The road to becoming an excellent cook is paved with failed dishes, some more obvious than others. While most of us eat (or toss) our unsightly cooking fails in silent shame, there are others who truly lack the sense to keep these disasters to themselves.

For every person who posts a gorgeous photo of fresh ingredients skillfully cooked, there is someone showing off a frankenstein of American cheese, wilted lettuce and stale carbs. And the scariest part is these are people who don't realize just how gross their creations appear to the rest of the world.

A few cooking bombs here and there are inevitable, and the best thing we can do is laugh about the failure and try again. But for those completely oblivious to the poisons they've concocted, sometimes a playful roast (pun intended) is in order.

To this very point, the Cooking for Bae Instagram account was created in order to showcase and get a laugh out of some of the grossest struggle plates shared on the world wide web. Here are 25 of them to kill your appetite with a swiftness.

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The customer is always right? Wrong.

Workers everywhere from big banks to Arby's are sharing the stupidest things they've ever been asked by customers,

1. Tuesday isn't a day, it is a state of mind, dragnansdragon.

When I was a teenager I had a customer try to fight me because we didn't do the taco Tuesday discount for him.

It was the weekend

2. RIP That Puppy, StupidSexxxyFlanders.

I used to work in a pet store. One night a woman came in and said she had ordered a puppy off the internet and he would be arriving in the next few days. She had never owned a pet and asked several dumb questions, but the one that I'll always remember is "Do puppies need water?"

3. I hope SlytherinGirl125 got all up in their grill.

I used to work in a phone shop.
Had someone come in asking why their phone wasn't working properly. It was visibly scorched and melty. I asked why it looked that way. They said, it came up with an error message saying it had been too cold (not an error message I had heard of before, but I know phones can bring up errors for being too hot, so who knows) and so they had put it under the grill to heat it up.
The grill.
Their first point of call was to cook it.
I said, that's why their phone wasn't working, and no it was not covered under the guarantee.

4. OkBobcat story is a-moose-ing.

Working at a state park in Maine:

When do deer turn into moose?

5. Did you try their first pet's name, OrderOfZune?

Customer: "What's my Facebook password?"

6. Stupidity doesn't take a day off, herpty_derpty.

"What time do you close today?"

"We're open 24/7."

"Oh great! And what time do you close tomorrow?"

7. Some next-level Nihilist Arby's moments, masu94.

Are you really going to give me a plastic fork? One of the prongs could break off, stab me in the throat, and I'll DIE!

-Worked at Arby's

8. Boom go the Brewers, purpleinme.

I worked at a hat store and a guy asked if he could shrink his hat by microwaving it. I said no. He came back two days later to return his hat after microwaving it. Problem was there was a hole in the front of it because Brewers hats are made with metallic threading.

TL;DR Motherf*cker microwaved his Brewers hat and blew a hole in it.

9. WooIWorthWaIIaby's ink isn't from octopi.

I worked at Staples and I had a customer ask if the printer toner was 'ethically sourced'.

This lady really thought laser printer toner was squeezed out of squids or some sh*t.

10. If anyone needs to learn about Anne Frank, it's this person, shit-over-it.

Will Anne Frank give the tours herself in the attic museum? [Talking about the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam]

Yeah. That's not a joke. Someone actually asked that and was completely serious.

11. No closing time for herpty_derpty.

"What time do you close today?"

"We're open 24/7."

"Oh great! And what time do you close tomorrow?"

12. tattoosandbacon94 makes the bacon with gas.

Used to work at a car parts store. Customer walks in and asks if vegetable oil was better than regular engine oil and what aisle it was on.

13. Ya burnt, pm_me_your_taintt.

Lady walks into the empty restaurant, looks around, asks "is this a furniture store?"

14. ayechihuahuas must be a mathematician.

Customer: Aren't those apples $2.49 a pound? Why are you charging me more than that?

Me: *motions to screen* Yep. They're $2.49 a pound and you bought 2.3 pounds and so, the price is correct because that's how multiplication works.

15. Every day is Black Friday for FakingGumption.

I worked at a Dollar Tree on Black Friday. "where are your Black Friday deals?" "We don't have any. Everything is still a Dollar." People were pissed.

16. Nilliks gets the smallest possible small talk.

I work as a nurse at a hospital. On multiple occasions during small talk, my patients will ask me what I do for a living.​​​​​

17. AlphaIota must be rolling in the Benjamins.

If I use online banking, can I print money?

Moms can't seem to catch a break. If they don't breastfeed, they get criticized. If they do breastfeed, they get criticized for showing their breasts and/or breastfeeding "wrong." And being a celebrity—though it offers many benefits—doesn't make someone immune to mom-shaming. In fact, it can make it worse.

Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell found herself on the receiving end of mom-shaming recently after sharing a selfie in which she's breastfeeding her newborn daughter, Atlas Noa.

Here's the photo. Warning: there are boobs in it. Hide yo kids, hide yo wife!!!!!!

For the most part, the comments were overwhelmingly positive. Like this:

But the internet is a hellscape full of bored, lonely, bitter people. And one way these people get their sad little rocks off is by trying to rain on other people's parades.

One woman, who called herself a "fan," decided to weigh in by calling Mitchell an "attention getter" and criticizing her for looking at the camera in the photo—instead of at the baby.

She wrote:

I'm a fan of her, but this picture just says but it's an attention getter. She's not even looking at the baby, she's not connected with the baby she's connected with camera.

Like so many comments by trolls, this one doesn't make sense grammatically or in any other way. It's a......photo shoot. The whole point is to look at the camera and get attention.

Shay Mitchell spotted the comment and immediately responded by making fun of the woman.

She wrote:

I missed the part in the baby books that stated I had to maintain eye contact with my daughter while she feeds rather than capturing an amazing moment we were having. Pls let me know where I can download your parenting manual, I'll get right on it!

Reacting to a troll with humor is usually the best tactic because it takes away their power, and Shay nailed it. Commenters agree.

The best response came from fellow actor and mom Charisma Carpenter who called out the culture of mom-shaming and pointed out how powerful it would be if women supported instead of criticized each other (and not just in public bathrooms, where the support is strong).

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD IT WOULD BE.

Once you get caught in a fit of laughter, it can be pretty difficult to stop.

Laughing is amazing, but it's also an involuntary response that can cause a lot of problems if it isn't an appropriate reaction. Combine an uncontrollable fit of laughter with the sacred craft of a children's Christmas play and you have a real recipe for at least one angry parent...

Christmas plays performed by children are generally always pretty hilarious. There's usually only one or two kids who know how to speak up and everyone else's lines are either forgotten or vague whispers. If it's a church pageant, there's definitely some awkward hand holding between Mary and Joseph and usually at least one of two kids who have to play some sort of poorly costumed barn animal.

When a recent Reddit user chose to consult the conscience of the internet (Reddit's "Am I the As*hole?) to ask if he should feel guilty about his behavior at his nephew's Christmas play, people were more than happy to chime in with valuable advice. Beware, this story paints a very clear and hilarious picture that might ruin future children's performances...

AITA for laughing at a kid in my nephews play

Ok so i have a feeling i know the answer to this one already - but i just want to see from a bigger POV.

My nephew is 8 - he was staring in his first Christmas play, my sister invited me to it since i was coming to see her that day anyway. We all get in, all the kids in the school are sitting down in front of the stage and all the parents/family are standing at the back. My nephew was playing as a reindeer. Everyone in his class has an equal role, about 2-3 lines worth of stuff to say.

My nephew was brilliant, nailed his lines, he really looked like he enjoyed himself, so then we just had to stand and wait for all the other kids to have their parts and then we get to congratulate the kids after.

This one girl, same age as my nephew was playing Mrs Claus - she was visibly nervous and shakey, it came off more cute than awkward - as she was saying her lines, she got a bit flustered and forgot a part - she got a little stuck on it and there was silence for about 4 seconds. Then all of a sudden, the girl just said "Oh fuck! i forgot!" - There were a few gasps among the parents - all the kids were sniggering, but i just lost it, i dont know what it is about young kids swearing but i found it hilarious. I was snort laughing and many people turned around to look at me, i tried to take myself out of the hall and try to compose myself, but i got to the door and i just ended up falling over and laughing harder, i was wheezing, my stomach hurt and i just couldn't contain myself. I'm a 30 year old man and this was my defeat.

The doors are just glass doors so i crawled out to the hallway just outside of the main stage hall but you can clearly still seem me through the door and i'm assuming you could still hear me. I took myself to the toilet - splashed some water on my face and returned to the hall. Some parents and kids kept looking at me and giggling, understandably so.

After the play finished, i congratulated my nephew, said how good he did, and then i saw the little girl who swore and her mum, i went over to apologise for laughing - the daughter seemed absolutely fine, she was just happy that she was on stage but the mum was very annoyed with me - i said sorry to her and the mum said something along the lines of "Remember where you are, it's very immature to laugh at children." and took her daughter away.

My sister said not to worry about it, the mum is a bit of a fun sponge anyway, but i feel a bit bad about what happened.

EDIT for clarification and FAQ:-

• I only fell on the floor laughing when i got to the door, only a few parents at the back would have seen that part.

• This wasn't my son, it was my nephew, it says that in the title.

• The initial snort-laugh when the girl first said it was the only part where people were staring at me and giggling.

• I cannot stress enough that i didn't do this for attention and to steal the light, im not that type - i've had a rough few months with some deaths and i think that may have factored into why i laughed so hard at this.

• I'm a gay 30 year old with no kids so this one really took me by surprise (evidently)

I definitely don't blame this guy for laughing especially since a child swearing during a Christmas show is incredibly funny. Of course, if he was a massive distraction and made the child feel bad then it would be different but he excused himself from the room and tried his best to be polite.

"mishapymissy" wrote:

I would have done the same

"YuunofYork" wrote:

The mother is an asshole for misreading the situation. She knows the rest of the room will assume the kid picked it up from her and she's embarrassed by that.

When she should be proud.

"mandiexile" wrote:

It’s totally fine that you laughed. I would have chuckled. Kids cursing is hilarious. But you should have at least tried to keep your composure. Seems like you made a huge scene.

"cyfermax" wrote:

That shit's hilarious. The mother was clearly just embarrassed. You weren't laughing at the kid, you were laughing at the scenario of a kid using adult language. It's funny.

"KirMa83" wrote:

My daughters Christmas play was last week. There was a song titled “Funky Reindeer” and one child in her class sang “fucking reindeer” instead for the entire song. I was DONE. Tears, stitches, the lot. Had to remove myself to the hallway where the head of the school was also dying of laughter.
Kids swearing shouldn’t be funny but when they do it it’s just ALWAYS funny.

When you actually break down the numbers, flying is the safest form of transportation out there. The emergency training that pilots and flight attendants go through is extensive, to say the least, and each plane is fully stocked with equipment to protect passengers during any number of terrifying scenarios. Plus, you don't have to worry about traffic jams in the sky, drunk 16-year-old drivers swerving around, or deers jumping in front of the plane in the dead of night.

However, despite the fact that planes are far safer than any car ride, it feels far more terrifying when a flight goes south (literally). In most cases, flight attendants and crew are instructed to go through with safety precautions before alerting passengers, in hopes the plane will stabilize before widespread mayhem.

In a recent Reddit thread, flight attendant and passengers shared the scariest flights they've survived, and their steel nerves are admirable.

1. neenamonners's mom survived a close call.

My mom was a flight attendant for U.S.Air before I was born, and I know her scary story.

She was exhausted at the tail end of a shift that had run longer than it should have because they got paused in Philly for nasty winter weather conditions. They were finally finished getting de-iced and about to start taxiing when one of the passengers called her over and told her that he'd been watching carefully and he didn't think they'd de-iced both wings of the plane, just one side. She sort of reassured him that she would go check but he was probably mistaken, and then even though she was really tempted to wave it off as just a jumpy passenger, she went to the pilot just to check.

Welp! Passenger was correct and the plane was only half de-iced when they were getting ready to leave. If they'd taken off like that, it probably would have been disastrous. Mom told me that even though it didn't happen in mid-air, it was her all-time scariest moment during her tenure as a flight attendant because she knows how close they came to a very dangerous situation and she knows that she almost didn't stop it from happening even when warned.

2. arthur2-shedsjackson has had a few close calls.

I was a navigator in the air Force does that count? One time we were stuck between a thunderstorm and the Iranian border ended up having to fly through the thunderstorm.

Another time we had a fire on board and a lot of the crew left their oxygen regulators on full blast while we were dealing with it. After about 45 minutes I realized we are almost completely out of liquid oxygen and had another 2 hours left to get home.

3. lornstar7 was given an ominous warning.

Not crew, but I was on a plane one time and some lake effect snow popped up out of nowhere apparently and our approach was pretty bad, and this old guy next to me turns to me and says Normandy was less bumpy than this shit.

4. organicfreerangetim's colleague faced death with style.

Not me - but I was on a flight at the same time. My colleagues landed and said that mid flight a lightning bolt hit their plane making a massive noise and killing the power for a few moments. Everyone was screaming and crying in a total panic. Apparently it was THAT bad.

My colleague looks to the other and says "Well, we're both sales guys so I guess I'll see you in hell"

5. Sky_hostess lived through a terrifying few hours.

I posted this in another thread a few years ago:

We were flying DFW-HNL (Dallas - Honolulu) we were about 30 minutes past the point of no return and the captain informs us (flight attendants) that he had to shut one engine down because it was over heating. We had about 2 and a half hours until we could reach any kind of land. We had a new hire (2 months?) working the flight that got very emotional and started saying things like "I don't want to die" in a panicked voice. We had to shush her so passengers wouldn't start freaking out. As time progressed I tried to ignore the fact that the other engine could crap out or we could have a bird strike or any number of things could go wrong. I started casually going through the cabin and rechecking all of the emergency equipment on board.

To calm the new hire down I took her through with me to try and remind her of her training. Just as she started calming down I notice a strange noise coming from the functioning engine. It was the sound it makes when we are changing speeds around the time we are about to land. We were still 1 hour 40 minutes out.

The captain gives us another call and my heart sank. Just as he called a passenger gets up out of his seat and collapses right in the aisle. His shirt caught on the arm rest and ripped his shirt wide open. His wife screams. There are 4 flight attendants on this flight so someone else answered the call from the captain and I had to deal with this. In my mind I am thinking "how am I going to secure this guy if we are going down? Should I just leave him there and answer the phone? I need to know what the captain is saying.." meanwhile the wife is trying to wake him up and I'm asking my coworker to get medical equipment.

I immediately switch to first responder mode once I see him turn pasty white. None of these passengers know about our engine problem and only a few notice this guy passed out in the aisle. I saw him fall so I was the "caretaker". The "runner" calls for any Medical personelle onboard and tells me that she can't call the captain because he's still talking to the "lead" (oh right we have that going on too). By the time a paramedic comes the guy is waking up but says his chest is really tight.

He coughing and looks almost gray. We hook him up to oxygen and get him back to his seat. The Paramedic says we need to land soon (haha) and get him to a hospital. As we get him back to his seat I notice the lead flight attendant has a yellow life vest on and is coming towards me. Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. She tells me that the captain was able to turn the engine back on and that we should be landing in about an hour. We send up the message about the sick passenger.

I know most passengers had no idea about any of this. I was standing there in the back galley, sweating from helping this guy back to his seat, stressing about the poor new hire who we locked in the bathroom and just trying to gather myself. A passenger slowly walks up to me, stretching, yawning, pulls his ear buds out and asks, how much longer? Are you guys going to come out soon with the drink cart, can I have a sprite? All I could do was laugh at myself for getting so worked up. We landed with no incident.

Edit: She was wearing the life vest because she was checking the demo bags and these kids saw her and were curious how the vest worked.

6. N47nz contemplated their entire life.

Hit crazy turbulence in a prop plane flying into Saginaw from Detroit. Plane was all over the air like a roller-coaster.. Up down, side to side, I swear I thought it was gonna barrel roll at one point. Seemed to never end, but was probably only really a few minutes. Time kinda slowed down. My girlfriend and I were the only two people on the plane who weren't Marines going to some Marine thing. Those guys were cracking some pretty dark jokes while I contemplated my time on earth.

Edit : not crew hope no one minds.

Wow over 100 up votes! Lots of Marines reading this?

7. Cluelessinfl is just happy to be here.

Flying home from FL to NY. Scheduled to land at LaGuardia. Right after takeoff we could all hear the motor that retracts the landing gear straining. And the landing gear would not retract. When it finally did, everyone seemed relieved but I was thinking 'sh*t, I hope it comes back down when it's time to land.' Lo and behold, about 1/2 hr before landing, the pilot announces that we were being diverted to JFK because of landing gear trouble. We needed a longer runway to stop the plane.

So now people are praying and biting their nails. We could hear the motor trying to bring the landing gear down for several minutes before it finally came down at almost the last minute. We land and the plane isn't slowing down. We hear all kinds of horrible sounds, smell smoke...people are now really freaking out. Plane stops after using up almost the whole runway. There were emergency trucks all over the sides of the runway, foamers..etc. Was never so happy to get off a plane!!

Edit: I was a passenger, not crew. I realized my error after posting.

8. ayeuplass has an amazing husband.

Not FA but I was on a flight where the crew were definitely... concerned.

I was on a 4 hour flight from Greece to the UK. I was 7 months pregnant at the time. About 2 hours into the flight we hit turbulence. I’ve never been a nervous flier, have gone on many long haul flights, and have never been one to be concerned by turbulence before. When this turbulence started I thought “this is rough”, but wasn’t too concerned. The fasten seatbelt lights came on, but the crew were midway down the aisle with the cart. They didn’t seem too concerned to start with and were handling the turbulence with ease, when suddenly it felt like the plane got hit it jolted so hard.

The FAs in the aisle fell onto the passengers next to them and my head bounced off the wall next to me. As the turbulence ramped up a notch an announcement came over instructing the crew to secure themselves immediately. The FAs immediately abandoned what they were doing and went and secured the cart and all the crew were quickly strapped into their seats. The turbulence was still going quite violently and I was having to brace my arms to stay steady. At this point I was already thinking this was the worst turbulence I’d ever experienced, but I was expecting it to end soon like it normally does. I was very wrong...

After what was probably a minute or two of this quite shocking turbulence I was thinking “it won’t be long before people start puking” and I was right. Sick bags were rustling all over, sounds of vomiting filled the air, and calls lights started pinging rapidly. Obviously the crew didn’t attend any. Of the two FAs I could see one had her head tipped back and eyes closed while gripping onto her seatbelt, the other was looking grimly out at the scenes unfolding before her. I was just starting to get queasy and thinking this was a total nightmare when suddenly the turbulence hit a level I didn’t know even existed. It felt like we were in a washing machine. I had my seatbelt on, secured below my bump, and yet I was being thrown around like a rag doll.

I have a condition where my joints dislocate very easily and I felt my wrists, elbows, and shoulders subluxing as I desperately tried to cling onto the arm rests to prevent my whole upper half being flung around. My legs kept smacking against the seat in front with each up and down motion and my head kept slamming against the wall with the side to side. My neck felt like it was going to snap. It was so violent I couldn’t actually see what was going on around me, it was just a blur - it felt like being on a rollercoaster. It was just a total lack of control, wanting it desperately to stop but being at the total mercy of the elements. You could hear people gasping and maybe sobbing and lots of banging and rattling.

Just as I was wondering if it was ever going to stop I suddenly shot upwards. We were plunging. The lights all went out and everyone screamed. It was ear splitting and haunting. I legitimately thought it was the end. My butt was off my seat, I was held down only by the belt across the top of my thighs. It was the weirdest feeling, like being sucked upwards.

As quick as it happened, it stopped. The lights flickered back on, and we were back to turbulence. It wasn’t as bad as it had been at it’s worst, more just moderate turbulence now. I turned and looked at my husband who was just white. I looked down to see his arm across my front, he’d flung it across me and grabbed the other side arm rest to pin me in when we’d dropped. He just whispered “you nearly went” and all I could do was nod before blacking out (I have dodgy blood pressure issues to start with).

I woke up to my husband supporting my head and the stranger next to him asking if I was ok or if I wanted one of her daughter’s sick bags. The turbulence was almost completely gone, just the odd mild rumble that most people would consider normal. I looked around to see a few people all gathered and peering at someone up ahead of me, a woman who was still screaming at full volume. I think she was having some kind of anxiety attack. The FAs were now going up and down the aisle checking people.

One stopped and asked if I was ok and I just said yes. I was really sore, everywhere hurt (I later found significant bruises all over my body), but I imagine that was the case for most people. I felt faint and queasy but otherwise fine. The rest of the flight went relatively smoothly, but everyone braced and went silent at the slightest grumble of turbulence. The seatbelt lights stayed on the whole flight and we were told only to get up if it was absolutely necessary.

I had some contractions towards the end of the flight but they stopped once I got off the plane and walked so I think they came more from being sat in an uncomfortable position for 4 hours. After everyone had calmed down the captain did an announcement apologising for what happened. He did explain why it had occurred and it was something to do with a thunder storm but I didn’t really absorb the details because my mind was reeling. He said the big drop was us actually plummeting over 100 feet in a single instance, but that it hadn’t been a fault, it was actually a decision he’d made to avoid something that would have been dangerous to fly through. I’m just happy he managed to handle it and get us all back on the ground safely. There was the biggest round of applause when we landed, and it was a well deserved one.

9. CarlPeligro had a hell of a series of events.

I was flying home from Georgia: The Country after volunteering there for a year. The last month of my service was a total cluster. During that time I:

- Fell up some asphalt stairs and knocked out one of my front teeth

- Survived a taxi cab wreck in which the (presumably drunk) driver decided to drive us off a cliff

- Went hitchhiking to the nearest city (the preferred mode of transportation in the villages), got thrown out of the (slowly) moving vehicle in a dark alleyway and got roughed up by four Georgian dudes until a concerned citizen stepped out into the street and probably saved my life

So I was all nerves on the Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Chicago O'Hare.

This was December 22nd, 2013, if I recall correctly. Chicago was in the midst of an especially nasty blizzard, and as we came in for a landing, the plane began quaking and quivering, with the occasional heart-stopping jolt of turbulence. People were screaming and crying. I was perhaps even more terrified than anyone else, but I sat there grinning like an idiot, gripping the armrests so tightly that my knuckles went white.

The Turkish girl next to me began experiencing a full-on panic attack. She unbuckled her seatbelt and started pacing up and down the aisles, as though she were looking for a way off the plane. One of the (English speaking) flight attendants told her to sit down. She stared at him, a total blank. Then he raised his voice and shouted, "Sit the fuck down!" The girl was dumbstruck. She sat back down and buckled her seatbelt, totally catatonic, gazing into the fabric of the seatback in front of her.

We landed safely. I nearly cried with fucking relief. I hadn't slept in 36 hours or so. All connecting flights had been cancelled and everyone was bitching at the airline representative about how much they needed to get home to their families.

"No. You don't understand. I need to get home in time for Christmas!"

Well, no shit.

I waited at the back of the line and, when I was told that my flight had been canceled, I said that I didn't care. I'd just catch a bus the next morning or something. No worries. The dude was so relieved by my passivity that he set me up in a super posh hotel for the night, where I used a functional Western toilet for the first time in almost a year.

Midway through the night, the fire alarm went off and we were all evacuated from the hotel. Given the luck I'd been having, I was shocked that the place didn't burn to the ground with me in it.

The following morning, I caught a cab to the bus station. My cabby had an accent that I thought I recognized. I asked him where he was from. He was Georgian. Fortunately, there were no cliffs for him to launch us off of. Then I took an eight-hour Greyhound bus back home, which was another type of terror altogether.

10. sight_ful got hit by lightning multiple times.

Another flight attendant here. My scariest moment was after we got within 700 ft of landing. The pilots whipped the plane back up because of heavy winds and announced that we were diverting to a nearby city in another country.

It was a short flight to the other city, and it was bumpy so I was strapped in. A couple of other flight attendants were standing up shooting the shit though. All the sudden the entire cabin went bright white. Specifically I could tell that the light was entering the plane from the other side around the corner I couldn’t really see behind. The flight attendants nearly jumped all the way to their seats and strapped in. There was one passenger that I locked eyes with at one point. Her and I both both made this nervous smile at each other like, “Lets not die here!”

We did end up landing alright. It took 4 hours for us to get off the plane because of all the other planes that diverted there. They also told us the next day that we got hit by lightening at least 3 times. They could tell because of little pin pricks that the lightening makes when it hits the plane.

By the way, I still feel so much safer in a plane than almost any other mode of transportation. The statistics don’t lie. The regulations and redundancy on safety measures is unparalleled.

11. MTB0315 crashed into the clouds.

FA here, we hit some seriously bad (and I mean plane-breaking bad) turbulence mid-service (we were out in the aisle with the cart (for reference those way close to 200lbs fully loaded)) and out of nowhere, we were floating with this cart smashing a hole in the ceiling panel above us, and then we were both thrown down against people, seats, and armrests, I landed on the floor and the cart came down only inches from my skull, and dented the floor. Wine bottles, full cans of soda, and lots of hot trays went everywhere.

We were diving really quickly and steeply, people were screaming, and I couldn't find my other FA. The engines were running higher and louder than I'd ever heard and I screamed at the person closest to me to hold the cart down no matter what, and tried to make my way to the back galley, climbing uphill over bags from the overheads. I got to the galley and tried to get a hold of the flight deck, no answer. I call again and the line connects to alarms and buzzers

"Secure the cabin and sit the fuck down, fast." This is all I hear from the captain before he cuts the line.

I look down the aisle towards the front of the plane, it's full of just about everything. I grab the med kit from the crew bin, and a portable oxygen tank and carefully make my way back down the cabin. We are still diving quite violently and I can see we're about to pass through the clouds, which doesn't tell me much (I've no clue how tall they are obviously) but clouds are near the ground (this sounds dumb but I'm not a cloud expert, I do what I can with the information I have)

I climb over the cart, and in an empty aisle I find my other FA, I'll call her Jane, clutching her head and she's bleeding quite a bit. I get her up and in the closest seat and buckle her up. Someone shouts they're a doctor, and I motion them over and tell them to buckle up. As they're attending to Jane I look around for the nearest seriously injured person. Seeing none of urgent attention, I start shouting:

"Get your heads down! Tighten your seatbelt as tight as it will go! Get your heads down!" And I make my way back to my seat.

Strapped in, I call the flight deck and hang up, and repeat the process twice more, our Airline's way of signalling a secure cabin in an emergency. I look out the little window next to my seat and I can see the forest below coming up fast. I've never heard engines screaming so loudly, I've never heard metal groan, but I could feel it in my bones. The plane was moaning and groaning. It was otherworldly.

I swear, at the last possible second we levelled out, the L A S T possible second. After a few minutes the captain called and told me that they had had major control failures and that we were landing immediately.

Long story short, the turbulence was severe enough to damage our control surfaces, rendering our plane about as flight worthy as a rock, and I must say that the fact that the pilots got the plane under enough control to land was nothing short of a miracle. Best bit of flying I've ever seen in all my years in the air.

Jane was rushed to the hospital as the only severe injury and she ended up being okay, but never flew again. I still fly, although I'm a little more weary about whipping that cart out inflight.

12. Graveyarder-for-life knows that fuel leaks are no joke.

Not a pilot or FA but a line mechanic for a major carrier. I go out to every plane I’m assigned and do different level of checks but ALL of them require a good look at the airplane for any signs of damage, leaks, engines still attached, etc. about 99% of the time it’s pretty benign. Mostly just crews letting us know about issues on the interior like broken seat belts or clogged toilets because someone flushed a diaper (the tubes attached to the toilets on planes are much smaller than your household ones DON’T FLUSH TRASH) but the absolute scariest thing we have found after a routine flight that came in was a bit of a fuel leak we noticed from the right engine which really is fairly common if it’s a small amount.

But this was a constant flow like a sink faucet left on half way. Opened up the pylon and found that the main fuel feed line into the engine had cracked flooding the compartment that also house the engine bleed air duct, which is about 600C and above the fire suppression lines so even if there was a fire detected, there would be no way to put it out. Plane was flying like that for at least a couple of days.

TL:DR found a airplane that carried lots of people that was essentially a flying ticking time bomb.

13. rnmurdoch saved everybody.

Off duty riding free to India, charter 747, 4am over Afghanistan the galley oven caught fire while cabin crew were resting. I don’t sleep well on flights. I saw the smoke rolling towards me, jumped up gathered as many non-English speaking attendants together to try to convince them of what was happening, the smoke was very thin and hard to see with cabin lights down. I got pretty upset, and the male attendants restrained me because they thought I was a terrorist.

They’d called for the crew, British first officer showed and finally was able to tell him the story. He was pissed until I grabbed him and pointed out the smoke coming from mid cabin. He freaked out. I operated 747s as a station manager for several airlines out of SFO and knew them well. I ordered him to go forward and up and shut down all non-essential buses and breakers and id go aft. We eventually got it to stop and after an hour we found where the fire started between 2 bulkheads From a short. I was sure I’d die in the mountains of Afghanistan in the middle of a war. Needless to say I didn’t fly that charter service again.

A wedding-shamer got wedding-shaming-shamed for wedding-shaming, because they didn't have any chill or patience when it came to getting a thank you card.

Redditor imtiredofthisgrandpa shared a post from their friend who got a shady anonymous letter from a wedding attendee blasting the couple for not sending a thank you card for their gift within weeks of the wedding.

"We would like to say what a lot of nerve you had to ask for money for a wedding present and then of course not even send A thank you," the person wrote.

The Redditor's friend explained in the caption of their Instagram post why they hadn't send out that particular letter yet, and it puts things into perspective.

It says:

If someone could just let Jonathan Lewis or I know who sent this that would be great since there was no return address. I still have the list and cards to send out of Thank You's [sic] that unfortunately have been set aside so that both of us working 100+ hours a week, coaching a softball team from the second the wedding was over, raising our girls and trying to stay afloat in everyday life. I will gladly send back what you sent us and I apologize we haven't sent them I had every intention of doing so but unfortunately life hasn't been kind to our family since our wedding day and have had kick after kick that I don't choose to share on social media and Thank You cards got a back seat.

What kind of person sends a rude, anonymous letter to a pair of newlyweds?

Hopefully the kind of person who feels guilty after learning that people have lives that don't revolve around their stationery.

The commenters on the post were sympathetic to the newlywed's plight, with some even arguing that thank you cards aren't required.

"For all the weddings I've been to, I've received a thank you card only once. I personally feel a nice dinner and booze at the reception is thanks enough not to mention i'm honored that of everyone they know I made the invite list," ​​Sheep_Viking wrote.

"Yikes!! Who has the time and energy to be that bitter over not receiving a thank you card?" Dinkey9 commented.

Not everyone has as much time to write thank you cards as the bitter attendee has to write cards shaming somebody for not writing a thank you card.

Discovering other people's deep, dark secrets might seem like a good idea. But when it comes to the people closes to us, there is definitely such a thing as TMI. This is why you should never snoop through your parents' emails—trust me.

People on Reddit are sharing the things they regretted finding out about family, friends and loved ones. Here are 22 stories from people who wish they could erase the part of their brain where these haunting revelations are stored:

1.) From DeDe_at_it_again:

My mum was 14 when she met my dad. He was 24.

2.) From Agent_Vincent:

My mother died in a car accident when I was three. I found out from a newspaper article years later that it was her fault. She wasn’t paying attention and crossed the yellow line and ended both her life and that of the person in the other car.

3.) From RxQuine:

That my mother knew she had cancer a year before she told anyone or rather, a year before she was “diagnosed” after I literally forced her to see a doctor for her then extremely distended stomach.

I was under the impression that we told each other absolutely everything because up until that point, we did. I found out the truth a month after she died when I’d requested all of her cancer-related paperwork from her oncologist.

4.) From _dmsyr_:

That my younger sister has a high rank in a local BDSM club...

5.) From Pandaclops:

My dad informed me when i got back from Iraq that I was the reason he and my mother got a divorce. I never really wanted to join the military anyways, and it fucked me up big time. They had financial troubles and my mom sent me care packages quite a lot. Apparently, that put them into bankruptcy, and if I hadn't joined it wouldnt have happened. I just wanted to get out of that house because it was like I didnt exist.

6.) From Cal-cu-later:

Mom telling me on regular basis when depressed that she wishes she would fall asleep and never wake up. Don't tell a six year old this, damn.

7.) From Gilgamesh9311:

I didn't meet my dad until i was 15. It was in secret since my mother wanted nothing to do with him. Within the first 3 sentences exchanged, he felt the need to tell me that i was conceived on a beach in July during the last time they had sex. I was the product a going-away fuck in a relationship doomed before my conception. He followed it up with "We were good at two things, me and your mom. Fightin and fuckin. Unfortunately we were fighting more than we were fucking so it stopped being worth it."

10 years later and this is still how i get my family history.

8.) From ghost_sanctum:

My ex is with a guy who is where I wanted to be in life five years ago.

Delete Facebook dude.

9.) From Iamjacksgoldlungs:

Found out my girlfriend told my parents I was extremely suicidal and they responded "so? What do you want us to do about that?" and they never brought it up again.

Few months after they kicked me out for textbook depression, I found out my mom cashed out my Uplan (program that froze college tuition prices for me @ cost of 1991 pricing) my grandmother set up and put money in. She used the $25,000 in it to pay off IRS from problems she incurred due to drug addiction.

10.) From bxrnesshit:

It's something that my parents regret: not telling my brother at an early age he's adopted

11.) From Aliciana2:

When I was about 14 my mom took me to a tattoo shop to get her nipples pierced. While the procedure was happening, she turned to me and said "your Dad bites harder then that"......I could have lived without that info

12.) From jayboogie15:

That my ex-wife fucked my best friend just after we separated and while I was drowned in depression.

13.) From ZarminsBum:

Finding out my father figure (mom's bf) is sexually attracted to me, even more so since I gave birth.

14.) From lesforcesdumel:

That my father cheated on my mother on a regular basis, I discovered he even went in an orgy while with my mom which is not a cool thing to learn when you're 15 and don't know if you're mother knows or not

15.) From doorknob_knob:

My brother's girlfriend's NSFW reddit account. It's supposed to be a couples account. So you might guess the horrors I saw in there.

16.) From pocketnotebook:

That my former best friend was really only friends with me because I drove his drunk ass around, and because he wanted to get in my pants

17.) From AyameM:

About my mom fucking my (her) cousin. Woke up in the middle of the night hearing her say his name. Ugh. Haunting.Editing to add - grandpa's brothers son.

18.) From Syavar:

After we broke up, I found out my ex had been online looking for a sugardaddy only 3 months into our 12 month relationship. I thought the whole time she was genuine. Turns out most of the time she was lieing to my face. She broke up with me and started fucking her sugar daddy she had found 2 months before she dumped me.

19.) From EliteHoney:

What my sister and her boyfriend were doing in the bubblebath

20.) From pmilander:

I always blamed my best friends erratic behavior on mental health issues until one day I found her passed out on my toilet and realized that her behavior always got erratic after bathroom visits. Unfortunately, she may have mental health issues but an addiction to certain drugs was the reason for most of her behavior

21.) From PandeanPanic:

The real reason why half of my dad's side of the family doesn't speak to us.

We (my twin and I) were always told it was that they just weren't that close and also had some mental health issues but we learned after my dad died the truth because no one on his side of the family came to the funeral; the opted to have their own.

Turns out that my parents had trouble conceiving. This I knew. I also know me and my twin are IVF babies and we were born very premature. I'm talking 1 pound baby premature. Shortly after, my mom developed breast cancer.

What I didn't know was that during this time my dad was also taking care of his sick mother (my paternal grandmother) as well as looking after his sick wife and two newborn premies. He ended up asking his brother to help look after their mother since he'd been the one doing it so he could care for his family more.

Well soon after my dad spent more time with us vs his mom, she took a turn for the worse and died. And my father's brother blamed him for 'abandoning' the family and blamed my twin and I for the death of our grandmother. Because if we weren't born my mother wouldn't have gotten estrogen positive breast cancer and also they were all very Catholic and IVF was a sin.

I never met my grandmother. I'm named for her. But apparently an entire side of the family thinks it's mine and my sister's fault she's dead.

22.) From wwilde01:

Finding out my ex had slept with my uncle and 3 of my friends...

Even some of the most adamant skeptics have survived experiences that cause them to believe in the possibility of ghosts, or a large ominous spiritual world.

In some cases these stories take the shape of a mysterious interaction with a person (or ghost figure), an inexplicable gut feeling, or some sort of psychic premonition. Other times, it's a run-in experienced by multiple people, a strange blip in time or the weather, or an unexplainable form of protection.

In a recent Reddit thread, skeptics shared the personal stories that made them believe in the supernatural, and it's best to read these while it's light out.

1. onesmilematters encountered a disappearing woman.

I was riding my bicycle down a narrow path. Maybe 30 meters in front of me was an elderly woman also on a bike. I was going fast and catching up to her quickly. I was a couple of meters from passing her when the path took a right turn and she was out of my sight for a second. I should have been right behind her after I, too, had taken the right turn, so imagine my surprise when she had just...vanished. There was an open field to the left, a highly fenced off area (with no gates) to the right and one straight road ahead of us - no trace of her anywhere. I know the area well and there is no way she could have been hidden anywhere. This woman just went POOF and it puzzles me to this day.

2. SnideSnail will never forget the gruff mystery voice.

Hearing a gruff man's voice next to my bed when playing video games with my then current girlfriend. We both heard it. We both lost our sh*t.

3. vodka_philosophy had a ghost pet.

At the last house we lived in, when the bed in the master bedroom was setup a certain way, some nights it felt like a cat or small dog would jump up and settle in one particular spot toward the foot of the bed. I didn't think too much of it but jokingly mentioned having a "ghost cat" to my husband one time only to find out he had been feeling the exact same thing in the same spot (bc of his schedule we slept at different times). If one has to have a ghost, a sleepy pet ghost is a good choice.

4. milkvine communicated with their brother.

I wouldn't call it creepy necessarily, just odd. Obligatory "background story": my brother passed away a few years back. When my mom and I would visit his grave, a small pinwheel she'd put out there would spin. My mom swore that it would spin any time she'd visit. I never disagreed, as it would be rude to do so. But I didn't believe in anything like that. However! Recently, I went to visit him- and I guess I was feeling bitter and cynical.

So I said something along the lines of "I'm not an idiot, I know that thing will spin no matter what. You're not here anymore." mind you - it was WINDY outside. And the thing just stopped spinning. Just stopped completely. I was shocked and cried for a little bit. I have no idea what it meant, or if I'm thinking about it too hard.

5. chinchillarocket saw a ghost in ICU.

A patient walked out of his ICU room after he had just died and looked around. Out of my peripheral vision. When I turned my head he was gone.

Edit: more details since this is my most upvoted comment to date. The patient coded right as I got on shift and died within the hour, so I wasn't especially tired. He came in as a doe, most likely homeless, so there was no family in the room. I was the nurse so I was sitting close by, didn't see anyone else go in there nor would anyone have a reason to except me the morgue hadn't arrived yet cuz post-mortem care was not done.

He was staying in the room known to ALL the nurses on the unit as "haunted" because the call light would go off or the bed alarm would go off frequently when it was empty. Out of the periphery of my vision I cant be sure but it did not look like he was wearing a gown, it looked like he had on street clothes. He was a young guy with a big, long blonde beard, so it was an easily identifiable attribute. Before i would joke along that room was haunted, now i believe it is.

6. Trippingthewire doesn't know where the flannel man came from.

I took a picture of my parents with one of their friends phone while we were all playing cards one night. Looking at the screen to line up the shot I saw nothing weird. As soon as I took the pic an old man in a flannel sweater was standing behind them staring out the window.

7. landonfontaine will never forget the haunted road trip.

I have a version of sleep paralysis, so as terrifying as it can be, I’m generally pretty used to waking up to seeing things.

I was on a road trip with my friend and we were staying in a hotel off of Route 66. I went to sleep before her and she stayed up to watch television on her phone. We turned the lights off and I started to doze off. Every so often, I’d wake up to her panning her phone light to the area in between our beds. After a little while, she got up to go to the bathroom.

I woke up once or twice to see a dark figure of a woman standing in between our two beds looking at me. Being exhausted from driving and prone to hallucinating when I sleep, I thought nothing of it.

A bit later, I woke up to the sound of a door slamming and my friend crossing the room and climbing into bed.. she she was laying directly on her side, stiff as a board, staring at me. I yelled “What the fuck, Mary?!” And turned on the light.. but there was no one there. My scream brought Mary out of the bathroom though and I just told her I had a nightmare.

Later that night, I woke up again to see the woman standing in between our beds. But this time, she moved over to the desk in the room, seemingly writing something. I quietly said Mary’s name, but before I could say anything else, Mary cut me off, asking: “LandonFontaine, is that you?”

We turned on the lights and stared at each other for a minute. She started to ask me what I’d seen, but I cut her off and told her that we were both too tired to get on the road at 3 in the morning and we’d already paid for the room. We slept with the lights on in the same bed for the rest of the night.

The next morning as we were driving away, we compared notes. She said she kept flashing her phone light because she kept seeing the shadow of a woman standing between our beds. It freaked her out so much that she went into the bathroom to watch TV with the lights on. She saw the woman walk over to the desk as well. We now both have tattoos commemorating the terrifying road trip from hell.

EDIT: obligatory, “Thank you for the gold, kind stranger!” And thanks to everyone for my most upvoted comment!

To answer a few commonly asked questions:

1. Our tattoos both say “knock on wood” with a little 66 underneath. Several things were ‘cursed’ on this trip, our ghostly friend being only one, so we kept saying it wouldn’t get any worse, knock on wood. By the end, the phrase almost became like an omen - any time we said it, more bad things would happen, so we got it as a joke.

2. Sorry to disappoint, but we didn’t check the desk. We were both so freaked out and ready to leave - we did NOT want to know what she had to say.

3. Just a little extra info: this was a chain hotel in the middle of nowhere. During the night, I kept telling myself there was no way this chain hotel was haunted. We googled it later out of curiosity, and several people have reported seeing things in that hotel location, I guess due to its proximity to Route 66 and possibly also the locale - city/state known for displacing Native people.

I have tons of crazy sleep paralysis stories and now I wonder if some of them are actually more real than I think they are.. Will forever regret watching Insidious.

Thanks again you guys!

8. Kac4583 played with their mom's dead best friend.

When I was very young, I had an “imaginary friend” named Samantha. I vividly remember playing dolls and stuff with her and all that kinda stuff. One day when I was like five or so, I asked her why she would never be at my moms (my parents are divorced and have been forever) and Sam’s responded with something along the lines 'I can’t your mother will remember me, don’t talk to her about me’ and me being young and stupid was just like, okay :) and went back to playing with dolls.

So after awhile I remembered this (when I was out of my imaginary friend stage) and I talked to my mom about it, she got terrified and made me shut up right then and there. After awhile longer, we finally talked about it. In high-school my mom had a friend who committed suicide, her name was Samantha. After that I’ve always believed in supernatural stuff.

9. Cluelessinfl met a haunted realtor.

My husband and I were house shopping and were in this 100+ year old house with a realtor. We entered through the front door. Nobody was there but the 3 of us and nobody was living there at the time. We looked around quickly, spending no more than 3-4 minutes before deciding we weren't interested.

When we got to the front door to leave, there was a big rocking chair blocking it (on the inside). My husband moved it without saying anything. I said to the broker "How did that chair get there?" She just shook her head indicating she didn't want to discuss it and we all walked to the car in silence.

10. Adrasdea's grandfather helped protect them.

When I first married, my grandmother let us live in her old trailer since she had moved but couldn't sell the property, she felt close to my grandfather there. He died in the master bedroom, heart attack.

Anyway, my husband was abusive and beating me one night, I ran into the master bedroom and shut the door but it didn't have a lock.

My husband beat on the door for an hour before giving up It wouldn't open.

I'll always believed that was my grandfather helping me.

11. LittleNoodle1991 experienced ball lightning.

I walked into my bedroom in the middle of the day (it was a normal, sunny day) and all of the sudden there was this flash that went across my bedroom and hit my wooden wardrobe and it made a loud bang noise. Till this day I can't explain what it was. The closest I've come to explaining it is a phenomenon called "ball lightening". Does anyone know?

12. FrogginBullfish_'s cat saw shadows.

Moving shadows that weren't being cast by anything. Creepy. And the way my cat would look at them in utter horror.

And anytime the shadow was around, the fire alarm kept going off. Also speakers that weren't plugged in would start playing static noise.

13. Chimchar3131 was held down by a spirit.

I woke up to seeing multiple shadows all around me and one on my chest holding my arms down, I woke up the next morning thinking it was a dream until I saw two bruises on my wrist like something had been holding them very tightly.

14. fancywinky doesn't know where the rabbits came from.

Driving through the middle of nowhere New Mexico in the middle of the night, suddenly came upon hundreds and hundreds of rabbits on the sides of the road and in the median, for a good stretch, but not a single on one the roadway, alive or roadkill, on either side of the road. Freaked me the fuck right out.

15. ZSkelP182 was friends with a ghost.

I have a really active imagination. And when I was younger it was much worse. I also had some pretty bad older siblings and was super isolated. So I like many small children had an imaginary friend I called jack. He was this little brown haired boy with like tan shorts a pin stripe shirt suspenders and round glasses.

We played all the time. And when my mom asked me about it and I explained to her what he looked like and even told her some pretty specific details about him. We later learned from some research my mom did that I was describing a little boy who had died in the house when It was first built. My description and the details i knew matched up perfectly. It was SUPER weird. And made me truly believe in most supernatural things.

16. 4Dolla76 doesn't trust the old family home.

We have a creepy OLD, like built in the 1850's, family home that we spend summers at and it still has many of the original furnishings and those old photos on the walls with eyes that follow you around. My sister and I are convinced it's haunted, because how could it not be. I was sleeping in one of the upstairs bedrooms that has the door to the attic in it and at around 4am the attic door clicked open and slowly but completely opened.

I'm a super light sleeper so the sound of the click woke me up. I sat upright, watched the door open and then laid back down to sleep, then thought who am I kidding, I'm never sleeping in this room again and went and slept with my mom the rest of the night. I was 21 when this happened and 25 now, and I haven't slept in that room since.

17. Rymndavc no longer likes alone time.

Early 2000’s. 13 years old. House phone with no caller ID. I was home alone and had locked myself in my parents bedroom to feel safe when I received several phone calls from a stranger with a gruff voice. The Stranger repeatedly asked me what I was doing (I was watching the Simpsons), so I told it I was watching the Simpsons. Then the stranger says, “No. What are you doing locked in your parents bedroom like a little bitch?” I freaked out and phoned my family for help.

Brother? Stationed states away. Parents? 3 hours away. Sister? 2 hours away. Cousin who lived with us? At work for another hour. Whatever is calling, and knows my specific location, and that the door is locked, is calling in my perfect isolation. As an idiot 13 year old I don’t think to call the police. My family says it’s fine, no one is after me, probably just a prank call.

The Stranger calls a final time. Says, “why don’t you open the door for me?,” right as my parents locked bedroom door is bombarded with heavy, banging knocks. The phone is dead. I’m crying, praying, cursing. Eventually the knocks subside. Eventually I step outside. No ones there. I grab a knife and clear every bedroom. No ones there. Every window and door is locked. To this day, I’ve no fucking clue what called and knocked. I just hope it never happens again.

18. TurtleThanosGoat still doesn't know what caused those traumatic going-ons.

When I was young, probably 10-11 years old, I fell sick and my mom let me stay home. I never really slept in my room at that age, always choosing to sleep in my brothers room or my parents room instead. So as I am home sick, my mom was tucking me into her bed so I can watch tv and she was getting ready to go to work. She kisses me on the forehead, and turns around and makes her way out of the room.

When she turns around, instantly the tv sound faded and became a loud humming sound, my jaw dropped and the most overwhelming sense of dread and fear came over me. (I have been chased by big dogs, had my leg stuck while under water, and been alone in the woods while seeing (what i thought was) a bear, but nothing has ever come close to the fear I felt in this moment with my mom.) I don’t even understand what caused it, I know when she turned around to leave, the fear started and I can’t remember even seeing her leave, my entire senses were wiped to leave me with just fear and dread.

Jaw wide open the whole time, when suddenly the fear comes to an abrupt head when the closet door to my left opens, and I suddenly could understand what was going on and that I was scared. Never have I ran faster in my life to my mom who was just about out the house. That wonderful woman stayed home from work because of how shaken I was. She does remember I always told her to close the doors in any room I was in (always scared me) and that the door was open when she remembers closing it.

Not sure if this really fit the question well, but I need to know if this has ever happened to anyone. Nothing triggered my fear, and it was the most overwhelming feeling I have ever felt in my life. Then something scary happened which scared me, but the fear was less overwhelming and I could control what I thought and did. I will never forget this.

19. GrifoCaolho now believes in evil.

Hey, just thought of chiming in.

When I was still dating my ex, we travelled to a fairly well know spot in Brazil where folk say there are UFOs, magical quartz caves, good spirits, and the like. This spot is also famous for it's natural beauty - waterfalls, hiking spots, mountains - and for being pretty much a popular stoner's destination. I was there for the natural beauty and because I had never travelled without my family, she was there for the natural beauty and the weird spiritual vibe that came from smoking marijuana atop a pyramid watching the sunset.

We made reservations for five days at a local hostel and it was pretty much fantastic. We visited waterfalls, watched the sunset more than once, had fun at the local bars, enjoyed the local cuisine (the region is also famous for it's traditional cooking), and even made fast friends with a couple that was there also on vacations. We hitched some rides, walked pretty much everywhere. Everything felt safe, everything felt nice. And me, being the stupid guy I am, suggested we should wake up early the morning of the fourth day to watch the sunrise. She agreed: there was a mountaintop twenty minutes away that would be perfect, it sounded safe, and if the sunset was amazing, just imagine what the sunrise is like.

We went to bed, had some fun, we both fell asleep... And then, I wake up at three in the morning.

I wake up, sit, and the only thing in my head is an alarm going "GrifoCaolho, there is something out of this hostel, wanting blood, and if you step outside now, you are going to die".

I try to rationalize. I try to calm down. My body is tense, I feel as if my skin is hardening, all my hair is standing. I think about reaching for the light switch, but the alarm in my head is still on. "GrifoCaolho, you do not want to move - it will follow; you are only safe if you stay right where you are".

My blood is curling, I am cold to the touch. There is just this dread I can't source. My eyes are squinting, I am almost crying. I look to the window, which is closed. I know something is waiting outside.

A few years earlier, I saw my mother almost dead, passed out. I saw my brother with his forehead and chin pumping blood. I got knocked out while underwater in a pool. I had a guy hold me at knife point. Nothing ever felt as real and as terrorizing as that morning, sat in my bed, knowing deep inside that if I stepped out of that room, I'd die.

My then girlfriend woke up, noticed I was tense, asked what was up. I said we should not get out of the room 'till sunrise. That I knew something bad would happen.

She agreed and went back to sleep.

We never touched again on the subject. We enjoyed the remaining of the fourth and fifth days, and the dread was gone. We went back to our regular lives. We broke up somewhere in May, 2015. I told some friends of the travel, never spoke about the dread I felt that morning.

Then a friend of mine decided to go. Enjoyed the hell out of it. Went with a girl he was seeing at the time. He was happy as a pig in shit when he got back.

And a few months and some beers after that, he just said, "you know, GrifoCaolho, it was amazing, but there was somethinh that got me worried". I had almost forgotten of the story by then, but the way he said it just made me remember everything. "When I was near the Wind Portal, late into the night, I heard something talking".

Our hostel room, when we visited, was near the Wind Portal. We did arrange to see the sunrise there. I felt the same sensations I had a year prior.

I asked if he dreaded it. He just swallowed another beer can and replied, dead serious, "I am pretty sure it was some kind of devil, trying to lure us, but I also am pretty sure that it must have been something else; it was talking to something, or someone, and I did not want to hear it; I just got out of there as fast as I could".

I then proceeded to blurt out my story. Silence came afterwards. We went for a few more beers, went both to our homes afterwards. And we agreed that there was something wrong there. That this idyllic little town encrusted in the mountainside of Minas Gerais had something very good, but held also something very bad there. Something heinous, and hungry.

If you guys ever want to travel there, it is called São Thomé das Letras. It is not difficult to get there, but takes quite a lot of time. It is a little, sympathetic town, with stone streets, two churches, maybe two or three bars, about a dozen waterfalls and some nice views. It also hosts a modern rustic pyramid built atop one of the mountains and many, many little stones that tourists stack as to say that they were there and did leave no trash behind - ours must still be there, I think. But stay away from the Wind Portal at the dead of night. Something evil lurks there.

I used to be an atheist, full skeptic, not believing in any remote chance of the supernatural. But that single experience made me worry that maybe there are some things we do not know, and, among these, some that which we are not meant to.

20. JayTheDirty saw a skin-walker.

In January of 2010 I was driving to Los Angeles after spending the holidays with family. I-40 the whole way. After a long day of driving, I stopped at Holbrook, AZ to get a hotel for the night. I get the room, pull around to the back parking lot and park my car. I open the back door and start to grab my bags and get my stuff together I was going to take inside for the night.

All of a sudden, I hear a crazy sounding roar. The closest I can come to describing it is that it sounded like a mixture of a bear roaring, a pig squealing, and a baby crying. I freeze, look up, and standing on the edge of the raised parking lot next door was some kind of man-dog thing. It was probably around 7-8 foot tall. I look at it, it roars again, and I take off running towards my hotel room. I get to the door scared sh*tless, fumbling with my key card, and it roars again like it’s just to the left of me. I get the key in the door, lock the door and run in the bathroom and lock that door too.

I sat there for maybe 30 minutes. Then I grabbed the pillows and blankets off the bed and slept in the bathtub all night with the door locked. I started searching on my phone for what the hell that was and that was the night I learned about skin walkers.

If that exists, then what the hell else does that isn’t supposed to. What was almost just as crazy is that when I bolted towards my room I left my car unlocked and the doors wide open. They stayed open all night and nothing was taken or stolen. And I had a bunch of music equipment in there.

But yeah, be careful on the edges of a Navajo reservation.

From first class status to Amex Black Cards to summer homes in the Hamptons, the lives the wealthy lead are quite different from the vast majority.

But whether they were born with a silver spoon in their mouths or came into money later in life, some aspects of having money are unrelatable to the rest of society and surprising to those with hefty bank accounts.

In a recent Reddit thread, wealthy women shared stories of how having money has impacted their lives in unexpected ways since becoming rich. Here are 19 examples of the pros and cons money can bring.

1. Joysolicitor says, as a wealthy single woman, having more money than the men she dates is problematic.

I did not expect how weird (heterosexual) dating and relationships would get. Men are at first pleasantly surprised when I offer to pick up the tab, pay for tickets to events, etc., and I really don't mind considering I know I make more than them. But my experience is that it slowly gets uncomfortable for them to know they aren't the breadwinner, and it typically has come out in subtle negging and misogyny.

2. Gisschace says everything gets cheaper the more cash you have, from better credit terms to travel savings.

What I noticed was how ‘cheaper’ life gets when you have money.

For example; own a house? You get better credit. Or things like air miles; with my credit card if I spend £10k in a year I get a companion ticket which means a free air fare when I buy one ticket. The kicker is you have to spend points to get it, but the same card gives me points for that £10k I spent. So basically it’s two free air fares.

And when I am travelling I can go in the lounges which are full of free food and drink so I don’t have to spend money in the airport.

3. NotYourQueen123 says the risk of becoming a target for criminals has increased with more money.

The richer you are the more likely you are to be targeted by violence and burglary. Even though we live in an amazing town, we hear of cars and houses getting broken into. When we go shopping we often see signs that warn us to look after belongings because of pickpocketing. We have a state of the art alarm system for our house and cameras installed everywhere. The security we needed to set up just to feel safe is something I never expected to have to do.

4. MySweetSeraphim says relationships can change when those around you expect you to pay for them.

I let a handful of friendships fade out because the expectation was that I would pick up the tab/bring things to every party when no one else was doing the same.

I’m generous but what the last straw(s) for me was getting asked to bring 4-5 different liquors for a fancy cocktail when other people were bringing popcorn (or nothing) and getting asked to host game night (with the expectation I roll out the red carpet).

I said no to the cocktail straight up and just didn’t go to that party.

5. Rivlet learned that people will price gouge estimates after seeing a large home.

My aunt once told me that she tries to keep people from seeing her home for as long as she can, even if they're doing service work for her. She learned the hard way that if she had people come over to give an estimate, the estimate went up wildly as soon as people saw her home or realized she has an "MD" after her name.

So now she goes to where they are, talks to them about what she needs done and gives all the relevant facts, and gets an estimate before they see her house. She says it dropped the estimate significantly to do it that way.

6. When Colofire went from poor to rich, she stopped feeling the need to impress.

I have no need to buy designer goods because I have no one to impress. I have no need for a nice car. I spend my money on things like planting my own food for better quality food. Spend more time making my own food so it's healthier.

7. IfUMustCallMeIshmael says raising kids can surprisingly be a huge challenge.

The problem with raising rich kids is that all of the perks of being wealthy become a double-edged sword. For example, you can afford childcare and other help so that your kid gets more attention. But how much one on one attention is too much? You can afford to send your kids to the best schools, but will the culture there negatively impact them? You can easily afford any activity or toy, but should you arbitrarily draw the line somewhere to prevent them from becoming spoiled?

8. Now financially secure, Lestatisalive doesn't register when payday is and makes purcases based on quality... and with cash.

I realised when I had no idea when pay day was that I was doing a hell of a lot better than I thought...

Everything we own is purchased with cash. We have a cc but only for flying points - we clear it every month. We do purchase better quality - better quality food, clothing, other items. As someone said above it lasts longer. I won’t buy an exorbitant designer bag but I will take the time to get proper leather, locally produced where possible to support local business etc.

9. Rbf4eva points out that with more money comes more free time to spend how you see fit.

If you've got money, you've got more time (for family, hobbies, making more money, etc). You can live closer to areas where there's employment, reducing travel time. You don't have to use public transport, which reduces your travel time even more. You can hire someone to clean your home, freeing up more time.

10. Shadowfloats notes that everyone around her assumes having money equates happiness.

I’ve experienced people thinking that I cannot possibly be unhappy with anything in my life because they think I have everything. Money isn’t everything but sometimes people just assume a lot of things about you.

11. RainstormFlowers says everyone judges you about spending too much money.

I wasn't expecting the way I spend money to be offensive to others. Sometimes people take a personal issue with what I choose to spend money on, as if it's an attack on them, like buying expensive things means I'm judging them by default.

12. And on the opposite side of that coin, as Tunisandwich notes, others judge you for not spending money on things they deem essential.

People judge me based on what I choose NOT to spend money on. I make six figures and don't own a car, and based on people's reactions you'd think it's some sort of affront to god. I could easily afford a nice car, but I live in a city with decent public transportation, and the Ubers I have to take here and there probably cost me every year what'd I'd spend in one month in parking/gas/insurance/deprecation.

13. OsmerusMordax says unplanned major expenses cause zero stress.

I was on a trip a few days ago and my car broke down. Because of the situation I had to have it towed to the repair place AND rent a hotel room for 3 nights. The whole ordeal was 2 grand. I could just throw my credit card at the problem (I pay it off every month) and it wasn't a huge deal...just a major inconvenience.

But to somebody else who couldn't afford it? I can't even imagine what it would be like

14. Some very serious health and mental problems get kicked under the rug, as Roadlesssoul notes.

I see a lot of very privileged kids being messed up by wealthy parents with substance abuse problems, eating disorders, bitter divorces, significant mental health problems... that rarely come to our attention early, normally only when there is crises. And the private schools, private health practitioners, try NOT to report it, because the parents are their customers!

15. Msomnipotent shares that salespeople automatically expect her to buy from them.

I didn't expect the hostility. I'm not a millionaire yet but we are "comfortable". Several door-to-door salesmen became downright rude when I didn't buy their magazines or fall for their new roof scams. The next person says, "You obviously can afford it" is going to get punched.

16. With money, FuzzyJury's social circle grew to include notable people.

I regularly meet household name people. Sometimes, I meet names that are regularly derided by one political side or the other, names that are subject to conspiracy theories. I’ll meet senators, CFOs, other big name investors, ambassadors, various chairmen and chairwomen of whatever you can think of, federal judges, etc

17. She also notes that home get-togethers, no matter how small, always include staff.

Whenever I go to events at peoples houses, there are always caterers. I remember when we were told we were going to a small barbecue over the summer at some friends houses, but when we showed up it was of course a large catered event and we sat with a senator. So now I just assume that when I go to a family friends house I should dress up a bit and be prepared for anything

18. Offering to solve loved one's emergencies doesn't always work, as Sazed_sassypants shared.

When I grew up, I ended up in a social group that was largely lower-middle class or less. I wanted to pay their emergencies, their unexpected bills, pay to get rid of hassles like not having a laptop in college, heck when they ached to travel and couldn't afford it I wanted to pay their way. Most of the time, they didn't want it. And I have to respect that, even if it pains me to see them struggle and I wish I could fix it. At most, I've been allowed to pay for medical emergencies and all the gas on roadtrips. So. Was surprised at how much my savior complex wasn't wanted.

19. Msacch shares how the higher you get on the corporate ladder the more money-savings perks you receive.

It used to cost me about $15 in public transit costs to go to the office each day. I always found it weird that the higher I go within a professional setting, and the more they pay me, the less I have to pay for my own life expenses.

I was grateful that they paid for all that. $15 / day is a lot. But I also know there were people commuting with me, who were likely paid less, and had to pay for their own commute fares.

"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear."

-Buddy the Elf.

The second best way to spread holiday cheer is laughing loudly at memes for all to hear. This list of hilariously festive holiday memes is a gift you can give yourself right now.

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Instagram's "Dude With Sign" is exactly that: a dude with a sign, and it's very funny.

A dude named Seth makes funny "protest" signs for everyday issues and they will inspire you to mobilize. Here are the powerful movements he fights against.

1. Anti-Plane Clappers

2. Anti-Reply All Emailers

3. Pro-Seinfeld

4. Pro-Chips

5. Anti-idiom

6. Anti-Netflix Interruptions

7. Pro-White Claw

8. Anti-Sweetgreen

9. Anti-Daylight Savings

10. Pro-Guac

11. Anti-Astrology

12. Pro-Solo Portraits

13. Anti-Streaming Wars

14. Anti-Starbucks

15. Pro-Snow Day

16. Anti-Instagram Stories

17. Anti-Spotify Wrapped

From testing cars with male crash test dummies to larger cellphones meant for larger hands, some common items intended for both genders are actually NOT designed with women in mind. And you might never realize these design flaws exist, unless you keep reading.

Several insightful and observant women on a Reddit thread shared the unexpected, everday objects that are much more convienent to use if you happen to be a man.

From workplace features rife with problems:

1. C0nniption points out the flaws of visitor badges.

Those visitor badges with clips that are meant to fit perfectly on a suit jacket’s front pocket and basically nowhere else. I never know where to put it and it drives me freaking nuts.

2. Brrrritos calls out glass floors.

People who put glass floors or walkways in buildings don't take into account that some people might have to walk across them while wearing skirts and dresses.

3. Desks are generally sized for men, as Aya_cas shares.

Unless you have adjustable ergonomic equipment to supplement it, desks are generally too high, which cause the keyboard and mouse to be too high and there for you'll probably make your chair higher than it should be to reach it

To attire that just doesn't work well for females:

4. Ik101 draws attention to backpacks.

Backpacks with straps at the front. They are exactly at breast hight.

5. And don't get Why_So_Slow started on lab uniforms.

Labcoats do not close properly overbust, and are usually too broad in the shoulder and waist, creating safety hazard. Using them when pregnant is impossible.

6. Cat-kitty shares the issue with heavy-duty gloves.

I've gone to home improvement stores many times to look for heavier-duty work gloves, like Mechanix. All of the gloves were men's, unless they were specifically gardening gloves. The smallest sizes were way too big for women with smaller hands. I guess we don't work with our hands

7. Jaynarg calls out the problem EVERY woman encounters, lack of sizable pockets.

My 15 month old son has pockets in all of his pants. Like real pockets. And I can't even fit a pair of keys in my pants pockets ):

To everything else women need to use on a regular basis:

8. Pclaradactyl acknowledges safety problems with seatbelts.

Seatbelts are a big one actually. Women a have a higher injury rate in crashes because they are designed and optimized for an average male height.

9. Goodusernamestaken_ shares more issues with car seats.

Seats and head rests in cars. They are meant for larger people who never put their hair in ponytails. It results in a lot of back and neck discomfort for me, as I drive 2.5 hours round trip daily.

10. And Purple4199 says those aren't the only uncomfortable chair.

Most sofas/couches are uncomfortable for me. My head hits on the area where the neck support is, thus forcing my head forward. It’s so uncomfortable and I have to shift around a lot. Buying a new sofa was such a pain

11. Gym equipment doesn't have female anatomy in mind, as Quipy_name_goes_here notes.

Certain pieces of gym equipment smash the hell out of my breasts and it's very uncomfortable.

12. Oxygenweed points out going to the doctor brings another issue forward, urine collection cups.

Urine specimen tubes at the doctor's. It's so hard trying to aim whilst you're sitting and not piss all over your hand at the same time. They were definitely designed for men.

13. Bathroom stalls aren't practical for women, as Rjoseph210 shares.

Bathroom stalls that must be designed by men, where you have to straddle the toilet just to close the stall door. Double whammy when there is no hook in the stall to hang your purse on.

14. I_Dont_Own_A_Cat notes a tech recongition issue.

Voice-activated devices that don't turn on unless I imitate Bane.

15. Walking in a city can be impossible in heels, as Farfalloni points out.

The financial district in my city has grates that are impossible to walk over in heels. I always have to walk around or jump over them so as to avoid having my shoe caught in the spaces.

It's hard to get most teachers to admit it, but not all of us are rocket scientists.

A recent Reddit thread asked teachers to spill the moments that made them say, "This student is so dumb it's scary." Here are the best tales of students who are, shall we say, gifted in other areas besides academics.

1. "But we want to keep associating babies with orgasms, teacher!"

On a number of occasions, around five or six, I have had to explain to students that you can still get pregnant even if you don't orgasm. Apparently, it's an old wives tale in a bunch of cultures. And when i corrected them, they fought back. - Spodson

2. I bet this explosion was cool as frick though.

I had a classmate put a thermometer into the middle of a bunsen burner to "see how hot the fire was".

As glass and mercury promptly exploded everywhere, I'm pretty sure I saw the teachers soul leave her body. Never saw her look so horrified or pissed beford.

(Classmate and I were 12) - BethPercy

3. This is not a great way to go through life.

When I was student teaching, I had one who was JUST on the verge of passing (thanks to the incredible mercy of the primary teacher). All he needed to do was turn in a worksheet that he finished in class. I know that he finished it because I watched him and helped him do it. All he had to do was give it to the teacher. But, in his mind, that would mean that she had won. So he refused to turn it in. I left the school before the end of the semester, but I would bet money that he failed the class. - SomeGuyInShorts

4. Well, it's not this teen's fault smartphones destroyed her generation's phone-dialing capacity.

One of my 10th graders said she saw a crime being committed (bike being stolen in neighbor's yard) and she wanted to call 911 but she didn't know the number. - librarylady1980

5. Well, do they?

Kids asked me, "Are you from Detroit or (some other city I forget)?"

I said "Neither, I moved here from Pennsylvania."

One girl gasped and asked, "Do they have slaves there?" - LegitimateIntimate

6. This is what we call commitment to a bit.

I had a little boy (first grade) who always got 14 as his answer to every problem no matter what. On the second day of school I sat down to do 3+2 with him using counters. We set out a pile of 3 and a pile of 2. I told him to count and watched in horror as he pushed the counters into a line and then counted back and forth and back and forth re-counting them until he got to 14. That was the biggest number he knew, he would have just kept going on. - FoutryFour

7. Maybe she was just a big fan.

I’m not a teacher, but I used to volunteer in my daughters” classrooms when they were in elementary school. One day while I was helping grade papers, it became quite apparent that one little girl had copied from the boy sitting next to her - not only were the answers the same, she also had written his name on top of her paper! - lunatuck

8. They could live somewhere with a lot of light pollution.

Not from when I was teaching, but a buddy’s classmate.

HS Class was discussing the number of stars in the galaxy. My buddy jokingly says 20. Kid next to him (notably not the sharpest kid I’ve known) goes, “are you stupid? There’s gotta be 100 of them. Maybe even a thousand.” Serious as can be.

Honestly not sure what’s dumber; him thinking the guess of 20 was real. Or him thinking that 1000 might be too high. - phisch13

9. Well, this we can blame on the YouTube algorithm.

I thought I would be teaching about plate tectonics today.

Ended up having to do a lesson on why the earth isn’t flat. - squirmdragon

10. I blame all the trendy coverage of coconut oil.

The other day I had a student bite into a bar of deodorant. Just...chomped right into it, as if it were a coconut-and-palm-tree-scented ice cream bar. This, after making like he was going to "lick" it and accidentally getting the taste of the deodorant and his own residual pit sweat. Half a second later he just went whole-hog on it and took a chunk out of it, then spat it out. I didn't know whether to call poison control or the principal. - becauseiamtheDM

11. Every kid has asked this at some point, to be fair.

Dude asked me why poor countries couldn't just print a bunch of money and give it. Keep in mind this was Grade 12. Economics - bdosman2

12. All things are possible with the lord.

Im not a teacher but a classmate of a kid who wanted to be a doctor who asked, when 14, if science was necessary to be a doctor or if he could get by with religious studies. I hope he failed. - weirdsidecharacter

13. Odds are this girl will be richer than all of us.

When I was a professor I had a student submit a paper she clearly hadn't written. I called her out on it and she complained by email to me and CC'd the dean of the school. Her argument was that it *was* hers because she had paid *her own* money to have it written. - tatsukunwork

14. And finally, a UK dorm worker shared just how incompetent the students of Great Britain truly are when it comes to the culinary arts.

I work in student accommodation at a fairly large UK university, and jesus christ the things I've seen. Even if you don't count the things they do while drunk, you still end up being concerned for the future of humanity.

Plastic bowls are not an adequate substitute for saucepans, and will melt if you put them on the hob. Likewise, you should take the polystyrene foam out from under your frozen pizza before you put it in the oven.

If your packet of sausages says 'to oven cook: 15 - 20 minutes", that does not mean you can put it in the microwave for the same amount of time.

To boil pasta, water is required. Again, panicked flatmates and corridor full of smoke.

Most people know they shouldn't microwave metal. Some people still try to heat unopened cans in one. - lick-a-lemon

"Laughter is an instant vacation."

-Milton Berle

These memes will take you on an all-expense-paid vacation straight to giggle town. All of the fun, none of the jet lag.

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Not all families can afford to outsource their household chores. For one confused guy, this created an awkward scenario.

A boyfriend posted on Reddit looking for guidance after a sticky situation with his girlfriend's family. The problem: he was uncomfortable when a house cleaner tidied up their home and tried to help. Twice. Even after being asked not to. Her family didn't take it well.

The boyfriend says he's visiting his girlfriend's family for the first time and "they're kind of rich."

"They have a maid who comes and tidies up for a bit every day," he wrote. "My family isn't broke, but we've never had people working for us, and it made me super uncomfortable."

He continued:

Like, who am I to have someone serving me and cleaning around me while I sit there? I can’t imagine if my mom were witnessing that. She’d flip.

So he got up and started to "help her tidy up," and the parents didn't react well.

She thanked me for the help and told me I really didn’t have to worry about it, but I told her it was no trouble (it really wasn’t, we were just sitting watching TV.)

Later that night my girlfriend’s parents asked me not to help the maid clean because it was a boundary thing and her work was her work and guests are guests. I told them it made me really uncomfortable to have someone clean around me and they just said not to worry because she’s paid well and has been with them a long time.

The next day, the cleaning lady came over again to do her job, and he tried to flee the scene, then gave up and started to help again.

[I]t made me so uncomfortable I said “hey let’s go outside” to my girlfriend but she was busy on her laptop. So eventually I couldn’t help it, I had to jump up and help her out.

Her parents walked in and looked pissed and my girlfriend finally clued in and ushered me outside.

He still doesn't get why her parents were irked.

I’m still so confused by the situation. I’m not sure if I was in the wrong for helping her clean or if I’m in the wrong now for not helping her.

My instinct is to help, but when I do people get pissed, so, if you understand the dynamic better than me, please clear this up.

Am I the a**hole for helping her clean?

So to sum it up: he was asked to stop helping both times, by both the cleaning lady and the family employing her. Yet he still doesn't get what he should've done in this situation.

The people of Reddit cleared it up for him with a resounding "you're the a-hole."

Nonanonaye says it comes down to the fact that he didn't listen to his girlfriend's family.

They asked you to respect their boundaries and you proceeded to disrespect them. Which definitely makes you look not that good in your girlfriend's parent's' eyes. For many reasons. You probably (read: very likely) also made the maid feel uncomfortable.

Plus, the cleaning lady probably genuinely did not want help:

It's her job, let her do it. She likely has a system for how she does things and you more than likely disrupted that.

Feroc agreed, pointing out that a job is a job and most people don't want to be disrupted at work:

At the end it's the job of the maid to clean, you are interfering with her work. Would you help a guy at McDonalds to put together your burger? Would you help the waitress in a restaurant and bring your dishes back in the kitchen?

And stolid_agnostic went as far as to say the boyfriend was rude for imposing his values on his girlfriend's family:

This is really all on you here. Why should this make you uncomfortable such that you're willing to make other people uncomfortable like that?

You're literally applying your cultural norms on other people and deciding what is right for them to do in their own lives.

This is pure virtue signaling, it disallowing off deviation from your culture. For those reasons, YTA.

So there you have it. If you're at someone else's house this holiday season and someone asks you to stop cleaning, just stop.

TLC announced a new show airing Tuesday January 7th and it's a little, um--problematic?

The show explores couples of "mixed-weights" meaning one partner is an average weight while the other is significantly heavier. I can only assume this show is trying to ride the success of "My 600-lb Life" which often features couples who are not both morbidly obese, but the way they portray the relationships on that show is mostly pretty cringe-inducing. At what point do you love and support your partner regardless of their size and at what point are you enabling a serious health issue? Is it when you're feeding them a 10,000 calorie milkshake every morning through a funnel? Probably.

People were quick to critique the new show, particularly the title. "Hot and Heavy" implies that one partner is hot and one partner is heavy, which means if you're heavy you can't be hot. This is not the right angle. Of course, TLC could defend this and say the title is meant to encompass both partners, referring to their relationship as hot and heavy, but it seems like a leap...

Love doesn't have weight limits and it's weird to make a show where audiences can gawk at a thin person (usually the man) who could love someone who is bigger than average.

Also, pretty sure the term "mixed-weight" is not a thing. Swing and a miss!

And, of course, there were lots of other problems:

Better luck next time, TLC.

Deciding what to bring a white elephant gift exchange can be ridiculously stressful. While most work-related white elephant exchanges have a price cap to prevent people from getting salty over the disparity between expensive and cheap gifts, there's still a wide variety of options to choose from.

Some people opt to go the funny route to ease the stress of buying a gift for a colleague. While few people desperately want a whoopee cushion of a made-for-TV junk utensil, they would look silly complaining about something obviously meant as a joke. Others go the safe route, buying candles or soft socks or something universally useful and pleasant that they themselves wouldn't mind receiving.

And then, there are the few, the terrible, who somehow find a way to royally mess up the basic pleasantries of a white elephant party.

A bride-to-be on the Am I The A*shole subreddit got thoroughly roasted when she asked if it was tacky to give a wedding invitation as a white elephant gift.

WIBTA if I brought an invitation to my wedding as a white elephant gift

OP kicked off the post by sharing that she'll be getting married next year, and the first batch of invitations went out.

Because OP and her fiance both have big families, most of her coworkers haven't been invited. But after receiving an inevitable batch of "nos" from out-of-towners, she plans to add a few to the list.

Getting married early next year. Invitations just went out, but a lot of people from work fell on the “B” list because we both have big families who live out of town who get first priority. A very small number of work friends have been invited already. Once we get “no” RSVPs from people out of town, we’ll replace those spots with work friends.

Since a lot of those "B-list" work friends will be present at an upcoming holiday party, OP thought it might be fun to give a wedding invitation as her white elephant gift.

Going to a Christmas party at someone’s home with a lot of these work friends this weekend, where there will be a White Elephant gift exchange. WIBTA if I brought an invitation to my wedding as my white elephant gift?

However, she shared she fears it could cause tension and jealousy among the other party attendees who aren't invited.

I can see it either as a cute way to invite someone at an earlier stage... or it could highlight that some people haven’t been invited, make people feel like they have to beg and dance for an invite, and make people feel way worse if they don’t make the final cut.

kmbright thinks OP is a bonified bridezilla.

YWBTA and I can’t wait to see this post show up in a wedding-shaming group.

I seriously, seriously doubt that anyone who thinks people might “beg and dance” for an invitation to their wedding will throw a wedding that is in any way enjoyable to attend.

“The final cut”? Jesus Christ get over yourself. This whole post shrieks Bridezilla.

judginUhoes wants OP to go through with it so they can hear about the messy aftermath.

NTA - guys stop let her do this I want to see the world burn.

Trenvilla can't believe OP would ask this in the first place.

YTA

I mean how stupid can you be. This is just rude, and makes you seem stuck up. “Wow look at what amazing gift I got, to go to a wedding and buy her something.”

Ixi7311 pointed out the fact that a wedding invitation not only isn't a gift, but it's essentially forcing the recipient to buy OP a gift.

YTA..a wedding invitation isnt a gift, its a commitment to buy clothes appropriate for the moment, a wedding gift, etc.

Sounds a little self centered to use it as a gift

kieka408 truly hopes that OP takes a long hard look at themselves.

YTA I really hope this is a joke. This is the absolute tackiest thing I’ve heard in here. I’m not sure if you actually believe this but not everyone is as consumed with your upcoming wedding as you are. This REALLY REALLY comes across as self centered. If I got this as a gift from a coworker I’d be highly impressed that they were able to fit the invitation and their ego in the car on the way over.

While it's clear the internet doesn't think it's a good idea for OP to go through with this horrific plan, it would be fascinating to hear how badly it would be received.

The President of the United States, jealous of a 16-year-old girl for having been declared TIME's Person of the Year, mocked her on Twitter, Being decidedly not Best.

Trump tweeted that Greta Thunberg, the young activist seeking to save the planet from extinction, "must work on her Anger Management problem," and then offered the advice, "go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!"

While Trump fancies himself to be a Twitter expert, he has nothing on the Extremely Online teens who were raised on social media. Thunberg proceeded to troll Trump by changing her Twitter bio to reflect Trump's trolling.

This isn't the first time Thunberg changed her bio after being mocked by an esteemed head of state. Thunberg was cyberbullied by Trump once before, and was also called a brat by the Brazilian president behind the Amazon fires.

Trump has spent two days fuming about being on one less magazine cover. On Wednesday, the Trump campaign tweeted out a picture of the president's face placed on a 16-year-old girl's body, his weirdest Photoshop since he pretended to be Sylvester Stallone.

Thunberg's response to Trump is getting the obvious "yaaaas queen" tweets, and people are also taking the opportunity to mock First Lady Melania Trump, who completely lost her sh*t last week when a professor made a pun on her son Barron's name.

Is Trump tired of whining yet?

Grand romantic gestures can be an amazing way to show a crush or partner just how smitten you are. But there are times when the roses are rotten, the picnic is infested, and the huge romantic effort is met with apathy, or worse yet, a break-up.

At the end of the day, it's better to try than not. Even the most humiliating romantic failures make for an entertaining story down the road, and you don't have to wonder "what if" if you've fully bombed.

In a popular Reddit thread, people shared the romantic gestures that drastically backfired, and it'll make you feel less alone about any past rejections.

1. The_Iron_Zeppelin's mixtape was not received as hoped.

I worked with this girl at a Ruby Tuesdays and for her birthday we all went out for drinks. We were all friends and I think she knew I liked her at the time though I hadn’t made move yet. She put off this rocker vibe, tattoos, colored hair, loved 80s hair metal and rock music in general. So for her birthday I decided to burn her a C.D of all of my favorite songs from the band The Kills, because lead singer Alison Mosshart kinda reminded me of her and I thought that their music would be right up her ally. So I burned the C.D on my computer, decorated the C.D cover with sharpie, made it look really cool. I wrapped it up with fancy wrapping paper and a bow and gave it to her at the end of the night.

I didn’t wait for her to unwrap it, partly because I was still nervous about her reaction to my gesture and partly because I didn’t want to put her on the spot while we were out amongst friends. I figured she would just let me know if she liked it at work the following week and I would use that as an opportunity to ask her out. Cut to next week, there was a day that I was off and she was working and so was a close buddy of mine from high school.

I come in the following day for work and he pulls me aside and says, dude you should just forget about her. He goes on to tell me she had basically shit talked my gift saying: “I can’t believe he did that, I don’t even like the Kills.” My friend and I are really tight and he’s very outspoken and defends me saying: “Are you kidding me? You should be so fucking lucky that anyone gives a shit about your birthday at all.”

When I heard about that incident it killed any interest I had in her. She never even thanked me for the C.D at all, she just never mentioned it and I moved on.

2. ASlap_ almost lit a tree on fire.

My girlfriend at the time had this friend who passed away so I went out and bought chinese sky lanterns (little hot air balloons, pretty much). We wrote messages to her friend on them and launched them in the sky from my backyard. Hers careened right into a tree and almost set the whole damn thing ablaze.

3. JLisTheTruth got dumped after a Paris trip.

I took my ex to Paris. Had the whole weekend planed. We went to the Eiffel Tower at night, had a picnic, basically did it all. She dumped me 2 weeks later. She said I "wasn't romantic enough" and didn't tell her I loved her enough when we were in Paris. OK.

4. loyaltangie will never get that kidney back.

I gave my now ex wife a kidney....

5. N4g4rok bought the wrong dress.

Had a girlfriend come live with me after being in a not so great situation for nearly a year in another state. Was planning for 8 months to have a dress she had been dying to get waiting for her under the Christmas tree when she arrived because she hadn't had the cash for groceries, let alone a nice dress.

So, she got super excited when she saw the box and opened it right away.

I bought the wrong dress.

6. ClTlZENFOUR accidentally triggered ex-boyfriend memories.

Literally whispered the words "sweet nothings" into my new girlfriends ear.

(Whispering sweet nothings is a saying or general term used to describe a set of compliments or words intended to flatter or woo a lady)

This was my attempt to be sexy/romantic in a humorous sense. At the very least, I thought she would find it funny.

I thought wrong however... I was unaware that this was something her Ex used to say/do on the regular, so I'd did not come off sexy or romantic, but actually repulsed her since I reminded her of him at that moment.

7. georgegsmithjr underestimated the horrors of flying.

Booked a spontaneous romantic trip to Paris for my girlfriend in college during a long weekend. Apparently, we both get grumpy as hell on long flights and basically spent the weekend fighting. So not worth the little money I had...

8. AlexDawdy got cock-blocked by the neighbor.

Made a huge plan to ask my crush to prom. Made signs to her house asking her but didn't put up a name saying who did it. Well turns out her neighbor had a crush too and took credit for it. She said yes to him. Nobody believed I did it and they're now married.

9. ccasella3's girlfriend interpreted the gift the wrong way.

I got painting lessons for a girlfriend because she was getting into painting. She took it to mean that I thought her painting sucked. She never took the lessons and I never got my money back.

10. TheNote7's girlfriend was a bit slow about the surprise.

I emptied my wardrobe cabinet and filled the cabinet portion of it and placed on the shelf flowers, chocolate , a stuffed bear and numerous candy that she loved. When I told her to get my “ hoodie” out of the cabinet she opened it and said “ it’s not here “ and then proceeded to close the cabinet. WELP.

11. benfisher22 threw away the love box.

Every day I wrote one reason why I loved my girlfriend on a little piece of paper and put it in this box I had for about a year and 9 months. I was planning on saving them for an anniversary gift or a proposal or something, but instead we had a nasty breakup and I just threw them all away. I never told her about it.

12. dumpsterKraken's actually worked in the end.

Decided to make a bold move with a close lady friend. Invited her over for a home cooked meal on valentine's day in my sh*tty college apartment since neither of us were seeing anyone (pretty smooth right? I thought so).

So I cook a pork loin and some pasta something or other, anddd purchased an expensive $12 bottle of wine. "She'll be here any minute," I kept telling myself. At around 9PM I texted her. She let me know that she assumed the invite was a joke....

She did eventually sheepishly show up!

We are now married and I remind her of this every valentine's day.

13. LousyMinibus did not succeed in impressing their 8th grade crush.

In 8th grade, I tried to hop over a little mini fence by the PE area to impress the boy I liked, needless to say I did not make it, and instead ripped the whole back of my pants, exposing my prepubescent ass to my fellow peers, well also falling forward and smacking my face into the concrete below the fence. Needless to say when the boy expressed his disinterest about me to his friends, I was not surprised.

14. ketzzy's boyfriend really tried.

Not me, but my boyfriend, and at first I hated it but it really grew on me:

Seven years ago, he promised a mini-weekend getaway. A romantic picnic at a secluded beach and afterwards an intimate view of the sunset. First he came to pick me up about 2 hours late, later I found out he was busy preparing everything for the picnic. We drove there, but luckily for us, a 4th grade class trip arrived. We quickly tried to find a place somewhere else. When we found a spot, my boyfriend told me to go ahead alone.

I look back and see him pulling an enormous cooler, barely budging because of the heavy load. When I go over to him the cooler tips over and all the ice and contents fall in the sand. He quickly starts shoving everything back inside, cursing under his breath and saying sorry over and over. The section of beach we found was dirty, the water looked like sludge and there was graffiti all over the rocks behind us.

The drinks and fruits were covered in sand and the sandwiches had water in them from the cooler. We later realized there was sewage in the water which was why there was a horrible smell and a disturbing amount of flies. Needless to say, we didn't wait till sundown. He didn't have money to buy anything else because he spent it all on ice and drinks. I paid for our Burger King meals. I hated it, I thought it was the worst experience ever, but later I went home and realized how hard he tried to make my first 'real' summer date special.

Seven years later, we're still going strong. (:

15. FrenchSnail's romantic date turned into a break up.

Senior year in highschool I had a girlfriend who I had been going out with for awhile. With graduation getting close and us having different plans for our futures things were getting tense and our relationship was getting rocky.

There were really tall cliffs over the lake in the town I lived in. Our first official date was there and in the early days we spent a lot of dates there at those cliffs. When we were rocky we hadn’t gone to them in awhile so as a way to like revitalize our relationship I decided to go there with her.

It was really still and there was fog over the lake. It’s a Great Lake so it’s massive and it was unusual for there not to be at least some waves. We were sitting on the beach under the cliffs, she seemed happy and asked why I had wanted to come here, I explained my reasoning to her. I looked over to her and her face was in her hands. She said she wanted to break up.

So yeah that was rough, but it’s been a few years so now I can look back at it and laugh.

Edit: also the lake is Lake Erie

16. makeupyourworld's ex ripped up their poems.

I used to write my boyfriend one sonnet per week about how much I loved him. I called him to tell him I got in to the writing program at my University. He told me he’d been seeing someone else for two years, that he hated my writing, and ripped up all of my poems on the phone for me to hear.

17. ikkyu666 bombed.

Walking around at recess with my life-or-death crush Christina in 5th grade. I'd been planning this moment for weeks.

She was a small girl. I told her she reminded me of strawberry shortcake. She asked why and I responded "because you're short and sweet". She did not respond and I'm still dead inside.

18. Fullmetalmedusa's high school transformation backfired.

This is one I just remembered while scrolling through these replies. My entire high school career I was goth, always wearing band tees and combat boots, really grungy. It was just my style, and I liked it. I liked a guy who was friendly but didn't seem interested,so I decided to come to school one day dressed 'pretty', with pink lipstick and a skirt and normal boots. I thought for sure he'd see me as a ugly duckling turned swan.

Everyone laughed. I was teased all day about my makeup,the girls were whispering about how dumb I looked for trying to dress like them. The guy I liked didn't take notice and started dating another girl in my class.

Unsurprisingly,Carrie was my favorite book.

19. scrubbyducky's valentines day surprise turned into a Valentines Day nightmare.

Valentine’s Day this year. My girlfriend at the time had been in Thailand doing yoga trainer certification. I managed to get in touch with the hotel she was staying in, and arrange for a dozen roses to be delivered to the hotel, which they would place in her room during clean up while she was at class. On Valentine’s Day she came home to the roses and a knock on her door. I had flown from New York to Bangkok, from Bangkok to Samui to surprise her. I got the bigger surprise though. Two days later I found out she had been sleeping with her Ex who lived on Samui. I took a ferry to the next island over and had a drunken two week vacation.

ADDED DETAILS since there were so many questions... My ex was born in Houston and raised in Bangkok (so she had dual citizenship). Her dad is from the US and her mom is Thai. She went to IHS in Bangkok. Between HS and Uni she spent some time in Samui.

She always preferred island life to city life and wanted that experience before going to Uni in the US. She went to school in NJ and we met in NYC. I had to go to Asia for work. I left just after thanksgiving and she came out to meet me in mid December. In the few weeks we spent there she showed me around BKK and we spent a weekend in Koh Phangan. I went home to spend xmas with my family and she stayed to spend xmas with hers. Over the xmas holiday she told her dad she was more interested in pursuing a career in health/wellness than business (more his choice that her's in the 1st place). She wanted to be a certified personal trainer/yoga instructor. Her dad offered to pay for the yoga certification.

Two of the top rated schools in the world are in Thailand; one on Samui and another on the neighboring island of Koh Phangan. She and I had a long talk about it. One of the primary concerns was obviously her ex. He was an abusive, narcissistic, controlling son of a bitch. She was just as concerned as I was. On multiple occasions he'd beat the shit out of her. She preferred the school in Phangan for the style of yoga and the remoteness of the school (less chance of bumping into him is he went to KP to party). She applied there 1st but the class was full for the term. There was another VERY long talk... The school in Samui was on a quiet side of the mountain; not really much there. Classes were 6 days a week for 10 hours a day.

The chances of running into him on that one day off a week (which would probably be spent on the school grounds with class friends either relaxing or studying) were slim. At this point I could either be supportive and trust her, or I could be another controlling asshole boyfriend. I chose to be supportive. I even wrote her letter of recommendation. She was accepted in the program. We were on the phone 2, sometimes 3 times a day. I helped her study so much I could probably lead a yoga class myself. The students there were from all over the world, and she was the only one familiar with the island. When one of the girls wanted to go out for her birthday they asked her to help plan it. She took them to a club she knew and ran into an old friend.

This old friend promptly texted her abusive ex with a "guess who I just ran into" message, and he showed up looking for her. Narcissists can be very charming... anyway... Our plan was always for me to come out at the end of her classes to help her study for her final examinations, be at her graduation, and spend a week together before we both flew back to the states. I bumped the trip up a few days to be there for Valentine's Day, and the rest is history.

20. throwyoworkaway's fiance broke up via lies.

My ex and I were to get married in 18 days, and we were really stressed out about the wedding.

So I left work early, got a bunch of things, cooked dinner, set up a little scavenger hunt of memories to remind her of why we're together, which then lead her to the dinner table with her favourite meal with candles.

She then broke up with me, lied about why she did it. And I found out a few weeks later that the reason we were having trouble was not wedding related. It was because she was with someone else.

Getting a "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" text from an ex you haven't spoken to in years is always alarming.

Hey, thanks for texting me a bland "Merry Christmas" out of nowhere three years after we broke up, but you shattered my heart into tiny pieces of sad, spiky glass so I'm going to have to veto continuing this exchange.

It's good the days of sending mass holiday greetings texts are over, but that only makes it extra strange when you imagine that your former flame decided to reach out to you personally. WHY? Is it because your family misses me desperately and your new girlfriend is a boring piece of cardboard toast? No? Ok.

There's never a very good response to a simple "Happy holidays," but a "I miss you" when you're not feeling the love back is pretty awkward. If you're dreading the holiday season because of the possibility that all your ghosts of lovers past are going to smell that you're happy and healthy and awaken from the dead, we feel you. Here are some hilarious tweets about holiday ex-texts to get you through!

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