Birthdays can bring out a lot of extreme feelings, especially when someone feels disappointed with how the special day is going down.
The world's current state of lockdown has made birthdays even weirder, we can no longer invite our closest friends over for laughs, or meet at a bar for drinks - instead celebrations are relegated to video chats and streaming festivities.
While full-grown adults should ideally be able to celebrate their birthday without having a meltdown about everything being perfect, we've all met a few people who obsess about their birthdays with the fervor of a "My Super Sweet Sixteen" star.
In a recent post on the Am I The A*shole subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for calling out her fiance for being rude to her on his birthday.
AITA for not letting my fiancé’s actions slide on his birthday?
Yesterday was my fiancé’s 30th birthday, and it ended up being one of the worst days imaginable.
Since they're stuck in quarantine, OP wrote that she went to great lengths to make her fiance's 30th birthday special with a big breakfast, decorations, and a surprise Zoom call.
I did my best to make his birthday special (we are staying with family, so it made it a bit easier). I arranged a surprise Zoom call with his best friends, put up decorations for the morning of, made breakfast, mimosas, and baked him a cake. Our morning was amazing.
While the morning was a dream, things went south in the afternoon when they went to the liquor store and he started throwing a fit about champagne.
Fast forward to the afternoon, we are in the alcohol shop looking around, and suddenly his mood changes as he remembered he forgot our champagne at home. He started complaining, said he was tired of holding our items and tossed them into my arms, and expressed he “didn’t know what to do because he was so disappointed he couldn’t have mimosas tomorrow morning” for almost 5 minutes (he has a terrible time dealing with broken expectations). I’m there stunned at what I perceive as an overreaction so I grab a couple of bottles of champagne and head to the register.
The second AFTER I pay, he said “return them, they’re too expensive for us not knowing how it taste (they were $15/each). I just looked at him and said “really?”. He grabs the keys and goes to the car. I’m standing here, embarrassed, and just did it.
When OP confronted her fiance on his sudden shift in mood, he deflected blame onto her and claimed she was acting insensitive on his birthday.
When I get to the car, I ask him “what’s going on with you?” with an apparent attitude and he flew off the handle. He raised his voice and said “YOU!” I’m sure I sounded annoyed, as I was, but I wasn’t nasty. I try to bring it up again before we get back to the house. I apologize, he refuses to acknowledge his actions in the store, continues aggressively talking at me. He says I have no right to act that way on his birthday. It eventually ends with me calling him an a*shole in response to “you can’t handle me for five minutes in a bad mood because I’m not kissing your a*s about all you did this morning”. I immediately apologized for calling him a name, and for the entire situation in general again. He refused to apologize and showed no remorse for the things he did that brought me to my breaking point.
Despite their fight, OP tried to put on a happy face when they returned to the family home, but she wasn't able to shake off the strange and sudden fight.
We get back to our family’s house, I’m struggling. I’m making conversation with his family, but can’t bring myself to be physically close with my fiancé because of how hurt I am, I’m sure it was visibly noticeable.
When OP explained why she wasn't able to fake it at the house, OP went off on her, calling her names and claiming it was absurd for her to act this way on his birthday.
We eventually get a moment alone, I try to explain to him why I’m struggling to come back, he responds “you’re looking for an apology and you’re not going to get it today. I’m not apologizing to anyone who called me an a*shole on my birthday, what I did is nothing to how terrible what you did was. You need to get it together because I feel weird being around my family when you’re acting like this.” And left the room. I felt even more deflated. He texts me from across the room “thanks a lot for today, at least the beginning was good. It’s your job to put that argument aside and be here on my day. You’re more selfish than you realize.”
Now that he's giving her the silent treatment, OP decided to bring the situation to the internet for an outside opinion.
He won’t talk to me today at all.
AITA for not putting on a happy face?
Sinderella53 thinks OP should get out of the relationship ASAP, given the red flags in her fiance's behavior.
NTA I would reconsider marriage if this is a regular thing.
Wikidess doesn't understand why OP's fiance was upset in the first place.
NTA.
"It’s your job to put that argument aside and be here on my day. You’re more selfish than you realize."
You sure you want to marry this a*shole? O.o
poondi pointed out just how manipulative the relationship is, and that it'll likely get worse.
GIRL READ WHAT YOU WROTE.
"It’s even harder in these situations because I feel f*cking insane by the end of it. yet I’ve never gotten along with someone so well, or have had someone loved me so deeply and vice-versa."
This isn't getting along with someone. This someone forcing you to put aside your feelings to get along with his whims. It's manipulative. If he is treating you like this, then you're not truly getting along.
zoomzoom42 gave OP a book suggestion and urged her to get out ASAP.
So he's good at gaslighting. Here is a good book you might want to read. It will open your eyes to things that you are probably trying to bury.
Beverly Engel
The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing.
electropop_robot echoed everyone else's warnings, and encouraged OP to remember that even though she's invested years in her fiance, resigning the rest of her life is far longer than the time already spent.
Everyone's made excellent points, so all I'd like to add is don't fall into the sunk cost fallacy.
I say this because you've mentioned being with him for three years & while that is a long time, a lifetime is much longer.
Hopefully, OP is able to take everyone's words on board, and is able to find an emotionally and physically safe way to remove herself from this relationship ASAP.
Sorry, folks... you can't have the annoying guy from your office fired for sneezing too loud, even if the sneezes sound like thunderclaps.
Human resources managers shared the funniest, most absurd complaints they've ever gotten from their coworkers, and it is shocking that some grown adults still haven't realized that it's necessary to wear underwear.
We had a complaint that the toilet roll holders were too low in the stalls because when a guy was “taking a poo” his knees were hitting the holders. We then lifted all the stalls toilet roll holders 8 inches on whole company site so no knees would hit the toilet roll holders. No complaints since. HR working for the people!
I was a manager and had to call our HR in on this one. We had a computer that was used by multiple people and a couple of girls complained that it had a virus and porn was always popping up when they turned it on in the morning.
I decided to have look see if someone was fucking around on the closing shift so I looked at the security footage and low and behold one of the supervisors was watching porn and jerking off.
When we called him in he didn’t deny it but said technically he didn’t pull his dick out he just played with it in his pants so it’s not really that bad. The HR guy just looked at him didn’t say a word until after what seemed like forever the jerker said so I guess I’m fired and then walked out.
My partner is in HR. Someone took a sh*t on the job site. He was given a photo complete with measurements. The people that complained wanted DNA testing done. He’s still not sure why they measured it.
Someone complained about another employee smelling of rotten chicken and feet. The scent was bad enough that no one wanted to work with that guy around. Had to put on a hygiene fundamentals in the workplace presentation for that entire group since I couldn’t single out Smelly. I think he got the hint because he also got a haircut
Had one coworker complain that another guy kept using the bathroom before him, and doing big ol' poos. But the way he said it was like this guy knew when he was about to go, ninja'd in just before him, dropped a massive stinker and then forced the other guy to marinade in the smell when he went for a leak afterwards.
We ended up adding a can of air freshener to the bathroom, and the next complaint that came in was the poo guy never used it.
HR consultant for 10+ years. You won’t believe the amount of times I’ve had to shut people down for trying to sell their pyramid scheme “side hustle” in the office.
Not HR, but my friend who is recently told me about a VP at his company making a post on LinkedIn with one of the new employees as his #WCW (Woman Crush Wednesday). The WCW lady was happy about it. The complaint came from two women who didn’t get the promotion to that position.
An employee used very derogatory terms to make fun of a customer who was in the back of the store... while talking to the customer who was at the counter. Who happened to be the other customer’s mother. Yikes.
You wouldn't believe the headaches that I received when management signed a new copier/printer lease which reduced the overall number of printers in exchange for centrally located multiplex copiers. Evidently, people feel their social standing is signified by if they have a printer (or two) in their office.
My favorite was an Executive Assistant who stated that, because she wears heels to work she couldn't walk to the new copier and requested that a reasonable accommodation would be to replace the printer she had in her office.
After 20 years in HR, I have too many to remember. The most recent was on Monday when an employee emailed me with a request to remind everyone to be careful with scented lotions. Her area reeked from something that smelled like Moroccan oil. These kind of emails are a bomb waiting to go off. Everyone gets paranoid, and I end up replying to 50 people that they smell fine and, yes, please keep wearing your deodorant. I told her that I would rather address it with the individual, so let me know who it was. After literally sniffing our way through the cube farm, we discovered the smell was coming from her own desk drawer. We couldn't find the stinky culprit, so she ended up throwing everything out. Case closed.
It was lunch time, a client came in. My colleague was eating a sausage roll and had it on his desk. Next day a formal complaint came through about my colleagues sausage roll and how unprofessional it was of him to have a sausage roll he was eating on his desk.
I worked in HR and my coworker hated me. She wanted someone else to get the job I did and she would complain about me to management for anything.
The final straw for everyone was when I sneezed and she slammed her keyboard on her desk, basically ran out of the room and didn't come back for 30 minutes.
Management called me in and said I was making too much noise. I told them I sneezed and they said she would complain about me every day so they didn't believe her but had to make it look like they were doing something.
Was once asked to investigate a sexual harassment situation where three different women were coming on to a male coworker throughout their shift. I took down the details, got the names, easy peasy investigation so I thought.
A week later, nobody by these descriptions or names had ever worked for the company. I decided to talk to the gentleman again. After a lengthy conversation where things didn’t quite stack up I asked him how these women communicated with him.
I sh*t you not, with a straight face, he looks me in the eye and replies “telepathically” like I’m some kind of idiot.
I had never sent an employee for psychological evaluation up to that point and I hope never to have to again.
So yeah I was asked by a delusional schizophrenic to conduct a sex harassment investigation on the voices in his head.
She came in with a complaint that she tried to give one of the younger guys a hug and he refused. His story was that he basically had to run away.
I had to explain to a middle age woman that it was not her right to hug people who didn't want to be hugged. She still didn't get it and left thinking she was still in the right.
Not an HR employee, but I recently reported a bus driver for bringing his girl friend to work and rubbing her feet while driving. She sat on the spot right behind the driver and put her feet where he could reach for them with one hand.
I took a picture of the whole thing and debated on what to do with it for a while. On the one side, I didn't want this guy to lose his job nor have to explain why he was rubbing his girlfriend's feet at work (imagine the awkwardness). On the other side, he missed a turn and then took a U-turn on a downhill blind curve where we could've easily gotten nailed. In the end I came to the conclusion: when other people's lives are in your hands, that's what your hands should focus on.
All it takes is a few minutes looking through an old year book to usher in the flood of memories, regardless of your style or personal ethos, school picture day was one full of visible feelings and often questionable fashion choices.
Truly, no one has a more thorough scope of the drama of school picture day quite like the photographers responsible for the shots that haunt us for years. While we are haunted by our teenage fashion choice, many of these photographers are haunted by the cringe-inducing moments they experienced on the job.
In a popular Reddit thread, school photographers shared their strangest and most cringe-worthy stories, and it's a good reminder that things get better.
Or at least, they evolve from those deeply awkward school years.
I did senior portraits and this really nerdy lookin kid wanted photos with his two samurai swords. I tried my best to make it look cool but... I just... couldn't.
Another senior did couples photos with her boyfriend. They specifically earnestly requested a pose where the girl posed all cute on one side of the couch, while the boy sat on the other side of the couch, staring at her while stroking his beard. That one didn't turn out well either.
Spent 15 min with a guy because he blinked every time I took the photo. I tried everything in my book, making him close and open his eyes before snapping the picture, delaying the flash, shooting without flash, taking the picture while talking to him so he'll be distracted. Nothing worked.
Ended up taking his picture with a cellphone, because apparently what made him close his eyes was the shutter/mirror sound.
When I was having my graduation portrait taken, the photographer pulled me aside afterwards and for like 30 minutes was talking about all this new Photoshop and airbrush techniques they could do now.
I played along, being polite. I didn't really care, but he seemed super hyped about it and how cool it was.
Turns out it was his subtle way of asking me what I thought if he airbrushed out my pimples - I had pretty awful acne at the time. Like, holy sh*t, lunar lander couldn't find a decent spot to put down in.
He eventually gave up and I left thinking to myself how weird that dude was.
I got the pictures a few weeks later. He did a good job, and completely airbrushed everything out. I showed my Dad who took one look and said, "Who the f*ck is that?!"
I work as a photographer. One of the people I work with was shooting a little girl per request of mom. She tried like hell to make her smile but she refused. She wasn't rude or upset, just very shy and quiet and uncomfortable taking photos. Mom told the photographer that a week prior the photographer at her school told her she had a weird/funny/ugly looking smile and to learn to smile better.
Since then the little girl refused to smile in any picture. Mom brought her in to see if our photographers could change that. I think she got some decent shots but man, I remember what it was like getting shut down like that as a kid, it was devastating.
In his freshman year my brother (a white dude) switched his picture card with an Asian friend of his. They figured that the picture guy would notice that it was weird that a white guy would have an obviously Chinese name, and they would tell them to switch back.
Nope, for the rest of his time in high school on every form and computer system my brother was an Asian guy. Confused the hell out of substitute teachers.
When I was a school photographer, to amuse myself I tried to give each kid in class a unique word to say. "Fuzzy puppies!" ""Funky monkeys!" Etc etc.
So I get this little girl at my chair. She's got the thickest glasses I've seen, an overbite, and is pale as a vampire. But whatever. A kid is a kid. So I say, "Okay, say Fuzzy Kitties!"
And she gives me the most irritated look I've ever seen. "Uh, I'n allergic to kitties." Like it was the dumbest thing anyone had ever said to her, and she felt sorry for how dumb I was.
I was photographing a 3rd grade class and I got to an adorable little boy and went through my list of instructions; " now turn your head here, shoulders here, oopsie, your right arm there. Wait. Please move your right arm." He gave me the saddest little look and showed me the stub on his right shoulder. He had no right arm. I felt like a terrible person.
We were doing photos at a special needs high school. Guy comes up in a windbreaker, corduroy high water pants, velcro tennis shoes and the thickest glasses I've ever seen. I asked him whose class he was in so i could make sure he was in the right group and he said he wasn't a student, he worked there.
I'm not a photographer but I probably gave the one who took my second grade school photo a weird feeling. I'd just moved from a third world country and didn't speak a lick of English. I had no idea what a soda can was, much less the hallowed tradition of Picture Day.
So when my class was directed to shuffle down the hall in an orderly line to the gym, and I saw all those abstracty bluish background canvases that looked like X-ray images all over the gym... and that we were all going towards a spot directly in front of it, one at a time, in this solemn fashion --I thought we were all, one by one, having a medical procedure done to us.
And that's why I look a little teary and very, very stoic in my second grade photo.
Edit: There's a framed copy of it at my parents' house, maybe I'll ask my mom to take a pic of it with her phone and email it to me tomorrow. Today's no good b/c she has a big test at school :( I'm actually making an animated short about being a kid immigrant, so if you ever seen it floating around the internet in a few years, uh, touch your left earlobe twice.
Photographed a class of 1 and 2 year olds (i mostly did preschool.) Their teacher had written herself thank you notes as if they were coming from the pre-verbal children. Like "Dear Ms. Judy, thank you for changing my diaper." "Dear Ms. Judy, thank you for giving me snacks every day." She had written one for every kid, and hung them up all over her wall. Later as I was trying to navigate my tripod through a hallway, she felt I was in her way and threatened to bash my face in with a door.
So I'm in kindergarten getting my picture taken (1980). The flash bulb pops and explodes, catches that umbrella thing on fire. All the teachers scream and I sh*t my pants. Awkward when I get picked up by mom wearing underoos and holding a plastic bag .... But the teachers said I was brave. Ahhh simpler times.
It was for a middle school. There was this young lady having her portraits done. She wasn't doing anything bad in hindsight. She was just very well developed for her age and the shirt she was wearing had a little cleavage. I'm sure her parents sent her out of the house just fine, and she probably felt very pretty and confident.
Young lady, having photos done, no big deal. Class portrait time - out of nowhere this middle aged female school administrator comes up to her. She yanks her out of the photo and chastises her for her outfit. Then she makes her wear this oversized baggy t-shirt and we redo the photo. I can only imagine what this girl was going through.
When I was 16, I was recovering from a serious illness that left me partially blind and very sensitive to light, so I wore those big old-lady cataract sunglasses all the time.
Picture day, sat down for my photo, and the photographer says "How about you take off those glasses superstar? You don't look cool."
I said "I can't, I need them" and he replied "You don't need them, you just think you look good in those."
My soccer coach came over and let him know exactly where he went wrong while I sat in the photo chair trying not to cry.
The photographer who did my senior photos told me the weirdest request she had gotten so far that year was a girl who very specifically wanted just one arm photoshopped to be especially thin. It ended up being a girl in my class and I noticed the second I saw her picture in the yearbook. She was a bigger girl so she had one chubby arm and one very, very, very skinny twig-like arm. She didn't seem to notice how weird it was. She was one of the more popular girls so of course everyone looked at her picture and noticed. She had no clue. She only focused on the arm that was closer to the camera. I was torn between feeling bad and wanting to laugh hysterically. I chose both.
edit for you "remind me" folks. I promise I will look for my yearbooks the next time I'm at my mom's house. I usually go over there like every other Thursday for dinner but my husband (I'm not a dude you guys) has been injured and I've been going home to him instead of doing Thursday dinner. Sorry to disappoint. I'll look for the picture the next time I'm over there!
Kid I went to high school with showed up on picture day wearing a giant afro wig. He had worn a wig the year before but it wasn't as noticeable so our Senior year he decided to push it. These weren't yearbook shots just school ids. He gets to the front of the line and the photographer tells him to take the wig off. He argues it was he real hair and even breaks out the my dad is black argument. Finally the guy just lets him take the picture with the wig on.
I asked a 4th grader if she hurt her foot. "Uh, I have a prosthetic leg". She was wearing sandals and sure enough rubber foot.
I asked a 7th grader to sit up straight, spinal problems. His doctor bought a copy of the photo as a before shot for a textbook he was writing. Whatever the doctor did, it worked like a charm.
A kid told my assistant that they ate their pet rabbit the night before.
I asked a kid to sit down. He sat down on the floor. I told him, "Not on the floor, on the chair. Please point your knees at the computer." He got up and touched his knee to the computer. I said, "No, sit on the chair and turn your knees point them at the computer."
I asked a kid if they wanted their hoodie to be in the picture. "No." ok, take your hoodie off. "No". Do you want your hoodie in the picture? "No." If you don't want your hoodie to be in the picture, you have to take it off or it will be in the picture. "Oh, I want my hoodie in the picture".
I tapped a kid on the shoulder from behind and asked where the teacher was. She was the teacher, and I had known her for almost 20 years by that point.
Asked a teacher if a severely disabled student could sit by themselves on the bench. The student couldn't and there was a pretty hard thump on the gym floor.
I'll try to remember some stories later but there was one shoot I'll never forget.
First off, we were expected to do 3 sets of pictures for each student, one for the yearbook (tux for boys, drape for girls) one for cap and gown and one set of casuals. Casuals usually involved hand poses with a table we'd bring and some cutesy stuff, like holding a rose up to your shoulder, or like full body pictures meant to show off their clothes.
So a girl comes in, she looks OUT of it. Like really not connected to the world. I take the yearbook pics, I take the cap and gown. All the while her smiles are so obviously faked and her eyes are just gone. It's okay, I was used to dealing with students who didn't want their picture taken. I'm pretty good at loosening them up and making them laugh, but she was barely paying attention to me. She seemed really distracted.
I tell her to change into her regular clothes to take her casuals and she's like "okay" all monotone. She comes back and has huge bandages on her arms. Clearly this poor girl had tried to kill herself rather recently and was just taking these pictures out of obligation or something.
Every casual photo I'd take of her would have those bandages and there would be no mistaking why they were there. Instead of taking them and having them show up in the proofs that would go out to the parents, I tell her, "okay you're good, thanks for coming!" And she just shrugs and leaves, just as apathetic as before.
This was like 6 years ago and I still think about her sometimes and I hope she's happy now.
Probably the most awkward moment I had was working with Lifetouch and photographing a girls senior portrait when I was 23. She went on and on about how she was 16 and skipped a grade because she was so smart, I told her that was good for her but could be hard when it came to college. She responded with a story of her spring break in Mexico where she did a wet T shirt contest and was in the top 3 contestants. Most awkward conversation I've ever had doing senior portraits.
Being a young female photographer, probably having to photograph male, high school seniors is the most awkward. I've been asked out on dates, hit on, winked at, and straight up had any and all requests for them to smile nicely, stop goofing around or take their hat off ignored.
There was a very small country mountain high school we used to take senior pictures at every year. Only about 15 or 20 seniors each year, but there was no other photo studio or services for a few hours drive, so when we came to town to take pictures, it was a big deal.
I did several sessions where I was taking entire family photos, newborn baby pictures, and bridal portraits during their senior portrait sessions. Yes, bridal portraits. Some were for upcoming weddings, but most were for the wedding (and/or children) they had already had during their junior year that they had no other pictures for.
Since we're all trapped in quarantine, we've probably spent a fair amount of time scrolling mindlessly on our phones, terrified by what the weekly screen time report will reveal.
Is 11 hours an appropriate amount of time to spend on Instagram and TikTok every day? Sure. Did you find yourself falling down a rabbithole Facebook stalking your neighbor's husband's sister's best friend's dog and now you're questioning all of your life choices? Did you have too many Zoom happy hour cocktails and sign up for a Patreon supporting an artist who makes miniatures of household items you can't possibly find a purpose to purchase but just think are adorable? It's fine! There are no rules in quarantine (except the one where you have to stay in quarantine-that's a pretty big one).
Since the internet is now our main portal into the news and our social lives, people have been churning out a whole lot of hilarious, weird, and creative internet content. To make your scrolling life easier, we put together a list of the best things that are going viral today. Enjoy and stay safe!
1. People can't stop talking about Trump's suggestion that doctors start testing for coronavirus cures by putting disinfectants in the lungs.
After hearing presentation President Trump suggests irradiating people's bodies with UV light or injecting them with bleach or alcohol to deal with COVID19. pic.twitter.com/cohkLyyl9G
Here's a mashup of Trump claiming today he was just asking "a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room" when he mused about disinfectant injections as a possible coronavirus miracle cure, followed by the original clip showing beyond a doubt that he was not doing that. pic.twitter.com/wby4ucd59Q
Let’s be clear on something: Trump wasn’t being sarcastic when he talked about injecting bleach into humans as a solution, but even if he were being sarcastic, he did so during a nationally televised presser in the middle of a pandemic a month after a man died from chloroquine.
4. Elijah Wood is out there just making people's day on "Animal Crossing."
guys I tweeted my turnip prices and elijah wood just came to my island and hung out 😭😭😭😭😭 this is the best day in quarantine yet pic.twitter.com/H3mYJWnvgR
5. Mark Ruffalo celebrating the 16th anniversary of "13 Going on 30."
Happy Anniversary to 13 Going on 30 today! Remember what the world was like when Razzles were all the rage? Missing that time 🍬pic.twitter.com/FnvwKDN8BF
6. Some people noticed that "The Onion" published a satirical news article a month ago that suggested Trump would recommend drinking consuming cleaning products as a cure for coronavirus...
The Onion was NEVER fake news. It's just news written by a time traveler with a horrible sense of humor. https://t.co/mVYANRAn32
— LaBlaq, your favorite #ComicBookBabe 💋🌟 (@LoveAndShalom) April 24, 2020
— SheRa Marley, but far away (@SheRa_Marley) April 24, 2020
7. And last, but not least...these perfect children.
My daughter and her neighbor friend spend a lot of the day sitting 6 feet away from the sidewalk, shouting compliments out at strangers who walk by. It's the right mood for these times.
Just overheard: "YOUR SHIRT MATCHES YOUR DOG AND I LIKE THAT ABOUT YOU!"
It's often said the thought counts most when receiving gifts, but how do you count the thought when you have no idea what the person was thinking?!
Some gifts are amazing and go down in the personal history books as above and beyond, while others are generic and forgettable, but what about the gifts that leave you with an endless feeling of "wtf?!"
People jumped on a popular Reddit thread to unpack the strangest and most bizarre gifts they've received, and they certainly inspire more questions than answers.
My Norwegian grandma once bought me a standard t-shirt shirt for my 13th birthday that read 'Vaginatarian' in big bold letters on the front. And yes she doesn't speak English.
Wrote about this before, but at a birthday party in front of my family, my gf at the time gave me an illustrated journal of every time we saw each other from the first date 'til current (about 6 mos.) Included movie ticket stubs from our first date, the receipt from Chipotle from our second date (so she must've been planning this stuff for a while).
Then it got graphicly awkward (pages dedicated to us having sex had smiley face stickers, days where we had fights had frowny face ones, one memorable entry was a page written in large text "WE TRIED TO HAVE SEX BUT YOU COULDN'T") and all the while, she's sitting next to me beaming like I've just been given a winning lottery ticket, meanwhile the discomfort from my family was painful.
For an awkward gift: not me but when my brother was in the throes of puberty, my parents got him a basket of
Breath mints, tongue scraper, mouthwash.
Strong-smelling soaps & loofahs.
Multiple kind of deodorants with a helpful hint that you can use more than one at a time.
Lots of new socks & boxers.
Deodorized shoe inserts.
He got the hint and was not pleased. Bless them I mean they really tried; I'm not sure there's any way to tell your pubescent child they stink without them being a little bothered. It didn't help that they gave it to him in front of the rest of the family, though.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it either of those, but it was somewhat strange in how random it was.
I was working in a pre-surgery clinic. This older gentleman came in and we were having a normal conversation while I did his vitals. Just before I told him to return to the waiting room he asked me what year I was born. Not thinking much of it, I told him and he pulled out this big white binder and started flipping through the pages. After a few seconds, he pulled out a page and gave it to me. It was a collection of various coins from around the world dated with the year I was born.
I think it was bizarre in the sense of how random his act of kindness was and I certainly wasn’t expecting to be given a part of a coin collection as a thank you. I still have it and think about it a lot.
One year my parents bought me stilts and a juggling kit for Christmas, and then a unicycle for my birthday a few months later. I had never expressed an interest in the circus or anything of the sort.
Our stepfamily gave me and my sister a single, used, women's size 8 skirt to share for Xmas when we were 10 and 11 and neither of us had even hit 100lbs yet. Even my mom didn't wear that size (we were a scrawny bunch back then). We were called ungrateful when we were confused by it.
I was the one who gave the gift. When I was about 10, my mom would bring me and my brothers all to the local dollar tree one at a time to buy gifts for each other.
I ended up buying my older brother a can of Febreze. No idea why.
I'm sure it's the thought that counts, but I still haven't figured it out...
Christmas 2005 I opened a gift from my husband which was an army type Ken doll, shirtless, with a picture of my husband's smiling face taped on the doll's head.
I worked in a thrift store and every day this older woman would come in and look at whatever was new and talk to me. One day she came in, handed me a small gold Turkish dagger and said “this reminded me of you”. I’m a 5ft tall white girl.
Paperclips wrapped in cardboard (mailed from my home town, mind) with a note from my mom: "Thought you could use these." Always thinking of us, but... we do have paperclips here.
One year for my birthday my brother got me a gift card, which isn't really unique, but the way he wrapped it certainly was.
Instead of a box or bag or whatever, he bought a piñata and put my present inside of it. He shoved the gift card right up the opening in its butt, and then he duct taped it shut. That was a fun one to open. I'll definitely never forget it lol.
There are many, all of them from my grandma. Her gifts are both feared and revered.
One that comes to mind is the bag of combs.
My grandma is a retired hairdresser. She is also one to save everything. During my horribly awkward teenage years, I'd begun using product to style my hair in an attempt to look cool. Grandma took notice and gifted me a plastic freezer bag absolutely stuffed with about 30 or 40 used combs and partially-used hair styling products that she'd saved from her salon over the years. Most of the combs were sticky and festooned with a few decade's worth of stray hairs. One container of hair product was so old that its contents had actually dried to dust and blew away into the breeze when I opened it.
Grandma: "...well, you're just so into your looks these days, I thought you could put those to use."
EDIT: Yes, I have told this story before elsewhere on the Reddit.
Just because you can't dine in restaurants during the pandemic doesn't mean that you can't take your laughs to go.
El Arroyo is a restaurant in Austin, Texas that's famous for serving up hilarious jokes on its sign since 1975. The taco joint has adapted to COVID times by making food for just take-out and delivery, and with fresh jokes, too.
Covering all aspects of quarantine life, from Zoom calls to Tiger King, here are some of their best jokes.
If you have any ideas, you can send them to sign@elarroyo.com.
“If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.”
–Bette Davis
If you're a parent you are probably losing your sanity right about now. It's definitely time for some laughs. These hilarious parenting memes totally nail the feeling of being at home with your kids during a global pandemic. Hang in there. You got this!
Home is where the heart is. It's also where the snacks are, the tv is, and the virus is not. As much as it stinks to social distance right now, you got this. Here are 25 memes to make you laugh and keep you from giving yourself an unfortunate at home haircut.
You may not think there are a lot of reasons to laugh today, but I've got 23 of them right here. These silly memes will crack you up. So get your giggle on and have a good morning.
Twitter user @Rauccous_Raccoon recently shared a game that asks you to pick a house to be quarantined in, with each house having a list of positives you have to trade off, like Netflix and Hulu or a home gym, and a negative you have to accept. You can have a comfy couch or booze, dogs or cats, but you also have to accept bedbugs, living with someone you don't like, or ghosts.
We struggled with this one for a while, but ultimately landed on #4, because we're really scared of ghosts, even the friendly ones. What quarantine house are you?
Good morning, party people. If you're half as crabby as I am in the morning, you definitely need a laugh right now. These ridiculously silly memes will kickstart your day with some serious chuckles.
With geography no longer a factor in our social lives, our choices of who we interact with are suddenly a lot more far-reaching, thanks to Zoom and video-chat. And it looks like Saturday Night Live has taken advantage of this pandemic perk. In their second at-home edition of SNL, the show featured a slew of high-profile celebs like Adam Sandler, Charles Barkley, Miley Cyrus, Paul Rudd, and Brad Pitt. They also brought back some stars of SNL past like Rob Schneider, Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen.
Here are some of the celebrity-studded highlights.
Brad Pitt showed up in the Cold Open playing a bespectacled Dr. Anthony Faucci, who thanked “all the older women in America who have sent me supportive, inspiring and sometimes graphic emails.”
Was Pitt's version sexier than the actual Dr. Faucci? Sound off in the comments!
The show revived an oldie-but-goodie, Kenan Thompson's "What's Up With That?" segment, with a cameo from an uncharacteristically quiet DJ Khaled and a very confused Charles Barkley.
Another musical segment, about the tedium of quarantine, featured Pete Davidson, his sister and mom, and their enormous couch, as well as unexpected cameos from Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider and a sweet message from the Sandler family.
And then Miley Cyrus, the official musical guest, dropped in for an emotional cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" in front of a (hopefully contained) fire.
Also Paul Rudd appeared in a relatable segment called FaceTime with Paul Rudd, about all the random people who check in during quarantine.
And finally, they may be series regulars, but Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon are both stars in their own right. And this grocery store ad is too funny (and real) not to include in the lineup.
[Pours glass of Pepsi Crab™] Cheers! To quarantine!
Kids are adorable little weirdos who play by no rules. This might make a parent's job difficult at times, but it can also make it very, very entertaining. Kids are capable of all kinds of strange, gross, socially unacceptable, and straight-up anarchic behavior, especially when they think no one's looking. But, eventually, parents always look. And what they see may surprise, disturb, and/or amuse them—although at a certain point in parenthood, nothing is surprising anymore.
Someone asked parents of Reddit, "what is the weirdest thing you caught your children doing?" These 23 parents (and a few former kids) share their stories of kids getting caught in the act of something adorably weird:
When my son was about 4 he was playing in his playroom. I was on the couch and heard some sounds behind me (it was just us). So I turn and see my son looking up at the light fixtures and whispering. I ask what hes doing. His response: I'm asking all the lightbulbs in the house to not fall and kill you.
I'm not a parent but my niece was very upset that her older sister wouldn't turn the TV over when I was babysitting once. After about 10 minutes she pretended to be interested in the washing machine that was on at the time and sat in front of it and watched it like a TV. For an hour and twenty minutes..... Her older sister watched the rest of her film but obviously wasn't enjoying it. She was outraged that her little sister was having a great time watching wet clothes spin round and round. It's the most creative act of revenge I've ever seen.
My mom caught me bringing eggs from the kitchen into my room and sitting on them in a blanket nest, hoping they'd hatch.
What she didn't catch was that I had been doing this for a while and would put the eggs back into the fridge when they wouldn't hatch after a few days.
Found my kid talking to the hole in the sink when he was 2. Turns out that's where he said god lives. Carry on, ya weirdo.
Ex's eldest hoarded cardboard tubes. If asked they were simply for later. The youngest adopted and formed a strong emotional bond with a garlic for about a week.
We caught my sons (maybe 6 and 3 at the time) both sitting on the toilet together, one behind the other, pooping. They told us it was a double poop. We forbid them from ever doing that again.
Edit to add: For those of you who think we are terrible parents because we stopped our children from doing double poops, please know they seem to be well adjusted and appear to have no permanent damage from this incident. We have provided them with ample outlets for their creativity that do not involve poop. :)
When my daughter was little, old ladies would come over and enthusiastically ask her simple questions. Like "what's your name?" And she would always reply in flat monotone "Birth-day-Cake". Then they'd ask another question like "Oh, well, how old are you?" And she'd say "Birth-day-Cake". They would look over at us with great concern. So annoying.
I woke up to my five year old spraying windex on the window beside my bed, cleaning it thoroughly, then nodding at me and moving on to cleaning the windows in the next room. I still don’t know what the hell was happening.
EDIT: she told me before bed that it needed cleaned so her cat could look out.. the bottom of the windows get smeared because the cats push their faces against it. So she wanted it clean for them.
My 5 Yr old nephew went to feed the chickens yesterday, I told him to get a hat- he came back fully naked with gumboots and a straw hat on. Apparently the last time he went to the chicken house they pecked at his junk, and he wants to show them that it's not big enough to eat yet??? Kids are weird
Not my child but I’ve caught my sister doing multiple strange things as a child. The two most notable were: I once caught her playing with a bag with yellowish liquid inside when she was 10. She had pulled this bag from the side of her backpack. I asked her what it was, it was her own pee. She had been keeping it in there for days and once in a while she’d pull it out go play with. I was horrified. When she was 8, she cut off her dolls hair. Dismembered it and gave it a funeral which she made all of us attend. She went to dig it up several days later but it wasn’t there. She’s done many other things but those were the two weirdest things she did.
When my brother-in-law was three he was so obsessed with the toilet plunger they had to buy him his own so he’d stop grabbing the used one. It was his best friend.
Packing peas from our garden up her nose. This required a trip to the local hospital emergency room, where the doctor (a dad of several young children himself) thought it was hilariously funny. Soon my wife and I were laughing as well
Let's see, my daughter was drinking strawberry milk and then spitting it back into the cup so she could drink it again. I had hosed off a tarp and it was drying on the patio, we went outside and she just stooped down and took a drink out of a puddle on the tarp. just today I was in the garage and she came out, instantly grabbed a toothbrush I use to clean car parts and stuck it in her mouth. I don't even know anymore.
My brother decided he wanted a pee hat, which is literally what it sounds like, a hat he could pee in during the night. While already a stupid idea (since he didn’t empty it), he chose a plastic hat with hole in it.
Edit: it was a toy construction hat with 2/4 holes in the top, meaning his makeshift toilet had 2/4 holes for the pee to leak from. And he was keeping it in his toy box.
My boys share a room. They were about 2 and 7 at the time and I walked in their room and found them rocking on their hands and knees singing "we aaaaaaareeeee the weeeeeeeeeeeeiner doooogs".
I caught my twins in first grade measuring each other’s penises with a tape measure they got to measure their heads in first grade for bike helmets. I walk in after their baths and one is on his back with his legs I. The air. Of course my husband said, “That’s not something you do until high school!”
When my son was 3 years old, we noticed the smell of burnt plastic coming from our heater vents. I called one of our friends that worked in heating and cooling and he came over. Our furnace was in our crawl space so he went down. About 15 minutes later, he asked me to hand him 3 black garbage bags through one of the vents so I did so. He came up later with 3 bags of plastic toys. I had wondered where all my sons toys were going.
I asked my son why he was putting toys down the vents. "he said mommy, there are alligators down there and if I don't feed them my toys, they will eat my sister."
I saw my kid, who was 4, in the back yard looking for bugs or worms. He grab something and put it in his mouth. I asked him about a few minutes later. He said he ate a worm. I laughed and asked why. He said he wanted to know what it tasted like. So I asked what did it taste like. He said it tasted like mud.
The next day I asked him if he really ate a worm. He replied "Yea" in the most defeated and embaressed way any human could. Ya live, ya learn eh.
I was the child. I was in my backyard and noticed there were a lot of slugs around since it had been raining. I was concerned that they had nowhere to go and they would be stuck outside where they would drown in the rain. So I went to the garage and got a bin and went around collecting every slug I could find. Then I got the idea to make it into a miniature city. I put in water, moss sticks, etc. and it became a project of mine that I maintained for weeks. Well one day my mom walks outside for whatever reason and finds me holding a bin that’s just FULL of slugs. She made me put them back and hose the bin down. I was pissed I lost all my hard work
My youngest daughter was about 18 months old. She had, about a week before, discovered how to climb out of her own crib. Also, about a month before, she had once taken off her own diaper - not a repeat event but a one time thing.
My MIL was visiting us, and we were all slow to wake up. Around 7:30, the baby monitor alerted me that my daughter was awake, but happy and content in her crib. I let my wife sleep in, and I grabbed a quick 5 min shower before going to grab her. When I got there....
She had put the two pieces (climb out of crib, and take off diaper) together, and used them to "repaint" her room. I will never recover from the trauma of the smell.
A little girl I was babysitting was slowly stirring her bowl of chocolate ice cream into mush. I asked her what she was doing, and she replied very seriously “I’m making poo-poo for God to put in people’s bottoms.”
At the time, I was pregnant with my second child. I walked past the bathroom and heard my first born son, who was about one and a half years old, in there making coughing sounds. I go in to look and he was standing by the toilet coughing into it. I had horrible morning sickness and he was mimicking me throwing up.
My daughter had her door locked which is odd... I gave her some privacy for a while but then I got worried so I made her open the door and she was watching a political debate. She was 13.
Being home alone at night was always super-creepy when I was young. And maybe it's because I listen to too many true crime podcasts, but that creepy feeling never really went away in adulthood. And the only thing that can make it 100 times creepier is the realization that you might not be as alone as you thought. Weird noises, inexplicable movement, and other signs of life when you're supposed to be home alone are the stuff of nightmares, and the plots of many horror movies. Usually it's just an overactive imagination, but not always.
Someone asked Reddit: "what is the scariest thing to happen to you when you’ve been home alone?" These 25 people share thier creepy and terrifying stories. Lock your doors (and windows).
It was a hot summer and my parents went to a wedding. I had a project to do and it was like 1am and silent until a random drunk dude crawled in through my window with a bottle and blush face. I was 20ft away at my desk from the window and we both just stared at eachother. He was flustered and said "oh sorry there kid wrong house" and attempts to leave the way he came. He was drunk n dizzy so I helped him by pushing him out the window. I thoroughly shut it and stared at it for 2 hours until my parents came home.
The scariest thing that happened to me I didnt know actually happened until the following day. I lived in an apartment in a not so good part of a dangerous city with my boyfriend who worked nights. One day our friend came over and called me to let him in our building in a hurry. Turns out this guy had been crouched by my car in the parking lot and had approached our friend and closed in on him. My friend pulled out a weapon and the guy ran off.
Upstairs I noticed that the guy had left a green bundle near my car and assumed he would be back for it. It made me uncomfortable so I suggested we call the cops. Not 5 minutes after a cop showed up to ask where the guy had gone swat, K9, and about 10 cars showed up and swarmed our area.
Turns out the guy had escaped from county the night before with two other guys. He was in jail for assault with a deadly weapon and repeated domestic violence offenses. He had climbed the fence in the yard behind our building where our landlord kept his camper, broken into the camper, and stayed there the night before. He had stolen all the electronics out of it as well as a butcher knife and was trying to break into my car before my friend showed up.
I had been alone the night before and had taken my dog down to the yard to go to the bathroom. I noticed that the barbed wire on the top of the fence had fallen down, and my dog was nervous. But I brushed it off. The guy had been in the camper watching me the whole time and I never knew it.
Someone tried to break into my neighbors house while I was babysitting their kids. I was 15 and I used to baby sit for my neighbors down the block. They had a really nice house, 3 floors with a built-in garage under the house, that connected to the basement. It was the family's most used entrance of the house and they rarely locked the basement door as long as the garage was closed. They also had the type of security system where anytime a door opens you heard "beep beep beep". After the parents left one night I was putting the kids to bed and I heard the "beep beep beep". I yelled out, thinking it was the parents coming back for something but no one answered. The system on the wall kept reading "basement door open". I was freaked out so I called my Dad and asked him to come by since he was only a few houses away. When he arrived, he told me to stay in the kitchen while he checked the house but before he could, we heard the "beep beep beep" again and then the garage door opened - when we ran to the window to see if the parents were pulling into the driveway, they weren't. Instead someone in a hoodie was running out of the garage door and into the woods behind the house. My Dad ended up calling the cops. I'm still creeped out by it.
I was probably 9 years old, my sister was 6. We had a babysitter who was 12, so alone in the sense that no adults were around. Jackass that I was, I squirted bug spray on my sister and she chased me in retaliation. I ran through some French glass doors to get away from her. She went for the knob and missed. Her arm went through one of the glass panes.
She cut herself so deep, you could see muscle, tendons, and bone. It looked like a shitily cut piece of raw meat, since that's basically what it was. The babysitter held a piece of cloth on my sister's arm until my mom came home (called her right away) and took my sister to the ER. She didn't hit an artery so it wasn't as bad as it could've been, but it was scary as fuck at the time. Got 60 stitches out of it.
I was in my basement where the computer was playing some game, probably Runescape, and heard someone pull into the driveway, naturally assuming it was my mother who was coming home from work. I heard the screen door open but when no one opened the lock on the actual door I started to go upstairs and I saw a pair of legs go by the window (while the basement was underground, there was about a foot that popped up above ground level and had two windows). I go upstairs and see two dudes in my backyard looking at the windows and talking about the door was locked. It was an attempted home robbery, we had been broken into a few times at that point and had everything locked, but 10 year old me was terrified.
Early teen years. Power went out while I was taking a shower late at night. I got out of the shower already freaked out and looked outside through the window. My house was the only one without power. Stupid teenage brain: this is clearly an attempt on my life Reality: house had a weird problem where the power would cut out if the water heater and air conditioner happened to turn on the same time. It had never happened to me before that, but my dad assured me that was the problem once he finally came home.
There had been a scratching in my ceiling for awhile, and my landlady was dragging her feet over having it looked into.
One night, around 2am, the scratching became so bad it woke me up from a dead sleep. I tried to reassure myself that whatever it was couldn’t really get through to me, and I would be fine until I could call my landlady the next day and really press the issue.
Then some debris fell from my ceiling- whatever was up there had managed to dig a small hole into my room. I screamed, and heard some scurrying away from my approximate location. Grabbed any stuff I needed for the next day, got the fuck out of there, shut the door tight behind me, and slept on the couch.
I called my landlady first thing in the morning, and she had someone come while I was at work that day to check it out. A mama raccoon had managed to get her way into the space between the roof and my ceiling and had given birth to a litter of kits. The guy speculated that the kits were getting old enough to start wrestling around, and that was likely what led to the hole in my ceiling. Luckily it was just small (the size of a quarter), so there weren’t any angry raccoons hanging out in my room when I got home.
They were able to safely trap and release the whole little family, but I still started hunting for new apartments ASAP. I move into my new place on May 1st!
When I was around 8 or 9, my mum commuted to a major city about an hour/hour and a half away, so I would bring myself home from school (about 100m away), lock the door and watch cartoons or play neopets until she got home.
We lived in apartment blocks, and one day one of the older male people in the apartment lost his wallet, and he figured it must have been me. Keep in mind, I've never stolen anything in my life or had any trouble with the law, and I had no clue what he was talking about. He came and banged on the door so aggressively that I jumped out of my skin, and was belligerent demanding I open the door. I rang mum crying and she jumped on a train to come home but she was an hour and a half away. She called some friends and they came and got me, and at that stage he had taken a break and gone back to his apartment, but left his dry cleaning there.
When mum got back, she stormed straight to his door and pounded on it like he had done to our door. He came to the door, all shocked, and she demanded to know why he thought it was appropriate to bang on the door for AN HOUR to scare a little girl. He replied that he thought I stole his wallet. Mum asked him if he still thought I did, and he said no I found it in the carpark.??? She looked like she wanted to kill him, and forced him to apologise.
Also, in that same apartment block, there was a hairline fracture on the sliding door that we didn't know about. A strong wind blew and shattered the entire window inwards. I was home alone then too, that was scary as fuck.
It was about 8:30 at night and I heard the front door open. I called out from my room asking why my mom and dad were home only a half hour after they left for dinner. I almost shit my pants and straight up jumped out of my bedroom window when a random male voice replied, “What? There’s somebody in here?”. Turns out it was somebody who got hired to check on one of our neighbor’s dog when they were on vacation and he got the wrong house address, but the raw fear that gripped me when I heard his voice still gives me nightmares.
Police were chasing a guy and he ran into into our backyard and over the fence to another house. It felt like the helicopter was going to land on the house.
I was actually at a friends house when her parents weren’t home. We were maybe 10. It was her, my sister, her sisters and me. We decided to go swimming. There had been a rash of burglaries lately but mostly garages being broke into. Anyway, we were in the pool when we noticed the kitchen light turn on (it was evening). We assumed her parents so looked in the window to do something stupid to get their attention when we realized we do not know the individual in the house. We hid behind the wall of the pool (above ground) terrified until her parents finally came home. It appeared as though he got spooked as he only ransacked the kitchen and left the garage door wide open when fleeing
This just happened last week, I woke up to someone in my house. Walking up the stairs to my bedroom, it was about 1pm, and I work third shift, so I was sleeping. In my haste, I didnt grab my bat. I whip open my door and it's my ex bestfriend, whom I've blocked on every social media site... she starts yelling at me for not responding to her and how she misses me.... idk what scared me more, the split second I realized there was an intruder. Or that someone I knew would just take it upon themselves to force me to talk to them, by trespassing.
When I was younger my mom left me and my little brother home alone while she ran to the store. I was in middle school, so old enough to be left home safely for an hour and my bro was only 2 years younger.
Mom leaves and me and my brother are watching TV in the living room and we see a bunch of smoke from the big bay window facing the front yard shortly after she leaves. We look, and a car has crashed into the ditch that is next to our driveway. I grab the phone and we go out on the porch. I call 911 and give them my address, then I call my grandma and tell her what happened. Cops and the whole emergency entourage gets there, I go talk to the cops.
Mind you, we lived on a state route. It's a two lane road so the entire section of road in front of my house is closed off. My mom rounds the corner of the side road to pull onto the st rt and sees a ton of cop cars in out driveway and shutting down the road, 2 fire trucks, at least 2 ambulances, and, as any mom seeing this, freaks out. Note about the road and our house: the road is significantly higher than the ditch, so it is entirely possible to miss the wrecked car. Especially when you know you left your kids home alone. They allow her to park in the neighbor's driveway since ours is currently occupied. And we see her sprinting across the yards. The cops intercept her, she sees that me and my brother are okay and is able to calm down enough to talk to the cops.
TL;DR car crashed in our front yard when I was left home alone. Gave mom a heart attack from all the emergency vehicles surrounding her house when she tried to drive down the road.
Not super scary but one time when I was like 11 I was home alone at night and got a call from the local sheriff's office who told me they just had a dropped 911 call from this number (my house landline) and asked if I was ok.
Just me and my mom. She got drunk and fell down the stairs. She knocked herself out cold and i had to admininster CPR while the paramedics came. She has no recollection of this incident, denies it, and no one else in my family can relate to how scary it is seeing someone almost die and having their life in your hands. I don't know how first responders do it.
The lights turned off all at once while I was in the kitchen. It was pitch black. I heard the door open. For some reason instead of thinking power outage my brain went to "someone has cut the power and is coming to kill me".
I grabbed the landline, the knife and was crouched behind the kitchen counter hearing steps come through the house, trying to breath as quietly as possible.
Then I hear my mom go "Hello? Anyone home?"
The power went out by chance at the exact moment she came in the door. That would have been an awkward hospital trip.
This happened many, many years ago when I was but a youngster. In my suburb there had recently been a spate of break and enters. Where I live, they tend to happen suburb by suburb (like, one suburb will get hit a bunch then there'll be nothing for a while).
My family had gone away for the weekend, but I had stayed home because I had work. I was up at midnight watching a James Bond movie (Live and Let Die for those playing at home), with all the lights in the house turned off, and I heard a really sudden and strange thud from my kitchen/living area.
I instantly knew it was a weird noise - nothing in the house made any noises like that - so it was immediately suspicious. Just as I was about to get up to go and check it out, I heard it again. That's when I realised it was actually the thudding of the thick glass sliding door from the kitchen to the outdoor patio.
As I mentioned, all the lights are off, so I'm making my way through the house turning lights on. When I reached the light switch to turn on the patio light, I hit all of the lights at once, including the light at my front door (which is visible from where I'm now standing). We had those glass panels next to the front door, which I could now also see out of since the light was on. There was nobody at the patio area at this time, but through the glass panels at the front door I saw someone sprint past and out of the yard. Even though I couldn't see any detail, it was unmistakable to see that it was a person running past.
It later occurred to me that they were most likely kicking the glass patio door to try and smash it and break in, as I later learned that this is apparently one common method of entry during burglaries. I had initially assumed they were hitting it with something, but a boot would explain the deep hollow thud of the noise better than striking it with something.
Was pretty spooky at the time - just that sudden realisation of "that is not a normal noise". Kind of crazy what your intuition knows in moments like that.
It was spooky movie night at a friends and we were three movies deep, just finished watching dark skies. I was hungry so I was like alright getting my leftovers, so I went downstairs by myself. When I closed the fridge I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and when I turned to see what it was there was a ghostly white, skeletal.. thing just staring at me from outside the patio, with shimmering hazy lights pulsing behind it. I fucking freaked, dropped my food and run up the stairs nearly in tears babbling about someone or thing in the back yard.
Turns out it was just my own reflection mixed with the lights and steam from the hot tub outside but I’ve never been so scared in my life.
I started choking on a clump of Mike/Ikes. Only survived because I tripped and fell on the couch in such a way that it dislodged the candy. I was nearly killed then saved by being a klutz.
For me, I was 12 years old and my dad was at his girlfriend's house. I went into my room to take a shower. I always put a chair under the door handle in my room because it didn't have a lock. My Grandma loved giving me porcelain dolls and she decorated my room with shelves that had porcelain dolls on them. All of the dolls were on their shelves before I got into the shower. When I exited my bathroom, one of the porcelain dolls was 10 feet across the room, face down on the ground. This doll must have flown across the room to have landed where it did. Also, the doll was not broken. Needless to say, my Grandma was sad that all of the dolls were packed up and put in the attic for safe keeping.
I was chillin in my bed with my dog watching tv and I hear a door shut downstairs. I look out the window of my sister's room cause she had a view of the garage, but the garage was empty. I grabbed a pocket knife and crept downstairs I search the basement as well as everywhere on the ground floor and found nothing. Went back to my room on edge for the next couple of hours until my family got home. Still dont know what happened, and it couldn't have been wind cause it was winter so we had all the windows closed. Not that scary but a door closing when you're home alone and not even 12 is a lil spooky.
I heard gunshots when I was home alone for the first time as a twelve year old. Turns out my neighbor was a murderer. At least twelve cop cars and like two fire trucks showed up and I thought it was the end of the world
What's it like to be quarantined with a significant other? I wouldn't know. But based on how annoyed I've been with my upstairs neighbors (for walking around), myself (for existing 24/7), and my houseplants (soooo needy), I can imagine sharing a roof with an actual human for weeks without respite can take its toll even on the healthiest of relationships.
Luckily, the internet is a great place to vent. It's not like it's public or anything.
Here are 20 of the funniest and realest tweets about the highs and lows of being in quarantine with a partner (be careful not to laugh so loudly it annoys your partner):
1.)
2.)
Trying to start up a conversation with your significant other after 500+ hours of quarantine: pic.twitter.com/aNEw1IfrHZ
For everyone complaining about being single during quarantine, I sent my boyfriend to the store to get groceries (FOR THE WHOLE WEEK) and he came back with this.... pic.twitter.com/shJc4uaJyZ
It's good to see some things never change: even in the midst of a pandemic, some people can't help but engage in bridezilla behavior.
A woman took to Reddit to ask for advice after she attended a virtual wedding via video-conference the bride and many guests ended up harassing then blocking her because of her outfit.
In the end, it turned out the bride was actually peeved because the woman was in the early stages of pregnancy and hadn't told the bride yet. Seems like this is one friendship the pregnant woman and her partner won't be mourning for long.
The bride is the woman's boyfriend's friend, and she had to postpone her wedding. She decided to hold a virtual one in its place:
The couple announced a few weeks ago that they were going to hold a 'virtual wedding' on the same day, including a blessing by their vicar, and a party. They basically wanted to treat it like the day was still going ahead, and asked everyone to dress in what they would've worn on the day and get in a bottle of champagne/sparkling wine to toast the couple. We thought it was a good idea, and chose to wear the same clothes we would've worn on the day itself.
The woman followed the bride's instructions by wearing the green floral dress she'd originally planned to wear:
During the 'party' yesterday, the bride clarified straight that she wasn't wearing her actual wedding dress (she was in a very pretty white summer dress) because it was still at the seamstress', and she can't get it back right now. Instead of trying to give a long description, this is the exact dress I was wearing (in the 'Kalamata Green'). No one said anything about it, and as far as we knew, everyone was having fun.
But after the nuptials, everyone flipped out:
This morning, we both woke up to streams of messages from the bride, groom, her bridesmaids and random others saying that I was clearly trying to shame the bride by dressing better than her, and that I was disinvited from the actual wedding when it actually happens because of my 'antics'. We were both shocked - if my dress was paler I might have understood some people thinking that, over a grainy webcam, it was white, but it's a dark green. There were many other people wearing suits and formal dresses, so it's not like we were sticking out either. I didn't do my hair or make up in any particular way either, and the bride definitely did hers, so there was no comparison there.
She specifies that she doesn't think she behaved badly, either:
I'm three months pregnant so wasn't drinking and therefore drunk and making a fool of myself; to be honest I barely said more than two sentences during the whole thing because there were 30 different households taking part. My boyfriend is annoyed about the situation and has said that if she doesn't back down he'll not go to the 'real' wedding, but I don't know if or how I should apologise about this since I can't quite believe this has all gone down because I wore a dress suitable for a wedding guest.
Redditors started to weigh in on the issue, with many expressing confusion because the dress was pretty standard for a wedding guest.
nyorifamiliarspirit thinks the woman just has a dramatic group of people on her hands:
That dress is pretty casual. It sounds like these people are just looking for some kind of drama.
poeadam was one of many who assumed there had to be something else going on:
I know you’ve said you think this is about the dress but it is hard to imagine there isn’t something more to the story. That isn’t a formal dress at all and doesn’t look like a wedding dress.
Weird.
Venna_Mala accused her of making the whole thing up:
Gonna be honest, I don't believe this post at all. That dress is fine for a summer wedding, or maybe even a little underdressed depending on how formal the wedding is, but I cannot imagine a universe in which other people are wearing formal dresses and suits and that dress is somehow considered over the top. Especially over a blurry webcam. And then for multiple separate parties to individually contact you about the dress? I just can't imagine this happening at all.
But later on, the woman updated the post after finding out what really happened:
We've found out what happened!! Of course, it was nothing to do with the dress. It turns out that Samantha already knew about the pregnancy from her parents (her parents and my boyfriend's parents live in the same village, and it appears they ignored our request to keep the news of the pregnancy a secret until we had had the first scan and knew everything was on track), and was annoyed that we hadn't told her about it.
Wow. She continues:
Right now, the only people who were meant to know were my boyfriend's and my parents and siblings. The plan was to have the scan, tell our closest friends privately (including Samantha), and then announce it a few days later. Obviously, it seems like people knew and assumed we were keeping them out of the loop. The source of this was my boyfriend's younger brother, who is friends with the brother of one of the bridesmaids who sent us messages. We're going to try and get in touch with Samantha and explain everything from our end. Sorry for the unsatisfying end that didn't involve the dress at all!
This group of people doesn't sound toxic at all.
TaumTaum advised the woman to stop speaking to these people:
why the f*** would anyone disinvite you for not announcing you're pregnant? And they lied about the real reason and got a ton of other people involved. Don't put up with that kind of s***, OP what bulls*** is that.
redditAloudatnight9 agreed:
ou have nothing to apologize for - your friend has her family and friends bash you because she was annoyed you didn’t (rightfully so, your choice) tell her you were pregnant? Who tf does that
So there you have it. Hope the woman cuts these crazy people out of her life!
A lot has changed in the last few decades. From smartphones to medical advancements, there's a lot to be thankful for — but there are also a few small pleasures in life that don't seem to exist anymore.
A recent Reddit thread asked people to share what they think the younger generations are missing out on. Let's get nostalgic!
1. Ah, remember the golden days of watching TV all Saturday morning?
Good Saturday morning cartoons - ral365
2. Going to the movies was the ultimate.
Walking to the movies by yourself to meet up with friends who hand also walked there by themselves. And PG movies being a bit racier than now but not actually requiring parents. - mindfeces
3. Kids could get into a lot more mischief before smartphones.
Doing stupid s*** without getting caught.
I am sooo glad I grew up in a time before everyone had a video camera rolling at all times. - rhymes_with_chicken
4. Apparently, many parents are too strict to let this happen now.
Playing outside all day until someone yells for you to come home. Or be home before sundown. Something like that. - remsiw
5. You used to be able to live a dignified life with a low-wage job.
Being able to afford a cheap shared apartment and cheap car on a 40-hour-a-week paycheck from a job I got with a high school diploma. And being able to pay upfront for a couple college classes each semester while working that job. And cheap health insurance from that job that actually covered the costs. In the 1970s, my employer-provided health insurance cost less than $5 every two weeks, and covered everything. And I was still able to put a little of my pay into a savings account. - NoxWild
6. You used to be able to survive on one job? Can't be.
• 1 job / a job that allows you to have a family and pay for everything with one pay check coming in a week.
• A decent job without schooling
• Cheap College tuition
• A Pension
• Better health care
There are so many more - groovemerchant
7. Hmmm, privacy? Never heard of it.
Privacy. Besides all the internet tracking you have social media and internet outrage and cancel culture. - professor_mc
9. It must've been nice to be young and dumb in a time before cancel culture.
making mistakes without having to worry about it staying online for ever
I could say dumb shit as a teenager and it would be forgotten
now someone says something dumb and the internet goes after them - CommandL3
10. Attention spans are definitely on the downswing.
having enough of an attention span to read a (paper) book, fiction or non. A lot of people are too easily bored/distracted these days, they need that nonstop stimulation. - gimmewool
11. It's harder than ever to go off the grid.
Being alone and enjoying true solitude. Going camping or hiking and telling a friend, "I'll be back in ten days or two weeks or so, I might decide to take an extra day or two to climb XYZ Trail if the weather is good," and nobody worried much about it. - NoxWild
12. Texting is no substitute for those marathon in-person hangs.
Socialising.
When I first went to uni the only type of electronic messaging was the internal email, and not everyone used that. We'd use a computer lab or the "refectory" as our common room and have our regular tables.
All day there'd be a few of us there. We'd use those times to organise pub nights or meet ups.
Also with friends in general, you spoke to each other in person, almost daily. Conversations would last hours. - iGraveling
13. Stop, this sounds so beautiful I'm weeping.
At 5 o’clock, you leave work, your boss leaves work, the work stays at work. No phones or laptops to bring work home with you. - Jim_Hammer_5
14. Being able to publicly make mistakes? Not in this decade.
No camera/video phones. People are more than willing to make a tit out of themselves at parties/social gatherings if they know at best it will be remembered at most over a drink the next week rather than plastered all over Facebook. - ashcymru4
15. Making plans in this simplistic way sounds amazing.
you call someone “hey, We’re still on for 3 today right?”
“Yup”
“Cool, See you there”
6 hours go by and you meet up. - Vladdays6
16. Going to college without borrowing cash? Sounds like science fiction.
Young people today are so screwed over by how expensive everything is. Wages for young people are so low it's nearly impossible to pay for housing and transportation, pay for tuition and books, pay for utilities and internet and phones, and still have enough money to pay for food and toilet paper and toothpaste. - NoxWild
Romantic relationships, marriages and families can be hard enough without spending every waking moment together trapped in your home during a global health crisis, but alas...here we are! Time to embrace it?
If your relationship is remaining strong while learning everything about how your partner or roommate works, eats, bathes, virtually works out and talks on the phone-you two deserve your own reality show after all this. Add kids to the mix and you're suddenly finding yourself trying to be both a parent, a teacher, and an entire class of peers and you're probably going to need to make yourself a stiff noon cocktail.
Finding some alone time is important for any relationship or family dynamic, but things get pretty complicated when you're forced to find that alone time while in the same space for an indefinite amount of time. Didn't know you married someone who is somehow still rolling in late to the Zoom meeting with an iced coffee and a snack? Feel like you've fully lost control over your kids and now they just rule the household while mocking you for not understanding their fourth grade math homework? Don't worry, you're not alone.
Here are the funniest tweets we could find from people who need to vent about who they've been spending quarantine with. Enjoy and stay safe, everyone!
1.
2.
It's midnight and I'm watching Bob's Burgers in a tent in my living room with my husband. Quarantine life is interesting. pic.twitter.com/aJaWuiS0Us
— Danni from a distance (@dannidivagates) April 27, 2020
It's hard to keep a relationship spicy during quarantine. All of the normal date night options like restaurants, bars, museums, and even some parks are shut down, so we're left to the limits of our homes and imaginations.
While Netflix and chill is always an option, a lot of people are stepping up their game and transforming their homes into mini restaurants, bars, paint n sip studios, movie theaters, and even museums.
Here are just a few examples of the date nights people have put together in quarantine.
4. This couple that took a cooking class to keep it spicy.
Quarantine date night last night. Caitie and I did an online couples cooking class through Uncorked Kitchen, a small business near Park Meadows. Chicken carbonara and homemade cannolis! You pick up ingredients curbside then cook with a Zoom class. #DoingMyPartCOpic.twitter.com/dDSNqXWOIJ
Can’t tell you the last time I was able to celebrate my parents’ anniversary with them. No event planning in my future but I had to put together a little date night for my favs. Started with a family home video happy hour then a Paint & Sip followed by dinner. Beyond thankful💕pic.twitter.com/pyGbTnXRwg
Keeping busy during quarantine with home made Garden Crazy Golf for a saturday date night. @BBCR1 providing the tunes and thank you @gregjames for the idea from one of your listeners!!! pic.twitter.com/RwatErFZS6
I’ve seen all these incredible #quarantinedate posts, so I just wanted to add our story, in hopes of inspiring couples around the world. Cherish your partner, and never forget that romance never dies, and love will never lose! This was taken around 8:57 PM. pic.twitter.com/DVGgqT2Cgh
*QUARANTINE DATE NIGHT POST* we visit a lot of museums and missed doing that, so we recreated our usual museum date night at home! Nice to find comfort in these uncertain times ☺️ #quarantinedate#cute#basicpic.twitter.com/7N0XQZE4Er
Everybody arrives in this world in roughly the same way, but there are millions of different ways that we exit.
Somebody on Reddit asked, "what’s the closest you ever came to a horrible death?" People opened up about the harrowing illnesses and accidents that came close to killing them. They're lucky to be alive, and for that matter, so do we.
1.
A doctor stapled my intestines shut and then went on vacation. Almost dying from not being able to shit is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. -teb79
2.
I nearly died in Hurricane Katrina multiple times, drowning, potential murder situations, eventual general injury and dehydration. Very long story but I got separated from my family and had days of abject hell before getting saved. Worst incident was the grown couple rolling up on me, pretending they wanted to help me and then beating me unconscious and leaving me for dead in the water for ONE SMALL half full bottle of water (they already had water with them). I was a 15 year old girl at the time. People really turned into animals. I don't think I'll ever really recover from it tbh. -totallycalledla-a
3.
While undocking a houseboat, the rope we used got wrapped around my leg and I started getting dragged down the river bank.
I was saved by some random plank of wood being nailed into the side of the bank, I was able to put my good foot on that and take off my rope foot shoe, letting me slide the rope off.
If that wood wasn't there I would've fallen in and been dragged down river by my foot. -duck74UK
4.
When I was about 2 my aunt fed me pistachios. What nobody knew was that I was DEATHLY allergic to tree nuts. My mom had put me to sleep because she thought the rash starting to form under my mouth was a pacifier rash. She woke up to me crying. I could barely breath and was rushed to the hospital. The doctor said if my mom had brought me to the hospital any later I would’ve died. So yea that’s how I found out I was allergic to tree nuts. -musicandartstuff
5.
When I was 8 years old, a chandelier almost fell on top of me in my living room. I was watching a movie (Lilo and Stitch) when I heard a crack, looked up, and the huge chandelier was about to fall on top of me. I rolled off the couch and it barely missed me. I still had tons of cuts from all the glass though; just not a direct hit. -JoseCruzo
6.
I was playing on ice with a really fat friend of mine. I was 9. We knew we weren't allowed to play there, because it's really dangerous but we still did.
Anyway, that friend was an utter idiot. He started smashing the ice with a hammer (to make holes for the ducks!) And then of course the ice broke and he fell into the water.
He was so heavy that every time he tried to get back on the ice, it would break. At some point he got stuck beneath the ice. I am this really lanky thin 9 yo girl so pulling him up in general was difficult.
No one else beside me and two friends who were just yelling and screaming from the side of the river, were there.
So my dumb a** decides to grab the hammer, and I start smashing that ice so it breaks. Then I attempt to pull him back on the ice but he is so heavy that he pulls me half under water as well. After about ten minutes of both of us half drowning in the ice water I managed to pull him onto the land.
He didn't even thank me and ran off crying to his own house. I waited till my clothes were dry and never told my family anything happened.
When next day at school my mom heard my friend had to go to the hospital because of hypothermia, I pretended not to know why lol.
Lesson learned: don't try to break ice for the ducks without adult supervision and not while you're ON the ice smh -Jinera
7.
Wave pools are dangerous when they are totally packed with fat people on inner-tubes. When I was a kid I went under and could not get back up - with my very last breath I shoved upward with all my might and saw some other kid go flying. I did see my short life flash before my eyes. -ThaddeusMaximus
8.
My tonsils tried to kill me when I was a teenager. It started with the worst sore throat you can imagine and then progressed to feeling so fatigued I had trouble walking. I would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, literally like someone threw a bucket of water on me, and shaking terribly. As it progressed I had vivid hallucinations and threw up all night.
I felt immediately better after the tonsils were removed, but I lost 20 - 30 lbs and my hair started falling out after I recovered. A doctor told me it was because when you're that sick your body shuts down non-essential functions like growing hair. I looked a little funny when it started growing back. -Maybird56
9.
I almost died because of being stupid! When I was four I played with a broom, tripped, rammed the broomstick in my mouth and up to my throat. Almost chocked on it and I think it was my father who saved me, because the emergency doctor told my parents to NOT move that fucking thing, but my father...just ripped it out of my throat/ mouth in a panic. -InflexusSerafina
10.
I worked at a pet store when I was in my 20s. My friend and I were in charge of ordering marine fish since we were both crazy about aquariums and all thing saltwater. We received a bunch of coral and live rock. We were handling it and moving it around putting it into the tanks and after I set one down, a particularly amazing piece that I’d been looking at closely, a blue-ringed octopus crawled out and nearly latched onto me. We both new exactly what it was, and we just looked at each other speechless. -mr_jawa
11.
when I was very young, my aunt was watching me as I played outside in the rain. It was stormy. All I remember is running around and then waking up super tingly on the ground, like my whole body had fallen asleep. Either I or the ground next to me had been hit by lightning. My aunt panicked and still hasn’t ever told my mom or dad, and I never have either. -FidgetyGidget
12.
In 2017 when I was 12 I almost drowned to death. It is the worst way to die IMHO. The helpless feeling is awful. One minute I was full panic mode, trying to breathe but every breath was.. water. I felt like I was burning.
Then.. it didn't feel peaceful, but it felt like I was ready. The whole thing that says "you see all your memories before dying" is true.
I just had this bad, bad feeling knowing that my parents wouldn't have seen me grow up, couldn't see my friends anymore etc.
I suddenly heard a loud sound like "bzzzz" and everything went black.
Somehow someone saw me and saved me. The bad thing is that I've had to cope with depression since then. I'm better nowadays, but the helpless feeling just.. never left me after I almost drowned.
One thing I've never said to anyone is that I saw an elf while drowning - I know, weird as hell but I think it was just my mind making up stuff for the lack of oxygen. -m4nueloso
13.
Went cycling with a friend of mine and it started raining so the road became slippery as hell, we hit the pedals even harder to escape from the rain as we were only a few minutes away from home and in an not even that sharp corner i just slipped as i sled on the wet tarmac i saw a semi truck rolling towards me and thought "welp, that's it". as we passed each other we missed by maybe a few centimeters my friend told me after he came to check on me that he thought it was over and only a miracle saved me that day. -D3br8
14.
When I was younger I was eating dinner and my mom made me laugh, causing some pie and mashed potatoes to get stuck in my throat. I was choking for about two minutes before I was able to remove the blockage...choking is not fun :/ -_ash0980
15.
Two years of misdiagnosis by multiple doctors. My bowel ruptured in the middle of the night due to undiagnosed Crohn's disease, vomited up my own feces, all my veins collapsed and paramedics couldn't get a cannula in anywhere other than my feet. No top line on the heart rate monitor. Excruciating pain but could get meds as my heart rate was so low. 8 hour surgery, woke up with an ileostomy bag. 100% didn't think I would wake up. -goosedrinkwine369
16.
I took acid and had a bad trip, thinking I would die in my college dorm by asphyxiating on my vomit. Acid doesn't kill you. A month later I nearly fulfilled the prophecy on Halloween when I got the drunkest I've ever been. I told my roommate to lie me on my side if I vomited before I even started drinking because the acid trip scared me. I then proceeded to drink a solo cup of rum and multiple shots of vodka after that after not eating that day. I'm small and had only had alcohol a handful of times before then so I had no tolerance. I blacked out and fell down and vomited while laying on my back and my roommate rolled me on my side. The vomit was brown and red and we always wondered if it was blood after the fact. I woke up mostly naked and alone because her and her bf and their friend wanted to get the vomit clothes off me. (I was tucked in to my bed at least.)
So that's how acid (and my roommate) saved my life. -Random__Precision
17.
I was 12, riding a bike without handbrakes on vacation. I wasn’t used to a bike without handbrakes and there was a stop sign, I panicked and forgot how to stop. I had to intentionally crash to avoid getting run over by the truck that was coming, I was so close I could read the tires as it sped past. They were Goodyear. -ScreamingIdiot53
18.
2009, when I was 13, I was on a vacation in Malaysia with my mom. We were supposed to visit Borneo with some local tourist boat, but they only took cash as payment and we didn't have any. We tried to use the nearby ATM, but it was broken and we had to go to a further away one. Because of this delay, we just missed the boat and decided not to go at all.
Last year I heard from my mom, that the boat we were supposed to board sunk, as there were too many passengers taken in. It really creeps me out whenever I'm thinking about it, since I hate going on a boat and am afraid of drowning and deep water and I'm glad my mom didn't tell that to me back then. -EdgeofmyLegacy
19.
A very ruptured appendix at the age of 18. I couldn't eat for 10 days and by the time I went to the hospital I could barely walk due to the severe pain. Doctors said I wouldn't have lasted much longer - the infection was that bad. Not fun. -NovaKatalyst
20.
When I was 4 my mom and I walked out of a building. Moments later a disgruntled man purposely drove his car through the front doors. If we had left seconds later we would have been hit. -nopenopenope32132132
