People From Around The World Share The Smallest Event That Had The Biggest Impact On Their Life
People From Around The World Share The Smallest Event That Had The Biggest Impact On Their Life
Life is full of surprises. Usually, though, it's pretty easy to look back on your past and identify the major milestones that have occurred throughout your life. But that's only in hindsight. It's much more difficult to know how a single event is going to impact your life in the long run while it's happening.
Just take it from the following people, who recently shared stories about the smallest event that had the biggest impact on their lives.
48. Lucky Mr. Sandman
I was riding my motorcycle years ago to visit a chick in Tallahassee, FL. It was 1 am and I was trying to figure out exactly where she lived (this was in the pre-GPS days). I got sand in my eye from the road and stopped at a red light to try and clean them out. The light went green, but I sat there a few seconds cleaning my eyes. There was nobody around so I wasn't worried about blocking traffic. Right at that moment, an old beat up car blew the red light doing almost 100 mph. I am 100% positive I am still here because I got sand in my eyes.
47. Science Fair Serendipity
I went to the science fair at a local college when I was in 8th grade (they picked the winners from local schools). A mutual friend introduced me to a girl who was going to go to the same school as me. We ended up in a ton of the same classes in 9th/10th grade and used to joke that after high school we'd live together and work at an aquarium (we were both environmental science students).
We lost touch after high school. She becomes a teacher, runs into my mom who works for the county school system. She recognized her and they got talking and she gives my mom her number and says she and I should catch up. We meet up and hang out for 8+ hours. Do it again two days later. We end up dating and getting married. Thanks science fair!
46. Matching Towels
Just over five years ago, in culinary school, my teacher went off on a rant about paper towels being next to useless in a professional kitchen since cloth towels were reusable and better at cleaning up wet or sticky spills without leaving residue. I didn't think about it but laughed a bit.
A few days later I was browsing OKCupid (I'd been alone for a while and was starting to give up) when I passed a profile I'd skipped over a few times. He was only an 86% match but dressed as Ash Ketchum. I clicked. His profile was obviously a joke, with multiple paragraphs espousing the glorious usefulness of the common paper towel. It was bad Shakespeare. It was three pages long. What was this guy thinking?
As I continued to read, I started to remember my teacher's earlier counterpoints on the superiority of the cloth towel. Out of all the things to take a side on, I couldn't believe I had the perfectly relevant counterpoint. I sent him a message detailing why his opinion was erroneous. We've now lived in China, Japan, the US, and the UK together, are engaged, have two cats and just adopted our first dog. We keep both paper and cloth towels in the kitchen.
45. Engineered Marriage
During my junior year of high school, I received a well-crafted mailer advertising an engineering summer camp at a college I’d never heard of in a different state. My mother really liked the mailer, so my parents sent me to engineering camp that summer.
On the first day of camp, I arrived late to the orientation and sat in the only available seat. The guy I sat next to fell in love with me instantly. We started dating at camp, then the next year we both went to that college so we could be together. Four years after that, we both graduated with engineering degrees and got married.
If my mother hadn’t liked that mailer, I wouldn’t have met my husband, I wouldn’t have gone to that school, and I probably would have had a different major as well. Also, if I hadn’t sat down next to him at orientation, we probably wouldn’t have started dating. Pretty wild.
44. No Retail Regrets
When I was 17, I left school with no degree, no money, and no idea what to do with my life. My dad managed to get me a job in retail.
On my way to my first day of work, I was struck by a car. The manager didn't care and gave my position to someone else.
With literally nothing left to do, I decided to go back to school. That was about 7 years ago. I graduated with honors, went to university, got my bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (something everyone I knew and talked to told me was impossible for a screw-up like me) and now I work as an engineer making more money in my first year of work than I ever did in my entire life.
Sometimes I think about tracking the guy down who hit me with his car to thank him.
43. A Party Worth Missing
A friend from school was having an engagement party. I'd moved several hours drive away since high school and was having car trouble, so I wasn't sure I could make it. My friend gave me the name of one other person living in my new town who was also invited, a friend of her future husband. I got in contact with this guy and introduced myself, then asked if he was planning to go to the party and wanted to split the travel costs. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to make it to the party either because of work commitments. Tracking him down still turned out to be worthwhile though. Next year will be our 20th anniversary together.
42. Last-Minute Match
I had been on OkCupid and Tinder for about two years and was done with it. Signed on to OkCupid to delete my account, and decided to just take one last look at the available matches. Saw a girl who seemed like someone I might like -- not that it matters as most don't even reply. I straight up just hit her with a dad joke and decided to give her a day to see if she'd notice. She actually replied, and we hit it off! Fast forward to the present day -- we've been living together for a while and I've begun ring shopping.
41. Catching A Brake
If I had decided to tie my shoes when I noticed my laces were undone, I would have been run over accidentally by the woman who raised me when she hit the gas instead of the break. Instead, I walked to the side of the car before tying my shoes and lived.
40. Sober Soldier
After waking up from another blackout night of drinking, I drove to the CVS at the shopping center just down the street to get some more Powerade (my hangover cure back then). There was an Army guy on the sidewalk having a smoke so I joined him for a quick cigarette. Four years later, I received my honorable discharge from the Army, sober.
39. Keys To Happiness
When I was a kid, the pastor of my parents' church heard me practicing Bach on the piano. He asked if I'd like to try the pipe organ -- something that had always fascinated me. I took to it like a duck to water, even though my feet could barely reach the pedals. So right then and there -- knowing my parents couldn't afford it -- he offered to pay for my complete music education in preparation for college (including organ, piano, theory, keyboard harmony, and ear training). His act of generosity and kindness brought about my career. And all he asked in return was for me to substitute for the church organist when he was on vacation or away, something I was honored to do.
38. Missed Shot
My friend went to VA Tech and he told me he signed up for the class that first got shot up by the active shooter a while back. Same time block, same class, and everything. He decided to drop it like a week before or something. Pretty insane.
37. Work Turned Marriage
My mum and her friend were at a small local bar and invited me to join them. That night I semi-joked with the owner that she should hire me. Very long story short, she did. During the seven-ish months I worked there I met a lot of her friends. She turned out to be an addict and the bar went bust.
One of her friends, with whom I had grown close, offered me a trial for a job at the fine dining steak house he managed. I trialed and I got the job. On my first shift, I met the other bartender. I thought to myself, ‘Huh, wouldn’t it be funny if he ended up being the love of my life?’ Spoiler alert, he is. It’s been five years.
36. Leaving It To Chance
My dad flipped a coin to decide where he’d go to next on his backpacking trip around Australia. If that coin had been the other way he’d have never met my mum and I’d never have been born. My whole life is based on a coin toss. That has always tripped me out.
35. Valentine's Day Massacre
After I made a special lunch for Valentine’s Day for my girlfriend in middle school, with heart-shaped items and such, her friend, one of the cutest girls in the school, came up to me. She said, “Aww, you're so cute... not like in a physical way though.” I’m 32, and although I’m not obsessed all the time, I do hear that voice anytime I feel confident about my looks.
34. Cake Ball Redemption
After my first boyfriend dumped me when I was 19, my sister felt bad for me. So she invited me over to bake with her. She showed me this new thing called "cake balls" and we loved them. I started making them for any party or family get together. 9 years later, I have a side business selling these cake balls and if it keeps growing like it has this year, it will be my full-time job by 2019. If she had picked any other recipe, I may not be where I am today and be a small business owner.
33. Feeling The Chemistry
I randomly chose Biology for my last A-level option. I didn't particularly like Biology, but given that I'd chosen other Sciences and Maths for the other three A-Levels it only felt fitting. My plan was to drop it after a year and pursue my first three options for University.
One year into a boring-as-heck Biology course, we move on to a new topic -- metabolism. I loved it. This is where I discovered Biochemistry was a thing, and I'm now going into my final year of a BSc degree in Biochemistry.
Had I not randomly chosen Biology I wouldn't even know Biochemistry existed as a field. This is why it annoys me when people complain about having to study subjects they don't like or care about at school. How can you know what you like without trying anything?
32. Key To Her Heart
A girl that was friends with my oldest two brothers locked her keys in her car and needed my brother’s help getting them out. I drove him since he didn’t know how to get to her job. We’ve been together for a year now and she’s moved in with me recently.
31. Love For Literature
When I was a kid, we didn't have a lot of money, so we often shopped at thrift stores. What I loved about that was that you could get 10 books for a dollar, so I would plant myself in front of the book section and make piles of which ones I wanted to get.
One day, an older lady saw me sitting with my piles and asked if I liked to read. I told her I did and showed her a few of the books I found that I liked. She smiled and then pulled a dollar out of her purse, handed it to me and said, "Promise me that you'll keep reading."
I was so happy and immediately stood up and said that I would. She smiled and walked away and I went back to my piles, able to pick out an extra 10 books to take home. It was just a small act of kindness for her, but for me having a random stranger encourage my love of reading and making me promise to never stop definitely had a lot to do with my continued love of reading. This was over 20 years ago, but I still think of her whenever I buy a new book.
30. Coloring Inside The Lines
In kindergarten, I misunderstood a coloring assignment where you had to color the matching butterflies the same color (the butterflies with square wings were supposed to be blue, the ones with round wings red, etc.). Instead, I just colored the butterflies however I wanted. I showed my finished work to the substitute for the class, who also happened to be the school principal. When she saw how much I had screwed up, she tore the paper up in front of me and yelled about how I had done the assignment all wrong.
Since then, I’ve typically been a “to-the-books” worker who is afraid of trying a new technique or method even if it would be better. I’ve also been a perfectionist and I was clinically diagnosed with OCD for a while after that event.
29. Sweater Weather
One day, I asked my partner what color cardigan I should wear, the yellow one or the green one? He shrugged and said, "It doesn't matter."
Later on that day, I was walking through a shopping center. A man struck up a conversation with me. We got along and talked for quite a while. Near the end of our conversation, he offered me a job with his charity, helping out the community. I agreed. Before we parted ways, he asked, "Hey, weren't you wearing a yellow cardigan earlier?" I said I was, but I had taken it off because it was too warm.
He said, "Ah, you see, I thought you were my friend in your yellow cardigan, so I took a second look at you and approached you." If I had worn a different color cardigan, I wouldn't be in the fulfilling role I am now. I would be slaving away in some job somewhere on a totally different trajectory. The color of your cardigan can matter! Stand out and you will be noticed.
28. A Life Lesson
I distinctly remember on my entrance exam for school there was one question I wasn't sure of, so I randomly put C. It was right, and the school put me two grades higher than the normal students since I passed the threshold. I met the love of my life in my class, in the grade, I was in. Would never have happened if it wasn't for that one letter.
27. Wrong Text In The Right Direction
When I was in high school, I got a new phone and lost all my numbers. I meant to text my aunt that I was planning on walking to her house after school, but I typed the wrong number. Almost nine years later, I’m getting married to wrong number guy next month.
26. Taco 'Bout Love
Less than two miles from my mother's house, there was a golf course that I used to frequent. I never drank when I golfed, so I never got to meet the bar crew or anything like that. I'd play in tournaments there, and I tended to end up at the driving range after work.
Well, there had been this girl I've known since high school, and honestly, I had a crush on her the entire time. She posted a picture of tacos on her Instagram. These tacos looked like perfection. Then and there I knew I had to go try those tacos. Let me tell you they were darn near perfection, but not nearly as perfect that that beautiful blonde bartender I stumbled into that day. Now I'm an awkward human being so I hardly said a word that first day. But here we are almost two years later to the day and we're engaged, homeowners, and proud puppy parents. All because she posted a picture of tacos.
25. Partners For Life
I enrolled late at my University and as a result, my name wasn't around when the school put together the project groups for the first semester. After having a chat with them, they told me to just find someone. I have no idea how the conversation got started, but I ended up chatting with three other guys and asked to join their group. Fast-forward a couple of months, and one of them had become my best friend. Fast forward a few years, and I'm dating his sister. Fast-forward another few years and we've now been together for over a decade. We have a child together, making him my son's uncle. So yeah. That one random conversation that got started between a few fresh computer science students basically triggered the direction my whole adult life would take.
24. Have A Seat
My life seems to be dictated by where I sit. Sat next to a girl in the lecture theatre on my first day at university. Ended up living together, met a lot of friends because of her, and ended up doing really well at university because of said friends. They gave me tips and motivation to go to class. Ended up landing my dream job because of university before I even graduated. My tutor liked the fact I showed up to class all the time and I showed dedication. He put my name into an internship scheme. The internship turned to a permanent contract. So I got my dream job because of where I sat.
Also, I was at a party and sat down in the only chair available. A girl turned up and said, "Sorry but you're in my chair I've been sitting here all night." I'm getting married to chair girl next year.
23. Important Course Of College
Acceptance letter for my preferred degree/college came a week into my second choices semester. If I had gone to my first choice, I would have made different friends, different major, everything. My life would be so different from what it is.
22. Losing The Baggage
A lot of things happened in my childhood that led me to be very depressed for the past 15-20 years. None of the things I was depressed about have happened for years, I just couldn’t shake them.
A few months ago, I watched the episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Michael Richards (Kramer). Jerry makes a comment, something like: “You’ve been carrying around this baggage for a long time. Isn’t it time you just put it down?” I paused the show and thought for a while about that statement. I took his advice and my mind has been so much better since.
21. Wild Ride
I missed my bus, so I got on the next one. A couple of girls approached me and started making conversation. We exchanged numbers and became good friends. I met my best friend through those girls, and even though the girls and I had a falling out, I still have that same best friend. Through that friend, I was introduced to online gaming, and through that, I met my boyfriend. He moved 1,200 miles to be with me, we now live together and will be celebrating our five year anniversary this summer. All because I missed a bus in high school.
20. The Perfect Pit Stop
A couple of years ago, I decided to take stop at a different gas station than normal to pick up beer on the way home. An old friend was there too. He offered that I could swing by his place and hang out and catch up. Fast forward to now and we're best friends, closer than family and hang out daily, all because I went to a different gas station.
19. Long-Distance Love
When I was in college (early '80s), someone gave me a hacked calling card number. This allowed me to make free long distance calls. I started calling the girl I had been casually dating back home. We would talk for hours, several times per week. Ended up becoming best friends and falling in love. We just celebrated our 30 year wedding anniversary.
18. Early Bird Special
I was in my early years of college and I consistently ate dinner at 6 or 6:15 every night in the University Dining Hall. One Thursday, for some odd reason, I ate early and finished a little before 6 PM. I was leaving the dining hall and remembered there was a club meeting I was remotely interested in checking out that night at 6.
I get there and join this club and start being my flirtatious and outgoing self, just testing the waters to see if any of the girls in the club might be interested. One particular girl responded positively to everything I did and then after the meeting agreed to let me walk her to her dorm. I got her phone number and then walked back to my room texting her. Three years later, we are engaged and living happily ever after.
17. Putting Back The Pieces
Broke my arm in three places. Basically starting a new life. Can’t do my old jobs so we’re making big changes.
16. Brownie Points
When I was a junior in high school, I got mad at my friends and sat elsewhere during the bus ride on a field trip. I sat in a row by myself, but at one point talked to the guy behind me because he offered brownies to people around him. I’d never talked to him before that. That was 12 years ago, and I’m still friends with him and met a bunch of people through him that I’m still friends with also... one of whom I married.
15. Online Opportunity
Once upon a time, in the 5th grade, I hit the record button and started my YouTube "career." Little did I know that would eventually make me a lot of new friends with whom I have experienced amazing things for the last four years.
14. Wrestling With Friendship
When I was a sophomore in high school, I sat alone at lunch. There were 15 empty seats. I didn't have any friends really, we moved a lot because my father was in the army. Well, one day while watching the goof troop opening song, something in the "best of friends forever" hit a chord. The next day I joined the wrestling team and met someone who eventually introduced me to a small group of friends. By my senior year, our group was well known and liked throughout the school. We were friends with everyone. I am still best friends with that group 25 years later.
13. A Lucky Language
When I was picking classes for freshman year of high school, I saw that they had Latin as an option for a language. I don't remember why, but I thought 'why not?' So I decided against continuing with French and put down Latin for my language class. My dad got all annoyed about it and told me to change to French. I sheepishly said fine. The next day though, I said screw it and stuck with Latin (also, I gave an earful to my dad). Fast forward eight years and (after some twists and turns) now I'm going to school for history, likely with a focus on Rome, all because of what I learned in that class that I picked for some random reason.
12. Perfect On Paper
I met my best friend of many years now because of an error in the paperwork I was given by HR for the start of a new job. It was my first real job, and they put the wrong start time for my orientation. He wrote 5 pm as opposed to 8 am. So naturally, I showed up hours late. Eventually, they pushed me to the next week's training class, which had my future best friend in it.
11. Strict Dating Rules
My parents made a joke when I was in the 3rd grade, saying I wasn't allowed to date girls until I was 19. Obvious joke, right? Wrong. Not to little 8-year-old me with undiagnosed Asperger's. I thought they were serious until I was 17 when I asked about it. They didn't even remember making the joke. I'm 24 and I've still never been on a date.
10. All Worked Out
I was running on the treadmill at the gym and my MP3 player broke midway through. The girl running next to me saw me messing with it and struck up a conversation with me. We married two years later.
9. A Heart-Warming Story
I was having difficulty sleeping, maybe two or three nights a week. When I would lie down, I would get this panicked feeling and have to get up. I thought I was having panic attacks. It turns out that my heart was full of blood clots and was in end-stage heart failure. It took 18 months to get listed for a transplant and another 18 months to climb the waiting list and receive a heart transplant. I even had to spend a year on an artificial heart while I was waiting for a donor's heart. I'm three years out now and I've met my donor's family. We get together all of the time. My donor was 25 and he died from head trauma from a fall at work.
Official U.S. Navy Page/Flickr
8. A Brush With Death
I grew up in a beautiful old house in the historic district of my tiny hometown. One evening, I was sitting on my bed (probably reading) and I got the strangest urge to brush my hair. I got up and walked across the room to grab my brush and a huge part of the ceiling came crashing down right where I was sitting just seconds earlier. Water damage. Who knew?
7. TV Over Towers
I was visiting New York with two friends on vacation. On 9/11, she wakes me up because a plane crashed into a building. On this day, we wanted to visit the World Trade Center after breakfast. The only thing that stopped us from potentially dying is the fact that my friend likes to watch TV in bed.
6. Best Lunch Ever
I was a newbie junior system admin at my second real job out of college (the first one had been at a startup and didn't last long), and rather than running out for lunch one day, I decided to pop down to the cafeteria.
On the way, I had to walk through the building lobby, and while doing so I saw one of the senior admins talking with two guys I didn't recognize. I walked over and said hi, and it turned out that those two guys were our enterprise storage sales team from EMC, and they were there to talk about a huge storage admin refresh (this was at a large company and it was going to be a fair size deal).
They were about to duck into a conference room and I saw they had a bunch of Jason's Deli box lunches. I asked the senior admin if he didn't mind me sitting in on the meeting, with the goal in mind of me scoring a free lunch.
The meeting was fascinating. I asked a lot of questions. I ended up asking if I could help with the SAN upgrade, and it turned out that I was both really interested in and really good at storage admin type stuff.
A year later, I was the site storage administrator; that paved the way for a transition into being a multi-site enterprise storage architect, which eventually turned into a decade-long career, which then turned into a job directly at EMC, which then catapulted me out of IT and into, weirdly enough, journalism—which is what I do now.
I'm glad I decided to randomly pop by the cafeteria that day—it turned into probably the most important career move I've ever made.
And to the folks asking, yes, I did indeed get my free box lunch that day and it tasted glorious.
5. Full Ride
One day before homeroom in my junior year of high school, I went to hang out at my friend Marc's locker, like we all usually did every morning. I came upon our other friend Dave trying to convince Marc to join a club called Junior Achievement at their first meeting later that night. It's a 'young business leaders' sort of extracurricular club. When I asked what they're talking about, Dave suggested I should give it a try as well.
Later that night, my parents were late getting home from my some event, so I figured it was too late for them to give me a ride to this Junior Achievement thing — but when my dad walked in the door and I reminded him, he hurried me out to the car and I go. Was in the club both junior and senior year of high school with my friends.
Our regional Junior Achievement club offered an annual full tuition scholarship to a local private university. A top tier school, but one I was not considering. However, Marc, Dave and our other senior year friends already had their college careers planned out, so they convinced me to apply for the scholarship so that at least someone from our club applied.
In the end, apparently only me and some other kid from some other local club in our region applied for the scholarship. And I must have wowed the selection committee, because I won the scholarship and got a nearly free ride into that university.
Which was good news, since I wasn't accepted at any of the other colleges I applied at.
So I owe my entire college career, all the friends I made there and probably my current job to that random morning before homeroom.
4. Fate Of A Farmer
Two tornados ravaged our neighborhood minutes after another. My dad went to help people and met an old woman with a downed tree. He helped her with that, and we ended up keeping in touch. This woman took me under her wing after my father was sentenced to ten years in federal prison.
She taught me everything about running a self-sustainable farm, let me raise my own animals, lent me money, and taught me how to be proud of my non-white heritage. She got me connections into internship programs for conservation services and supported me when I couldn't handle college and decided to drop out. Now I'm a tank that can chuck hay bales and work a cow through labor. All thanks to her.
3. Family Is Forever
I had just given birth to my first born and called my adoptive father to tell him he was a grandfather for the first time.
We had a very poor, almost estranged relationship and he was a huge alcoholic. He lived hundreds of miles away, so letting him know seemed harmless (he wouldn’t actually be part of my kid’s life, it was kinda a “screw you” to a man who’d been a jerk to me my entire life, and I knew he’d like bragging to his friends.)
It’s 10 am when I call, he says, “you should call “Joe” (my biological father who I’d never met).
Three days later, I found Joe on the internet (AOL days). I called the number and he answered the phone. That’s also super odd. His wife says he NEVER answers the phone and I probably wouldn’t have said anything to a woman, not knowing how she’d feel about him having fathered a kid 30 years earlier.
I said, “Joe, were you married to “Jane” in 1967?”
“Yes”
“Well I wanted to let you know, I’m your daughter and three days ago, you became a grandfather.”
He was quiet (not surprising) and I gave him my web site so he could see pix of me and the baby. They didn’t even have internet so went to a friend’s house. Called back an hour later and said, “how would you feel if we took a little drive up to see you?” (From Florida to the DelMarVa area.)
That was 20+ years ago. They moved up here shortly after #2 was born. We see them almost every weekend. His wife and my mom are good friends. My kids are their only grandchildren and pretty much are the light of their life.
Never thought that phone call would change my life.
And my adoptive father? Stayed a mean alcoholic and died 7 years ago having never met grandchild #3.
Here is a little more background on my story: I was a 60s “spring fling” baby while my mom and dad were students at Penn State. They “did the right thing” in the day and got married. They were 20 and 23 years old.
Right after I was born, my lawyer grandfather told my dad to “get out of my daughter’s life”. I think there was a whole Catholic/Protestant thing with the families plus my dad was a “long haired hippie who was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war.”
My grandparents had a “nice Protestant boy coming home from war” lined up for my mom. Very planned. My mom and dad were young and naive.
She married the Vet and he got joe to sign adoption papers. They were supposed to keep in touch but narcissists lie.
My adoptive father even got primary custody of me when he and my mom divorced.
Turns out that Joe had always talked about me. He and his parents had baby pics of me in their house and often wondered about me.
He said he wanted to look me up, but didn’t want to make waves with my adoptive father.
As for finding him on the Internet pre-google, I knew his full name (and our last name is fairly unique) from my original birth certificate that my mom had kept. There were 3 “Joes” with that full name. The first Joe didn’t answer. The second Joe was actually my grandfather and I spoke with my grandmother first. She said I was very “known” and loved and urged me to hang up and call Joe #3, so I did. Joe #1, who didn’t answer, was some uncle/3rd cousin. It’s all family.
My step mom is very sweet and always wanted grandchildren so she’s thrilled I found them.
My adoptive father did find out I’d found my bio dad and was angry. I reminded him that he told me to do it.
As for my adoptive father “doing the best he could “ and “being there when biological dad couldn’t, it’s not that kind of a fairytale. He was an abusive narcissist.
I do think it’s a very sweet story that I want to make into a novel someday. I never, in a million years expected to gain this wonderful family when I made that phone call.
2. Monkey Business
At age 15, I was forced to hang out with a family member on a vacation I didn't want to go on. We ended up visiting the zoo. I didn't feel like walking around with my cousin, so I hung out by the chimps for a long time. I ended up seeing one of them make a face of what appeared to be amusement and was surprised by how human-like it was. So I went home, did some research, and stumbled upon the discipline of anthropology, which turned out to be one of my greatest passions. Soon after, I denounced my old religion, and became a proponent of evolution, causing an enormous rift in my family life and sending me on a path of heathen adventures.
1. A Light Warning
I watched a video with a caption that said something along the lines of "why you should always wait a few seconds when the light turns green." In it, a semi T-boned a car after running a light. The next day, I was leaving base and I stopped at a red light. Usually, when they turn green, I gun it, but I remembered the video I saw, so I waited. I watched a semi blow his red light right in front of me, going at least 50 mph. Had I gone, I would be gone. So glad I came across that video on Facebook.
