alone. I think about her a lot. She was so caring and loving."

5. GrotiusandPufendorf still remembers the kind woman in the theater lobby.

"A woman that came to talk to me and my sister once when my mother threw a public fit in the lobby of a theater and my father dragged her aside to yell at her. She just came over and made small talk with us about the city. I knew why she was doing it, but she did it in a way that was not patronizing at all. And it was so unexpectedly kind to take the time to do that when most people would have just stared or awkwardly averted their gaze."

6. linearburrito was helped on the highway.

"20 years ago I'm in high school and my truck broke down on the side of the road. Busy offramp from a busy highway and a guy stopped behind me, drove me to the nearest store to buy more oil, and took me back to my truck and didn't ask for or expect a thing. I'm iffy on the memory but he might have even bought the oil for me."

"I was a shaved head angry looking ginger kid, and he was a black adult man, probably in his 30s. I wouldn't have stopped for me, but he did."

7. JedLeland had a movie moment with a man.

"Several years ago, I was hobbling down the street in an air boot, having screwed up my ankle in some way or other. I walked past an electrician's van; the owner was sitting there in the open rear door also sporting an air boot. We chuckled at the coincidence, and then he said in a thick, Eastern European accent, "Life is like a baby's shit: short and shitty."

"Never gonna forget that guy."

8. Onslow85 remembers the woman who comforted them after a stabbing.

"Got stabbed during a mugging and legged it away from the scene. (Edit: To clarify, I was the one being mugged). Was full of adrenalin but then got to a bus stop and started to go into (mild) shock. A woman probably no older than 21 came and called an ambulance and sat with me and was very reassuring."

"It turned out I wasn't too badly hurt but tbh in the circumstance and confusion, you just tend to think 'FUCK! I'm dying here!' Her sitting with me was so appreciated, she was so tender and supportive but also relatively calm and collected given the scenario (I didn't look too clever at the time and was covered in blood)

That was c. 15 years ago and I still think of her."

9. A stranger saved ourmooncity's life in a river.

"I was tubing with my family in a very popular river spot. The river split into two sections briefly before connecting once again; one being rapid, the other calm."

"I fell off my tube BACKWARDS into the rapids. Tons of people were going down as well, so I was pretty much trapped under the water with other people’s bodies and tubes on top of me while my knees were being scraped."

"I stuck my hand above the surface because I couldn’t stand and someone grabbed it. He lifted me out and began to ask if I was okay and if I needed medical assistance because my knees were bleeding badly."

"Me, being only 8, was shy and crying and didn’t know how to respond. He cleaned my knee and his wife bandages them all while staying with me until my father came down the other side of the river to get me. I wonder where he is now. I hope he and his family are doing alright."

10. aquay met the truck driver of their dreams.

"A truck driver who was unloading a semi full of ice cream at a grocery store. He noticed us watching in the sweltering heat and gave us a case of pints. I was about ten."

11. A few strangers have left impressions on L0ubil0u throughout their life.

"Helped an old lady find the right bus stop to get her home. I sat with her until the bus came so I could check with the driver that it was the right one. She told me I'm a good singer (she hadn't heard me sing but said she could tell by my voice - I don't sing) and that she was going to tell her cat about me when she got home."

"I had had a typical parent-teenager argument with my parents and went for a walk to get out of the house. I went and sat in the middle of some fields where 4 tracks met. Did some crying, the usual. A truck drove up behind me, a guy got out, I thought my life was over. He sat down next to me but with quite a bit of distance so I wasn't too worried. He offered me a cigarette and some advice before going on his way."

12. WeeshaBean met a cosmic stranger dad.

"I was 19 or 20, working at a car dealership going nowhere and in a really shitty relationship - this LOVELY man with a full head of white hair looks at me and in the most non-passive, non-patronizing , completely fatherly way says "you are surrounded by this beautiful glowing light but have this cloud over you. I hope you are loved and treated well because you deserve nothing less." - this guy had NO clue who i was, and i never saw him again but will NEVER forget that. I had never felt more worthy of love."

13. I_might_be_your_dad cannot forget the echoes of the train opera man.

"Guy singing opera on the Red Line in Chicago who tried to sit in my lap"

14. GoalieMoney will never forget Mary's kindness.

"When I first started working at best buy in the TV department a probably 50 something year old women came in about 15 minutes before close. She said she wanted the best TV we had and being the excited new guy I happily brought her back to the LG OLED which at the time was our best quality TV."

"I rattled off all the specs to her and yadda yadda, eventually she said she'll take one. I was ecstatic, at this point in time OLED technology was very new and the store had only sold a couple of them before. I start ringing her out, ask for her number so I can look up her rewards account. I notice her address is in Florida and trying to make conversation I ask "what brings you to (Rochester MN)" she replies "Oh I'm here for the Mayo Clinic, I have stage 4 cancer". Needless to say that killed my happy mood right there."

"I said I was sorry about that but that she was in the best possible hands at mayo. She agreed but told me she already knew she was going to die in a couple months and that's why she was buying such a nice TV, to view pictures and videos and experience the world as close to real life as her ailing body would let her."

"Eventually we got to the point where the register prompted me to offer her an extended warranty plan. Out of instinct I did and immediately regretted it. What would someone who only has a couple months left want an extended warranty for? Luckily she took it well and just laughed saying that was a pretty good deal for a "lifetime warranty". What she asked me next is what really stuck with me though."

"She said "I obviously don't need a warranty but if I buy it does it help you at all?" I told her technically yes because the company does track that stuff and it comes up during annual reviews, but she didn't need to buy one just for me it doesn't matter that much. But she insisted and said what ever little thing she could do to help me out she would do. After going back and forth for a bit I finally relented and added it to the transaction."

"This is a good point to mention the TV was not her only purchase, she bought tons of other things aswell (soundbar, bluetooth speakers, small appliances, router, etc) her grand total ended up being over $8,000. Needless to say this was my biggest sale up until that point."

"On top of that she wanted to give me a $100 bill as a Tip! I refused saying she had already given enough and should spend it on herself, besides bestbuy policy doesn't allow us to collect tips. With my manager standing right there she said Ok and we headed out to her car to load all the product up."

"After I had helped her load her stuff up we went to shake hands and I thanked her for being so generous and wished her luck on her chemo treatment. As she pulled away I look down and saw the sneaky woman had dropped the $100 bill on the ground right in front of me. I yelled out multipal times as she was getting in the car. I tried to run up to her window bill in hand when she saw me in the mirror smiled and just told her caregiver to floor it."

"So there I was. $100 richer and 1000 times more humble. As a 17 year old she had such a profound impact on my outlook on life in such a short time frame its hard to put in words what that feels like.

RIP Mary I'll never forget you."

15. Iteration81512 thinks often of their Greyhound meet-cute.

"When I was in college, I had to ride Greyhound buses home for vacation. One trip, I sat next to a guy my age who was really cute and very into books (as am I). I have never had such instant chemistry with anyone as I had with him. We talked and held hands the whole trip, and when we got close to my stop, he asked me to come with him to his summer job in Montana."

"I said I couldn't and he gave me the necklace he was wearing to remember him by. Sometimes I wonder if I had gone with him, would I be happily married on a horse ranch out west right now or just dead in a ditch somewhere?"

16. itsrraining still remembers the sweet faculty member who comforted them on the way to the doctor.

"I was in college and 34 weeks pregnant. My baby hadn’t moved for about 6 hours. I was on my way to the emergency room after my class had ended because I was terrified. A faculty member stopped me and asked if I was okay. I responded honestly and said “no, my baby isn’t moving”.

"He held my hand and said what I assume was a prayer in another language. He squeezed my hand when he was done and made some pretty powerful eye contact with me. I thanked him and hurried off. I think about him every now and then. Not many people care enough to stop upset strangers, but he did"

17. aiakia still thinks about Ona.

"I studied abroad in Tokyo my junior year of college when I was 20. I had never been out of the country before, was flying alone, and didn't speak the language, so I was pretty nervous. I was seated next to a woman named Ona, who must have seen I was anxious, so she talked to me over the course of the flight and gave me tips and pointers for my time in Japan."

"At the end of the flight, she had finished the book she was reading, and she wrote a kind note in it, signed it, and gave it to me. It's been 11 years and I still have that book. What must have seemed like such a small gesture to her meant the world to me."

18. coscojo gave and received a cosmic hug.

"Years ago I was a waiter at a restaurant and I had this one table, it was about 6 or 7 women who were getting together for some kind of reunion. They were delightful people, but such a pain as customers because it was impossible to get everyone to focus on ordering. They either couldn't agree on what they wanted to do, or they were so focused on catching up with one another it was like talking to a wall. This was in the middle of a lunch rush so it amounted to a really stressful situation."

"There was one woman who was a sort of "leader" of the group who really helped rein the group in. After I finished serving them and dropped off their credit cards, I went to the break-room to exhale from the stress. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by this emotion and a voice in my head said "You need to go back and give that woman a hug before she leaves"

"I walk back to the dining room, and the woman is standing there alone waiting for me, she points to me and says "You! Come over here, I need to give you a hug" and she gives me the biggest hug."

"It was so surreal. I'm not a religious person, but it was the closest thing I've every experienced to believing that there is some kind of power out there that's bigger than all of us."

19. APartyInMyPants got the businessman's thumbs up.

"I had just bought some new sneakers the day prior. I was leaving work and waiting for the crosstown bus. While I was waiting, this “executive” looking guy was walking down the street. Nice suit, nice shoes, overall really well put together."

"So he’s on the phone, and he’s arguing with someone. Sounds like someone he works with, and I hear him coming from half a block away."

"So he’s walking toward my direction as I’m on the sidewalk waiting. There he is, arguing with this person, he gets close to me, doesn’t even miss a beat, points at me and says, “those are really cool sneakers.” And then just continues on his way in his argument. This was eight years ago."

"Edit: After digging I found the shoes online. Third from the bottom, the green/tan/red ones.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/hypebeast.com/2011/1/nike-sb-dunk-2011-spring-collection%3famp=1"

20. who-cares-2345 will never forgive weird beach man.

"One time I was walking on the beach in California while wearing a shirt that said “Salty” on it (clever ik). This one middle eastern man in his late 40’s walks up to me and says, “SALTY HAHA, LIKE THE BEACH AND THE WATER HAHAHA” and proceeded to give me a high five."

"Thank you sir. You both confused and frightened me but somehow I love you and will never forget you."

21. youngdamnedandfair is forever grateful to the stranger who potentially saved their life.

"Was driving to work on in peak hour traffic on a freeway around 5am. I’d been at the office until around 9 the night before and was working 6-7 day weeks. I had never experienced a microsleep while driving until that morning."

"Young guy in a car next to me beeped while we were almost stationary in the traffic. He just smiled and motioned for me to stay awake and looking forward. Totally woke me up when I hadn’t even realised my eyes were closed and I never drove that tired again. If he hadn’t beeped I can’t imagine what might have happened, I think of it often."

22. radiomix will never forget the "poot" guy.

"When I was 12 years old I walked into the bathroom of a fast food restaurant. An older guy (mid 30's) was using the bathroom at the urinal. I walked up to the only open space next to him. Just as I started to pee he rips the loudest fart I've ever heard. He looks over at me (my eyes are open wide in shock) and says,"You Poot?" I just finished and walked out."

23. BaluePeach prays for Jayden regularly.

"Jayden *****: I hope you are ok and I pray for you often. This young man slept under a bush in my yard one cold winter night. I came out to go to work at 5:30am and he came out from under a bush to ask me for help. Being dark I was terrified at first - as it appeared to be a grown man but it was a young teen."

"About the age of my son who was sleeping upstairs. He asked me eventually to call the police for him and I brought him in the garage where there is a great heater, covered him in a blanket, got him something to drink and waited with him."

"The snail trails in his hair, lack of appropriate clothing, lack of shoes... hearing his story. Then the cops arrive and one of them walks in and says... Jayden is that you? The cop proceeds to be stern with him, calling him on weak answers he was giving. Turned out this cop has more than once heard a call, thought it might be Jayden and shown up to keep him out of trouble."

"The cop drove him to his mother's house. He was scolding the boy about he shouldn't keep doing this - how worried do you think your mom is right now.... all those sorts of things. I realized this kid was a kid that had a real good chance of ruining his life by foolish teenage choices. The cop clearly saw something in the boy and was trying to help. I think of him often and say a little prayer. Even in a strung out drug hang over the boy was so polite, and such a kind face. My heart just breaks thinking about him and that night."

24. sadgurl805 hopes the nice guy at the gas station is doing well.

"When I was about 18, I stopped in LA for gas to make it 2 hours north back home and my card was declined — I had no way of putting anything in my tank. This was before Venmo and all that. So I sat in my car and cried for 15 minutes until a guy tapped in my window and told me to pull up to the pump. He put gas in my car and gave me an extra $20 for the road. I still think of him and hope it’s come around back to him."

25. NeedsMoreTuba doesn't know if Mr. Chambers even existed.

"When I was a little kid, this guy named Mr. Chambers would magically appear whenever my mom had a problem. This was in the 1980's before most people had cell phones or other ways to contact help when in a rural area."

"I guess most problems were vehicle-related. Mom got a flat tire? Mr. Chambers would show up. Ran out of gas? Here comes Mr. Chambers with a gas can. One time a hurricane knocked down a tree that blocked access to the dirt road leading to our house, and who showed up with a chainsaw? Mr. Chambers did."

"He was very tall and had dark, curly hair and a VERY deep voice which frightened me. I was the kind of child who LOVED strangers, but something about Mr. Chambers made me nervous every time even though I should've had a positive association with him for always rescuing us."

"I'm not sure what it was about him, but as an adult I've started to doubt that he was even a real guy. When I asked my mom she said she's not sure who I'm talking about."

"TLDR; Creepy man always showed up to help my mom when she was randomly in trouble, and now I'm not even sure if he was real"

26. k1ttyg_rl is glad they ran into the nice train track girl, and not someone else.

"When I was 4 on a family vacation, I wondered off onto this bridge of ongoing pedestrians and found myself walking next to this teenage girl. She offered me her peach rings and I declined, turned around and wondered back to my family, none of them noticing I was missing for 5-8 minutes."

"Looking back, if it wasn’t such a nice young girl, there could’ve been many differing outcomes."

27. President_Butthurt regrets not following Martina.

"Met a girl on a train while traveling from Nice to Florence while I was backpacking through Europe 15 years ago. It was one of those rare instant connections with a stranger where we talked about what was going on in our lives with an honesty that is sometimes more real than you would be with your closest friends/family since we were strangers. She told me she was going back home to Bolzano after breaking up with her boyfriend. He had cheated on her and apparently wasn't a nice guy to her. I told her about my father having terminal cancer back at home and how it was breaking my heart. We talked for like 5 hours non stop about everything without any awkward pauses."

"We got to Genoa and I had to switch trains because I was supposed to go to Florence with a guy I met in Nice at a hostel to meet some of his friends there. Part of me thought about staying on the train and following this girl to Bolzano, but I followed my head instead of my heart and got off the train. She was sleeping so I left her a note saying it was nice to meet her and hoped she had a safe trip home."

"Once I got off the train and on to the platform she knocked on the window and waved goodbye to me. I always wonder what would have happened if I had stayed on that train... Older me knows that connections/conversations like that are rare, younger me was too afraid to take the chance. I hope you are happy and well wherever you are Martina."

28. A stranger saved dialinga481's life.

"I was taking the bus home when I was a teenager and I had been planning for several days to take a whole bunch of pills. I had two suicide attempts under my belt, both which resulted in ICU stays and stomach pumpings and weeks in the hospital. THIS time I had been quietly stashing my brother's heavy duty meds for epilepsy, angioedema, sedatives etc and had managed to get a few of my mum's oxycontin pills as well. I sat down on the bench to wait for the bus and I was planning out how to take them and when so that no one would find me and be able to revive me this time when a man sat down next to me."

"I don't remember his face and he could have been anywhere from late 20s to early 40s, First Nations with the lovely northern accent that I miss, long black hair, denim jacket under a parka, and he just talked to me, out of nowhere, about how people cared about me and how things might be shit sometimes but there's a better life out there if you just wait and hang on. I can't even remember what he said anymore, it's been 16, 17 years? But he knew some how, and he rode on the bus with me, quiet like, until I got off at my stop. I didn't take those pills."

"Thank you random Yukon man. I don't know how you knew, but you were right and you made a difference. It makes me feel very cold, thinking what that cocktail would have done to me. I never did try to kill myself again after that."

29. Back2Bach often thinks of the man in the fountain.

"There was an older man - very thin and frail - in a public park near where I was sitting. I watched him climb over a decorative wrought iron fence to gather coins that had been tossed into the park's multi-tiered fountain."

"He got soaking wet under the cascading water, but managed to fill his pockets and a coffee can with as many coins as possible. After he climbed back out, the guy looked at me and said, "I'm hungry. It's been a long time since I've had any food."

"I just smiled with an understanding look, and pulled out a $10 bill to go with the coins (it was all I had on me at the time). I'll never forget the look of surprise and gratitude in his face."

"Whenever I think that I have problems, I envision that old, frail man and realize my troubles are few and inconsequential."

30. DisneyBad-PewdsGood will never forget the naked guitar man.

"During a school trip at Noose Heads Beach in East Queensland, Australia.

A man busted out of a bar playing guitar, completely naked, while singing "Run boy, run, this world is not meant for you," while two police officers chased him. He looked at us with a fat smile. Would definitely visit again 10/10."

If a guy tells you, "you can trust me I'm a nice guy," that's usually a pretty good sign you can't, he's not, and you should GTFO quickly. The latest story of a "nice guy" who turned out to be a terrifying, dangerous psychopath comes to us from a woman who goes by msamberjade on Reddit.

This woman was selling her iPhone on Facebook, which one man—a complete stranger she'd never met—interpreted as an invitation in to her home.

Their interaction began relatively normally with him offering to buy the phone. But as soon as she said she would prefer to meet at a Starbucks rather than at her own home, his response took a turn for the creepy:

This guy's response shows exactly why most women wouldn't dream of giving out their home address to a male stranger.

"lol because you're a woman?? lol" he wrote. WARNING SIGN #1. He then called her "silly" and proceeded to criticize and demean her for wanting to keep herself safe. And surprise, surprise: his behavior just got worse from there.

It should come as no surprise that this guy hates feminism for making men the "bad" guys. After berating her, and feminism, and all women, he tried to spark up a romance.

"You can trust me for real," he said. "Nothing to fear," he said. "Hello? Where did you go" he said. He then shifted back into mansplaining mode. At this point she was so shocked by his awful behavior that she started to question if she'd fallen into an alternate universe or was perhaps dreaming or inside an episode of Black Mirror.

TRIGGER WARNING: threats of rape.

When she questioned if he was "trolling" her, the guy went on a deranged and violent rant, accusing women of "lying" about rape, basically threatening to rape her, calling her a "slut" and a "nazi" and telling her "die whore." Oh, he also mentioned again what a "nice guy" he is.

He also called her "gumdrop" but that one was an accident.

This guy clearly belongs in prison and this entire encounter is as terrifying as it is common, sadly, for women online and off. This is also a reminder to never give a stranger your home address, and to heed the warning signs, like guys who declare themselves a "nice guy." Next time a guy says to me "you can trust me, I'm a nice guy," I'm moving to a different city and changing my name. Period.

The triumph of the US Women's National Team at the World Cup has been the best (and only) feel good story of the summer.

Without compromising an iota of their awesomeness, the team broke the record for the most goals in a signle women's World Cup match, laughed off being trolled by the president, and now deserve to get paid!

Among the ecstatic social media celebrations declaring Megan Rapinoe president was this adorable tribute to Rose Lavelle, who scored the goal against the Netherlands that secured the championship.

Lavelle's elementary school, St. Vincent Ferrer School in Cincinnati, Ohio, honored their hometown hero with a post featuring an 8-year-old Lavelle dressed up as soccer legend Mia Hamm back in 2003.

"Once upon a time, this little girl dressed up as her hero, Mia Hamm, for a book sharing project," the principal, Mikki Dunkley wrote. "Today, this amazing woman won her own gold medal, wearing the number 16, as part of the United States National Women’s Team that won their 4th World Cup Championship AND she won the Bronze Ball as the third best player in the tournament! Now, little girls everywhere look up to her, and will be working hard to become like Rose. Here’s to you, Rose Lavelle, and the entire Lavelle Family. The St. Vincent Ferrer School and Church Community are so proud of you!"

Principal Dunkley had the old picture of Lavelle because her daughter Caitlin was in Lavelle's class.

Lavelle's third grade teacher, Lisa Neubauer, told The Washington Post that the champion was always a killer player.

"She was very popular with the boys and girls, but the boys would come in and gripe after recess that she was beating them at soccer all the time," she said.

"Even from such a young age, everyone knew that she was the best, she was the fastest," classmate Bryan Barrett added. "A lot of the guys in our class tried to race her to see if they could beat her. We all tried to get her to show off her soccer skills. She could do kind of a front-flip cartwheel throw-in that we all thought was the most incredible thing we ever saw."

Until this.

As someone who dressed up as Austin Powers in third grade, I sadly have yet to become Mike Myers.

Unfortunately, the world is still full of a lot of people with ignorant and bigoted views. While the cultural conversation around sexuality, gender and racism has been ushered to the forefront, ableism remains one of the most pervasive and least discussed societal ills out there.

The mainstream understanding around mental health and disability - both physical and mental, is still very limited. Public campaigns and even television shows in recent years have helped create better understanding of autism as a spectrum disorder, and how being atypical is a very different experience for every person. It's statistically likely you've met people with ASD without even knowing it, because they didn't match your preconceived cultural notions of what having autism means.

Sadly, for every few people eager to educate themselves and unlearn ableist tropes, there is someone who clings fast to slurs and outdated ideas about anyone whose brain processes information differently.

In a recent Reddit post, an ableist customer freaked out and demanded a refund when she realized the person making her mug is on the spectrum.

The interaction started out relatively normally, the woman asked if she could cancel her order, and the artist shared it was technically too late - since the custom mugs had already been decorated.

Unfortunately, the woman would not accept the artist's polite explanation of why the order couldn't be canceled, and went on to say she wanted to go with a crafter "who's more capable of doing them properly."

The artist patiently suggest the woman check out their page full of hundreds of sales and five star ratings before finding another crafter, at which point the woman revealed her true ugly colors.

The customer went on a long-winded rant about how, while spying on the crafter's FB, she found out they were on the spectrum. This news immediately changed her faith in their creative capabilities.

The interaction ended with the crafter patiently explaining that autism is a spectrum disorder, and being high-functioning is very different than having a more severe form of it. The entitled woman responded by using ableist slurs and shutting down the conversation altogether.

Hopefully, this woman never gets her money back, and gets some karmic justice down the line. More importantly, I hope the artist doesn't have to deal with many customers of this nature, no one should be treated like this.

Nothing compounds the physical and psychological torture that is air travel like getting publicly humiliated and told your outfit is too "inappropriate" to fly. This is exactly what happened to 37-year-old physician Tisha Rowe. She was flying with her 8-year-old son on American Airlines from Kingston, Jamaica, to Miami, on June 30th when she says a flight attendant asked to "speak to her" off the plane.

After deboarding, she was told to "cover up" and when she refused, she says they threatened to not let her back on the plane.

“I felt powerless,” Rowe told Buzzfeed. “There was nothing I could do in that moment other than give up my money and my seat to defend my position that I was completely appropriate.”

She says the crew gave her a blanket which she used to cover herself on her way back to her seat, and that the whole experience left her feeling “humiliated." “To me, there was never an ounce of empathy, an ounce of apology, any attempt to maintain my dignity throughout the situation,” she told Buzzfeed. Rowe's son was, understandably, also humiliated by the experience.

Rowe documented the degrading experience on Twitter and Facebook. She included photos of her outfit:

In a Facebook post, Rowe called out American Airlines for policing and sexualizing her body.

She writes:

So #AmericanAirlines just told me I couldn’t board the flight without putting a jacket over my ASSETS. My shorts covered EVERYTHING but apparently was too distracting to enter the plane. I guess that’s why they are AMERICAN airlines 🤷🏾‍♀️We are policed for being black. Our bodies are over sexualized as women and we must ADJUST to make everyone around us comfortable. I’ve seen white women with much shorter shorts board a plane without a blink of an eye. I guess if it’s a “nice ass” vs a Serena Booty it’s okay. I’ll post a picture of my ATTIRE when I land. Chase is in tears with the blanket they asked me to wear to my seat over his head and will never forget this experience...

People on Twitter are calling out American Airlines for their cruel and unfair treatment of this woman, and pointing out that it's only natural to wear clothing with light coverage in scorching hot summer.

Many are pointing out the levels of discrimination at work here.

If Rowe was male, white, or had a different body type, this likely would not have happened.

A spokesperson for American Airlines, Shannon Gilson, released this statement in which they claim to have reimbursed Rowe's flight cost and reached out directly to apologize:

We were concerned about Dr. Rowe’s comments, and reached out to her and our team at the Kingston airport to gather more information about what occurred. We want to personally apologize to Dr. Rowe and her son for their experience, and have fully refunded their travel. We are proud to serve customers of all backgrounds and are committed to providing a positive, safe travel experience for everyone who flies with us.

Ah, yes, "positive," the word EVERYONE uses to describe air travel. Do better, American Airlines.

Here's some sage advice I learned from my elders: if your "senior prank" involves swastikas and the N-word, then it's less of a prank and more of a hate crime.

Last year, four white seniors at Glenelg High School in Maryland decided to decorate their school with slurs and racist images as a "joke" the day of graduation.

The "art" included swastikas, penises, the letters "KKK," the F-word, and the N-word directed at Principal David Burton, who is black.

According to The Washington Post, there was more than 100 pieces of graffiti, and the immediate reaction wasn't laughter, but fear.

On the night of May 23rd, 2018, Josh Shaffer, Seth Taylor, Tyler Curtiss and Matthew Lipp were hanging out, watching the hockey game and planning their senior trip when they decided to do a senior prank.

The Post says that the four teens contemplated supergluing locks and letting pigs loose before settling on vandalism.

Police confronted the vandals the next day at the graduation ceremony. When played the above footage, only Seth Taylor confessed, saying, "I was under the impression we were going to do a prank, and it got bad."

The others denied it, and Tyler Curtiss even wished the police "good luck finding out who did it."

They thought that having covered their faces with T-shirt masks, there's no way that they would get caught. They were, however, betrayed by their best friend: WiFi.

Per The Post:

The school’s WiFi system requires students to use individual IDs to get online. After they log in once, their phones automatically connect whenever they are on campus.

At 11:35 p.m. on May 23, the students’ IDs began auto-connecting to the WiFi. It took only a few clicks to find out exactly who was beneath those T-shirt masks.

They were taken into custody and spent the night in jail. They were charged not only with vandalism an destruction of property, but a hate crime too.

The vandals argued in court that they're not racist, they're just dumb.

"I never really understood the symbol of the swastika. I knew it was wrong to plaster it somewhere. I didn’t learn exactly what [the Nazis] were doing to the Jews until I went to the Holocaust Museum. I never learned that they were mutilated. I knew that they were, like, burned. But I never learned that they had experiments done on them, were injected with diseases. The school didn’t include that. They just included the burning and the train cars," Taylor explained.

"I spray paint one racist thing and, suddenly, I become a racist? Just because I did it doesn’t mean I hate Jews, gay people or black people."

Taylor pleaded guilty to the hate crime because of the evidence, but still insists that he doesn't harbor any hate.

The vandals were all sentenced to probation, community service, and varying number of weekends in jail.

When their probations are over, they will be eligible to have the hate crimes expunged.

Read the whole report on the vandalism and its impact on the community over at The Washington Post. It's like American Vandal, but serious.

Jason Momoa is known as one of the fittest actors working. But on a recent trip to Venice, he was accused of having the dreaded (but also kind of adored) "dadbod."

To recap, Momoa has played such studly characters as "Aquaman" and the Dothraki guy from "Game of Thrones." Here's how he looked in the "Aquaman" trailer:

And here's how he looked on vacation, because the internet thinks it's totally fine to compare the two:

First of all, he's in Venice, Italy. If you go to Italy and don't develop an extra layer of pasta and pizza around your midsection, you have problems.

Second of all... I mean... still pretty good.

People immediately started criticizing his appearance. One lady wonders if they forgot the photoshop.

Another made a really nice comment that we've all heard from older relatives and tried to ignore:

This lady thinks he looks "soft." Would you say this to Aquaman's face?!

And another attributed his shape to a distinct lack of Zumba. Because last year's hottest superhero totally got his abs through the 2010s equivalent of Jazzercise. Sure, Jan.

There are some sane people in the world, though. Momoa fans, as well as some general horndogs, came out of the woodwork to defend him.

And one person pointed out the obvious: it's doubtful any comment lurkers are in shape.

Laughing at guts is NOT NICE, LEAH, but we see your point.

Either way, I think we can all agree that Jason Momoa's still hotter than most people walking this planet — and let's not feel too bad for him either way, because this level of body-shaming is basically what female celebrities get every time they leave the damn house.

"You can tell how smart people are by what they laugh at."

-Tina Fey

Smart people start their mornings off with a laugh because they know it's the best way to set themselves up for a great day. These memes will crack you up, I guarantee it.

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