Life is tough and tiring. Oversleeping is common in this day and age because we are always on. People are busier now than they ever have been, and sleep is taking the back seat.

Well, most of the time. Take a look at these 25 people who overslept for some of the most important events in their lives. They must have been real tired…

1. Liar, Liar

The final for my justice course. I woke up with about 10 minutes left to the exam period.

Fortunately for me, something had happened at my home (about 30 minutes away) which caused my mother to call the cops. I was able to use this as an excuse and “hurry” from home to the exam, and they then let me take it the next day.

2. What a save!

My first day of work at my new job after college. I always get super stressed when I have to wake up early for something important and this causes me to not be able to fall asleep. This time it was especially bad and I laid on bed until 3am and I was supposed to wake up at 6 to be at work at 7. Well I woke up at 7:30 with my alarm blaring. I’ve never had my stomach drop so hard in my life. I called the HR rep that I had been communicating with (who was also leading the new hire orientation) and explained what happened and she said that she would come up with a reason to delay the orientation. I got there 2 minutes before they HAD to start the orientation. When I walked in the HR two looked at me and said in front of all the employees and new hires “Oh great we’ve been waiting for you, it’s great you were able to meet with (higher up in the company) so soon, I hope you guys had a good morning”. She saved my life.

3. What a breeze

Labour.

The nurse had to wake me up in order to push out my baby.

4. Awww, poor kiddo

Homemade ice cream. What kind of cruel people wouldn’t wake a kindergartener up after nap time when they have someone coming in to make ice cream?

5. Cutting it close

The most important was a funeral for which I was to be the organist.

The power had gone off during the night, altering the setting on my alarm clock. Fortunately, the undertaker called with a special music request from the family and woke me up in the nick of time.
When I arrived at the church, the pall bearers were carrying the coffin to the front doors. I managed to turn the organ blower on just as the minister announced the opening hymn.

6. Guess you don’t need them anymore…

I once as a child had to take sleeping pills cause of some medical disorder which wouldn’t let me fall asleep – my mom woke me up because I forgot to take the pills.

7. Lucky he didn’t set his house on fire, too

Good friend slept though a final exam, still ended up passing the class though (71.2% IIRC). He got super high the night before, “set his alarm for 8AM” (read: set microwave for 8 minutes), and went to sleep. Surprisingly smart sober person, daft as a pile of bricks otherwise.

8. Sleeping pills

A close friend’s funeral. I knew when and where it was, had my alarm set and had my clothes picked out but worked late the night before and had trouble dozing off so I popped a few Tylenol PM and went out like a light next thing I know I wake up and it’s WAY past the funeral. I still feel terrible about it to this day.

9. Did what you had to do

Law school exam, first semester.

In law school, your entire grade for most classes is only the final exam. I have a particularly bad habit of not studying all semester and pulling all nighters the day or two before exams to cram a semester’s worth of material into my head.

On the morning of one of my finals my first year, I woke to a text from a classmate asking where I was as the exam started in 15 minutes. Panicked, I raced to the administrative office (because you get cards with a series of numbers to use as your name on exams, to ensure all exams are anonymously graded) and, naturally, I hadn’t gotten my card yet.

However, the woman at the office wouldn’t give me my anonymous card, stating that I had an unpaid parking ticket that first needed to be paid. I hadn’t brought my wallet with me, but had brought my license which I offered to leave as collateral, promising to pay it once the exam was over. She rolled her eyes and told me tough luck, should have planned better. Already in a panic, stressed about exams, not ready to accept I had caused this entire problem myself, and disbelieving that I was going to miss an exam due to this woman’s lack of basic empathy, I lost it.

She gave me my card. I was banned from entering the office unless two people were on staff, though.

10. …wait

A flight from Amsterdam to home.

That was a very costly nap. Almost cost me more then the night before my flight.

11. A Saturday final?!

My sociolinguistics final.

I had an alarm go off at 8 AM Monday through Friday. But this final was at 9 AM on a Saturday, because my school was run by jerks. So no alarm. I started day drinking pretty much immediately.

I had done very well in the class so I ended up with a C despite having a 0 on the final, but I still feel really embarrassed about the whole thing. Meh, my GPA was bad anyway.

12. Saviour

Fell asleep on a train in South Korea (traveling from Seoul to Kumi City). Normally a 3 hour trip. Thankfully, I woke up as the train was leaving the station as I would never known that I passed my stop. I thought “I’ll just get off at the next stop and jump on the train traveling in the opposite direction”. 45 minutes later I get off at a station that looks like a warehouse and is stationed in a valley (think “middle of nowhere” and you’re close). Tracks are exiting the station in 12 directions, there’s only one employee there and he can’t speak english. The train schedule is printed on the wall and it is all in Korean.

I went to the one guy and handed him my ticket, and started pointing at the tracks asking “Kumi?” and he looked at me not understanding the question (to be fair, the name is Anglicized, and may sound more like Gumi or Goomi). Finally, he saw the destination on the ticket pointed at it, and he summoned his best English “This….this…KUMI!”. I said “yes!” and started motioning like I was trying to figure out which track to stand at. He then asked “Why…why……HERE?”, I immediately mimed a person sleeping, and he burst out laughing. Then he walked over to the schedule on the wall, studied it for 2-3 minutes then walked me over several sets of tracks and waited with me. When a train arrived, he signalled to the conductor to wait for a while (S. Korean trains run a tight schedule), he walked through the cars until he found a family that had an empty seat AND wanted to practice their English. I communicated my thanks to the guy through the family, and talked with them all the way back so that I would stay awake.

13. Good job?

My final. It started at noon. I woke up and checked the time, and it was 2. I was super pissed at myself so I got out of bed and punched something. That something was my dorm room window. It shattered and made a pretty nasty laceration in my arm. I went to the ER, stitched it up and asked the Dr. for a note stating I was there that day. Got the note, showed it to my prof + the laceration, he gave me a B. Not bad.

14. Just a lazy dude who oversleeps

I overslept and missed one of my closest friend’s graduation. He was ok with that. Until I overslept and missed his 60th birthday party. Now he thinks I don’t care about him, although I’m just a lazy dude.

15. Lucky dog

I slept through the presentation for my dissertation at uni.

It was worth 30% of the grade for that module with a pass mark of 60%, so I felt pretty nervous.

Turns out my report was pretty well received, so I got me 66% from that alone.

16. Senioritis

Senior year high school pulled an all nighter editing together my final project for film class (friend and I wrote and shot a movie), finished just in time to get to school that morning to turn in the project and take the final exam.

Went home and fell asleep….right through the spring musical. As a part of chorus that was a big part of our grade I believe, and all my family was there. I was blissfully asleep until my mom got home wondering where I had been.

17. Nice guy

Slept into until 9am, before a 9.30am state exam. Thought exam was at 2pm. Was just sitting down to breakfast when my mother checked the timetable. Left house at 9.20am to get to school 20 minutes away. Made it before the door closed thanks to my mother’s ‘careful’ driving. My dean sent in a cup of tea and biscuits for me during the exam, to keep me going. Scored 95%.

18. Sleepy baby

Being born. According to my parents, my mom was in labour for hours with me and I just wasn’t coming out at all. When I did eventually pop out I cried for a few seconds max and fell back asleep. I literally slept so much as a baby my parents had to nudge me awake for feeding and whatnot.

19. I don’t think anyone would fault you

Late for a funeral because I stayed up all night watching Pootie Tang. I love that movie and needed a laugh after a heavy, emotional few days.

20. Biggest Regret

I waited years and years for the perfect time. 11:11 and 11 seconds on November 11 2011.

That’s 11:11:11 11/11/11

I was gonna make a wish. But I slept. My biggest life regret.

21. OH NO

I overslept my surprise birthday party. Friends tried to downplay my birthday and just said something like “come over around 7 and we’ll just sit around and have some beers.” I turned my phone off and took a nap beforehand and didn’t set an alarm because I figured “if it’s just a few buddies hanging out and drinking, and I oversleep, it won’t be a big deal.”

It was a big deal because I was an hour and a half late, and there were about 50 people at this surprise party. Half of them left before I even got there. Phone was off so they couldn’t even call to wake me up.

22. 6 months later…

Not me but a person I know, he had his final exam to become a lawyer. His girlfriend later wife went to church and prayed for 3 hrs straight.

He could not handle the pressure and went to the pub and got drunk. When his girlfriend found out she ripped the shit out him.

The result he had to do the course again and delayed him becoming a lawyer by 6 months.

23. Polygraph

I had once applied to be a 911 operator in the county I was living in. Prior to being hired, during the prescreening/interview process, you have to submit to a polygraph exam at the local sheriff’s department, FBI office, or state-level bureau of investigation. I live in Georgia, so I had to go to the GBI office near Atlanta.

My poly was supposed to have been at 2:30 PM. You have to be there early or on time, to the minute. Otherwise the examiner will leave, and you won’t get the poly. I took a short nap that afternoon, intending to wake up at 1 PM. Mapquest told me it would take 30 minutes to get there from where I lived, but knowing traffic in the Atlanta area, I wanted to give myself extra time.

I woke up at 2:00 PM.

Drove to the GBI headquarters, and got there at 2:35 PM.

Needless to say, I didn’t make it on time, and ended up not getting the job.

24. It’s a sign

Slept through a job interview

I had just gotten home from a very long work trip (Thailand to USA) and had a Skype interview that afternoon. Since I was pretty wiped from the travel, decided to take a short nap to freshen up. 4 hours later, I woke up 15 minutes after the interview was supposed to start. Got online and pretended my video wasn’t working since I obviously looked like I had been sleeping so we rescheduled for the next day.

I actually ended up getting the job, but should have taken this as a sign and not gone for it, as it ended up being not a great fit and I left about a year later.

25. Change is hard

I slept through the first 4-ish hours of a 12 hour shift a couple of times. Granted, this was shortly after I got started working night shift, so my sleep patterns were all kinds of messed up, but it still wasn’t fun to have to explain to my boss. He was super cool about it, though.

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