Everybody has to grow up sometime, and there are definitely those moments where you realize, “Yep, childhood is over.”
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Sit back, relax, and enjoy these 15 AskReddit stories of people being adult AF.
1. NURSE!
About two months after I graduated college and was in my first job, I was having dinner on a patio with friends. A block away, two cars collided and one guy wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. People were running towards the scene and someone yelled “is anyone a doctor?” The whole patio was watching the scene.
My friend said, “go help.” To which I thought, “no, I’m not like a real nurse, I’m just, like, you know… a nursing student who just graduated from nursing school and works as a nurse… oh shit, I think I’m a nurse. How the hell did that happen?”
I jogged over and said “I’m a nurse” and it was the weirdest feeling for people twenty or forty years older than me to be looking at me like “OKAY GOOD, YOU BE THE AUTHORITY HERE UNTIL THE PARAMEDICS SHOW UP.”
No one was seriously hurt at all and immediate medical help wasn’t all that necessary. Guy who wasn’t wearing his seatbelt had whiplash. I just told him not to move and stay put. Asked him if he’d hit his head, asked his name, asked him what day it was. Anyone who’d seen a medical show could have done what I did. Then the ambulance and cops came and the waitress got my table a comped dessert for my “act of heroism,” which was essentially me bullshitting my way through the situation while thinking, “oh fuck, oh fuck, why am I the adult in this situation, oh fuck.”
2. Well, shit…
Just recently, actually.
I have a disease that makes my bowels do some freaky shit. One thing led to another and I had an accident at work. I work in a mall.
As I was sitting there, in the public toilet stall, trying to cry quietly and remove my underwear without taking off my tights and shoes, that I had to get myself out of the situation. There was no ” grown up” I could call to help me.
I feel pretty upset that I’m dealing with this at 21.
Appreciate your functioning sphincters folks.
3. Now what?
Getting laid off from my job at 24. Full time, 40 hr week, career job and they laid me and 15 other people off due to a decline in revenue.
Being 24, in a new city with no friends and suddenly losing my job was like adulthood sucker punching me. How was I going to make rent? Do I have enough experience to get another job? Is this really happening? This is a joke right? They can’t do this to me, I’m only 24! Maybe it’s all a dream! What the fuck, why did this happen!
Then I got my shit together and had to start making phone calls. No one was going to magically make it right for me. No one was going to knock on my door and fix my problems.
That was my first real “I’m an adult and this could all go wrong so quickly” moment.
4. Cocaaaiiiiine!
I’m the one with the checkbook. My roommate gives me the cash.
I’m the one set up with Auto-Payment for our utilities. He gives me cash.
When I set it up, he said “I’m so glad you know how to do that stuff” — Motherfucker I don’t “know how to do that stuff” I just fucking did it, and figured it out. It took work and effort to do all this. I did some serious growing up when that was going down. Also, I accept my role with excitement now.
Doesn’t hurt that he just gave me $800 cash this morning. Gonna go buy some cocaaaaiiiiine
5. Bag man
A child came up to me and told me about a bag that he’d found in the middle of the street.
My first thought was “Oh, I should find an adult to help me with this” and then I suddenly had the realisation of “oh shit, the kid just did that and I’M the adult!”
Checked it out, it was just clothes and stuff, so I moved it a bit more out the way so it wasn’t just in the middle of the street, but was still nearby in case the person came back.
Came back 2 hours later and it was gone.
6. OMG!
Was on a bike ride with my 4 year old son when he came off his bike and broke his arm very, very badly. I had to literally hold his arm together with my hands for about 45 mins.
As I was directing my wife to go get the car, physically stabilising my son AND talking down a hysterical bystander (who was walking past with her kids when it happened). I remember having one of those out of my body moments, watching myself handling it all, and thinking “holy fuck, look at me adulting here!”
7. Adulting so fucking hard!
I was in the supermarket and suddenly realised “fucking hell, I can buy whatever I want, I’m an adult!”
Went home, watched cartoons in my underwear whilst eating cheerios and drinking Jack Daniels from the bottle.
Felt good man.
8. Mommy issues
Whenever I jokingly wanted to get out of a conversation at work, for instance when it seemed like someone was trying to hand me work, I’d say “Oh sorry, I gotta run, my mom’s calling me.”
A few months back I went to say it, and the person I was talking with said, “Wait, don’t you have kids? Couldn’t you say they’re calling you?” I had never thought to re-frame it that way, and thanked her for the contribution.
Two hours later the school called because my youngest had vomited, so I really did have to go, as my kid needed me.
9. Cat probs
I had fostered a momma cat and 4 kittens.
I had one kitten I really wanted to keep if it didn’t get adopted. A lady came over with her daughter and her daughter fell in LOVE with him. Just smitten.
I knew I had to let her have that kitten. She’s a little girl, I’m almost 30… but man was that a “Shit, I’m an adult, I have to act like one” moment. I knew he was the best cat out of the bunch and he needed a loving family, and a little girl to love him.
I cried as soon as they left.
She still has the cat years later and the mom contacted me to say it’s the best cat they have ever had.
10. That first week!
Boss: Here’s a room.
Me: Okay
Boss: Here’s 30 kids in the room with you.
Me: Okay
Boss: You have to make sure they don’t kill each other for 60 minutes or you’ll be sued.
Me: WAIT
(I’m a teacher. First week was terrifying.)
11. Oh yeah….
My wife got really fat.
Then one day a tiny person fell out.
Apparently I have to pay for it.
12. Fuck it! We’ll do it live!
Worked at a local 24 hour news station as a director/producer. I got really lucky in the fact that I got hired right when I was finishing up college. Started as a part time PA, moved my way up in about a year.
Anyway, this is a local practice, I couldn’t tell you the channels we were on even when I worked there. And that meant more or less that for the 9 hours a day I was there (4am-1pm), I was essentially in charge of the basic flow of the day. and for some reason, our busiest time of the day, or to put it more accurately, the time of day when most bad things happen, was 10am to about 3pm. No idea why, but that’s when people liked to do most bad things it seemed.
When I first started as a director, I didn’t know what an authority of a news station was, I was used to mock film sets and classrooms.
What the fuck do you mean, “are we going live?” shouldn’t the producer figure that out? oh that’s right it’s a Wednesday morning, so no one is here. Am I really deciding if we’re going to interrupt our syndicated schedule? Is this actually breaking news? WTF. Why am I in charge? Uh.. I guess we can go live… Is it important? is Alyson here? I need her on the desk. Pull up the prompter for her. Load the stinger.. Alright breaking in at 1000… 30 seconds…
It was a real game changer for how I saw myself, I wasn’t some punk teen going on random interview jobs with my instructor, I was leading a news team 9 hours a day… And I wasn’t bad.
13. All growns up!
Was washing my hands in a public restroom when a talkative little girl came up to the sink to do the same.
She was asking a lot of questions, and I was happy to answer them since I remembered being a really talkative kid too. At the end of the short conversation, she told me she was 8 and asked how old I was.
Up until that point, she had been talking to me like an equal, but when I said I was 22, her eyes got huge and she just mumbled “oh, you’re a grown up”
14. What a narc!
Around the age of 25 I was out back of my place late on a Sunday night having a beer and a cig when two young kids on bikes came down the street.
Knew something was up as they couldn’t have been older than 14-15 y/o and it was well after midnight, plus there were reports of kids breaking into neighborhood cars. As it turns out they were ding dong ditching one of my elderly neighbors.
Decided that I should apprehend them as they were running back to their bikes after ringing the door bell. Ended up threatening to call their parents, or the police, if they didn’t go back up to the house and apologize.
Told a friend about it and he called me out on doing the same shit when I was their age, ever sense I have felt old.
15. The good sibling
May 3, 1999, at around 3pm.
I had just finished university and moved back home that weekend. My littler brother (15 at the time, I was 21) had just left for school. I was in bed, as one in this position would normally be at 7:20am. That’s when I hear my mom yell at me, “GnuHouse, Dad’s having a heart attack!”
Well, I went from asleep to fully dressed in a matter of seconds, ran to the bottom of the stairs to get Asprin. Shit, no Asprin! Ran down the street to get Asprin from a neighbor. Got the Asprin, gave it to my dad, waited for the paramedics.
Dad gets carted off to the hospital. My mom and I are in tow, staying with him while doctors are tending to him. My mom is pretty shaken up, so I’m doing a lot of the talking to doctors, then talking to her.
That’s when it dawns on me. My little brother is coming home from school. He’s going to come home to an empty house that is in a little disarray from the paramedics and all. So, I hike it back to the house, leave my mom at the hospital with my dad.
My brother came through the door some time between 3 and 3:30pm, and that was my “Shit, I’m an adult” moment. I had to tell my little brother that his dad had a heart attack while keeping my shit together.
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