People Confess the Craziest Butterfly Effect Moments In Their Lives duplicate | Memes (2024)

We were in class in middle school and had to write down a hero in our private notebooks (i don't remember why), then a description of them, what clothes they wear, what food you imagine they eat etc. I wrote down MLK Jr, a real hero of mine.

Well... Then we had to write down another hero. At this point I wasn't taking it seriously, it was the late 90s I think, I wrote down Saddam Hussein as a private joke to myself. I was an idiot and didn't know anything about the Middle East, I was just bored, his name was in the news at the time.

Well I knew Saddam was a "bad guy", so I wrote that that he wore "Nazi clothes" to answer "what would he wear?", as I didn't actually know what he did wear other than that it looked like Nazi uniforms from Indiana Jones. It didn't need to make sense because it was the equivalent of doodling on my private notebook to me.

Well, now our teacher asks us to tear out the page and pass our note two people back. I quickly draw a big X over my second joke entry and pass the page back. Then our teacher has people read descriptions of a "hero" and the class guesses who it is. Moves on to the second hero. Class gets to mine. Teacher asks what clothes hes wearing.

Guy 2 seats behind me reading my page says "Nazi clothes". Class is silent. Then the guy, apparently not reading my "hero's" name says "this guy chose **Hitler** for some reason". I'm shocked, don't know how to respond. I just sit there. Was bullied rest of the year and beyond for being racist (I'm white). Even the teacher pulled me aside and wouldn't believe that it was a joke.

The irony is my actual hero was *f*cking Martin Luther King Jr* who I f*cking adored, and I'm getting slapped around by black kids, bullied by *everyone* because they think I'm a racist loser, and I couldn't even defend myself because I didn't know how to do so in a socially acceptable manner and I understood why they were being mean. Always had a soft spot for the accused after that.

I was miserable, spiralled down in many ways and that misery carried on for years well after high school and college. I didn't take this dumb assignment seriously and it contributed to years of depression and anxiety and I feel I wasted my youth

On a lighter note. I play Daily Fantasy Sports professionally, I experience butterfly effect to a lesser extent. There's been a few times where I've made a small change to a lineup, or hesitated to enter a lineup and the games locked, and it's cost me $1 million as that team would have won.

Just knowing "if I had clicked half a second sooner I'd be a millionaire" is a frustrating thought.

/Kubanocho*rus/

Met a guy smoking weed with him at a local skate park.

Meeting him ultimately lead to me leaving atheism behind me to follow Jesus-something that now defines every aspect of my life.

So I was raised Christian only in the sense that Jesus and God were about as important as Santa. I remember as a child, once I figured out Santa wasn't real, beginning to question if God was a big lie made up by adults as well.

By the time I reached adolescence I realized I had no real reason to believe in God and began identifying as an atheist-I believed in no gods. I pondered the subject greatly and decided that it made much more sense that all religions were wrong rather than one being right, that there was no hard evidence for God, and that everything in the Bible sounded like absolute nonsense-especially in light of my education in the sciences.

The thing is that I understood that nothing could possibly matter but the answer to the question, "Do I have a purpose?" and I never stopped seeking if there was an answer. Nothing else was worth seeking so I never stopped thinking about that very subject.

All the conclusions I had came to, everything I saw pointed to religion being utter nonsense, the religious being the foolish and the uneducated, and that all of life and existence was some random accident that just happened to occur and would be over as soon as it started.

I never questioned that stance until the day I had a good friend talk to me. He didn't have incredible thought provoking statements, he didn't have nearly any answers, but he had faith. I was mocking this man to the face for the beliefs he held dearest and he was brushing aside my rudeness as if it were leaves in his path.

His message was clear-it was that he knew that there was a God and that He was Jesus Christ. He confessed himself that he didn't have all the answers but he knew religious leaders I could talk to that did. He was sure.

I laughed off the entire conversation at that moment but I distinctly remember in the moments before I fell asleep that night asking myself, "Could I have been wrong all this time?"

It was the first time I was no longer 100% sure there was no God and it opened a new chapter in my life. I had spent years finding every single reason to not believe in God but had never taken the time to consider that there might actually be reasons to think that He exists, and I began to see them.

The fact that the theme of human existence is the struggle between good and evil point directly towards Him. Without God defining good and evil all of our struggles, all of our dreams, all of our desires, all of our love-all of it was just a bunch of complex chemical reactions.

Everything I knew told me that all that we experience and live is real, it's tangible. I was living it. Not only this but I realized that this universe was made so that life-the only thing that could give existence meaning and purpose-could and would occur.

Whatever caused this universe to happen made it so that it could and would have purpose. That demands sentience. That demands God.

These thoughts continued for a month until I realized one day that it was true. It was all true, there was a God and His love for us was so evident. The love of a God that put breath in our lungs, the love of a God that lets the sun shine on our backs, the love of a God that lets us look into our loved one's eyes is the same God that multitudes had claimed to have witnessed to walk this earth in the flesh and lay down His life to save us. Everything became so clear in that moment.

That night was the most incredible night of my life as I fell on my knees in repentance of my sins, willing to follow Jesus as my Lord.

I received the Holy Spirit and was born a new man-a new man who put all of his sin behind him in that moment. I went to all those in my life-all those I had instilled my brand of atheism into-and professed to them that I was wrong and that they needed to repent as well.

I had found myself in the midst of a group that was getting more heavily involved in crime to fuel our drug usage. I was laughed to scorn and quickly found myself living my days alone.

It's been quite a few years since that day and I now find myself in a thriving church community that is living in obedience to Jesus and I couldn't even begin to explain to you the joy and mirth of knowing your Creator, of knowing your purpose, and of knowing your family that you will go to spend eternity with.

This world is just the beginning-the beginning that only those who are willing to repent of their sin and obey God will find eternal paradise to be their end. If I hadn't found Jesus I know I would have been found guilty at the judgment of my sin and justly been condemned to an eternal hell for what I had done.

My Creator loved me enough to give me a second chance, loved me enough to seek me and show me His love, loved me enough to walk the earth in the flesh and die at the hands of His own creation so that He could pour out His blood as payment for what I had done.

He rose from the dead to the witness of hundreds and has given His Spirit to countless thousands so that we could know that this was the truth.

/trees_are_beautiful/

It all started with an offer to dance... Or did I call her artwork pretty?

I first met the love of my life on a schoolbus on my way home from obvious. She was new, and I wasn't really into women... Or men... Or anyone. I was just everyone's fluffy, wise, bubbly sense of joy and optimism at the time.

Needless to say, she was drawing something and I complimented her art. It was really well drawn, especially given she was 14ish at the time.

A few months pass and it was just your daily encounter, my good deed for the day, and she was completely gone from my memory. However, she seemed familiar a peculiar night.

It was the Winter Formal (Prom but not Prom) at my high school that was literally held together by tape and bits of string due to how much funding the school *didn't* get. I, still the shy idiot that liked to make light of things, went with a f*cking broom with lipstick on. Shame I had to throw it away, teachers didn't let Broomhilda in.

As all my friends went with their seperate cliques I noticed someone crying. Her boyfriend (at the time) refused to dance with her. She wasn't taking it very well at all. So I tried several ideas to cheer her up, I was a madman with a plan! I found some $15 I stuffed in my pocket and proceeded to try to spoil her with some cookies and soda, to no avail.

That's right, I never got to dance with her that day. However, she did thank me. How poetic this would be for later on. It honestly shook me, because I was starting to realize how alone I was at this point. It wasn't depressing, yet, I just wanted to belong.

Eventually, we had Art class together. We messed around, got into arguments, talked, and became really good friends. I had forgotten about all previous events by this point, but what drew her to me was her comfort in confiding in me.

Any conversation we had stayed between us, and she got to get some stuff off of her chest that she really needed to. I would sit back and listen, only speaking briefly to give my insight. I would not judge, I would not complain, and I honestly just enjoyed her company.

A strong friendship with trust and confidence can, I guess, go anywhere. It was June 2017 when she broke up with her 3rd real boyfriend... It shattered her, it frustrated her, and she would make one phone call in hopes to just unleash all her emotions out onto. She called me at f*cking 2:15 in the morning, and I picked up. I don't know what it was, but a switch just flipped and I was on the hunt. This unlucky woman would feel the wrath of my support and all I needed was something affordable and thoughtful as I was poor as f*ck.

I started sending photos, trying to see what she liked. Ah ha! Ducks! She said she likes ducks! Quackly I waddled my way down to a local store, as for $20 I thought I could nab her something that would cheer her up every time she looked at it. My good deed would be done, someone would smile, and I could rest happy.

Those motherduckers stopped making the wooden ducks. I had just gotten my permit, so maybe I could convince my Mom that she needs to be driven to the trinket store. Alas, no ducks... I was out of ducking luck.

Eventually I settled for an owl night light. Heartbroken and feeling close to failure, I hand delivered the gift to her. It might make her happy to see that I cared, but it wouldn't be the duck that I promised her. I didn't know it at the time, but I was knee deep in love with her.

The weeks that followed went by as a blur. No sleep, no stomach to eat, something had obviously happened and I was running on instinct. By the time thoughtfulness was operating the machine of myself, everything was already falling apart. She said one sentence which I had no idea how to process. She said "I love you" and was curious if I felt the same.

Most people know who or what their into by the time they're 17, but not me! Was I straight? Gay? Bi? Who the f*ck and what the f*ck am I? What does she even see in me? p*rn was a nasty habit as I desperately tried to figure out if we'd even work out. I new nothing. I eventually had to tell her "I don't know... Give me a week or two."

After my now girlfriend and love of my life got back from her trips, I was obviously in shambles. By August 11, 2017 I had thought it through tirelessly. When she asked one last time I just said "f*ck it, let's get together" and I bought her ice cream, cookies, and some soda to seal the deal.

After that long story, plus 2 and a half years later, we're looking at moving in together soon. We're happily together and committed. Hasn't been easy, luckily no fighting, but we're here and happy about it.

I learned she cherished that owl night light, and after 1.5 years it broke (which hurt her a bit). I'm apparently the "best boyfriend she's ever had" (idfk how I'm a dunce operated by mildly intelligent rats). Even if it were to all end tomorrow, loving her would stand as the best decision of my life.

In a poetic way, it all works. What was once comforting her with an ex via cookies and soda became our first date. What was the basis of our friendship is now the most beautiful thing about our relationship. Everything started small and snowballed into our chaotic storm.

I've been thinking of asking her to marry me, I still got some time to think about it. One thing's for sure, she better reply with "f*ck it" instead of "Yes."

Oh yeah... I still owe her that f*cking wooden duck!

/khazun/

Planned a garage sale and ultimately basically killed my mother and destroyed my family.

Sequence of events: Mom wanted to cohost a garage sale/antique sale to get rid of some stuff and raise money to see her dad in another state for his birthday.

I took on the task of checking out some spaces that have community events where we would get more foot traffic.
I found space in a co-op running out of an old middle school that the other artists and business owners in there were trying to save and revitalize.

I meet with the building owner to pay for the space rental and agree to a tour of everything he has going on in there.
He's also homesteading spaces that are still available.

I fall in love on the tour and talk the space and the project up to my mom.

The sales we have there are so good that I then start telling her how cool it would be if we left our regular Jobs and opened a business in there focusing on community artists, fair trade, upcycled stuff, etc.

She's hesitant because her job has good benefits.

But she does want to be able to spend more time with my kid sister and u use that to convince her that this is the solution to our problems.

We do get the business up and it would have maybe stayed successful longer than the few years it did if it wasn't for the dying part.

When my mom quit her old job, she stopped receiving yearly physicals and medical tests relevant to her job and insurance. First step in killing her.

She also had a lower income than she used to have and didn't have insurance for the first two years we were in business. Steps two and three.

She starts relying on the local ER for these weird symptoms that have started showing up.

She goes where it is cheap but not where she'd get the best care.
She even sees one of their specialists.

She spends about two years getting treated for the wrong thing because this is the care she can afford now. Step four.
Because she had to wait so long to seek opinions somewhere else, by the time she gets the correct diagnosis (colon cancer, spread to the liver, mass rhe size of a soft ball that you can feel when you touch her abdomen but that the other place kept saying was part of IBS. Full body rash from liver failing), she's already stage 4. Step 5.

She works literally until she dies to cover treatment she would have had if I hadn't talked her into quitting her old job. And she wouldn't have had to work herself while actively dying. Step 6.

She can't afford to leave my abusive dad and isn't healthy enough to do so now anyway.
The stress makes her sicker and harms me and my kid sister (both dx'ed autistic and disabled). Step 7.

In hospice, she is accidentally given an OD based on my med requests for her and misinterpretation of her behaviors and she dies. Step 8.

My father hates and blames me. My sister is traumatized.

Neither of us are making it in life now at all. Extended family don't even talk to me. I'm completely alone. Step 10.
[redacted]

I’m currently sitting on a boat in the Bering sea with my dream starter job with my Marine Science degree as a fisheries observer, all because of a d*ck pic I sent in the summer of 8th-9th grade. I’ve told a lot of people this story, but I’ve yet to write it out officially. Buckle up rapscallions and scallawags, this is a long one. So here’s where it starts.

I attended a private Christian school from pre-k through 8th grade. Such a small school that pre k-12th grade are all in the same building, and my class had a grand total of 10-12people. And I took a summer vacation by myself to visit my cousin out of state.

This was peak days of puberty, and being at a Christian school, and living in the Bible Belt, I didn’t exactly have the best outlets for understanding anything sexual.

That’s a more taboo subject within those realms. I had always had the hots for a classmate, and I stole my cousins phone while I was out of state, and I proceeded to send the most god-awful d*** pic that an 8th grader could possibly send, with their phone in the mid 2000’s, to my classmate.

Of course, I later deleted the evidence, went to sleep a happy person thinking I was the sex master, not even really knowing how i’m even supposed to use my p*nis in any sexual situation.

I woke up to my cousin on the phone with my classmates’ parents who are calling for legal action (we’re in 8th grade), and they eventually work out the connections between them and my cousin, and I was caught within a measly 24hrs. My 8th grader hormone infused plan to be a sex-god was foiled (I still had no idea what sex even was, I was that sheltered). I owned up to it (after trying to lie my way out of it of course).

I fly home at the end of the summer, my private Christian school had called for an emergency board meeting because of my actions. My parent were on the board, I was more than embarrassed. It led them to the conclusion that I was not fit to attend this Christian school, and was expelled. I later learned this was a very hypocritical action with regards to how a Christian should’ve truly acted. I had had no other infractions or mess ups until that point.

So my family and I had to rush to get accepted to a local public school. It’s a relatively small city, where a lot of the parents went to school together and grew up together. It was technically too late to enroll for the beginning of the year, but the Christian school principal was very close friends with the public school principal, and they were looking to make an exception.

However, there was one minor detail. With the expulsion on my school record, I was told I would have to attend 40days of alternative school, before I would be deemed fit to attend public school. I literally shuddered and almost cried at the thought.

Now back to my parents having been on the board at the old Christian school. When that news broke about alternative school, my family went to the rest of the board and convinced them to overturn the expulsion and change it to “Suspension with Voluntary Leave,” on the grounds that I had never done anything to this degree, prior.

This expunged any idea of alternative school, and I was now an official public school student. I then went on to my freshman and sophom*ore year as if nothing had happened. I lost all my friends from the old school, but they never reached out to me either in the coming years, so I guess it was for the better to release myself from close-mindedness.

Luckily at this new school, I had other friends that I had known for years from other routes, and they were more accepting of my reason of being there. My best friend throughout life was also attending there. I had found out they were attending a school for the arts and sciences. A magnet school. A high school for juniors and seniors only, with major based programs.

Like early college, without the college credit. Smaller classes, better quality teaching, more openness to the sciences and arts, you get the point. I greatly wanted to change to this school. My public school was still my base high school, but I went to this other one, and just felt happier. From there, I chose Pre-engineering as my junior major.

I had a lot of fun in this class, but it was never fulfilling. I then found out that right across the hall was a major called “Environmental Science.” This captivated my young self. I heard that my senior year was going to be the last year they were having this program, and I just had to get in. With the right approval from both teachers, I was in. I had found something that interested me to no end.

My senior year, I got a job at a popular tourist aquarium, and I became infatuated with the underwater world. I would constantly take the time out of the staffs days to bombard them with questions on husbandry, scuba diving, aquarium maintenance, education pathways, etc.

They didn’t seem at all annoyed either by my constant bombardments, and I realized they weren’t pursuing the money, they were pursuing passion. I fell in love with the water.

This led me to my creation of a 55gallon saltwater aquarium that I utilized for my senior thesis. This aquarium sat in my classroom along with my classmates’ other thesis, and I painstakingly learned that saltwater aquariums are not for the passive hobbyist.

I spent hours and hours monitoring this aquarium, studying reef habits, understanding hardship for once. I knew where and what I wanted to study for college.

I graduated from my magnet high school, and pursued my Bachelors in Marine Science. I luckily had a nationally prestigious marine Science program at my local university, at my disposal, and I applied and got in! This led me to thousands and thousands of hours of research opportunities.

Researching ideas from sea turtle hatchling monitoring for the influence of light, local shark tagging programs to monitor migration patterns, to learning about the microscopic world of marine chemistry and phytoplanktons effect on our world.

I spent 5 years achieving this degree (yes, I did a “victory lap”), and in this time I found out who I truly was as a person. Someone who needed to open their mind to new ideas, constantly changing their viewpoint based on new facts and evidence. I wanted to be an actual marine scientist.

Before I graduated, I researched my (not so many) job opportunities, and I found out about being a fisheries observer. You live, and work, on fishing vessels, doing day to day scientific sampling and monitoring, in order to aide in the protection of a sustainable fishery.

It’s so far a dream job for me, even though I’m currently looking for new careers. Hopefully some may lead to more memorable positions, but right now, I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome in my life, than where I am now. That’s how I ended up with my current dream job, all because of a d*ck pic.

[redacted]

I started raiding again in WoW in 2013. I rebuilt my old guild, started a raid group, and we started clearing content. I got close to a few people one of which came out to me as trans in 2016 along with the rest of the raid afterwards.

My best friend had convinced me to try Overwatch in beta and to get it to play with him when it came out, but when I got it, he couldn't because he ran into financial problems.

When Overwatch came out the few people I had gotten close to all planned to play and so after raid night we would hang out playing Overwatch.

One night we had 5 people and needed a 6th if we wanted to stop getting random people and the friend who had came out to me said she had a friend who bought her the game and they played together. We were all fine with it and had a blast.

That girl had dropped a line about how her back hurt and when asked why gave her cup size. It caught my attention and I thought she was pretty cool as the night kept going and everybody was talking so I messaged her afterwards on Skype.

This girl turned out to be my wife.

We got to talking and for month got to know each other before she had to move to her college. I forgot to message her and we weren't playing Overwatch so "out of sight out of mind" and I ghosted her for 2 months.

After 2 months our mutual friend asked me if I hated my wife and it caught me off guard. I didn't and was confused and she pointed out I had completely ghosted her. I was super embarrassed.

As the hype for overwatch died down a bit we started just hanging out in our TeamSpeak server chatting since my wife couldn't handle playing Overwatch on her laptop. So 4 of us after raid just hung out and I messaged my wife fairly often on Skype.

One raid night a few months later I had more than usual to drink because of drama that I was getting frustrated handling.

Afterwards we were hanging out and my wife was expressing frustration that she hadn't found a boyfriend.

The guy that hung out with us commented that maybe she wasn't as pretty as she thought she was. The girl took extreme offense but he pointed out we had all shared Facebook and other social media except her so we had no reference.

All this time the guy and my friend who had outed herself to me were having a private chat while my wife and I were having a separate private chat. She linked a picture of herself and the guy rescinded all claims saying she was hot.

Meanwhile she asked me in private what I think. I was too drunk and felt bold so I said if we were in person I would definitely try to steal a kiss.

She said I didn't have to and that broke my drunk brain. The rest of the night I spent trying to figure out wtf happened and we started talking more seriously.

I spent a significant sum of money to fly out a day after Christmas to meet her and her family and hang out with her and we spent the next year flying back and forth across half the country to spend time with each other. We got married in January 2018 and have been happily married now for 4 years.

To add an extra layer, both of the people I met raiding were at our wedding in our wedding party and our mutual friend that Introduced us was a maid of honor.

One more layer is that my wife had to convince our mutual friend to get Overwatch by buying it for her and only met the friend because a Senior took a liking to her and hung out with her when she didn't really have anybody else.

The senior invited my wife to a Minecraft server where my wife thought she was alone and started narrating herself in chat.

Our mutual friend interjected feeling embarrassed for my wife to let her know she wasn't alone and they became friends. That friend then of course later joined my raid and introduced my wife and I.

The Senior is now married to my Brother in Law and my wife's oldest brother.

/KINK_KING/

Oh man I’ve been waiting for this one. It all started when, about 10 years ago, I was a freshmen in high school... and my dad didn’t give me $50. I’ll explain.

I wasn’t the best student in school, and I was more preoccupied with video games than even really making friends. I’m an only child and I had very little passion about my future career, and I had discovered while trolling around the internet about the dark web.

Finally, something to catch my interest. I did a lot of snooping, and found out some pretty scary sh*t, like Silk Road, assassination hires, pipe bomb tutorials and all sorts of crazy things that happen behind closed browsers. Of all this the thing that most piqued my interest was Bitcoin.

Now I spent very little time studying in class but when something really interests me, I learn EVERY little detail about it. I figured out who designed bitcoin, where it originated, how it could be divided, what it was used for, how to mine it, and most importantly, how much it was worth. Which was extremely enticing, as when I found it, you could net 1BTC for about 14¢ each. Right there I’ll let you do the math. I’ve done it hundreds of times.

So I took all my data and found charts and graphs about projected prices, fluxes, uses, anything- you name it. I compiled all the data and presented it to my dad as an investment opportunity. “All I need is $50-100 dad, even if it doesn’t work it’s not a lot of money lost in the long run giving it a shot.”

“No. It sounds like a scam and it’s bullsh*t. Stop wasting your time and learn about what’s important.”

Of course, the words nobody wants to hear.. but I was persistent.

On my own, I went and downloaded and practiced using the mining software, and it was relatively new and easy at the time- every blockchain would possibly get you anywhere from 1-15BTC. So I let my computer run for a while, about a week or two, and while I didn’t hit it big on anything I could see Satoshi begin to accumulate. In walks the father, and I hastily shut my laptop like I was watching p*rn.

“I noticed a rise in our electric bill by several dollars, what are you doing?”

To which I answered by explaining, I had done the math, the amount of bitcoin I was accumulating (at a steady rate, not including the cache mining reward) was slightly less worth than the electricity used to power the mining software. “Give it a chance dad it will pay off!”

“God damnit NO! You shut that sh*t off and I don’t want to see you doing that again!” And so I stopped. And the resent began to brew.

Let’s fast forward about 9 years, to 2017. My parents had been divorced for about a year, I was working garbage jobs like Meat clerk at Ralph’s and struggling financially. They had declared bankruptcy when I was 18 and we hadn’t lived in a house/apartment for more than a year at a time.

I even went through a company buyout around age 23, two years ago, where the new company subsequently failed and I, along with hundreds of thousands of employees who were part of a union were all put out of work. Oh how the butterfly flaps it’s wings.

So I hear a little breath about Bitcoin again. All this time later and I had forgotten about it. To recap, with $50+ worth of bitcoin I could have gotten my hands on upwards of 350 of the f*ckers, whole bitcoin.

It was worth $400/coin at the point that I checked. Roughly $140,000 I was missing out on.

“f*ck that’s a lot of money,” I said, and I tried to get back into it before it went any higher, but I was too short on cash to make any worthwhile investment. I ended up cutting my losses and stormed off. That’s when I started talking to my dad a little less- we had lived together and this was lighting the dynamite.

Near the middle-end of the same year, I checked again out of curiosity, because the breath turned into a roar. $10,000 per bitcoin, and rising. $3,500,000. I completely lost my f*cking monkey sh*t. I stormed home and blew up at my dad, we nearly f*cking traded blows.

That money, even if it took this long to accumulate, could have solved SO MANY PROBLEMS. His argument was that I would have sold it as soon as it was worth $20/pop. Mine was that I’m lazy, not stupid, and I did the math years and years ahead in future. I saw this coming light years away.

I know it’s petty to be mad about money, but our family was not in good finances- after a decade of work after my birth, my dad earned a total of $1,000,000- spread out over the 10-12 years I had been alive. We must not have had much to show for it obviously because, we went bankrupt some years later.

I would have helped my family, I would have helped myself, and I wouldn’t have to worry about money for the rest of my life, all over a measly $50 my dad didn’t want to lose. That’s what makes me the most upset.

So dad didn’t give me $50 for bitcoin, back when they were 14 cents a piece. For the small price tag he neglected to trust me with, he lost a multimillion dollar son about a decade in the future, along with his marriage, his house, and my respect. Fin

/Cylius/

I met someone who got me an interview for a job at a summer camp that would completely change my life and would become one of the things I care about the most in this world.

I went to college for Tech Theater and Production Design; stagehand stuff. My sophom*ore year I went on a field trip with my school to a big convention (USITT, United States Institute for Theatrical Technology).

In short, it's a big deal for for stagehands in the U.S.

There, I met someone named Sydney. She was a student from Michigan (keep in mind I'm from New Jersey, and the Expo was being held in St. Louis, Missouri).

We were both audio people and kept seeing each other at the same panel discussions so we hit it off and became friends with each other.

She told me how she was dying to meet "QLab Sam."

*For context, QLab is the software that pretty much the entire theater industry uses for audio playback. It also does videos and lights (although I've never seen lights really used to fruition).

But, it's very important- industry standard. It's what Adobe is to visual media/graphics/film editing.

So I went along with her to meet him and was like "yup that's a guy." I didn't really form an opinion of him. Didn't have any time to really.

Seemed nice enough. But the point is he's important to the company that makes QLab. That's a big deal.

ANYWAY fast forward a month or so, Sydney gets hired by Sam to work at a summer camp that he works at- Buck's Rock Performing and Creative Arts Camp.

She goes and has A BLAST and even met her romantic partner and they're still together I believe.

FAST-FORWARD ANOTHER YEAR. It was late February and I already secured an internship for the summer, albeit it was in TV/Broadcasting.

I was fine with this though, I was curious about the field.

One day, Sydney messages me and explains that she worked at a summer camp the previous summer and she can't go back but thinks I would be PERFECT for the job.

I try to tell her I already have work but she was adamant I hear her out. So I do. She calls me and we talk for a solid hour. And she convinces me to interview.

That interview was with "QLab Sam." Sam and I talked on the phone for 45 minutes. He ended up hiring me to do scenic stuff because he needed more staff there and I had that skillset.

The importance of me getting this job cannot be understated. Summer 2018 at Buck's Rock Performing and Creative Arts Camp was the best summer of my life. It changed my outlook on so many things about life. It changed how I thought about art and the world around me.

It changed the way I treated and thought of other people. It was fundamental to my growth as a young adult at the time.

I want to go to camp every summer as long as I possibly can. I am determined to make it work somehow.

They're hiring BTW 10/10 can recommend.

/clydefrogsbro/

Small effect, but I inadvertently got one of my former bosses to fire one of his oldest friends.

Boss, Karl, was a long time friend of my grandfather & owned a pair of machining build shops.

After high school, as I was looking at a career in engineering, Karl took me in to work with his engineers.

While most of my job was 3D cad work, I also handled shipping & receiving as well as other random jobs, as needed.

Fred was an old friend of Karl (having known each other some 30 years) and generally ran our giant band saw, in addition to making any part runs we needed (pick-up for local purchases, & drop-off & pickup for anything we didn't do in house [anodizing, knurling, hardening, etc]).

One day Fred was out & Karl had me get in the company truck to make the various drops & picks that were scheduled for that day.

The run took me about 2 hours, after which I returned and went back to whatever other project I had been working on.

Karl saw me and was a bit surprised to see me, as he didn't expect me back for quite some time.

We briefly talked about the stops and then continued with our respective days.

In the few months before I left (I had decided joining the Navy would be a brilliant idea), Karl had me do the runs a couple more times, which I thought nothing of at the time. Boot camp time comes, and I'm off to start life's next adventure.

After boot camp and my first training school, a total of approximately 8 months, I'm on leave back home.

I drop back at the shop one day to catch up with everyone & notice Fred isn't there.

Turns our Karl fired Fred.

The reason Karl had been surprised at my return is that he had been expecting the trip to last 4-5 hours.

This expectation was based on the fact that it always took Fred that long, and since Fred had always been the one to do the runs, that was his only reference for how long it should take.

He'd made sure I had done the runs a couple more times, just to make sure it wasn't some kind of traffic fluke or the various vendors had been abnormally slow that one time.

Once he saw all of my runs were comparable to my first, he knew something was up.

After I left, the next time Fred made the run, Karl followed him & discovered that his run included a ~2hr stop at one of the local pubs to pick up some drinks for internal transport.

After another tailing to verify that it wasn't a one time thing, and that Fred had been doing this the 10+ years he'd been working for him, Karl confronted him and fired him.

Had I taken my time that first run, and/or stopped and gotten food on the way, the time difference might have been close enough that Karl wouldn't have dwelled on it.

Instead, a 65+ year old was now jobless and a 30+ year friendship ended because I drove efficiently and didn't dally.

/thewalex/

My entire life changed because my retiring 4th grade music teacher wanted to start a children's choir.

He failed, but the list of volunteers sat in a drawer for 2 years until a new music teacher picked it up.

She researched to see if any of the kids on the list were still interested. I was, but I sung REALLY badly.

So she decided to place me as the lead role in the school play.

This led to be getting bitten by "the acting bug," as they say, and I was in community theater for years.

This exposed me to the local DC punk scene as well as ancillary scenes: punk, theater, drag, and queer communities.

From there I went to my first science fiction convention.

I eventually befriended a convention runner, who later rented me a room (as an adult), and I got to see how science fiction conventions were run. I helped him out, which led to me running science fiction conventions.

This forked into several life story successes:

-I met my future wife at a science fiction convention, which led to marriage, and then having a son.

We were married 25 years, until she died, and a few years later, I met and married my second wife, also at a science fiction convention (the same one, actually, only obviously many years apart).

-At these conventions I met, and then ended up writing for a comedy sketch group that traveled other science fiction conventions.

One of them was a Unix administrator who taught me Unix stuff and this new thing called "the Internet" which was still kind of a college geek novelty in 1990.

-This also led me to meet an illustrator of a science fiction magazine.

She was still with the DC punk scene, now the DC goth scene. She got a job working for a large IT company, and got me hired to work with her.

This led to me leaving a relatively "safe" position in sales management (I used to hire, train, and manage people for showroom stores) to working IT JUST at the start of the dotcom boom.

Now power charged with UNIX geekery.

-I also ended up writing for that magazine, and this led to having my first book published in 1993, and two more since then.

-I ended up running a major anime convention for many years, met celebrities (mainly voice actors and artists, but a few actors), and got hired part time for "Super Art Fight," a local group of artists who all dress up in punk costumes and fight one another online or onstage: kind of like professional wrestling meets pictionary.

-Never leaving the "alternative community" I ended up becoming a bouncer for a roller derby team, and have met celebrities that way, but none compare to the awesomeness of the skaters themselves.

So I owe my whole life, 99% of my friendships, my IT career, two marriages, and a son to my 4th grade music teacher wanting to start a choir.

/Collegekid556/

I was a nanny for my cousins while in a bad relationship with a guy for 3.5 years. One day I was bored out of my mind since both kids were in school, so I got online to see if anyone was available to chat.

The only person was a guy that I had met through the guy I was dating. He and I never really talked before, I only had his contact info due to him helping me with a Photoshop project at one point.

I had never met this man in person, but the group of friends had been close for almost 10 years before I came around, so he wasn't a completely unknown stranger.

I thought about it and thought 'why the hell not, if he doesn't respond, he doesn't respond'. So I sent one word. "Hi"

The next 3 months were filled with nonstop texting and phonecalls. At the end of those 3 months, he discovered how badly my boyfriend was treating me and it made him mad.

Especially since he had started to develop feelings for me.

To be honest, I had developed some for him too. He suggested we meet in person and soon he was flying 3,000 miles to meet me.

We hit it off instantly.

My boyfriend seemed to care very little and when I told him that I expected him to start treating me better or I was gone, he tried to gaslight me about how it was MY fault he treated me this way.

When my friend left for home, I was inconsolable. I couldn't believe how much I missed him.

He had only been with me in person for a week, but it felt so wrong with him gone.

The minute he got home, he called me and offered to fly me out to see his home town for a week. I was thrilled and agreed. My boyfriend volunteered to drive me to the airport.

I spent that week happier than I had been in longer than I could remember.

The day I was to fly home, it was pretty quiet. We were both upset that I was leaving. 2 hours before we had to go to the airport for my flight, he looked at me and said "you know, you could just stay..." I was in shock.

I asked if he was serious. He told me that he'd never been so happy in his life and it killed him to be away from me for the previous week.

He told me that, if I was willing, he wanted me to stay.

So I did.

The boyfriend became the ex, which also didn't seem to bother him much besides having to find a new place to live.

The friend became the boyfriend. And eventually, the husband.

We've been together for 10 years this month, married for 2.5 years. We have two beautiful children, a beautiful home, and still flirt like teenagers.

I found my soulmate. All because I chose to say "hi".

/Legendary_Bumblebee/

I worked in Microsoft Redmond from 2001 to 2011, and was part of the team they brought in to develop excel services (the excel web app) . That was the first on prem version of excel that ran in the server rather than client machines.

In any case, it was a sort of clash of cultures around 2005 between the old guard in excel on the one side and the services (SharePoint) guys on the other, and my group that was largely acquihire of a small startup that had to bridge that gap. At that point Microsoft didn't have any offerings for web office. We were the first ones (shipped in office 2007)

Now this first version was on prem which means its not made to be a cloud solution (it was shoehorned to be one later on, but that's a different story). It's a version people download, install on their servers and let people on the network find their way.

For logging (that is, the trail a service or piece of software reporting what they do. At the time these were primarily text files on disk) we inherited this infrastructure from SharePoint where the logging component was somethjnf in house called uls - universal logging system or some such, and the only important bit here is that it generated a bunch of text file in a custom format that no log viewer I could find gave good enough results.

And those that did give good results, could not handle the volume of logs we were creariting. So we are settled with this system, and we generate logs and every last developer on the team (we were around 10 I think) and many of the client developers who now had to fix server bugs, they all use notepad or notepad++ to look at logs. Drove me f*cking mad.

So one day I was debugging this really nasty multithreading bug that I just knew I could figure out from the logs alone (we didn't have a repro for it. It was happening on some test machines, fairly rarely). But using notepad++ as a log viewer... I swear I trolled ever app site, every internal tool to try and load the logs and they were all inadequate in one way or another.

So... I wrote a log viewer for myself.

I spent around 5 days barely sleeping cobbling this up on win forms, based on a virtual list view.

When it was done, the thing was amazing. I spent a few hours with the logs that frustrated me into writing the tool and was able to figure out the problem..

It was this garish beauty of a developer tool written for developers. With a ton of functionality condensed into very little space. You could have multiple channels monitoring a live log file, each filtering, formatting according to whatever definition is attached to the tab.

It was over engineered to a ridiculous level. With a whole addin model and fairly advanced memory compression techniques. This bit is important...

The problem with a lot of the other log viewers is that they couldn't handle the amount of data in our logs. Our machines had 4 gigs back then, we still used an x86 based processor that couldn't really address more than 2-3gb of memory...

They would load a handful of seconds worth of logs and choke. However, the viewer I wrote was super stingy with memory, it cahed anything that looked to be repeatatjve, it used byte arrays and string-like overloads to avoid having to do too many allocations etc etc. And becausr of that, it was able to easily load around 15gb of logs on a 32bit machine.

So then, my best friend came to talk to me about something and saw the tool and asked about it. So I gave him a copy. He gave a copy to someone else... Etc etc... After 6 months all of the SharePoint guys were using this random exe I wrote and sent around in email.

Fast forwards around 6 years. I am still on the team, we are now trying to create an internet office excel app, while still offering excel web on prem as a download. I am in a conference, giving a talk about the new rest apis of excel web.

There were around 150 people, maybe less, attending my talk, it went pretty well, stood there for another 30m answering questions and talking to developers . A friend of mine comes to get me, telling me I have to see this... I go with him and he takes me to one of the keynote rooms.

Big room, probably around 500 chairs, fully packed, standing room only. And this guy comes on stage, introduced himself (also from microsoft, recognized him from the building), and moved to the next sljde.

They were giving a whole f*ckjng talk about the tool I wrote 6 years ago which was apparently being offered for SharePoint administrators as msdn downloads! And this guy had a whole PowerPoint deck with examples on how to use almost every small feature I built into that thing...

From complicated visual conditional formatting designers, to the shortcuts I built into the viewer for finding next log line with same thread Id and almost every small book and cranny. I was blown away.

Oh! And I was even more blown away when some guy showed me a whole addin he wrote for the viewer just by reading the source code.

Crazy times.

/opposablethumbsup/

One day I forgot my wallet at home and now I live in Japan, so that's a thing.

I was in my first year of college, going to the local community college at the time.

One day I realized when I got to campus that I'd forgotten my wallet and so I was in for a day of being really hungry come lunchtime when I couldn't buy my usual Subway sandwich.

When it finally rolled around, I found out that they were doing an event advertising the various clubs,

and they had a punchcard where if you visited 5 you'd get some free pizza (which, it turned out, was an absolute f*cking *sliver* as when I went to get mine they were literally cutting each of the slices into bloody *thirds*, but I digress).

While I was wandering around I happened to come across the ~~anime~~ Japanese Culture Club, and everyone there was really nice, the girls were super cute, and they chatted me up about one of my tattoos.

I wasn't terribly interested in the club itself, I liked stuff like Dragon Ball Z and Cowboy Bebop well enough but I'd have hardly considered myself an anime fan,

but the people were nice enough that I took them up on their offer to come by a meeting and see how I liked it.

Fast forward a few months and I've been going and hanging out with some of the people pretty regularly.

This is about the time Pokemon X and Y came out, which naturally everyone was getting in on.

I hadn't played a Pokemon game since Crystal, but they were making me want to get back into it, so with my bonus at work I splurged on a 3DS to play it.

As it happened, there was a sale at the time where you could get two games with it,

so I went with Pokemon Y and for my second game I decided on Animal Crossing New Leaf.

Sometime after that, while playing Animal Crossing I started looking up videos on how to do or find various things.

One of the videos I came across had a guy teaching in Japan.

I was going to school to be a teacher, and this seemed like an interesting opportunity.

I ultimately started studying Japanese, studied abroad in Kyoto, and now I really do teach English here.

(That said, I've also learned that while I love living here I absolutely hate this job and have been looking for new, non teaching work for awhile now.)

None of it would've happened if I hadn't forgotten my wallet that day,

as I'd had no interest in visiting the clubs until I heard there was free pizza,

which I probably wouldn't have bothered with if I'd actually had lunch that day.

[redacted]

I'll call this the story of the black beret. It's kind of a long read, so bear with me or read TL;DR, but I suggest you read through it.

I go to do my compulsory 9-month service in the army and are going through the procedural process on the first day. We are to receive an army bag with military clothing,socks,hat etc. and a beret. Everyone is to hold on to it and not lose it because we're responsible for it from now on.

All this is done very hastily, as there are several groups of us that arrived that day split into 5 teams. So they tell us that we have to go into a room and sit down to be informed about something but we can't bring our bags with us.

As I later find out, our team is the only one that hasn't put little papers with our name on them on the bags (supervisor's fault), so all of them are identical.

They tell us to align them on a wall and remember which bag is ours, so I put it in second place which makes it easier. When we leave the room, I go to grab the second bag but I realize that something's not right, someone has probably taken my bag so I grab the next one.

By now there's shouting for us to hurry and dress up to take photos and that we have "2 minutes to do it". We go into different rooms, I'm going through the bag and by happenstance the size of the clothes is the same as mine, so I think maybe it's ok.

The size of the boots however is too small, so I ask around if anyone has 46-size boots (12 to 13 in the US so it's on the big side, meaning it's more likely that there's only a few of them if any) but noone in my room does.

Alas, I run out of time so I put on the smaller boots and go to stand in line for the photos, while asking around. It turns out, the guy standing behind me has a pair of 46's (after I check it myself because he doesn't know the size), so I tell him I got 45's (his size) and we should switch afterwards.

They take the photos and I tell him he probably took my bag earlier and that I got his (the sizes matched) and we should switch boots.

He's a bit nervous because he doesn't want to be seen by the supervisors switching stuff, so we do it outside in a quick manner. I say to him we should probably also switch bags, but because we had the same size clothes and he felt nervous (we had our civilian clothing in our bags, se we couldn't just switch like that) he reckons it's ok and we leave it at that. The same afternoon, we get transferred to our camps (different ones) where we'll be stationed for the upcoming months.

The next day, we are getting informed about the rules in our camp and one of them is that we must wear our beret at all times (except when we're inside a building) but not the hat, because we're a "chosen field army with a history".

That's when I realize that while all the others have black berets, mine is blue (me and the guy that took my bag belong to different field armies). It doesn't take long to be noticed by superiors and I tell them that it was a mistake, but it obviously upsets them.

Sometime in the next 2 days, I gave my beret to a superior that was making a visit to the place where we originally got the bags from, he asked for a black beret but they didn't have an extra one so he handed it back to me.

At this point, I'm going alone in the back of a jeep-like vehicle to take some blood tests (in addition to the ones we took on the first day, just precautionary because of something I told the doctor there) at the national hospital.

To my surprise, I bump into the guy that took my bag and I learn that he is there because he hurt his leg in an exercise (what are the chances, I had to go there that exact day when he hurt his leg).

I ask him what colour his beret is and he tells me he doesn't know (after 2 days have passed), so we exchange phone numbers. When he gets back to his camp, he calls me to say that his beret is indeed black instead of blue, so it's confirmed that he took my bag. I tell him that we should meet to exchange berets on the weekend, when we get to leave the camps for a few hours.

Saturday rolls around, a relative comes to pick me up and we go to their house for me to have a bath, eat like a human being again etc.

It's raining outside and I have a motorcycle as a means of transport, so I can't go meet him and do the exchange.

A few hours later, he calls me to say that they won't be bringing them to to the biggest city there, but he reckons he could maybe get there using a taxi service or whatever. It stops raining and I receive a call or text from him that he managed to go and will be there for the next 3 or 4 hours, so it's an 'opportunity" to get this over with. Unfortunately, because of the wet asphalt, me being in kind of a hurry and the terrible condition of the road, I lose control of the motorcycle in a bend and end up hitting a little wall barrier on the side of the road. This caused me to be tossed over the wall and fly approximately 4-5 meters before I land on my shoulder and heavily fracture my humerus.

I was alone there for a couple of minutes before the second passer-by saw my crashed motorcycle and actually stopped ( I wasn't visible from the road) and called for an ambulance. Of course I didn't meet with the guy in the end but managed to not break anything else, which is something I guess. Since this happened, I have overgone surgery in order to get my arm back and have been doing physical therapy for the past 5 months and it's going relatively well.

To sum up, if an idiot hadn't taken my bag instead of his, I would never have had to ride my motorcycle that day to the city to retrieve my black beret, would never have been in an accident so would still have a completely healty arm and wouldn't have to go through all this immense pain and difficult recovery period, as well as probably be getting close to finishing my service and going on with my life.

[redacted]

When I was 5 my parents decided to foster 3 children from the same family, our family of 4 became 7.

Whilst they could financially provide, they couldnt deal with the sudden stress of 3 new kids aged 11-16 whilst also taking car of my brother and I.

Sent mom into a midlife crisis. Mom cheated several times. Dad cheated a couple times to get back at her. Family just crumbles, the whole shebang. Fighting day and night, stuff thrown and smashed, etc.

Once I'm 8, things are irreparable and my dad decides just him and I will move a state over (about 12hr from where we previously lived) to live with my aunt, uncle, and their kids.

I ended up living there for about 4 years whilst seeing my mom once every couple of months. We move back to the previous state, different city.

Live off and on with my mom and she goes through a couple boyfriends, one of which is physically abusive and a sex addict.
Second one was in prison (for murder) when she both met and broke up with him. Then she meets her current husband.
Meth addict, insane anger problems, also a murderer, current gang member, and a history of domestic violence. They got together when I was about 14.

Once I was 16 I learned she was being physically, sexually, and emotionally abused.
But what am I to do? She's stuck in the cycle of abuse victims and nothing I say or do helps get her out, no matter how hard I try.
Police are f*cking useless too. By this time I've witnessed the abuse on multiple occasions. sh*ts really f*ckin bad.

At 17, I have a falling out with my dad, whom at this point was a single dad for several years. What happened was honestly stupid but I, being a dumb teenager, threatened to move in with my mom.

He essentially told me he wouldn't stop me. So I did. What ensued was the worst 6 months of my life. Almost nightly screaming, agruing, hearing my mother be beat physically and mentally.

I still hear my mom being strangled right on the other side of the wall today. Her croaking out words trying to get him off her.
I still remember having to stay up a entire day and night trying to make sure didnt have a brain hemorrhage after an obviously severe concussion from being beat, even though I knew I probably wouldnt know just by looking at her.

I still feel frustration with not being able to go to the hospital. Those 6 months caused me to start disassociating constantly, even now, 3 years later.

I can no longer stand darkness, going places alone, any amount of anger or dissatisfaction from anyone, but especially men, and even the feeling of hunger itself due to almost constantly not having money for food.

Meeting strangers who are men is incredibly difficult as now my immediate response is to be quiet, no eye contact, and make myself as small as possible so as to avoid causing anger.

I have only a few men in my life who Im comfortable around, though even my own fiancé can be a struggle at times despite being the opposite of everything that Ive said here.

Im in therapy now focusing primarily on the disassociation and PTSD.
My mom is still married to the same dude. He still beats her. They currently live in a tent in a homeless community on federal ground.

Ive seen her a few times since and every time is heartbreaking.

Shes so meek. She cowers at him saying anything. She cant talk back without her face obviously regretting it because she knows what he'll do.

Apparently hes not on meth anymore, but Im not sure.

[redacted]

About a year ago I got a quick trimming gig for a few days so I went to stay with my aunt in the city that it was in. She lives in a desert community with a bunch of little houses that are right next to each other and anyone walking past could easily see almost her entire side porch. (important)

One night I took my little cousin to get coffee and when we got back I parked head in, put the permit in the back window so security could easily spot it, locked my doors, then we went inside.

Later, I went to the porch to have a cigarette. It gets really dark at night there, you can barely see yourself sometimes. I think this is where I f*cked up.

I think my keys fell out of my pocket on the porch. I looked everywhere for them the next morning to go to work and they were absolutely nowhere.

After looking for a couple of hours I went outside to check if I left them in my car. When I got to my car it was parked in the same spot but extremely crooked and it was backed in with the permit facing the wrong side.

I could also see in the window that my gas tank was now empty, but at least whoever did it locked the doors when they got out.

I had to file a police report online because I couldn’t get thru to the police. Great. So I finally hear back from them hours later and all they have to say is that where I am isn’t in their city which..... isn’t true. I decided whatever I’d just get a new key.

After AAA came and made me a new key, I sure as hell wasn’t spending the night there again, so I packed up and drove to another city 45 minutes away where my mom was staying in a hotel.

By the time I got to this hotel I was hella tired and stupidly left all my stuff in the car. I just really wanted to sleep and the “24 hour surveillance” signs and cameras gave me a false sense of security (stupid 21 year old girl).

I also need to say that I have an old ugly Honda with something in my window broken that lets it slowly open more and more as I drive, but if I pull it up and close the door a certain way, it’ll stay up. I make sure nobody watches me when I do this and my car also has an alarm.

Next morning my doors were unlocked and my window was down.

My purse was gone, my wallet was gone with my ID and debit card, my hash gloves were gone, my entire makeup bag, and a gold plated pokémon card from my baby cousin (saddest part for me, it was a 21 birthday present from him) were all gone.

I called the cops and an officer came to take a report but he rolled his eyes at every item I listed off and didn’t once even get out of the car.

His ass must have hurt because he was there for over an hour.

I never heard from the police about it again and carried on with life. Until I got a letter in the mail saying I had a court date in three days for petty theft.

So you know those similar stories where people get their ID stolen, report it, someone gets arrested with it, police give it back? Nope. Not these cops.

I got a lawyer and we got the whole report in court. This theft occurred three days after my stuff was taken at a department store only a couple of blocks away from where they broke into my car.

She was actually arrested and identified as me! I am 85 pounds and this woman was at least 200! AT LEAST!

And looked nothing like me even apart from that! I ended up having to go to court 4 times to finally get them to say I’m innocent because the DA wasn’t convinced.

I’m in the beginnings of a lawsuit against them now.

So don’t lose your keys while smoking a cigarette because you might have to sue a police department.

/ZoeDurrant1601/

I was feeling sick at work one day, which I typically push through until the end of my shift. This day, I decided to give myself a break; my stomach was feeling kind of crappy and I only had an hour and a half left.

Rather than driving the typical back roads way to my apartment, I decided to take the highway for the ten minute drive home.

Usually, I drive about 80 or 90km/h through this residential block of the highway but, because I wasn't feeling great, I decided to take it slow in the cruising lane at about 60km/h.

Half way up the hill, I see a man stumbling on the sidewalk.

This is not atypical as this part of the city is known for how many people have a pretty bad drug and/or alcohol problem but for some reason, I made eye contact with this man. In a second, he dropped off the sidewalk directly in front of my car.

I swerved, and thankfully there was no one in the lane next to me. I was SO close to hitting him I was expecting to feel the car roll over his head or for some horrifying bump, but it never happened. I swerved back into the other lane and slammed on the brakes.

When I looked in my rearview, he was still on the road. I got out of my car, keys in the ignition still, to honestly give him hell for almost getting flattened by my car.

Walking towards him, two other people had stopped behind me and asked if I hit him because I had been THAT close.

When I got to him on the road, he was seizing and making a horrible choking sound.

I immediately called an ambulance and watched his eyes roll back, his bladder totally let go and heard this long exhale. I got put on hold on 911.

The other people around me were in full panic now, the McDonalds across the street had emptied and an off-duty police officer had rushed over to try and give him CPR.

Everyone else kept calling 911 but when they got put on hold, they'd hang up and try to call again. I just stayed on hold until I got the operator.

It probably took two or three minutes for the ambulance to arrive with the whole squad, firetrucks, police and all, to block the highway.

A police officer came to take a statement from me and let me know that the man had had a heart attack and had unfortunately died on the road but that the paramedics would do all they could to help him.

He took my number and sent me home.

Probably half an hour after arriving at my apartment, having a meltdown about what I'd just seen and relaying the whole conversation to my roommate, I got a phone call from the police officer.

He let me know that they revived the man in the ambulance and he was at the hospital, but that he was alive.

The cop went on to tell me that if I hadn't sat on hold and kept redialing, it probably would've been the difference between this man being revived or not.

I thanked him for calling me back and the ambulance service ended up inviting me to a little banquet for helping this man (even though I only called 911 and didn't even touch him).

I listened to my feelings of being ill, drove a different way home at a much slower speed and just managed to miss a man who was dying and falling into the street.

My bizarrely perfect timing made my call to the paramedics one of the reasons this man survived his heart attack.

/fletchindubai/

It's 2020, the lockdown just set in, and whole of my life is a mess.

I am in final year of University, found out my buddies had been back bitching about me, where as my bestie just had been attempting to drug and r*pe me several times, and somehow or the else I would be saved out of the situation.

I was literally isolated from the whole world with noone to talk to. I was jobless and was daily hearing scoldings for not being independent.

I hear some beautiful music on my sister's phone, and ask her what she is doing.

She says she is playing a game where she can hold hands with strangers and they lead the way.

I sounded curious. But gaming was never my cup of tea.

I lay down beside her, and kept seeing her play.

Due to some reason, she downloads the game on my mobile since hers was discharged.

It stayed like that for a day or two, and randomly I decide to see what the game was about.

Fast forward, two years, I landed up meeting strangers on the game, who later became my besties rn. I became the moderator of the biggest server of this game on SNS, and even hosted a few gaming events. learnt speaking 2 new languages off the gaming community.

My sister who was a solo player decided to join my group and landed up finding her fiance in the game, and they are gonna get married soon.

The guy who I met in the game, helped me get out of my anxiety and sucidal tendency, and one night in an impulsive streak of drunk act, while gaming, we applied for a job.

I got selected. I didn't have finances to relocate, and he helped me with financial aid to move out.

I moved out, and landed up in the city where all my childhood friends were there. I met up with my highschool ex, and we hit it off instantly, we started dating.

Story now, I am in my dream City, trying to make ends meet. I have my closest friends around me, and a huge network of people I know all across the globe.

Back in school, i had a friend, and we always planned to move in together.

Now we both are roommates. I started making fan art of the game, and it started selling well.

And my online art business hit off. I had wrote a poem for a friend in the game, and it got published in an e magazine.

Now I am a writer, running an art business, financially independent, and ummm.

Yea just the dating didn't work out. 😅 I am still in love but he thinks we are not compatible.

Just playing a game dragged me this far in life . . .

[redacted]

Wasn't a small decision, but it changed my life and I always wonder what would of happened. I was 19 or 20, dating this chic that I fell hard for. We dated almost 2 years, and we couldn't keep our hands off of one another. I stopped hanging out with my friends to spend every second with her and she did the same. Like that sappy young love that makes you sick. Anyways onto the decision...

I didn't have much money, was building homes for a few years, but I knew I had the drive to make more be more and I wanted her to be part of my life for the rest of my life.

So I went out bought a ring, not an engagement ring but a promise ring and the night I planned on giving it to her she asked if I was ever going to propose to her, so I knew I was making the right decision and I showed her the ring and I promised her I would by a real diamond in a few years.

We where so happy, but her family was real strict by the book, she was going to college and no man was going to stop her parents' dreams. We decided to keep it a secret and continued dating. A few months later we where in a car accident, hit a deer, totaled my car. She wanted to skip work and hang out with me, I was tired from a long day of work, told her I wasn't going to do anything that night but she wanted to be with me.

Passed out on the couch, she woke me up saying I had to get her back to her work because her dad was picking her up and he would be pissed if she wasn't there, so I raced her up there half asleep and a deer ran out in front of me while I was doing 80 mph in a plastic ford focus.

Both of us ok, I had some burn marks on my arm from the airbag. I tell you this because of what I find out later and where the butterfly effect comes into play.

So here we are, been dating for 2 years, full of love, thinking and planning to get married and we find out she is pregnant. She 18 and I just turned 20, yes we are young and plenty of people had kids younger than us that we know and they are doing fine, so what's the big deal?

We started telling my family, even though I don't have much to do with them, just wanted to see their reaction and surprise they are happy for us. Happy we are planning to have the kid and getting married. She didn't want me to be there when she told her family and she would tell them soon.

So I was heading into work and she would call everyday before I went to work to tell me to have a good day. She doesn't call this day. Weird, and this is before cell phones by the way. So I get home at my usual time, I go to call her, no answer. I wait around, call about an hour later, her brother answers. He tells me she's in the hospital, but she is on her way home.

So I wait another hour, no phone call, so I call her home again. She answers, she's crying, she said she lost the baby, I almost drop the phone. I ask her if she's okay, she lies and says yes, I know she's not, tell her I am on the way to her house.

Did the car accident cause this? Am I to blame for the miscarriage??? I didn't know she was pregnant at the time, but this is my fault.

So without a car I had to borrow a friend's vehicle who luckily said they wanted to go with me. So we raced up there and I was shocked, her mom was standing at the end of the driveway, she wouldn't let us pull in, so I parked on the street. Her mom is yelling at me to leave the property.

I am confused as f*ck right now, what the hell is going on, I just lost my kid, I need to see my future wife, why won't you let me see her?? And then it clicked. I remember screaming this at her and in her upscale neighborhood...

Bitch! Did you make her have an abortion!!!???

Yep!

I dropped to my knees, like what the f*ck, I had no say in this, my life just seemed to be over like that. All those plans, all those dreams, just flashed away. Didn't know what to do or say.

My friend helped me back in the car and I went home. Went to work that next day because I needed money, but for what now? Just went on with my life, really with no one talk to, just empty. Like an empty shell, pretty much how I live now, just a machine.

A few months later, she called me to tell me sorry. That her mom told her she had to. And I told her no you didn't, we where about to get an apartment together, we where about to start our life together, it was all planned, we would of made it. She said she was still wanting to get married and that's where I made my decision and said I couldn't have anything to do with her, especially with her mom.

This was over 20 years ago and I still think about it today. Had I just forgave her what would of happened? She end up going down the tube, started dating a drug dealer who pimped her out. She was a very smart person, had got accepted to a nice college, would of never thought what happened to her happened.

As for me I got married, had a kid, but it's a loveless marriage, no passion like I had with her. I fell in love with the idea that my now wife lived an hour away from me and she would get me away from all this crap. Now we been together for 19 years and I question it every day. What if I would have just forgave her....

Thanks for reading, it feels better to talk about this sh*t with complete strangers than it does talking to with my wife and friends. They think I am this strong machine with no feelings, if they really knew.

/Rainbow-Civilian/

Back in 2016 I had just quit my job as a flight attendant, moved from Georgia to Florida to chase after a guy I had been dating on and off for 3 years.

(Spoiler, he was a manipulative piece of poo) I got my first DUI in September 2016, I was 22.

Moved back to Georgia in April 2017.

I still had issues with drinking and depression and my life felt like it wasn't going anywhere.

I hated myself, my life, my situation, everything.

I was drinking myself to death, spending all my money on alcohol and weed, not really thinking nor caring about my health(type 1 diabetic) or if I died.

I got my second DUI in October 2017, totaled my car, lost all my "friends"(really weren't my friends, considering I needed them more than ever in my darkest time and they just left)

Anyways, about a month after getting my second DUI I decided to try and make new friends since all my sh*t ones had left me.

I ended up meeting a guy who worked for a pizza place I was familiar with. You see, my high school bestfriend had worked there for YEARS.

Let call him John. And I remembered him talking about this boy he had a huge crush on, John would go on and on and on about the dude.

I finally told John after dude and his girlfriend spilt that if he didn't risk it, then nothing would happen at all. Well, unfortunately for John, pizza boy wasn't gay. Life moved on.

So, back to me downloading tinder and matching with pizza boy.

Once I realized who it was, I told him we could only be friends.

Though I hadn't been close to nor talked to John in over 5 years, I still felt as though it wouldn't be fair if I had let anything romantic happen.

Pizza boy and I ended up becoming very very close, taking me to court for my DUI, helping me pay my entrance fee to DUI court(awful program btw, super intense) and I'll be honest,

I fell for that goofy pizza guy. Everyone was telling me to go for it, the past was the past and well, I did.

He helped me get sober, he helped me throughout the entire 2 year process of DUI Court, (lots of driving me places, money, time)

I even gave him an out when I realized just how intense and hard the program was going to be, but he stayed.

We celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary on the 9th of this month and our daughter will be 3 years old on the 31st.

I'm also currently 15 weeks pregnant with our second baby.

So, two duis ending up bringing me and my soul mate together.

/heroinechicish/

I was 16, my brother and I were spending the weekend at my mom and step-dad’s house. I invited a friend to stay with us.

We were browsing the TV guide and my fiend says “Oh, have you seen Rounders? That movie is sweet!” I had never heard of it.

We watched it. My brother and I loved it (he was 12).

After that weekend, we found a deck of cards and started playing Texas Hold’em together. We cashed in some dollar bills for nickels to use as chips.

We didn’t even know the official rules, and thought that a straight beat a flush until we looked up the rules after a couple weeks (the movie isn’t specific on hand values).

We duct-taped two TV trays together and learned the game with each other.

After a few months, we got some of our school buddies to join in.

We had an attic bedroom we shared and invited them to play $5 buy in.

After a few months, I don’t think anyone age 12-17 was doing homework.

My brother and I had a game a few times a week until I graduated high school. To this day I don’t know what those parents thought of us.

I graduated high school, and entered a community college for a Nursing Program (my dad completed the program after 20 years in an aluminum mill that closed and it seemed like a great career).

Although, I still loved poker, and started watching it on TV, I bought a couple books, and started playing for “real” money at the local casino. I learned tournaments.

I started winning them consistently. I was learning the cash games and moving up in stakes. I was making $200-500 per day playing poker.

My grades started to slip. I was a 3.8 average throughout high school and was very good at studying and taking tests.

But I was playing poker. I literally played poker until 8am and went straight to my Chem final and aced it, but nursing school was not as easy.

It was real work. Nurses are AMAZING people, but it wasn’t for me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about poker. I kept three chips in my pocket during biology class to practice the chip twirl trick.

I finally failed a test, the first one I’d failed that I remember. I talked to my head instructor and said “I think I’m done.” I walked home to my dad and said “this isn’t for me,

I quit, I want to play poker” just like that. I was amazed that my dad said “you’re making money, you’re doing what you want to do, go for it.” He’s my hero.

I played and played. I moved up in stakes. I got offered sponsorships in worldwide tournaments. I’ve played in the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker with the players that I loved to watch on TV.

I’ve come to love this simple game that has so much and really feel like I’m good at it, and have enjoyed every minute of the poker life.

I genuinely don’t think this would have happened if my buddy hadn’t said “hey have you seen Rounders?”...

[redacted]

Late to this thread, but I've got something I want to share:

My grandpa was a radio man during the Vietnam war.

He told me the following story about four or so years ago, and it's still something I think about now.

My apologies if I get any of the details wrong (in terms of military code, chain of command, etc.) as it's been some time since I've heard this story, and I don't like to ask him about the war because it still makes him go quiet all these decades later.

On to the story. Essentially, my grandfather was out on patrol with his squad as well as two other higher-ups (was it a captain and a commander?

Can't quite remember the ranks).

Night was coming quickly, and as such, the highest ranking member of the group suggested that they cut across an open field in order to make it back to base quicker.

Of course, nearly everybody in the group objected to this idea as they would be open targets, but the commander threatened to write-up the rest of the squad for disobedience, so they reluctantly went.

Carrying nearly 100 pounds of radio equipment, my grandfather was about three-quarters of the way through the field when a loud boom filled the air, followed by blackness.

He awoke in the hospital nearly a day later, where he was debriefed on what happened.

Essentially, whilst walking through the area, a Vietcong mortar was fired into the field.

It landed right next to my grandfather, and the combination of his heavy gear and his proximity to the blast saved his life.

By being so close, the shrapnel didn't spread out through his body enough to kill him,

and due to his gear, what did enter his body was slowed substantially and didn't rip him to shreds.

The commander was in front of him, and the captain was behind him when the mortar hit, no more than three yards or so in either direction, and they both died instantly.

I have no idea how they managed to get him out of that field, why his team didn't assume he died or how they managed to get him back to base in one piece.

All I know is that if he were more than a meter or two in any other direction than where he was standing, he likely would've died, which means he would've never met my grandmother or had my mom.

He now has 3 children all in their 40's, 16 grandchildren, and lives happily on his own property.

He told me after this event he was reassigned to routine patrols of nightclubs in Germany until the end of the war, which he said was a much more lax experience.

Once again, I'm sorry if I've butchered any of the more technical details, and keep in mind that this story is from my grandfather told to me nearly 4 or so years ago, so do with it what you will.

My grandpa survived a mortar blast during Vietnam.

[redacted]

One chilly November day in rural South Dakota, my parents requested that my brother, sister, and me keep a fire well-stoked (the fireplace was in the gaming room where us siblings had all our game consoles and computers, and the fireplace was hooked into the radiator system so it would heat the entire house).

Turns out we weren't doing it well enough, so my dad came down to really pile on the wood to hurry up and get the house warmed up.

Sure enough, he overdoes it and we soon hear the roar of a chimney fire going on.

We get buckets and spend some time soaking the fireplace and get things calmed down and the roar subsides.

All of us are exhausted, but everything is good. But something makes me go and check the attic just in case even though nobody else was worried about it. As soon as I open the door there's an orange glow, and I peek up the landing to see maybe a three foot square section of the exposed roof being lapped up by flames.

I'm sure my exclamation of "Fire!" was more of a panicked warble, but after a few moments they understand that yes, there is a fire in the attic.

We all kick in to high gear and drag a garden hose inside and up three stories to reach the attic while shuttling buckets from the upstairs bathtub

and hold off the fire until the local volunteer fire department makes it out and finishes things up.

There's some business inventory stored up there that's damaged for sure, and some work will need to be done, but all of the living space is safe.

We're all completely spent and shaken, and we know we've got a long cleanup ahead of us and we decide it can wait until the next day.

My brother, ever the social butterfly, figures he ought to get to spend the night at a friend's house since he won't be able to do anything the next day now.

My parents agree so long as he comes back by 8am sharp.

The next day my brother is about to leave his friends house when my mom realizes she needs bread for the sandwich lunch we'll be having amidst our cleanup day,

so she calls my brother and sends him to the store, delaying him by probably ten minutes.

On the highway headed home now, my brother who is in his first year of driving hits a patch of ice and starts to slide.

A grain truck in the oncoming lane can't stop, and they collide head-on.

Saying goodbye to him on his way out the door to his friend's house would end up having been the last time I'd ever see my brother alive.

If my dad hadn't come down and started that chimney fire, there wouldn't have been a big cleanup that my brother needed to get back for in the morning.

If I hadn't thought to check the attic, the house would've been burned badly enough that it would have changed all of our circ*mstances.

If my mom hadn't called my brother to have him run by the store, there wouldn't have been a grain truck in the oncoming lane when my brother hit that patch of ice.

I don't actually blame anyone or myself over it, but the direct lineage that almost everyone he knew played into that situation has always struck me as an exceptionally wild turn of events.

/Cheesyduck126/

This is so long, I apologise in advance. I’d just finished work at this pub (in the middle of nowhere) where I was a waitress/kitchen hand and I was having a drink and chatting with some tourists who were probably in their mid-twenties. It was this really small town and I was the youngest person living there at the time and it was so nice to finally have some company that was my age.

But I’d been there for about two minutes when my coworker the chef comes in— having already knocked off he was a fair few drinks in. He was one of those very charismatic types of people; he always had something to add to the conversation. Always. And he knew just how to steal the show, especially if there were girls involved. And as it so happened, there were.

If my memory serves me correctly I think I was angry with him, I had probably caught him doing shots on his shift or maybe he had yelled at me in the kitchen or had given me some fussy critique about the way I was chopping vegetables. Whatever it was that he had done caused me to trigger the wildest 24 hours that I have ever had on that job.

Unsurprisingly the tourists weren’t really looking to be hit on by some now half drunk chef in the middle of nowhere, and their boyfriends didn’t seem too pleased with it either and they promptly finished their drinks and left the pub. My coworker, admitting defeat, got up and went to chat with the locals, leaving me on my own in the lounge area. Fortunately for me (now tipsy and in the mood to be cheeky), he had left his phone on the arm of the couch.

Unfortunately for him, I decided to poke it down the side of the couch between the cushion. Soon after I committed the act I decided to go home to the workers quarters (that he shared) and hung out with another coworker the cook (m) for a while and a friend (f) before the chef came in completely drunk and decided he wanted the cook’s company. My friend and I left, and went to my room, sat on the floor and gossiped. Again, after some time the chef busts into my room and inserts himself into our conversation.

My friend soon decided that it was getting late and ever so graciously the chef offers her a lift down the road. She accepts as she can’t drive and didn’t have a car, as he seems to have sobered up and it was about a two-minute drive down the road. I say goodnight to them both and head to bed.

About 45 minutes later I hear my coworker come into the workers' house. He was flinging open doors and being loud but that was not new. But then he came down into my half of the house, opened the cook’s door and asked if he had seen his phone.

My coworker groggily replied “no mate it’s not here” but the chef persisted and wanted to look around the room. The cook allowed him to do this. After ten minutes I hear him leave, without saying thank you. And then I hear my door handle rattle. This shook me to the core. I was 19 at the time and he had already made several passes at me, and I made sure to keep my door locked at night in case he got any ideas.

He kept trying to open my door, then I hear him calling my name, and asking me to wake up. I asked him what he wanted, then told him that he hadn’t left his phone in my room when prompted. This wasn’t enough. But he went away before coming back ten minutes later. This time he gets me to get up out of my bed to look.

I give him the same answer: your phone isn’t in here. He asks me to open the door so that he can check. At this point I give in, and I know my coworker is awake now & probably listening, so I open my door and let him look around. Of course, he doesn’t find his phone, and he leaves.

I lock my door and get back in bed, and it isn’t until about 5 am that I hear from him again. He’s back in the cook’s room looking for his phone. Then he comes back to my room, and I angrily tell him to get lost. In truth, I’d forgotten in all the drama that he was going down to the boss’s other pub two hours away to work that morning.

Cut to nine am and I’m walking into work and the chaos hits me immediately. The bartender was pissed because the chef had broken in last night and stolen two bottles of whiskey or something, and that he had broken a door getting in. By ten am we get word that the chef had been fired from the other pub.

He had rocked up and had immediately stolen another bottle of alcohol from that pub, then when arriving at work at 9 am he was still drunk and proceeded to yell not only at his other kitchen hand but also at his other boss (my boss’s daughter), and had made both of them cry.

Word was that he was being sent back to our pub. Obviously, my boss was livid. She claimed that she would fire him on the spot and told us he was only permitted to come back and get his stuff but was then to leave. After this news broke my friend came into the kitchen; she had sought me out immediately after getting into town and told me that he had taken her home, made her invite him in, and had then tried to initiate sex.

She had somehow managed to force him to leave. He went back there sometime around one am looking for his phone she said, but since there was no way she was letting him in again, she said that he had circled the house banging on the doors and windows yelling and demanding to be let in. She said that she had never been so scared in her life.

I relayed this to my boss and she confirmed with me that that day would be his last working for her family.

Except it wasn’t. My boss’s husband called her before she could fire him and somehow convinced her to keep him on. Probably to do with how understaffed we were, as this wasn’t a place where chefs grew on trees— hell, the chef tree refused to grow in our area.

That, or the fact that they treated him as an estranged family member, and the boss's husband had a weak spot for him. Who the hell knows why. So he kept his job at my pub, but he was banned from ever going to the other pub again.

He told me when he got home that he’d found his phone where I had put it, and said that it must have fallen down when we were having drinks. I agreed and kept my mouth shut.

I wanted some petty revenge and to pull a prank on an alcoholic coworker, hid his phone when he was drunk, causing him to drink more, which resulted in him getting fired...sort of. But at the end of the day it was really me who karma bit in the ass; because I ended up having to work more with him than usual (the cook, who I was closer to, was sent to the other pub in his place).

Thankfully, I quit before anything like that ever happened again.

/jqrandom/

This is long, but it needs to be to come full circle...

The summer before senior year my buddy and I came up with a hilarious plan to kill a morning. We get some basketballs on a Monday and on that Friday we're gonna walk around a mall getting autographs from random people by asking them to sign our balls... Teenage boys right?

Wednesday night my family is grocery shopping and I bump into a girl from school and while were chatting I mention the "epic ball signing". Surprisingly she asks to go and I say sure; it will be even funnier if a girl asks right?

Well, Thursday night she calls me bummed out because her grandma needs new shows and her step-mom was making her go with her grandma. She asked that I please call her and tell her how awesome it was the next night. Sure thing.

Well, the next day we hit up the mall and people's hands are all over our balls! Men, women, old people, young people; most popular balls in the mall belonged to us! (See, it's still funny ain't it?) Well, everyone enjoyed the ball gag except the old lady who ran the coffee shop.

She was offended and took action. About 4hrs(!) Into our mall signing we are approached by the entire mall security staff. We get escorted from one side of the mall to the other like hardened criminals and get interrogated by mall cops for an hour.

When all is said and done we get a 6mos ban from the mall property. (Since we both worked at the mall, we had to have a manager sign a paper saying she'd be responsible for our actions while we were at work. She was pretty peeved but man, it was funny.)

So, since we are banned we aren't allowed to leave the mall on foot like we had arrived; we have to have a ride. So I call home and ask for mom as she's less likely to murder me and my little brother informs me that she isn't there. So I get to wait in mall jail til I can get ahold of her.

While I'm waiting, I call the girl who was supposed to come with us and fill her in on the details. She finds it hilarious that we got banned from the mall and she is really glad she didn't go with us as her parents would have murdered her and I both. She has to go to work so she asks me to call her when she gets off and we can keep talking. Sweet.

Fast forward 4 hrs and I'm still sitting there. New mall cops shift has started and they are tired of looking at me and tell me to call home again. Little brother informs me that mom has been home and since left because I didn't say I needed a call back.

Informs me that dad has been home all day and I could ask him if it was important. :Smh: Dad comes and gets me, I explain what happened and he finds it hilarious. No punishment shall be handed down from up on high, but I get to tell my mom cuz he wants to watch her reaction. Win, win.

That night at 11 I call the girl cuz she's off work. This was back in the day of i-wireless cards and cordless phones. That night we talked until 6am; switching between dead cordless phones and pre-paid cards.

I have never met someone that was so easy to talk to and whose laughter sounded so genuine and pure. I was smitten. I had lunch with her while she was at work the next day and then after work we talked for about another 8hrs.

I spent my entire paycheck that weekend on i-wireless minutes so I could keep talking to her.

Sometime around 4am on Sunday she offered a date as a prize should I guess the right answer to a question and I got the answer right. (For the life of me I can't remember the question and it really bothers me.) I was psyched!

Lame, I know. Teenage boys, right?

Well, here's the thing; her only night off was that Tuesday and she had plans to go to a ball game. Her dad had cancelled the plans the day before because he was a truck driver and he had to do a week long trip to California.

I was off work Tuesday but had plans with other people to see a movie... At a mall... I was now banned from being at. So her and I went to a movie at a different mall together.

That was 17yrs, a wedding, two college degrees, two kids, 3 cats, a dog and a house ago.

She is still the easiest person to bare my soul too and her laughter is still one of the sweetest sounds I've ever heard.

All it took was a pair of basket balls and a pair of shoes to change the course of our lives forever. I still have the basketball too. It's one of my most cherished possessions.

/Rizo1981/

Long one: TL:DR passports stolen, US embassy moved, record heats, natural disaster, missed flights, hotel cancellations, travel agent booking the wrong rides, and every other f*ck up god could throw my family

One time my family was visiting my aunt and uncle in germany, and we were going to the Netherlands one day. I don't remember exactly where as this was 10 years ago. I was 14 at the time.

This all started because we skipped breakfast.

Well we decided to skip breakfast that morning, despite getting breakfast at a bakery every day since arrival. Well we were sitting in the terminal and decided to get an easy mcdonald's breakfast while we waited.

Well, in that McDonald's, and we know it happened in the Mcdonald's, our passports were stolen. We had them when we walked in, they had disappeared when we walked out.

Here is where things go from bad to worse:

We realized without passports, we might not be able to ride the trains back to Germany. We rode back anyway and did get questioned at one point, but the ticket collector seemed to understand that things get stolen. He told us we would need to go to a US embassy and get temporary passports. Well after a long, fearful day we got back with plans to to the US embassy the next day.

The next day, the record heats in europe at the time apparently gave rise to their first large *tornado* in 100 years. It destroyed some trains lines.

Our hour long train ride could no longer reach the embassy. We had to hop multiple trains, explaining to every conductor why we had no passports and even getting in trouble with some of the ones who didnt speak english well.

These train rides took **8 hours**, ruining one of our trip days. When we got to the Embassy, it turns out those dumbasses hadnt updated the embassy web page in 4 years. They had moved to a different location.

So we got the new information and went there the next day. On top of this, in order to prove my mom was not trying to steal my brother and i out of the country from my dad who was still in the US(apparently this is more common than you think?), we had to call him at 3:00 am and he had to find a notary and send his signatures and permissions on some paperwork.

He had to do it then as well unless we wanted to come back on another 8 hour train ride the next day, further delaying travel plans. He did find a work friend, thank goodness. We owed them big for that.

Our original plan was to take a plane to Venice, Italy the next day. But we had to miss our flights. After spending 2 entire days getting our passports back, we had to buy new plane tickets. We called our hotel in venice and said we would be a day late, and they said that was fine.

So we had to buy new plane tickets and the airlines wouldnt sell to us because the temporary passports looked fake or something.

We finally managed to get to Venice after buying expensive plane tickets, putting a heavy dent in the travel money.

When we arrived, the hotel had given away our rooms and we had no where to go. It was about 100 F or 38 C outside and we were all exhausted. Idk how my mom was holding it together, she is a super hero.
We ended up finding expensive hotel rooms somewhere else and got to see a bit of venice.

At the end of our trip, a taxi was scheduled to take us to the airport. Our travel agent had booked them because there was a **transportation strike** happening, and if u wanted to find public transport, it was harder than usual.

Well, our travel agent was a dumbass apparently and booked them to the wrong airport. We only realized about halfway too the wrong destination.

The airport he was taking us too was in the opposite direction AND you got their by boat.

So we had to pay him to take us back, find a car taxi driver, and then have him speed all the way to the new location.

We did make it back to the US safely, but i'm convinced god or some otherworldly entity was smiting us the entire trip.

[redacted]

f*cking Harry Potter lead to:

Saving me from potentially paralyzing myself

Getting out of an abusive relationship

Not killing myself

Writing instruction manuals

I was about the exact right age when Harry Potter came out. For whatever reason I became obsessed with trying to figure out what will happen next. I got this book that said the clues are in the spells and references and anagrams.

So I got a Latin-English dictionary. Reading through it, I noticed some words were all over English. Which lead to me getting into linguistics.

Now I come from a military family. My dad, uncles, grandparents, cousins, most of the males in my family were or are enlisted. I thought I’d be the first female. I scored high on the ASVAB so I had my pick of branches. I chose Air Force. My uncle was in the AF as a linguist and I wanted to do that too.

Yet the offered jobs they gave me were like airplane mechanic, analysts. Wtf? Those were my lowest scores on the test (mechanics and math).

During my physical exam they discovered I have scoliosis. I never knew. Explained back pain though. The degree of my curvature was just on the limit for qualification. My recruiter suggested he fudge the numbers so I could get in (recruiters are shady af). I declined since I wasn’t even going to get a position close to anything I’d be interested in. I was only joining for free college anyway. f*ck it, I’d deal.

Apparently scoliosis runs in my family because my cousin had the same thing. His curvature was in the same threshold only he did fudge his numbers to get qualified for the military (army). He was pretty active already, mostly on the swim team and a little bit of track.

The strenuous work and training in basic, he f*cked his back up even worse, and had to have surgery. He apparently pinched a nerve and could’ve gotten severely crippled. He ended up getting discharged. It was bad and he was in a lot of pain.

I’m still in school for linguistics, though it is slow going because it’s all out of pocket. Until this year. The company I work for has tuition reimbursem*nt. It will pay if you’re pursuing a degree that will benefit them. The company has a lot of manuals they put out for their products and those are written in house. That position requires just the degree I want.

So they will help me pay for college so I can get a position as a technical writer. I already enjoy writing tutorials.

Now, I had a rough patch during my teen years. Some stuff happened to me and I grew super depressed. It didn’t help that I couldn’t sleep either. I started considering and even planning suicide.

But, first I wanted to find out what happens in the Harry Potter series. Small thing, yes. But I held onto it. I decided to trudge through until the series was complete.

Fortunately JKR took her sweet time.

That gave me enough time to fight the horror I was dealing with, and find other reasons to live. I discovered my passion (linguistics and writing) which gave me something to look forward to, and met people who encouraged me to get help.

When the last book came out, I went to the release at the book store with my then boyfriend. I wasn’t in a great place again, and mostly because said guy was emotionally and sexually abusive. He invited his friend and introduced us. Since the friend was also a huge nerd, we got to talking.

This made my bf flip the f*ck out and he started stalking me to catch me cheating on him with his friend (which I wasn’t doing), blowing up my parent’s phones to tell them I was out with a crazed rapist which scared them. And he would call me over and over if I didn’t answer (like when I was in the shower). It scared me enough to get out.

I did eventually date that friend for a while but ultimately we weren’t compatible. He helped me find a job where I met my husband.

/zerbey/

Many years ago, while waiting for my first semester in college to start (after the end of my enlistment in the USN), my new civilian workplace of a mere 61 days shut down. I had money in the bank, but my apartment was a "workman's rental" and required me to be employed. It was a sh*thole anyways, filled with methed-out construction laborers, drunken telemarketers who all worked for some place they hated, and the sad, decaying lives of divorced men deeply in debt for child support. However, a Marine there who had finished his enlistment around the same time as me would pal around with me a lot, and told me about a travel job.

It was selling magazines, door to door and in parking lots. I instantly detected sleazy scamminess, but it was room, board, some income, and a lot of parties. I had 9 months to waste and a lot of America to see, and despite the weird cult vibe, I was good at it. The Marine and I ended up on different "crews", but we stayed in touch through the clearinghouse company's informal mail service. He warned me not to get caught working without a peddler's permit in Waco, Texas. One of his coworkers was sitting in jail for 6 months for it.

Needless to say, I ended up working in Waco without a peddler's license. After some hassles in a parking lot with local police, we decided to work outside of Waco's city limits. My boss liked to drop me off in rural areas anyways, because I seemed to sell a lot of subscriptions to farmers and ranchers. McClennan County sheriff's seemed few on the ground in Axtell, where I was "pedaling around and peddling". It was a part of my act.

I used a mountain bike and dressed like a Mormon, which sometimes opened doors and often could be used as humor in the pitch, e.g. "My partner Elder Smith couldn't be with us today. His youngest sister-wife gave him the clap. Have you ever seen Playboy magazine? It isn't very Mormon, but it has great articles", etc. I was bold, too. No trespassing sign? I'm not trespassing, I'm soliciting! No soliciting? I'm not soliciting, I'm peddling! No peddlers? I'm not a peddler, I'm a salesman!

This did wonders for me at a local prep school there called Vanguard. I sold all the magazines the kids there wanted, and guaranteed discreet delivery for the ones they shouldn't have been able to order. I sold 50 subscriptions to students dressed a lot like me, until I was booted off the campus by the principal.

I was feeling confident and rode down the road to a big empty field with a very white building at its end. My charms were basically useless and a stern man showed me a pistol on his hip and sent me away in the middle of a conversation with a very pretty young woman who wasn't buying anything, but sure was chatty.

It was February 24th, 1993. That little center was the Branch Davidian compound. On my way down the road, I noticed a car following me with exempt (tagless, white) plates. I decided to go off the road and onto another dusty little driveway but they followed me and finally a man called out and ordered me to stop.

They were ATF agents, and they asked me a lot of questions about my business and where I was staying (I lied about the latter, saying a hotel name I knew was there, but not the one we were in). They decided to call the local sheriff when I asked if I could leave and they noted the Penthouse and Playboy sales receipts to the students at the school.

I was in that jail for four days, but the judge dropped the peddling without a license charge and released me with almost no consideration at all. He simply said, "You're free to go. Stop peddling p*rn and get yourself an education." I called the hotel, but the crew had left already. I called the main number for the company and was told to join up with the other crew, which was due back in four days.

I rented a different room, and was relieved to find my stuff waiting at the front desk (minus some pieces of clothing someone doubtless stole). I sold a few subscriptions to pay for it. The other crew showed up and the Marine was with them. He wasn't happy and wanted to head back to San Diego.

His crew was insanely violent and had co*keheads for bosses. They tried to take my sales proceeds, but I told them I would wait for a call from my crew boss. I had my own room still, and invited the Marine to come hang out. He said we should get out, and they had discussed robbing me and leaving me in a ditch. He had brought his girlfriend and bags with him, and at 12 AM in the morning, we caught the Greyhound to Dallas. In Dallas, while we were waiting for a bus to San Diego, we watched TV.

The Branch Davidians were being raided by the ATF. It was a standoff, but it was a violent one. I recognized David Koresh immediately. He had chased me off the property. I called the main office and told them I had left, and i wanted my back pay. They told me to call back the next day and they would send a comcheck. In El Paso, the Marine told me he was headed to Mexico instead. I was fine with that. I sat in the El Paso bus station and watched the television a bit more.

Another story from Waco came on. There was the the Marine's bosses and several people from their crew, mug shots. they were casing and robbing places using the magazine sales as a cover. Aside from the mug shots was a police drawing of the Marine and his girl. Also in that story? A drawing of me in my sunglasses "seen with the suspects boarding a bus stop Waco".

I changed my clothes, threw away my sunglasses and got a completely different kind from a 7/11 near the bus station. I was headed back when I noticed several El Paso cop cars in the bus parking area and police checking ID. I calmly walked in, went to the locker I had rented, grabbed my bag and went outside, then caught a city bus, pulling the cord when I saw a huge truck stop coming up.

I immediately went in and got a high and tight haircut, bought a Kenworth jacket and a John Deere cap, and put on my old deck boots. I managed to get a ride headed West to Tucson, AZ in exchange for unloading the truck at several stops there.

In Tucson, I did a good job and the trucker ended up paying me $100 for about 6 hours work. I had him drop me off at the nearest Trailways station and got a ticket to San Diego. I spent the night in a seedy motel above it and watched the boob tube. It was March 2. Waco was still a siege. The Marine was not in the news. Then I saw a short brief on a fiery van crash near Gallup, NM. It was a familiar van, but it wasn't unique. I called the main office.

The boss and my original crew had tried to outrun New Mexico's state police (DPS) and probably tried to cross a state line. Somewhere along the Devil's Highway, they missed a very sharp turn and went down an embankment. 6 dead, including my boss and his two little sons. He had a lot of warrants for arrest (all of them peddling license related or trespassing, etc.). It was not worth his life and his kids, not to mention 3 pretty decent people I worked with.

By this time, I was near my breaking point stress-wise. I spent the long ride to San Diego in a depressed, mournful silence. I stayed in San Diego one night, then went to Tijuana with a group of former shipmates. A brawl broke out at Señor Frog's and I was backed into a corner, holding my own, when someone yanked me back through a crowd and into the street. I turned to punch and there, impossibly, was the Marine. We talked for a bit and he invited me to come to his hotel room and drink.

He had robbed/burgled the crew manager, waiting until a party was raging then slipping into the hotel room that was used as an office and opening the manager's travel safe (whose code he had seen the manager use a few times). He had netted $60,000. I told him about what had happened with my crew and he sympathized, but he was jacked on adrenaline and money.

He gave me $5,000 "for being a good friend", but then relayed he would never return to the USA. I crashed on his couch after a few drinks, woke in the morning and caught a trolley back to San Diego.

He contacted me on Facebook years later. Last I heard, he worked as head of security at a gringo-owned club and bar in Puerto Vallarta. I myself have left the states. But one day, while I was sitting at a café in Budapest, a man walked up and asked if we had met. I knew him immediately, he was one of the ATF agents who had stopped me. I simply said, "I don't think so, but it is a small world, so it could be."

/Dainflynnty/

When I was 14 I was living with my grandma.

My mom came to visit once and spent the night.

The following morning I found meth pipe in her purse and confronted her about it and was threatening to break it.

She begged and pleaded with me to give it back and I eventually did.

She leaves about an hour later.

About a week later my grandpa walis his friend to the bus stop and is sitting at the bus stop with him when cops pull up

and pit them in the car and drive them back to the house.

His friend was on parole so when they got back to the house they performed a parole search (even though his friend did not live there with us) and found my mom's meth pipe in my grandma's dresser.

My mom had apparently stashed it there before leaving a week ago.

Because they found it in my grandmas room, they pinned it on her and took her to jail.

She was eventually released a few weeks later but had an ongoing court case that required her to attend hearings. I move away and they do as well.

3 years later they have moved in with my aunt and I also move in with my aunt (not at the same time).

My aunt lives in another county about 100 miles from where they lived previously.

One day the sheriff shows up to arrest my grandma with a warrant for a failure to appear for her court case and she is taken to jail 100 miles away.

A couple months later they are releasing her from jail.

At this point I am 17 and am away crom home from the summer.

My grandpa plans to take the bus and train to go meet up with my grandma and bring her home.

He leaves one morning to start his day long journey.

No one ever sees or hears from him again and my grandma has to make her way home by herself.

3 months later we find out that his body was found behind a 711 in the town he was going to get on the train at.

I shouldn't have given my mom the pipe back.

/Daylar17/