People From Around The World Share Funny And Alarming Ways They Screwed Up


People From Around The World Share Funny And Alarming Ways They Screwed Up


Big or small, funny or serious, born of ignorance or malice... we all make mistakes. Some of them are instantly forgiven and forgotten, while others become stories that get passed down for decades come to define a person. And some are just so good that there's nothing a person can really do but hop online and share their folly with the world.

This article concerns the latter.

The folks below all recently went online to share their funny, shocking, and alarming screw ups with the rest of us. We hope you enjoy your daily dose of schadenfreude.

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35. The burrito burglar

I'm a cop. I woke up one morning at 5:00 A.M., tired as a mofo. I put on my uniform, checked my gear, kissed my sleeping wife, and slowly walked to my patrol car parked in front of my apartment building, probably looking like a stereotypical zombie in a police uniform that you might see on TV or in a video game.

I started my normal routine: Got in the car, turned on the radar, checked on duty, and started playing the best "prepare for a police shift" music I can find. Now for my 15 minute commute to the city.

My vehicle was getting low on gas so I stopped at my favorite gas station to fill up, and went inside for my daily breakfast burrito. I went in, put my sausage, egg, and cheese burrito in a paper tray, and grabbed all the needed hot sauces. Then I grabbed a cup and filled it with water, just like I do at the beginning of every shift. After this, still in zombie mode, and went back to my patrol vehicle with the goodies and continued on with my day.

At about noon, I get a call from my Sergeant, who simply said, "I need to talk to you at the department."

Oblivious as to why he would need to talk to me, I began heading to the police department. Millions of thoughts rushed through my head, all wondering what he would want to discuss with me. Upon my arrival, I was directed to my Lieutenant's office. When I walked in, I heard a stern, "Close the door". At this point I knew this wasn't good. I sat down, disturbed, being stared down by my Corporal. Sergeant, and Lieutenant.

After a preface from my Sergeant, he says, "Tell me everything that happened this morning, especially at the gas station."

I didn't say anything, just sat there and thought about it again. "Awww... crap. I forgot to pay for my burrito." Then I just heard, "Guess what, that's theft."

After a "Come to Jesus" moment with my superiors, I left, went straight to the gas station, and paid for my burrito. They didn't want to press charges.

Although nothing really came of this incident, the crappy part of this is I can't go back and fix what that looked like to the other customers. All they saw was what looked like an entitled cop not paying for a burrito.

On a lighter tone, Now other officers have nicknamed me "The Burrito Burglar" and jokingly ask for tips on how to steal stuff when I see them.

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34. Not too sharp, are you?

I guess this is three decades in the making but I only discovered it Saturday, so it feels like a very fresh FU.

This weekend I was eating a sandwich with some extra sharp parmigiano-reggiano cheese flakes on it and I made the comment over voice chat with my friends that it was so good but so sharp it was tearing up my mouth. I had a momentary pause before a chorus of puzzled friends chimed in at the same time to ask me to elaborate.

"You know, it's extra sharp. It really cuts and burns my gums and the roof of my mouth."

And that's when my friends informed me that none of them have this reaction, and futhermore, no one has this reaction. I hear several keyboards going at once with people having alt-tabbed to Google around and our best WebMB-style guess is that I have an allergic reaction to some histamines common in sharp cheeses, and that I've had this reaction for thirty years, and that I always assumed everyone had it.

"What do you mean when you call it a sharp cheese if THAT'S not what you're talking about?!"

I figured the mild-sharp spectrum for cheeses was like the mild-hot spectrum for spicy foods. I love spicy foods. I love sharp cheeses. I thought they were the same kind of thing where they were supposed to hurt you a little bit. Apparently "sharp" just means "flavorful" or "tangy."

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33. An unexpected reunion

I was talking to this guy on a dating site had the softest of hazel eyes, and at the time, I thought he was the one. After exchanging a few messages, we decide to go on a date, and one thing lead to another, and we were a couple. We dated for about 5 months, until the horror struck.

Since we are both in our mid 20s, we were moved away from home and hadn’t had time to meet each other’s parents. Instead of doing the traditional I’ll bring you over to meet my parents, and I’ll go over to meet yours, we decided for a dinner with both our parents.

We agreed to meet with our families out to a restaurant, and when my father stood up from the table to introduce himself to my boyfriend’s mother, his face turned completely white. He was looking directly at his cousin (uncle’s daughter). My boyfriend was also my second cousin.

Since my family and his family live on opposite sides of the States, our parents hadn’t seen each other in about 30 years, and it was coincidence that my boyfriend and I moved to the same city. We could tell something was wrong just from the way our parents looked at each other.

Even though we loved each other, we decided it wasn’t right to stay together. That was one of the hardest breakups of my life, but it had to be done for the sake of our family. I told my friends that it didn’t work out and silently removed everything from social media.

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32. Black and white thinking

So this happened 2 days ago and I'm still cringing.

Recently I've taken an interest in chess and my school runs an after school chess club for beginners so I thought I'd go along.

So anyway here I am about to play my first game of chess ever. I sit down at the black pieces and my opponent has the white pieces (I should now mention my opponent was African American). The chess teacher says "first rule of chess, whites go first."

I think to myself wow that's pretty racist but chess is an old game so maybe they kept the rule out of tradition.

So I grab a pawn and slide it forward, then I look up expecting my opponent to make his move. Instead I'm met with a look of confusion and horror, I begin to hear laughter from the people watching.

I then realize my error. "Oooh you meant the pieces," I murmur. The teacher nods.

Now everyone thinks I'm a massive racist.

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31. Free chemo

Figured it out today, but have been screwing up for 3 weeks.

My boyfriend started chemo and has been very fortunate to be feeling pretty ok. So our romantic life has stayed at our normal level. Probably even more active since, well, he's terminal.

I've been having horrible nausea and headaches. I already have anxiety so I figured I'm just a mess over the cancer, kids, job stress, etc. and making myself sick.

This morning I woke up queasy again and joked about having sympathy chemo symptoms. I Google, and no that's not a thing, but secondhand chemo exposure is... through bodily fluids. Symptoms include nausea and headaches. And the periods of me feeling bad line up perfectly to his treatments.

I've been letting my dude nut poison in me, folks.

You're supposed to use protection for several days after chemo and also not swap a bunch of spit. Now that I know this it seems SUPER OBVIOUS. But uh, guess I was too lovey dovey to think it through.

 

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30. Family secrets

Earlier this year, AncestryDNA had a sale on their kit. I thought it would be a great gift idea so I bought 6 of them for Christmas presents. Today my family got together to exchange presents for our Christmas Eve tradition, and I gave my mom, dad, brother, and 2 sisters each a kit.

As soon as everyone opened their gift at the same time, my mom started freaking out. She told us how she didn’t want us taking them because they had unsafe chemicals. We explained to her how there were actually no chemicals, but we could tell she was still flustered. Later she started trying to convince us that only one of us kids need to take it since we will all have the same results and to resell extra kits to save money.

Fast forward: Our parents have been fighting upstairs for the past hour, and we are downstairs trying to figure out who has a different dad.

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29. Not the brightest bulb

The overhead fan in our bedroom uses one of those compact halogen light bulbs.

6 years ago the bulb burned out and got really dim, just barely a glow. I bought a replacement bulb but when I put that one in it was also barely lighting up so I realized the unit was bad.

The fan still worked GREAT, it literally is the best fan I’ve ever had because it moves a ton of air and is super quiet. The fan had also been a gift when we moved into our house, the unit cost over $400 so I didn’t really want to replace it even though our bedroom doesn’t get much natural light so it is pretty dark.

So since then over the years my wife and I have had to make due with no overhead light. We open the windows during the day, and at night use a combination of bedside lamps and the bathroom light. It’s never really as good of lighting as an overhead lamp so I keep some flashlights up there for when we are cleaning or looking for something etc.

After 6 years of living in the dark, this winter I just decided I would replace the bloody thing. But before I did, I decided to try one last time with another bulb because, however unlikely, it’s possible BOTH bulbs I had tried were bad.

So I’m up there installing the new bulb, grab the remote (the fan has a remote) and as I’m turning the light on I realize: the darn thing is dimmable.

For 6 years we lived with the inconvenience of no overhead light and the whole time it was just because the thing was set to “dim”.

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28. Her big mouth gets her in trouble

I'm a 32 year old woman who can never go back to my new dentist after two visits because I'm an idiot.

My dentist is a very nice and professional man. Our first appointment was going pretty smoothly until he made some innocuous remark about us "being strangers." My immediate reply was "oh, you're not a stranger! You've been inside of my mouth for 20 minutes!" I did NOT intend to make an innuendo. His face turned red and he was clearly embarrassed but he continued on like a true professional and we were probably both relieved when the appointment was over.

I had my second dentist appointment today. I actually mentally prepared myself to be a model patient who didn't say anything weird, thank you very much. He had been working in my mouth for about 5 minutes when he started to seem really uncomfortable or something. His face was red and he was breathing a little heavier. I was a bit concerned and also confused. Like how could I have embarrassed him this time? I had hardly spoken! So he keeps working in there and then I realize what the hell is happening. My dentist was wearing grape flavored gloves. I had been absentmindedly licking his fingers the whole time.

Never going back.

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27. Mi casa es su casa

My friend Jenna moved into a nice new condo last month and I finally got a chance to check it out for the first time today. I ended up arriving before she got home from work so she told me to let myself in with the spare key under the potted plant and to make myself comfortable.

I made myself a sandwich and was meandering around eating and checking out her swanky new place when the front door opened and a really large and unfamiliar man with a duffel bag came in. Dude was intimidating and I'm a 4'11" woman so I was immediately scared. He looked shocked to see me. I'm looking at his duffel bag and realizing that I surprised some piece of crap burglar!

I panicked and threw my sandwich at his face and then locked myself in the bedroom. I'm shaking and he pounds on the door yelling at me to get out. I start screaming at HIM to get out and that I'm calling the police (total bluff because I didn't have my phone). He then yells back that HE is calling the police on ME. This gives me pause.

At this point, I look around and realize the bedroom I'm in definitely appears to be of the male persuasion. I ask him through the door if he knows Jenna (last name). He tells me yes, she is his next door neighbor. WELL. Apparently, Jenna's neighbor ALSO keeps a spare key under a potted plant.

So, today I messed up by letting myself into my friend's neighbor's place, smacking him in the face with his own sandwich and then screaming at him to get out of his house.

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26. The fool, it turns out, is you

So here it goes... Yesterday was April Fools Day. I got a group text from my wife Sarah's side of the family stating there was an emergency family meeting happening that night over dinner at my mother in law Barb's house.

I immediately had April Fools spidey senses starting to tingle, but we haven't all got together since Christmas so I overlooked it and said we (my wife and I ) were in.

We were the last to arrive and it was pretty somber when we walked in. We all sat down at the table and my wife's brother (Tim) informed the family that his wife (Ashley) has been having an affair and they were divorcing. The affair was with a long time close family friend (Chris) who lived a block away.

Chris' wife (Jen) had caught them when she came home early one day last week and broke the news to my brother in law Tim.

Both families have been friends for years. They live less than a block from each other, they each have been married for 15+ years, have 4 kids right around the same age. After airing a lot of dirty laundry, and their plans to divorce, how it could effect future family functions, and opening it up to the group of any questions... there was silence.

I broke the silence with laughter and a slow clap. Saying this was the best April Fools gag I've ever seen but I wasn't falling for it. I told Ashley and especially Tim they need to consider going into theater, their performances were top notch and tears seemed genuine.

Everyone in the room looked horrified.

My mother in law, who had been crying the entire time, lost all composure. She left the room in hysterics and did not return before we left.

Tim just shook his head, and his cheating wife actually let out a brief chuckle before calling me out for being insane for thinking this was a ruse. Then berating me for being so insensitive.

The rest of the family sat in silence shaking their heads as my wife berated me for trying to make a joke out of a serious situation.

I am still dumbfounded. In hindsight, I probably should have sat in silence like everyone else.

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25. Always look before you sit

Floor 8 of the of place my employment, inside the men's bathroom.

I'm sitting there, doing my sit-down-business because boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. I've just finished the dirty work and I'm about to perform my ablutions, but I delay it because it's a "paid to crap" thing, playing around on my phone a bit. At this point I feel something jump onto my balls. Something I had never hoped I would ever experience, let alone talk about on the internet.

I shriek. Not a barbarian shriek. Not a viking shriek. Psycho-Shower-Scene shriek.

A huntsman spider (big and venomous) has crawled out of the toilet bowl and jumped onto my low hanging fruit. I bat the spider off, smacking myself in the nuts, keeling over in pain.

Spider dead. Good news. My banshee wail has not gone unanswered. Bad news.

Someone comes into the bathroom and knocks on the stall door. "Mate are you alright? Have you fallen over? I'll call an ambulance."

"NO. FINE. EVERYTHING. IS. GOOD. JUST SLIPPED. FINE. NO NEED TO CALL AN AMBULANCE. YOU CAN LEAVE NOW."

I flush the spider to try and retain some of my inner pride, wash my hands, and make the very VERY long walk back to my desk.

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24. Your joke killed

So there's this girl I like at work, and we're really good friends. We're having lunch and we're making those ironic depression meme jokes as most friends do. For some reason I (in my unknowingly stupid way to get her laugh) got the idea to say "Well hey, you know what's just one letter away from sad? DAB!" and promptly did the deed. Also I have ability to cry on demand so I just stared stone-cold her and let two tears fall down.

She finds it funny. Extremely funny. So funny she drops to the floor and starts laughing her butt off. After a good thirty seconds she starts grabbing her chest and coughing. I asked if she was okay when she starts wheezing and begins to convulse a bit. Freaking out and thinking she's having a seizure or something, I start to reach for my phone.

And in that exact second, my manager randomly decides to come in and sees this big guy towering over this poor little girl on the floor. I only manage to cut off her impending rage by saying I think she's having a seizure and I'm calling 911. Fortunately, I was able to explain to her what happened after the ambulance came.

Turns out she has asthma, and my joke caused a flare-up, and she was waving her arms to try to tell me to get her inhaler. Whoops.

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23. Magic chocolate saved her life

My cousin decided it would be a good idea to give my dad two squares of THC chocolate for Christmas, because he'd mentioned that maaaaaybe he'd want to get try it out. My parents are 75-year-old Republicans. That was a big maybe.

Well, my mom is like an unsupervised puppy when it comes to chocolate. You put half a candy bar down and YOINK, gone when you come back.

You can guess what happened. My mom went sniffing for some chocolate and found it, and ate both squares of chocolate (~8-16 doses, depending on one's tolerance) and got so trippy that she couldn't move or talk. Her last words before my dad called the ambulance were, "I think this might be the end?"

They took her to the hospital and when she came around a bit, the doc asked her what she'd eaten and she said just two squares of chocolate. At which point I assume my father face palmed and my parents had to tell the doc that my mother was in fact, simply higher than the RedBull Orbit Jumper.

Anyway they ran every test in the world on her and found out she had major blockages in three coronary arteries, 97%, 98% and 99%. So now she's having a triple bypass tomorrow.

So by messing up, I also possibly saved my mom's life.

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22. Picture this

I have grapheme-color synesthesia. Basically I see letters and numbers in colors. The letter 'E' being green for example. A couple months ago I was explaining it to my boyfriend who's a bit of a skeptic. He asked me what color certain letters and numbers were and had me write them down. Since then he'll randomly quiz me and compare my answer to what I said a few months ago. Always being the sameish as course. He still seemed a bit skeptic as if maybe I just memeroized them really really well.

Tonight we were laying in bed and my boyfriend quizzed me again. I tried explaining to him I just see the colors automatically when I visualize the letters in my head. I asked him what color are the letters in his head. He looked at me weirdly like what do you mean in "my head, that's not a thing"

My boyfriend didn't understand what I meant by visualizing the letters. He didn't believe me that I can visualize letters or even visualize anything in my head.

Turns out my boyfriend has aphantasia. When he tries to visualize stuff he just sees blackness. He can't picture anything in his mind and thought that everyone else had it the same way. He thought it was just an expression to say "picture this" or etc... Its crazy to him the fact that I can picture his face without looking at him or a banana without looking at it.

Now I have a boyfriend that is really upset. He feels like his world is turned upside down and every body else has this cool superpower. He's been texting all his friends and see if they can imagine stuff and realizing I wasn't pulling his chain. Hes pretty upset and I feel really bad.

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21. Divorced by accident

I went to work today and turned my phone off as usual. I had almost 30 missed texts and calls from my pregnant wife when I turned it on. Most of them were asking how I could do this. I had no clue what she was talking about. She didn't answer any of my calls back.

I got home and she was packing up to leave. I'll admit it, I cried. A lot. Had no clue what was happening or what I did. Finally, it comes out that I texted her that I wanted a divorce. She showed me the text and I immediately realize what happened.

This morning, a free standing mirror for our bedroom was delivered. I texted her "the new mirror came in! I'm going to try to put it together but I may need your help later". I had trouble putting it together and eventually gave up. I texted her, "this isn't working, and at this point I think I need to just give up". Apparently, the first text didn't go through, just the second one. So my pregnant wife panicked for a few hours while I was off thinking everything was great. She even called a divorce lawyer.

Things are fine now but she's still crying off and on. She told me we can laugh about it tomorrow.

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20. You deserve better than him anyway

Basically my boyfriend suffers from pretty low self-esteem, like it's not like he's too bothered about his looks but he rates himself a 5 out of 10 at best.

Obviously I think he's gorgeous and handsome but even though I've been saying this for years, he does not believe me. So, for some stupid reason, I decided to show him that other girls would find him attractive by making him a tinder account. I set him up an account, make him a bio and just start swiping right.

After a day he got around a dozen matches on tinder and after I showed this to him, I saw how he immediately became more confident and thanked me for the whole gesture.

Queue my surprise when a couple of days later I check the tinder account I had basically forgotten after 24 hours, and I could see lots of messages sent to lots of the girls my bf had matched with.

I confronted him and he denied it but I mean these messages even included promises to meet each other. Obviously, we broke up and out of curiosity I checked the tinder account again after a week and this breakup has clearly not slowed him down one bit. So now the tinder I made for him not only broke us up, but is now helping him navigate his newly single life

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19. It's always projection

So I have an uncle (we will call him J) who has always been VERY vocal about his disapproval of my sexuality. There is not a family gathering that goes by where he doesn't say something rude about homosexuality or me specifically.

Well this weekend in between family gatherings I was looking to meet somebody on Grindr. I started chatting with an older man because that's how I roll. A lot of older guys don't like to show their faces because they aren't out so I don't think much of it when he doesn't show me his face. We actually hit it off great and after receiving a few pics, we decided to meet up for well... you know.

So I'm at this coffee shop down the street waiting for my man to show up and you know who walks in. It is at this moment I realize my mistake: I've been flirting with my gay hating closeted uncle. He tried to play it off like a random encounter but I wasn't letting him get away with that. After some pressing he finally admits that he is the man I've been talking to and I told him I don't judge him like he does me. He apologized for the hurtful things he's said to me over the years

He kept talking with me like he was still INTERESTED and I had to make it clear that was NOT going to happen. I had to get up and walk out and after multiple texts from him I had to go ahead and block his number. I can't believe this guy had the nerve to judge me and treat me like less of a human being all these years when he's a total creep and a massive hypocrite.

Always get a face pic, people.

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18. Three's company

This screw up mainly involves three people me [M32], my wife [F27] and her sister [F25].

So for context a normal Saturday is for my wife and I to drop our kids off at her mothers house and go back to ours for some "good times" and maybe a film, games or meal etc.

This week however is "time of the month" as she puts it so anything sexual is off.

So off we go to drop off our kids, when we arrive we are greeted by her mother and by chance her sister who happens to be staying there over the weekend.

Now obviously sisters talk and these two talk a lot so her sister knows what we normally do on our Saturdays.

As we are about to leave her sister says "have fun" in a cheeky way which I completely don't pick up on.

My brain decides that as my wife and I spent Thursday together for Valentines and today we are just going to chill out, play some games and watch a film coupled with the fact they don't get to spend much time together anymore it would be a great idea to invite the sister along to chill out.

So straight after the "have fun" and without consulting my wife, I say, "You can tag along if you like"

The atmosphere drops like a lead balloon and silence descends upon the scene and I'm still there like... "what?" my brain still not connecting the dots so I double up the screw ups by breaking the silence with. "As you said it will be fun".

My wife's face turns from confused and embarrassed to that look she gives me when I've done something very very wrong and the sister just looks stunned!

Still didn't connect the dots until she explained in the car on the ride home.

I've apologized and explained. I know we will laugh about it later.

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17. Didgeridon't

So my dad has had this didgeridoo in the house since he visited his sister in Australia 10+ years ago. My parents wanted to go out for a walk but I decided I’d eaten too much cheese and couldn’t be arsed. While they were out the internet went down so I was sort of wandering around looking for something to do when I spotted the didgeridoo. I thought to myself in all these years I’ve never actually tried to play it (it’s more of a decoration and I barely take it in when I see it) and maybe it’s time.

I pick it up and put it to my lips. I felt like I knew what I was doing and that it was similar to playing a trumpet and wanted to play a long, loud note. I take a sharp inhale and immediately feel something hit the back of my throat. I splutter really hard and a small white globular thing comes flying out and hits the floor. At first I thought it was saliva and ignored it as I had a weird sensation in my throat and mouth. It felt like tingling to start with but grew into more of a tickle on the inside of my cheeks and a bit on my gums.

I glance down at the white stuff on the floor and see several baby spiders crawling out of it and in all directions. The second I clock what’s happened I feel something tickling my top lip and slap my mouth with my hand. I have a squished spider on my lip and instantly go into panic mode. I run into the bathroom and spit repeatedly into the sink to see crushed spider bodies and some severed legs, some of which are still attached to parts of the body and are trying to drag themselves away from the plug hole.

I purge several times and then frantically swill my mouth out with water. I don’t think my mouth will ever feel normal again.

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16. And that's why you always make your bed

For background, I usually make the bed in the mornings, but I didn't yesterday morning because I was running late.

I went to see my dad yesterday but my wife wasn't feeling well so she stayed home. I got back at around 8:30 and couldn't find her anywhere. I checked the bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, everywhere, and I just couldn't find her. Her wallet was there so I figured she just went out for a walk, which is normal since we live in a big city that's active into the night.

I started getting worried at around 9:30 because she also wasn't answering her phone. I called a few of her friends and asked if they'd seen her but none had. I called her parents and asked them if they knew where she was, which led to them freaking out because no one could find her. My father in law told me to track her phone, so I went into her apple account and it told me that her phone was in our apartment. I turn on the find my iPhone sound and start running through the apartment thinking I should call the cops.

I hear the sound coming from our bedroom so I go in and start tearing the room up, when suddenly my wife pops up from the bed and asks me what in the world I'm doing. Turns out the small lump that I thought was just a pile of blankets since I didn't make the bed that morning was actually my wife, who went to sleep early because she didn't feel well. She sleeps with ear plugs in so she didn't hear me in the apartment.

I had to sheepishly call her entire family, own up to my stupidity, and apologize for terrifying them.

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15. Wiper, no wiping

I asked my girlfriend the other day, "Why do the doors of the bathroom stalls have space on the bottom?"

She told me they're like that so we can easily see if the stall is occupied or not in a "duh" tone.

I followed up by saying, "But sometimes, people can see my butt."

She started laughing her butt off and asking why/how.

So I had to explain why my butt was so low to the ground; I wipe my butt after pooping by taking a step forward off the toilet and squatting really low.

I then argued with her that my wiping method is normal until she showed me a link to howtowipeyourbutt.com and I was shocked.

We were both curious where/how I even learned that from. Was it a potty training error? Apparently not. We asked my parents, sibling, grandparents, cousins, aunts, & uncles if they wipe their butt by squatting, too, but no one does that except for me.

So, I've been wiping my butt and mooning hundreds of people in bathroom stalls for 20 years of my life.

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14. The bidding war

So my birthday is coming up and I found an item on eBay that I thought would be cool as a present. I figured I would casually mention it to both my wife and my mom...not thinking that either of them would actually try to bid on it.

Well lo and behold, they BOTH ended up bidding on it to try to win it for a birthday present for me and they unknowingly got into a bidding war with each other!!! They ended up driving up the price by about $200 before my wife finally won the auction. They could have just bought it new in the store for $50 less then she won it for!

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13. Best before

I applied SPF 100 sport spray, every hour (give or take) for roughly 4 hours. I was hanging out at the lake and at slightly higher elevations so the water reflection and elevation probably increased the damage.

I pretty much had no idea that I had a problem until I scratched an itch on my back and it hurt really bad. I considered for a split second that I had a burn but like an idiot, I rationalized it as "sunblock burned the broken skin from the scratch".

The blisters formed by the next day and I started reading the can to see if I missed something about applying it. I found the customer service number and called it. Before talking to anyone, I heard a recording tell me that the FDA doesn't require expiration dates on sunblock and to consider it expired after 3 years. This bottle was easily 4-5 years old.

I had no clue.

I went to the doc and got some amazing medicated gauze and they sent me home with pain meds after cleaning the burn off and showing everyone in the building.

It was easily one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. Except when my tank top straps got dried to my blisters on my shoulders and became part of the blister scabs overnight. Trying to pull them off was almost blackout pain. I soaked in a tub for a while until they basically melted off.

This was preventable. Sunblock expires, please check yours and make sure you store it according to the instructions

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12. That's how you get on a list

This started yesterday but I didn't realize my mistake until today.

Yesterday, I stumbled on a price mistake for the 6 qt Instant Pot at Target, they were ringing up at $10 a piece instead of $80. I decided I would get some Christmas shopping done early and flip a few. I ordered 10 for in store pick up and 10 for delivery in case either order got canceled.

Well the delivery order was canceled but a got an email that the in store pickup was ready. I go to Target and give them my ID, they look it up and can't find it at first. I give them the order number and I hear the one guy say to the other something about it being canceled and they are both giving my odd looks. The one says he has to let the manager know I'm there so they radio over and the manager says it was canceled because of the price mistake. Seems a little odd that they needed the manager over the radio just for that but I didn't think much of it.

Fast forward to a little earlier this afternoon. The doorbell rings and my wife comes and tells me there are 2 guys at the door asking for me. I step outside and they identify themselves as detectives from the State Police Counter Terrorism Unit and they start questioning me about why I'm trying to buy 10 pressure cookers and if I know what they can be used for, if I'm making bombs and so on; they even have a picture of my car from in the Target parking lot. I did my best to explain the price mistake and how I found it, etc. I think they accepted my explanation but I'm still nervous that I'm on a watch list now.

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11. Put your listening ears on

So didn't happen today, but rather yesterday. I invited a close friend to the movies with me. A few odd things happened, and it wasn't until I spoke to a friend of mine that I realized I missed multiple hints that she was into me.

1) Beforehand, I jokingly texted her about a time a friend of mine and I got stuck in town for four hours charging in front of a hotel (my car is electric). She replies "Don't worry, if that were you and I, we'd make the most of it" with a wink face after. I laughed it off and forgot about it.

2) Driving home, she tells me about her friends which 'know of every hidden hookup spot' between the country roads that we were passing through, even pointing out a few. I replied, "I guess that's an interesting thing to know" with a laugh. She then looks to my backseat and goes, "Yeah, there's not much you could do in [my car] though". I then replied, "You know probably not" and thought no more of it.

3) When we get back to her house, she asks if I want to go inside to get a soda, to which I politely declined because I wasn't thirsty.

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10. Why does it hurt when I pee?!

flashback to undergrad, things are good and I just started dating this beautiful girl that I had met in class. I was enamored with her, shocked that I loved her so fast, and amazed that she even wanted to date me. The first months are amazing, we can't keep our hands off each other and never seem to be sick of the others company.

After a few months into our relationship, I started to notice some concerning symptoms. As you can probably hypothesize, when I pee'd, it burned. At first, I just assumed it must have been something weird with my diet, to be sure, I decided to stop taking creatine just in case. But, as time went on (a few days later), the burning became unbearable. I would literally be struggling to stand while I pee'd because the pain was so intense. After, I would literally lay in my bed in the fetal position until the pain subsided. It was bad.

Well, at this point, I was no longer convinced that my diet was causing the symptoms. No, it had to be what I thought unfathomable, my girlfriend must have cheated on me. I hadn't been with anyone else. I hadn't been with anyone else since I began pursuing her, months before we became exclusive. I was shocked. Things seemed so perfect, she seems like such a good person, where had I gone wrong? The thought made my blood boil, until I outright confronted her.

I told her I knew she must have been unfaithful because of my symptoms, and asked her if she had similar symptoms. She told me no. I demanded that she come with me to a clinic, that we both take a test, and share our results. She said sure. (looking back at this I feel like a complete jerk). We agreed that we would go the next day.

The same night I confronted my girlfriend, my roommates girlfriend came over to stay at our place. She was being nice and went to do some dishes for us. Around this time my roommates and I had just moved into a new house. In the process all our belongings got shuffled around. As she went to get some dish washing pods, she exclaimed "why are you guys washing your dishes with laundry detergent!?!?!"

I heard that and it all clicked, holy crap, I've been peeing out bleach?!?! I instantly felt ashamed and immediately apologized to my girlfriend. She took it really well, laughed at the situation, and we forgot about it. Sure enough, a few days later, after our dishes/cups were no longer saturated with bleach residue, my symptoms disappeared.

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9. Cops don't like these kind of jokes

I was at a tech conference today. I like to broadcast random WiFi hotspot names to mess with people, so I changed mine to "Bomb Detonator". I thought it would go over well as a joke. I mean, who hasn't seen "FBI Surveillance Van" as a network?

Holy. Do not do this!!!

Cops got called. I got to spend about 45 minutes chatting with them. They asked a lot of questions. They had to make sure I'm not a threat. I cooperated fully. I have no doubt being a white guy at a nerd gathering probably helped. I was told I wasn't being charged. I was, however, told to leave the venue and not to come back.

Flash forward two hours and I go to log into my work email on my phone. Huh. Password failed. Huh, again. Ok, let's not fat finger this and lock the account. Pull out the laptop, remote into my work PC. Go to log in. "Your account has been disabled. Contact your systems administrator."

20 minutes later I get the text message.

You are being placed on paid administrative leave effective today 5/23 while the agency investigates today’s events surrounding you being removed from the <venue>. You are not to complete any work, access agency networks or report to the office during your leave. We will contact you when the investigation is complete.

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8. Good breeding

So I’ve been spending A LOT of time around dogs. I’ve recently been hired by friends families and family friends to walk or watch their dogs. My Facebook is solely dog pages and dog-related charities. Basically everywhere I turn, I see dog. Not a bad life to live. Until yesterday.

I walked one of my mother’s friends dog to a dog friendly pub and sat in the garden enjoying a drink and the sun. It wasn’t very busy with only a few other people sat outside around me. It’s hot. I’ve just walked in the sun for maybe 20 minutes, stupidly, without water. I want to blame dehydration for this mistake, but really I know I’m just an idiot.

A couple of young ladies are sat a few tables away from me, talking and cooing over a pushchair. My first thought is that in that pushchair... is a dog. I don’t know. It’s a hot day and I’ve seen dogs in pushchairs before. Maybe they didn’t want its paws on hot tarmac. Maybe they’re just a little extra. Regardless, the thought that babies exist didn’t enter my tiny stupid brain.

As they got up to leave and walk by me, I decided to be a friendly fellow dog walker and looked up at them, uttered the words “What breed is it?” and gestured towards the pushchair. They looked very confused, and slightly offended, and proceeded to hurry away. It was a baby. A HUMAN baby.

I’m so glad they took the traditional British approach of confused stare and silence. If they had said something I think I would have disintegrated on the spot. It was a long walk home after that and thankfully, I didn’t pass anymore pushchairs.

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7. Great googly moogly

When I was 7,about 12 years ago, me and a few of my buddies were playing pretend as spies on the bus home from school. Since spies have cool invisible speakers in their ears to contact people, I thought it would be a good idea to use a googly eye that I had lifted from school in the place of this speaker. You know, one of those googly eyes you use for arts and crafts.

The googly eye idea worked perfectly for a minute until I pressed it too far into my ear. In trying to grab it out, I only pushed it even further in. I was kind of worried at this point and decided to ask my big cousin, who was on the bus, if she could get it but she said you couldn't see it in my ear. I could hear it rattling and it was very annoying but being too scared to tell my dad, I stupidly decided to let it be for the time being. After a few days it stopped rattling and I assumed it had fell out and that was the end of that.

Skip forward to this Tuesday; I do kayaking at university and got a big slap on the head with a paddle and I was submerged under water, after I emerged and pulled my boat out I could hear a slight rattle in my ear and I knew instantly what it was. It's now Friday and the rattling happens every time I turn my head and I still haven't build up the nerve to go to the doctor and confess my unusual prosthesis.

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6. The lord of the rings

So yesterday was my sister’s birthday. I was waking up from a night shift worker induced sleep when my teenaged sister wandered into my room to proudly boast of her presents.

“Look what mom gave me,” said my poor sister, unaware of what was about to happen as she placed a pretty little golden ring with her birthstone into my palm.

Now, I cannot stress enough that what happened next took nothing more than a split second. I looked at that ring in my hand and I just got this image of me throwing back my head and swallowing the thing like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. My primitive ape brain said “funny joke!”

So I did it.

I think it was the next split second when I saw the horror in my sister’s eyes and felt the ring slide past my gullet that I realized what a horrible mistake I had made.

So my little sister runs screaming from my room and I hobble out as well, head bowed in repentance and eyes brimming with shame as I admitted that I, a twenty year old grown woman, had swallowed my little sister’s ring. No, I didn’t know why I did it. Yes, I am an idiot. No one was amused and everyone was very mad, which is very understandable.

So after a brief intermission from my sister’s birthday as I make a quick excursion to the ER, where my story is once again not found funny by anyone and is met with either stern disapproval or a remarkable sense of passivity, like you could see in their eyes that they had seen endless nonsense and to them I was just a simple drop in the ocean of human stupidity. They took a couple X-rays and I hung around the ER for about 8 hours before they broke the news that I was going to live (much to my mother’s chagrin) and to go home and wait for nature to take its course.

I crapped out the ring this morning.

Happy birthday, sis.

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5. I blue myself

I’m 23 years old, and I admittedly deserved this for my cheap, filthy ways.

Earlier today I was in a grocery store with a friend who was finishing up a transaction with the cashier. During that time, instead of just breaking change at the register like a normal human being, I thought I would casually walk over by the gumball machines to check for free candy, maybe someone put in a quarter and forgot to collect their reward?

I checked four candy dispensers; all empty. One last chance. I opened up the very last dispenser, and to my joyous, dirty surprise, I find a delicious blue gumball just waiting to be devoured. Without any thought or inspection, I excitedly tossed it in my mouth and bit down. At the exact moment of impact from my teeth to the gumball, blue paint bursts all throughout my mouth and starts flowing down my face…Someone had put a paintball in the gumball machine’s dispenser.

So there I am, a sad, teary eyed grown man in a heavily populated grocery store, freaking out in disgust as I spit blue paint out of my mouth by the candy machines. I’m certain I looked ridiculous, and I’m still brushing my teeth.

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4. A very cute mistake

So it's summer, which means my 6yo daughter goes to summer camp. I was dropping her off at about 8ish and I was also going to drop my dog off at doggie daycare because the gardeners are coming today and they don't appreciate her trying to protect them from those rakes and lawnmowers. For the record, the dog is a 13 year old black lab/pit bull mix.

Anyway, stopped at the summer camp. My daughter grabbed the dog's leash and walked her to the drop off desk to show her to her friends. I signed my daughter in and then I.... just drove off. In my defense, well, I got nothing. Honestly, I just forgot the dog there.

So my wife picks up our daughter in the afternoon and is quite surprised to find the dog there with her. Apparently, the dog (and the kids) had a great day at summer camp. I now have pictures of my dog participating in such activities as "paint a rock" (she did not do very well on this one), "learning about dinosaurs" (did not participate), and "digging for fossils" (which was right in her sweet spot of digging bones out of dirt). She also enjoyed water activities and apparently stole some snacks. She got a free shirt and we got a picture of her wearing the shirt with her camp team wearing identical shirts.

All in all, could have gone worse.

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3. Bless me father, for I have sinned

I was 16 when this happened. The golden age of screw ups.

I hooked up with one of the girls from my church. We were on opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to religious obligations. I was more of an observer in our church, whereas as she was like fully devoted to serving the Big G. However the two of us shared one common goal: we wanted to bang. Which we did. But afterwards she was overcome with religious guilt and without warning me went straight to our pastor to confess her "carnal sins". She named and shamed both of us. None of this would've been that bad if it wasn't for the messed up fact that our pastor was also my father.

So thanks to that confession, that's how my dad found out his son dipped his doodle in the Deacon's daughter.

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2. Just plane stupid

I was running a bit late for a long-haul flight from Delhi to London, so I quickly bought some snacks and shoved them in my travel bag as I ran to the boarding gate.

About 4 hours in (whilst half the people were asleep and the other half were getting annoyed that the TVs had stopped working), there was a massive bang and the whole plane launched into hysteria.

I can't even explain how loud it was, especially given the plane was in near silence. Immediately, every baby started screaming as loudly as they could and every mother started crying madly. It didn't help that it was pitch black either, so all the flight crew running around amongst the panicking masses couldn't see where they were going at all, so just ran straight into all the passengers as they jumped out of their seats. The people who had been sleeping woke up to a scene normally saved for badly produced films and needless to say also began manically hyperventilating.

After a few minutes of sheer terror, the lights came back on and everyone gradually calmed down. My travel bag was revealed as the source of the blast - obviously to my surprise - and was carefully opened. Tons of what looked like sawdust/powder fell out onto the chairs below and once again everyone freaked out for a few seconds.

As it turns out, in India they hyper inflate their crisp/chip packets so the contents don't get crushed. They're also dirt cheap, so I bought about 8 packets (those were the snacks I'd grabbed in a rush earlier). The pressure built up as we ascended, and when the plane jolted from the turbulence, they all blew up simultaneously.

And that is how I accidentally triggered a bomb scare on an international flight.

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1. The perils of online 'dating'

Okay so this happened over the weekend and today. On Friday, I went to view an apartment. I had talked to the landlord on the phone and was seeing the apartment with the super. So I see the apartment, everything’s great, get an application, fill it all out and email it to the landlord.

I get a call from him a few hours later, just going over details of my application and he offers me the place. I’m going to go in on Monday to sign the lease.

Okay so now it’s Saturday night and I’m just swiping through Tinder when I match with a cute guy, mid 30s, (I'm 20). Let’s call him Steve. He messaged me, we flirt, he comes over to my place. We made mediocre love at best, then he left to go home.

So Monday rolled around and I went to the apartment building to sign the lease and tie up any loose ends.

I walked up the building and Steve was standing outside with a woman. I saw he had some papers in his hand.

The woman waves to me and introduces herself as Steve’s WIFE. Steve looks totally chill, while I’m freaking outside but trying to remain calm. I did not sign up for this.

Anyway, I feel bad for his wife and I feel like a horrible person even though I had no idea that he was married. Can’t wait to live there for a whole year!

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