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There are literally millions of posts on the internet. I would say that only a handful should be considered “must reads,” while the rest fall somewhere between “I’m glad I read that” and “I just wasted five minutes of my life.”
These 8 people took to Reddit to say that these 10, though, you can’t miss – so let’s check them out!
8. A (funny) cautionary tale.
Recently, I traveled to Denver, Colorado with my wife and my wife’s parents.
As a resident of a non-legalized state — and as someone who is too much of a wuss to regularly buy illegal drugs — the thing I was looking forward to most was the chance to buy fancy legal weed. What could possibly go wrong?
So the first thing I do upon arriving (and after successfully ditching the in-laws) is drag my wife to a nearby dispensary for a shopping spree. And oh my god, it was just like in my dreams. Tons of different options in neat little sample jars and a team of helpful stoners walking me through the various strains:
“Are you looking for a mellow body high? Or do you want something that gives you a bit more pep and energy? Or are you just hoping for something light to take the stress off?”
“Yes, yes and yes!” I reply eagerly, like a fat kid in a candy store, and request an eighth-ounce of about 7 different options. In hindsight, if I learned anything from this experience, it is that my math and science teachers never taught me basic information, like “what is an ounce?” or “how much weed can a person consume in a single weekend?” Sure, I can tell you when two speeding trains leaving separate stations will collide or recite Avogadro’s Number, but it turns out that none of that information is particularly relevant to getting high in a responsible and efficient manner.
And it was at this dispensary that I also learned that you can’t actually smoke in public places (including the hotel that my wife and I were staying at). As a result, before leaving, I begged my wife to buy some edibles that I could munch on until we found a place to properly get lit. After expressing shock as to the absurd volume of drugs that we were buying (unlike me, she is the product of private school and understands the Imperial measurement system) she relents, and we walk out of the store with what felt like a dump truck of weed plus a small package of seemingly-innocuous gingersnap cookies.
When we finally get back to the hotel room, I tear those bad boys open… only to find about a dozen tiny cookies roughly the size of a quarter. What the fuck, Denver? Seeing the skepticism (and hunger) in my eyes, my wife warns me that I should go easy and look at the back of the package first before trying one.
“Dose size: 1/2 cookie,” I read silently as I start taking micro-bites from the edges, like a giant chinchilla gnawing on a sunflower seed. But what kind of a savage only eats half a cookie? So a second later, I covertly pop the remainder into my mouth.
And then I quickly stuff another two cookies in my mouth for good measure the moment my wife turns her back. We may not have legal weed back home, but I routinely devour an entire package of Milanos in one sitting without breaking a sweat. Your move, tiny gingersnaps.
About 30 minutes later we are in the backseat of her parents’ rental car on the way to dinner. And that’s when things start to go tits-up. My stomach growls. Loudly and angrily. My wife looks at me with inquisitive eyes that seem to say “Diarrhea?” But I merely clutch my tummy and mumble something about altitude sickness.
“You didn’t eat a whole cookie, did you?” she asks, 10% in genuine concern and 90% in seething irritation.
“Of course not.” I respond, avoiding eye contact for the remainder of the car ride.
A few minutes later we are climbing out of her parents’ rental car and heading into some trendy farm-to-table restaurant. I don’t remember how I made it to my seat, and I don’t remember even looking at the menu, but I do remember the concerned look on the waiter’s face as he asked me if I was doing alright.
“Keep it together, man,” I say to myself. But my wife’s sudden groan suggests that I may have also said that to the waiter. Things are going downhill fast.
The waiter nods sympathetically, takes our orders, and then heads to the next table.
The moment he walks away, my wife is staring daggers at me. I start to worry that the jig is up.
“You are sweating… from your entire face,” she says with both pity and disgust. Not quite knowing what to do, I reach for my napkin and proceed to blot my cheeks, nose, neck, chin and forehead.
At this point, my wife’s mom looks over at me with some concern. “Are you alright?” she asks kindly.
“Yeah, the food’s just a bit spicy,” I reply, far too quick to realize that we had literally just ordered and that there is nothing on the table except for a basket of dinner rolls.
My wife kicks me under the table to grab my attention. “Bathroom. Now.” she hisses. “Get it together.” I reluctantly get up from the table and head for the toilet. After splashing several handfuls of water on my face, I approach a urinal and start to pee.
Now, one of the more disconcerting effects of those tiny gingersnap monsters is the feeling that time has become untethered from reality. As I am peeing, I start to get the very unsettling feeling that I have been taking a piss for the better part of an hour and that my wife must be pacing around the restaurant worried about me.
But deep down I know that is absurd: I’ve been peeing all my life, sometimes multiple times a day. I’ve probably taken more than 50,000 leaks, and it usually only takes about a minute at most. So given that my typical pee is no more than 60 seconds — and given that it feels like I am about half way done — that means that I’ve probably only been standing here about 30 seconds, right?
But the guy at the urinal next to me doesn’t respond, and instead starts shuffling away from me mid-stream, like a startled penguin. I try, albeit unsuccessfully, to break eye-contact.
After finally finishing, I again splash some water on my face and return to my seat, making sure to apologize to the table “for being gone such a long time” just in case my math was off.
Next, I try briefly to engage in small talk with my wife’s father, but I am far too high to understand what either of us are saying. Not wanting to start laughing uncontrollably at the wrong moment — or, really, at any moment — I figure the safest idea is to nod my head periodically and drink a ton of water. Nothing cures mental fatigue like water, right?
To my wife’s horror, I stand up, grab my water glass and thrust it out to the waiter, who unfortunately is on the opposite side of the restaurant. But he turns out to be really cool and, after making his way over to our table, tells me that he’ll do his best to keep me stocked with ice water for the rest of the meal. He also helpfully suggests that if the dinner rolls aren’t too spicy for me, I should probably eat one or two so that I’m not sitting there on an empty stomach.
Smart man.
However, after going through all of the bread on the table and three glasses of water, I start to get worried that I need actual food to offset the growing paranoia from those tiny gingersnap devils. “Do you think I should flag down the waiter again and ask what’s taking so long?” I suggest helpfully to my wife.
“What?! We literally just ordered three f**king minutes ago.”
And at that exchange, my wife loses her cool. “HOW MANY COOKIES DID YOU EAT?!” she demands.
“Whoa, easy there, Torquemada,” I respond, somewhat horrified at her outburst. “I had a few cookies, but keep it down. I don’t want your parents to know how f**ked up I am right now.”
“REALLY?! THEY ARE SITTING TWO FEET AWAY FROM YOU. THEY KNOW.”
I look up and for the first time notice both of my in-laws just staring at me… for what literally felt like an eternity.
TL;DR: ate way too many edibles on a trip and wigged out during a dinner with my wife and her parents.
EDIT: Wow! Thanks everyone for all the love (and for even some of the hate)! I think I have officially peaked in life.
As for Part II of the story, there’s a reason — or, technically, 3 delicious reasons — why it was cut short. At that point, my wife’s singular focus was on getting me out of the restaurant before I either puked all over the table or pissed myself (or an unsightly combination of both). So after a few spastic, two-handed waves “good-bye” to my in-laws, she rushed me to the door like a Secret Service agent evacuating the president. My night after that was a whirlwind of barfing and groveling, mixed with a few vain attempts at “getting handsie” back in the hotel room. But being the absolute awesome sweetie that she is, my wife stuck with me through the whole nightmare, whispering over and over in my ear: “Please don’t die, we have a mortgage.”
7. This guy was arrested after his friend sent him edible marijuana in Japan.
Basically, guy is an English teacher working in Japan, and his jerk of a friend sent him some pot brownies in the mail from overseas without his knowledge. Marijuana is still highly illegal in Japan, and it gets confiscated by customs and he gets arrested. Japanese criminal system has a 99% conviction rate that relies entirely on confessions, and Japanese police are allowed to keep you for 23 days before they have to formally charge you for a crime or let you go, and you don’t have the right to have an attorney present while they interrogate you.
Dude is a legend: he knows the police have zero proof that he had any knowledge of his friend sending the edibles, and they can only charge and convict him if he confesses. He endures intense interrogation 4-6 hours a day, 6 days/week, refuses to answer questions with anything but ‘no comment’ and even trolls the detective by telling long, rambling, nonsensical jokes that don’t even translate well. At the end of the 23 days he is released, never having been charged with a crime and no criminal record. He was able to have his wife call in sick for him during the entire time so it had no impact on his employment as well.
6. This love story for the ages.
I [F 26] suffer from chronic depression, and some related complications such as low self esteem, body image issues and insomnia.
Some months ago I heard a noise outside of my bedroom, like the sound of someone running. So I get up, a rare moment of curiosity. Sure enough, at 3am there’s this hell fat dude jogging, he’s got a jumper on and headphones, looks like he’s out there jogging for fitness. Probably too shy to jog in the day, little did he know I was up and awake and watching. I thought to myself, heh, he’ll probably give up tomorrow.
The next day I didn’t see him, didn’t think much of it, to be honest I forgot about it after that
Three days later I hear some jogging outside my window, again in those ungodly hours of the night which have become my solace. Sure enough, it was that guy again. Again I thought he’d give up, but the next day he was back, and the day after that as well. At this point I was still skeptical, but I was like good on you dude, you’ve exceeded my ability to commit at least.
Over the next week he kept returning, he only missed two days. I have to admit, I became way too invested in this stranger’s journey of self improvement at this point. I came to calling him Danni in my head, dunno why, he seemed like a gentle dude and I liked that name for him. I found myself looking forward to seeing him run every morning. Now I have to mention that when I say run, I mean he runs for like a minute or two and then walks until he can breathe again. Most would laugh but I found it admirable. I could run way further than this guy if I had to but I’d go home the moment I lost my breath or felt uncomfortable, Danni is repeatedly exposing himself to this, over and over. He’s on a mission, he’s also the most meaningful thing in my life at the moment.
A month passes from when he stated, and to be honest I kinda lost interest a bit. I found myself resenting his orders more self motivation than what I have. However just as I was becoming aware of this feeling he stopped running. To be honest he had not really lost any weight and his only sign of progress was that he could now run further than the view from my window could afford me line of sight. After a few days when I noticed, I genuinely felt sad.
Another month passes and my sleep has drifted further and further into the morning hours, this is pretty usual for me. One day I stay up particularly late-early and as I go to close the blinds because the God damn sun is killing me, i spot Danni running! He had not actually stopped running, he’d just started doing it at normal hours! This was the first time I felt joy in about 2 weeks, I felt elated, I wanted to shout out to him, I didn’t.
Now I was enthralled. I had to see him every day. And sure enough he did keep showing up, almost every day. There was this one period of maybe 4 or 5 days where he didn’t, but after that he started up again and my respect for him was solidified. Here is this man, a painting of what society would describe as soft, a loser, at the bottom of the social ladder, but that’s not what I saw. I should say though that it might sound like my admiration was becoming romantic, but it really wasn’t like that. I admired him from a distance as a sort of role model whom I’d never want to meet less that illusion be shattered. In my mind he was the embodiment of hope, if I met him he’d collapse like a quantum particle or whatever and become a very real very flawed human.
After this roughly two more months pass, he has his ups and downs, days skipped, days where he’s just walking. All the while he’s started losing weight, but he’s still got a longgg way to go to looking healthy.
Then one day , around the time he’d be running by my house I hear the giggling of a girl. Now at this point I was more checking in once a week to see if he was still running, he didn’t have a perfectly regular schedule, so I would have to watch through the window from my bed for a while whenever I wanted to see him otherwise I might miss him. On this day though I had to go check what this girl was laughing at. I’d be so heartbroken if Danni was being bullied, I mean who would just openly make fun of someone for being fat and trying to do something about it today? Instead I see Danni walking alongside this girl. Wow Danni! She’s like wayyy out of his league. I don’t really buy that league thing entirely but damn this girl is pretty and she’s wearing all that tight fitting sportswear, she seems like she’s got that amazing sense of style where she always looks great, I’ve always envied that. I hear Danni talking to her, and that’s the first time I heard his voice. He’s just chatting, she seems like a really bubbly kind of person, nothing he’s saying is that funny, but when she laughs you can see him beaming with pride. Her laugh clearly makes his day but tbh it’s pissing me off. At the same time I feel really happy for him, but I can’t help but feel cynical, he’s probably never going to be with this girl. She’s just using him because she’s deeply insecure (like me) but instead she seeks attention to try to fill the void, while I guess I embrace it like that old friend you love to hate and hate to love.
Over the next weeks this girl occasionally joins him, out of 5 weeks she joined him maybe 8 times, while he was now running every single day except weekends. Occasionally I could glimpse snippets from their conversation when they happens to walk past my window instead of running, sometimes they were just quietly walking but mostly she was her bubbly self and either chatting away about nothing or listening to him, occasionally laughing and giggling.
I have to say, and this completed surprised me, but at first Danni, who’s still obese at this point was able to run further than the girl! She had a gorgeous body , like most days she’d wear a top that revealed her midriff and it’s not like you could see her abs or anything but her stomach was quite flat, I guess she was unfit though! She quickly caught up though and was able to run as far as he could as she stated to come more regularly. Two months in and she was joining him three times a week. I still don’t know their relationship, I think they are friends, I saw them hug one time when they were both super out of breath, but that’s the only time I saw contact between them. They’d taken to sharing earphones with like a splitter thing, I thought that was kinda cute. Usually I fucking hate cutsie couples but thinking they weren’t a couple let me see past that I guess. During this time the girl also spotted me watching them and I stopped watching them, but I could still hear them outside sometimes. I had changed my mind about her though, she seemed okay.
The thing about my depression is that sometimes you go long periods of feeling nothing, and then out of nowhere emotions return in this flood like an enormous dam has been holding them back and now they are out, so one morning when she mentioned her boyfriend it hit me way harder than it should have, I wasn’t ready for it! She said “oh my boyfriend and I are going up north for the long weekend so I won’t be able to come on Monday.” I couldn’t hear Danni’s response. I’ve been in both of their positions, assuming he’s madly in love with her. It sucks.
Another month passes and the girl is now only showing up twice a week. I’ve started watching them again but now it’s more of a habit. I’m happy for the guy, he’s starting to look healthy, he’s still got a bit of fat but man has he come a long way. She’s looking amazing as always. Then on day I spot the cutest moment. It seems like they’d been pushing each other to run further and faster, and on this day I see them in the park that’s about 100 meters or so from my house, at first she’s bent over seemingly heaving for breath, he’s pacing around, looking up, trying to catch his breath too. They have one of those chats where it’s far more breathing than words being spoken, but I can’t hear them, only see them. Then he gently grabs her hand and holds it to his neck, I guess he asked her to check his pulse, she shakes her head and smiles while holding her fingers under his jaw. He then does the same to her, and it they look at each other for a moment, just standing there for a second index finger or each other’s pulses, breathing. I thought this was super cute and I wish I had been closer and taken a photo.
That was 17 days ago. I decided to write this story because yesterday I watched them both finish their run in that same park, totally out of breath. The girl sat down on the grass and after a minute the guy offered her a hand to get up. She took his hand and as soon as she got up she went for a hug. They hugged for a good 20 second kind of slowly swaying. When they broke apart he held her by the shoulders, and then they got close again and kissed.
Danni, I’m going to stop watching you, I wish you the best of luck and if you’re reading this please know that you’ve been the only meaning in my life for months now, I’m so happy for you and I sincerely hope things work out for you and the girl. Perhaps you were doing this all for her from the start, but even if it doesn’t work out with her please don’t stop running. I’m not even slightly jealous of you two, or your progress. 9 days ago I started running at 3AM and I’ve not missed a day.
Edit: Thanks for everyone who has read, and all the up votes and comments and awards! I honestly thought this post might die in the weeds as many of my others have, I didn’t expect this kind of response. I created a new account because discrimination against those with mental illness is real. Anyway It fills my heart with joy that I could inspire even one person to get out there and make their life better for themselves, and I think Danni would feel the same!
At first I started by up voting and reading all your comments and replying to every person who rewarded me an award or made a comment, because you all deserve to be noticed! It does get a bit overwhelming though, but I will still read every comment even if I don’t respond, that’s a promise!
5. This woman, who jumped right into a romcom.
I’m couch-surfing with my sister and her BF; I work for him at the lake-side bar, trying to pay for college. My state is “open” and while I’m not thrilled, I need both the job and my scored sofa accommodations to make it work. To give them their space, and myself a break from the doomscrolling, I take a run by the lake in the mornings. This lake is bombass and draws scuba divers to the flooded town at the bottom.
Today, I was in my own head running when a dark mass floated to the surface 40 feet away. I was on the craggy side of the lake and this dude looked dead. D.E.A.D. Facing away from me, his head was tipped back, eyes closed, bobbing like a fishing lure. No one else was around, so I thought he was quantum crazy out here scuba diving alone at the crackass of dawn, giving himself the bends or some nonsense.
Like a jackass, I didn’t yell at him to check-in. Instead, I toed off my shoes and stripped to my skivvies to save the imbecile. The movie trailer in my head had me taking three glorious steps and launching into the deep blue water, black widow style. Instead, my tender feet hit the sharp rocks and I contorted under the pain like a slinky as I uncoordinatedly pitched myself into the water, doing a side-flop. I was also wearing my contacts so I swam hard in his direction with my eyes closed.
When I open them, he was dead-ass staring at me like I’d lost my ever-lovin’ mind, so I blurted, “Are you okay?”
He removed the regulator and incredulously said “yes”.
My brain blue-screened while I tread water. The lake felt infinitely deep. Before I could terrify myself by hearing the jaws theme song, I turned to nope the hell out of there, yelling over my shoulder, “I thought you needed saving” to explain my idiocy.
As I pivoted, another dude cleared his throat from 30 feet away on the other side. I never heard a sound from him so I freaked out, failing and belting an ear wounding scream at him.
Both asshats laughed as a few more heads surfaced around us. I was surrounded by divers all wildly entertained by my ridiculous high-octane FU. After pointing to me and the beach, the merman that was my original target cautiously swam toward me after I nodded and “escorted” me to the shore.
The beach was much further than I had anticipated, so I was trying to low-key breath, hiding my need to suck all of the O2 from the air. Also, the comedy of the situation consumed me and I started to giggle. Finally, I joked, “Dude, you are lucky you weren’t actually dying because It would have taken everything I have to drag your sorry ass this far.”
He chuckled before offering me a “tow.”
“Hell, no! Not gonna happen.” Even if I had to dog paddle, I wouldn’t openly accept that defeat.
He quietly mocked me the rest of the way to the shore. I’m a secret sap for it.
They were cadets or recent graduates from a military college, here for the summer. They’ve been training in pools and were doing some “open water” exercises; they had been out there at least part of the night. I’m sure I blew-up whatever drill they were running. He’s training for pre-dive school (?) and since I am an expert googler, I’m guessing that means combat diving.
At the shore, I did my best to throw my shoulders back and march out of the water in my sports bra and undies in front of what I can only imagine are some pretty badass men. I did invite him and his clandestine crew for an absurdly overpriced beer at the bar tonight before shame-jogging back into the woods for my clothes.
TL;DR I tried to save an injured diver-ended up crashing some kind of military training.
EDIT: It’s Lake Jocassee in SC. Also, the mereman cheated: he was wearing a floaty vest and fins, that bastard. Ok, I’ll admit there is a part of me that is attracted to his mysterious appearance from the shadow realm, and I’m definitely imaging that he’s constructed from some kind of aluminum steel alloy, but he was also funny and kind. I was vibing his proclivity for witty and sarcastic comments and have a million questions I want to ask him. Ha
4. These creepy tales from a Forestry Search & Rescue officer.
I wasn’t sure where else to post these stories, so I figured I’d share them here. I’ve been an SAR officer for a few years now, and along the way I’ve seen some things that I think you guys will be interested in.
I have a pretty good track record for finding missing people. Most of the time they just wander off the path, or slip down a small cliff, and they can’t find their way back. The majority of them have heard the old ‘stay where you are’ thing, and they don’t wander far. But I’ve had two cases where that didn’t happen. Both bother me a lot, and I use them as motivation to search even harder on the missing persons cases I get called on. The first was a little boy who was out berry-picking with his parents. He and his sister were together, and both of them went missing around the same time. Their parents lost sight of them for a few seconds, and in that time both the kids apparently wandered off. When their parents couldn’t find them, they called us, and we came out to search the area. We found the daughter pretty quickly, and when we asked where her brother was, she told us that he’d been taken away by ‘the bear man.’ She said he gave her berries and told her to stay quiet, that he wanted to play with her brother for a while. The last she saw of her brother, he was riding on the shoulders of ‘the bear man’ and seemed calm. Of course, our first thought was abduction, but we never found a trace of another human being in that area. The little girl was also insistent that he wasn’t a normal man, but that he was tall and covered in hair, ‘like a bear’, and that he had a ‘weird face.’ We searched that area for weeks, it was one of the longest calls I’ve ever been on, but we never found a single trace of that kid.
The other was a young woman who was out hiking with her mom and grandpa. According to the mother, her daughter had climbed up a tree to get a better view of the forest, and she’d never come back down. They waited at the base of the tree for hours, calling her name, before they called for help. Again, we searched everywhere, and we never found a trace of her. I have no idea where she could possibly have gone, because neither her mother or grandpa saw her come down.
A few times, I’ve been out on my own searching with a canine, and they’ve tried to lead me straight up cliffs. Not hills, not even rock faces. Straight, sheer cliffs with no possible handholds. It’s always baffling, and in those cases we usually find the person on the other side of the cliff, or miles away from where the canine has led us. I’m sure there’s an explanation, but it’s sort of strange.One particularly sad case involved the recovery of a body. A nine-year-old girl fell down an embankment and got impaled on a dead tree at the base. It was a complete freak accident, but I’ll never forget the sound her mother made when we told her what had happened. She saw the body bag being loaded into the ambulance, and she let out the most haunting, heart-broken wail I’ve ever heard. It was like her whole life was crashing down around her, and a part of her had died with her daughter. I heard from another SAR officer that she killed herself a few weeks after it happened. She couldn’t live with the loss of her daughter.
I was teamed up with another SAR officer because we’d received reports of bears in the area. We were looking for a guy who hadn’t come home from a climbing trip when he was supposed to, and we ended up having to do some serious climbing to get to where we figured he’d be. We found him trapped in a small crevasse with a broken leg. It was not pleasant. He’d been there for almost two days, and his leg was very obviously infected. We were able to get him into a chopper, and I heard from one of the EMTs that the guy was absolutely inconsolable. He kept talking about how he’d been doing fine, and when he’d gotten to the top, a man had been there. He said the guy had no climbing equipment, and he was wearing a parka and ski pants. He walked up to the guy, and when the guy turned around, he said he had no face. It was just blank. He freaked out, and ended up trying to get off the mountain too fast, which is why he’d fallen. He said he could hear the guy all night, climbing down the mountain and letting out these horrible muffled screams. That story bothered the hell out of me. I’m glad I wasn’t there to hear it.
One of the scariest things I’ve ever had happen to me involved the search for a young woman who’d gotten separated from her hiking group. We were out until late at night, because the dogs had picked up her scent. When we found her, she was curled up under a large rotted log. She was missing her shoes and pack, and she was clearly in shock. She didn’t have any injuries, and we were able to get her to walk with us back to base ops. Along the way, she kept looking behind us and asking us why ‘that big man with black eyes’ was following us. We couldn’t see anyone, so we just wrote it off as some weird symptom of shock. But the closer we got to base, the more agitated this woman got. She kept asking me to tell him to stop ‘making faces’ at her. At one point she stopped and turned around and started yelling into the forest, saying that she wanted him to leave her alone. She wasn’t going to go with him, she said, and she wouldn’t give us to him. We finally got her to keep moving, but we started hearing these weird noises coming from all around us. It was almost like coughing, but more rhythmic and deeper. It was almost insect-like, I don’t really know how else to describe it. When we were within site of base ops, the woman turns to me, and her eyes are about as wide as I can imagine a human could open them. She touches my shoulder and says ‘He says to tell you to speed up. He doesn’t like looking at the scar on your neck.’ I have a very small scar on the base of my neck, but it’s mostly hidden under my collar, and I have no idea how this woman saw it. Right after she says it, I hear that weird coughing right in my ear, and I just about jumped out of my skin. I hustled her to ops, trying not to show how freaked out I was, but I have to say I was really happy when we left the area that night.
This is the last one I’ll tell, and it’s probably the weirdest story I have. Now, I don’t know if this is true in every SAR unit, but in mine, it’s sort of an unspoken, regular thing we run into. You can try asking about it with other SAR officers, but even if they know what you’re talking about, they probably won’t say anything about it. We’ve been told not to talk about it by our superiors, and at this point we’ve all gotten so used to it that it doesn’t even seem weird anymore. On just about every case where we’re really far into the wilderness, I’m talking 30 or 40 miles, at some point we’ll find a staircase in the middle of the woods. It’s almost like if you took the stairs in your house, cut them out, and put them in the forest. I asked about it the first time I saw some, and the other officer just told me not to worry about it, that it was normal. Everyone I asked said the same thing. I wanted to go check them out, but I was told, very emphatically, that I should never go near any of them. I just sort of ignore them now when I run into them because it happens so frequently.
I have a lot more stories, and I suppose if anyone’s interested, I’ll tell some of them tomorrow. If anyone has any theories about the stairs, or if you’ve seen them too, let me know.
3. That one time when this girl’s casual knowledge busted up a family.
Obligatory this story actually happened about a year ago: I (18F at the time) was dating a boy named, Jacob (18 M at the time). His father (early 60s) was a mechanic, and his mom (mid 50s) was a SAHM. They were a pretty typical white suburban family in the south and had asked Jacob if they could meet me even though we had only been dating for a month.
At the dinner, I met his mom, dad, older brother, older sister, and her newborn daughter. The dinner went well and I was chatting about my volunteer work at my college’s blood drive, to which his father explains that his doctor told him he was O negative and a universal blood donor. My boyfriend mentions he is also O, but his siblings casually mention they are both AB. I don’t think anything of it because my bf had mentioned that his mom was married once before and was widowed. The following conversation went like this:
Me: Oh that’s really cool. You’re a really rare blood type. If you don’t mind me asking: is your mom’s blood type A and your dad’s B or your dad’s A and mom’s B?
OS (older sister): What do you mean? He’s O. *Gesturing to my bf’s father*
Me: Oh I know. I was just asking about your bio father, but of course, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.
*I notice his mom get really pale, and it was in that moment I realized I fucked up*
OB (older brother): What do you mean bio father?
Me: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.
*Jacob’s dad got real quiet and looking at his wife’s face. He knew instantly. I look over to Jacob who I think was starting to put the full picture of what was happening together*
Jacob’s dad: Are you saying they’re not my biological kids? Because my wife swore up and down in marriage counseling (By “Marriage Counseling” they mean with a pastor) that they were my kids and she would never cheat on me. (yeah… turns out she never had any kids from her previous marriage)
Jacob’s Mom: I would never cheat on you. OS and OB are your kids.
Jacob’s Dad: OP, why do you think they’re not my kids?
I tried to excuse myself because it was very clear the cat was out of the bag, and with a quick google search from my boyfriend he starts cussing out his mom. She starts to sob and apologizes over and over again. And I am forced to explain 9th-grade biology to his father about the fact that the only kids he could have produced were with the blood type: O, A or, B; but absolutely not AB. Jacob was the only one with the possibility of being his son.
They all start screaming at one another. OS eventually leaves because her newborn is screaming too. His mom goes and locks herself in the bedroom. His older brother follows her screaming asking who his real father is. My boyfriend is trying to figure out if his dad still wants to be their father. I eventually have a friend come pick me up.
Yeah… we broke up shortly after but not after figuring out that none of the kids produced from the marriage were his (Edit: They found out via paternity tests, for sure weren’t his kids) and they divorced soon after.
TL;DR I accidentally revealed that my boyfriend’s mom was unfaithful by pointing out the fact that his older siblings who both had the blood type AB could not have been biologically related to their O negative father
Edit: For those asking how they knew their blood types — Jacob donated blood for the blood drive at our school. His sister just had a baby so she was probably informed during pregnancy. Jacob’s dad was told by his doctor for (probably) underlying medical reasons I don’t know (I wasn’t ever really close to his family after that for obvious reasons) and I don’t know how his brother knew.
Edit/PSA: Reading through the comments I have discovered many of you don’t know your blood type: Go find out your blood type! It can save your life in an emergency! If you are parents find out your children’s blood type. If you discover you are not biologically related to one or either of your parents. I am very sorry, but you should still know your blood type and I would suggest some therapy.
2. This woman who almost had her baby abducted.
Hello,
I’m twenty-nine years old, happily married, my husband and I are college-educated, have respectable, stable jobs, own a home in a nice neighborhood…we’re basically as prepared as anyone can be to start a family. I’m almost nine months pregnant with our first child.
The problem is that eleven years ago, when my husband was a freshman in college, he was arrested for possession of marijuana. It was a large enough amount that he was charged with a Class D felony (our jurisdiction is very harsh regarding marijuana), but not intent to deal. He plead guilty and did his time and probation without a problem, passing every drug test along the way. He has not touched marijuana (or any other illegal substance) since, and we rarely even drink (and haven’t at all in over a year). I have no criminal record, and have never done drugs myself. It was a stupid mistake he made as a foolish eighteen-year-old, and he’s worked hard to put it behind him.
Someone has apparently contacted Child Services in our area and informed them that we are drug users. This accusation is being taken very seriously because of my husband’s record. We have been as cooperative as could be with our caseworker. We’ve been interviewed, our home has been examined, and she found nothing remotely suspicious or incriminating. We have both taken drug tests and passed.
Our caseworker says that everything looks just fine so far. Unfortunately, she also says that there’s still the possibility that our child could be taken from us in the labor and delivery ward, and that we won’t be allowed to take her home. I was devastated and horrified to hear that. When I asked why, she said it was “not up to [her],” and “we’ll have to wait and see,” which made absolutely no sense to me. What gives? I feel like there’s something she isn’t telling me, but I have no experience with DCS and I’m not aware of anything we could have possibly done wrong. I know they’ll have to test my daughter for drugs once she’s born, but she has not been exposed to drugs (nothing more than prenatal vitamins–not even tylenol!), and I already proved that by passing a drug test. I’m scared and confused.
Do I need a lawyer? I had anticipated spending our savings on our new daughter/parental leave, but I will use that money for a lawyer if I have to.
Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for your help.
TL;DR: I’m pregnant. DCS received a tip that my husband and I are actively using drugs. We are not, but my husband was arrested for marijuana possession long ago. What do we do? Is his preexisting drug conviction enough to warrant removing our newborn from us?
1. This poor woman, at the end of her rope with a severely disabled child.
I can’t tell anyone this, even my therapist. Lambast me if you want and maybe I even deserve it. I only ask what you would do if you were in my situation. Not what you think “people should” do. What you would REALLY do.
I’m a single mom of 2 boys. 12 and 7. My husband passed away 3 years ago in a work accident. A very large portion of me believe it was a suicide. I can’t see him EVER making the mistake he made that caused his death, and he had taken an action just before that which ensured his co-workers weren’t in the room. I fully believe he killed himself because of our younger son and no one will ever change my mind.
We were told when I was pregnant that he would have Downs Syndrome. We could handle that. Even if it was severe. It turned out he has a chromosome deletion. His disorder is kind of rare so I won’t post which specific one but suffice to say he’ll never be anything more than he is now or has ever been.
And what he is, is nothing.
He doesn’t appear to have any awareness and never has. His eyes are locked in one position, he doesn’t respond to noise, touch, or pain. He is total care. He is capable of nothing. He is tube fed and on oxygen. He is in diapers and will be forever. He makes no sounds, no attempts to communicate. He never even really cried as a baby.
He has never made an attempt to interact with anyone or his environment.
I’m not upset because I got a special needs/”imperfect” child. I feel the way I feel because this…… thing….. takes up 200% of my time and does NOTHING. I didn’t get an imperfect child. I didn’t get a child.
I don’t love him. He doesn’t have any personality, there is nothing to love. And yet I’m responsible for him. In addition to his extreme delays he’s also medically fragile. Respiratory crises, fecal impactions (his autonomic nervous system doesn’t function properly), issues with his G tube, infections, pressure sores no matter WHAT we put him on or how we position him.
Our older son has suffered because his non existent brother has colored everything in his life. He’s had medical care get delayed because there’s only one of me and hos brother is more critical. We do have a visiting home nurse but only 20 hrs/week and we aren’t eligible for more. I was starting law school, I gave up my dreams and my plan for my children for this potato. My older son can’t do a lot of things he wants to do because of the youngers need for care and appointments.
The final straw was I heard a sound. I went into Younger Son’s room to check, thinking he had forgotten how to breathe again, and saw Older Son hitting him and screaming “You’re why I don’t have a mother! You’re why I don’t have a father! You’re why I can’t have friends over! You’re why I can’t be in sports! I didn’t ask for you and I hope you die!”
Instead of being horrified, I watched. And Younger Son just did. not. react. No signs of pain or fear or upset. No reaction at all.
He breathes but he is not alive. He doesn’t know who I am. He doesn’t know who Older Son is. He has no sense of self, life experience, or awareness of his surroundings.
He doesn’t need to be in my home. He doesn’t know or care where he is. He is genetically my son but he is not family. My previously abused, brain damaged cat who can’t walk straight has more personality and is far more loveable than my “child”. In fact I was looking FORWARD to raising a Downs baby. Even one with severe impairments, for that reason. With disability can come gifts. This boy is not a gift. He is a genetic mistake I probably should have miscarried and would have definitely terminated if I’d known he would be like this. And the flip side is, if he HAS awareness….. he’s miserable. And there is nothing I can do. If he has likes and dislikes no one knows what they are. If he is in pain he can’t tell anyone. If he wants anything, he can’t communicate. He’s had every imaginable therapy, nothing has made a difference.
And so he’s leaving our home on the 29th. I feel excited and relieved and then guilty because I know we’ll be happier with him gone.
He’s already taken my husband and my son’s father. He was working so so so much OT to pay for the cucumber’s care. For the experimental therapies insurance wouldn’t cover. Because THIS one was going to be the BREAKTHROUGH. He was tired and defeated and disappointed. He sought counseling as well but I don’t think he could ever say the words “I don’t want my son in my home” either.
He’s ruined my older son. I was so wrapped up on the younger I never realized how ignored and damaged he was. He lost his father too. I didn’t just lose my husband. HE is my priority now and this malignant lump can be someone else’s problem. At least they’ll be paid a wage to care for him. At least they’ll get a break from him when they punch out.
I just want to never think of him again and I’m not sorry. And for that, I’m sorry.
Thanks for reading.
I’m flabbergasted and can’t believe I’ve never heard of some of these before now!
What story would you put on this list? Drop the link in the comments!
