Some Redditors have related the times they made mistakes or did something so outrageous that new rules were put in place so that others would not follow in their footsteps! Keep reading to see what you should avoid, unless you want to change the rules about the way things are done.

Silence Ain't Always Golden!

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“No sign language during silent lunch punishment”. My lunch period was so loud that we got put on silent lunch for over a month straight. I knew the perfect solution. 

I decided the only clear solution was to teach my entire table sign language so we could still talk without getting in trouble. Apparently, it was “unfair” to the kids who didn’t know how to sign, so we had to stop. Story credit: Reddit / Future-unperson

Power Ranger Gets A Military Discharge

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A friend of mine in an army school found out the regulations never stated what color the bed sheets for a bed made for inspection had to be in. So this mad man went crazy. He bought Power Ranger sheets and made the perfect regulation bed.

I have never seen so many sergeants lose their cool but be unable to do anything since the regulations were perfectly followed. Needless to say the next year they were updated to state sheets must be plain white. Story credit: Reddit / Cueball-2329

Brains Win Free Pizza

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Back in the day, a radio station near me had a weekly trivia contest. The prize was a free pizza and a movie rental. Somehow my mom hit upon the most genius idea. She figured out which book they were using for the trivia questions, and then she bought it and memorized all the answers.

Each week we would call in immediately. Sometimes we were the first but even if we weren’t, it didn’t matter because other people were usually just guessing.

We won almost every time. Even though we changed up who would actually make the call, they eventually figured out we were all from the same household. So they made it a rule that you couldn’t win if your family had already won in the last month or whatever.

Up until then, we enjoyed a lot of free pizzas. Story credit: Reddit / CaHot vendar

Hot Hotel Croissant Troubles

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I put a croissant in one of those hotel toasters. It soon became engulfed in flames and needed extinguishing. The next day at breakfast they made a sign that said, “If you’d like your croissant toasted, please ask a member of staff”. Story credit: Reddit / Thatbitchlol

Anonymous Suggestion Box Dies

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I got our HR box taken away at work because the HR lady threatened not to pay us if we missed clocking in or clocking out. In our defense, the phones didn’t always work and the clock in system was really unreliable.

So I printed out the law stating that was unlawful, highlighted it, and put it in her box when no one was around. Her response chilled me to the bone.

She threw an unholy fit and tried to figure out who put it in her box, and from then on everything had to be handed in personally. Story credit: Reddit / Pollowollo

Deaf, Blind, Or Neither!

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When I was walking home from school, I had to walk next to the road to get to my house. I decided to see if I could walk with my eyes closed. I didn’t feel the transition from gravel to road, and the cars didn’t honk at me because they thought I was deaf.

I heard a noise, looked back, and ran off the street into an apple orchard. Two weeks later, they put up Deaf Child Area signs on both sides of the road I live on. Story credit: Reddit / AlbusLumen

All You CAN'T Eat

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At a ballpark I worked concessions at, they had an all-you-can-eat promo day where tickets were more expensive than usual, but concessions around the stadium were free.

So I worked that day and of course, it was chaos, but when the lines started calming down later in the game they started sending some of the hourly employees home, myself included. I knew just what to do.

Of course, I didn’t go home at all. After I clocked out, I stayed in the stadium and got some cheeseburgers, Philly steak, and soda and found an empty seat in the crowd for the last few innings.

Next year it was the same promo but they added a new rule for staff. If you get sent home early, you have to actually leave the stadium. Story credit: Reddit / SANTAAAA__I_know_him

Fenced In Or Fenced Out?

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My elementary school was located in the center of the neighborhood, and my 5th-grade class was the first to get outdoor trailers for classrooms. We would ask for bathroom passes and then walk home. Next year they built a fence around the school. Story credit: Reddit / YT4000

Lo Tech Saves Hi Tech

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I was kind of an annoying kid. While my school allowed us to use laptops, I would play video games. Primarily Warcraft 3 in class. I made no sound or anything so I wasn’t being a complete nuisance, but I wasn’t doing my work. One day, a teacher told me I couldn’t use my laptop. 

As soon as she tried to control me, I got revenge. I happened to have a 1950s Remington Quiet-Riter portable, all-mechanical typewriter. It was anything but quiet, with all of the taka taka taka ding! That you’d expect from a typewriter.

After one full day of studiously taking notes and doing my assignments via typewriter, my teacher said I could use my laptop as long as I didn’t bring the typewriter to class. Story credit: Reddit / HelpfulCherry

The Limits To Unlimited Golf Ball Redemptions

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When I was 12 years old, there was a kids outdoor play area. Go karts, batting cages and the indoor was something like a Chuck-E-Cheese, token based games, etc. You could get a wrist band for maybe $15 and it would get you unlimited rides, mini-golf and some other activities.

Everything else cost tokens. When you finished golfing, you would get two tokens for bringing your ball back. Unlimited golf, $0.50 worth of play value inside. So my friends and I would go there, speed run two golf games and give the balls back. It would only cost a dollar to our pockets.

Later on, we started just fishing balls out of the water hazards and turning them in. Subtly at first and then in bulk later. The guys working there didn’t care or actively laughed at it. So we would have a few hundred tokens. We then started selling them for five tokens for a dollar.

We stopped buying the unlimited bands. I would bike there and earn 25 dollars in just a couple of hours. Management eventually caught on and altered the token for ball exchange, so golf users could no longer return an unlimited number of balls for tokens. Story credit: Reddit / Teripid

Birth Of A Tattoo Artist

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In middle school I would use sharpies to tattoo myself, and the other kids thought it was cool so I started charging them $1 per drawing wherever they wanted. The principal found out and after I wouldn’t stop, she put a ban on sharpies for the entire school.

Even the teachers couldn’t bring them in. And here’s the twist. I’m a tattoo artist now. Story credit: Reddit / Orbitalconfusion 

Student Flexibility

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In my history class in high school, there were about 10 of us who were really close friends. We would take every opportunity we got to make “your mom” jokes. A couple months into class, the teacher made us sign a treaty promising to stop making fun of each other’s moms.

We signed it, and then started making fun of each other’s dads. Story credit: Reddit / MoreMegadeth

Our Clients Always Get The Best

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Years ago we took a bunch of clients out and everyone had way too much to drink so I ordered everyone Uber rides home. I turned in the expense report to our account manager, which was just under $400 for the Uber rides, and she had no clue what an Uber was.

I explained to my bosses that we expense drinks for clients so why not expense Uber rides as well. Now if we pay for drinks for clients, we also pay for their Uber ride. Story credit: Reddit / Routine-Peach8405

Name The Name Rules

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I was a teacher who coached debate and took the team of high school students on weekend tournament trips. I had new rules every year and my co-coach and I privately called them the name of the student who “made” them. For example, the “Jess” rule was that if you harassed anyone, you were sent home.

The “Annie” rule was no debating in fake accents. There was the “Dylan” rule, which was no communal racy movie watching in the hotel rooms. “Jess” rule number two was do everything you can to vomit into the garbage can or toilet and not on the floor.

“Jess” rule number three was no yelling at nurses in the ER that you are a virgin when they ask you to take a pregnancy test. “Jess” rule number four was we can cut you off after 12 minutes of non-stop talking. Jess was a character, obviously. Story credit: Reddit / GoddessOfOddness

Boy Scout Good Deed

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My older brother got a curfew enforced at Boy Scout camp when one of the leaders noticed him walking around the area in the daytime with his eyes closed, counting steps. He may have just been practicing being blind, but they suspected a darker motive. 

The adults assumed he was figuring out how to get around at night without the lights so he could get into some kind of mischief. Which, knowing my brother, was also possible. Story credit: Reddit / Screw_you_Reddit_Nazi

Why Lower Deck Rides Got Abolished

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I used to ride on the bottom area of the shopping carts at our nearest grocery store. I thought it was fun to put my hands on the front of it, sliding them along the ground while the cart was moving. One sticky spot on the ground later and my hand was pulled back and thumb went right under the wheel.

Crunched my little thumbnail and my mom had to remove it. The store put up signs after that saying it’s against the rules for kids to ride in the bottom of carts. Story credit: Reddit / ForeverKeet

Staying Ahead Of The Game

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I used to work for a company that had flex hours. You could work all you want, but no overtime. So I would work four 10-hour days and then take three-day weekends.

That lasted for about two months before my employer made a rule that we had to be there five days a week, for stupid reasons I didn’t like. I still figured out a way to game his system. Then I used to come in at 4 am to avoid traffic, skip lunch, and leave at noon.

Nobody noticed for about six months but they figured out I was not coming back after lunch and changed the policy so I could not come to work until 8 am. I still found out how to defy them. I started working lots of extra time, banked up my flex time, and saved up about 430 hours by October.

I was informed by HR that I could not roll it over in the new year, so I scheduled a 12-week vacation. They made a new rule over that too. When we all had to work from home, I figured out I could do a side gig, so I got a second work-from-home job and worked both until I got caught, and they laid me off.

After that there was a new rule. I just like hacking the systems they set up. They were so difficult to work for that I wanted to figure out a way to make it work for me. Story credit: Reddit / Phat3lvis

Be Careful Who You Follow

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Back in elementary school I remember there used to be this kid who followed me everywhere and actively tried to hurt me. When talking to a teacher about it they went, “Oh, he just has a crush on you”.

The next day I walk up to the kid and shove him into a wall. After that there was literally a rule in that grade: “Don’t follow other students”. Story credit: Reddit / _-Boba-Tea-_

When Beans Got Banned!

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Next to the playground at my elementary school, there were two or three northern catalpa trees. I didn’t have many friends in elementary school, so sometimes I would sit on the edge of the playground and play with the bean sprouts.

By play with, I mean I would pick them up off the ground and fully peel them apart, putting any actual beans or seeds in my pockets. Then something unexpected happened.

The other children gradually started doing the same thing until eventually there were just recesses where a lot of people would just play with bean sprouts the entire time.

Our elementary school also had strict playground rules: no running on wood chips, no playing the game “wood chips”, no twirling the swings, no climbing on monkey bars, etc.

As more people began playing with the beans, beans would just end up in the school. Like everywhere. On desks? Beans. On the floor? Beans. In baskets? Beans. It became a definite issue, and with beans come bugs. As a result, they banned us from playing with the beans. Story credit: Reddit / Galaxy_love

My Brother Changed The "Pet" School Rules

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I dressed up my little brother as a bat and registered a pet bat and my (real) chicken for the “Pet and Hobby Parade” at my elementary school.

When it was my turn, everyone heard, “Chris, with his chicken ‘Lady’ and his pet bat ‘Greg’”. My brother was on a leash, flapping around and hissing at people who were watching in the crowd.

No more human pets allowed after that one. My elementary school “Pet and Hobby” fair now strictly says pet submissions cannot be human. Story credit: Reddit / CottaBird

Don't Deceive Your Friends & Siblings

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“Don’t trick your siblings or friends into eating soap”. I would cut bars of dove soap into pieces, wrap them in old candy wrappers, and pretend like they were mints. I was eight or nine years old back then. Story credit: Reddit / Applesintheorchard

Magically Rigging The School System... Until...

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In Harry Potter, there are four houses and they compete or something like that. Well, our school does that as well. Every kid is put into one of four houses and they earn “house points” throughout the school year. At the end, whoever has the most points gets a bonus field trip to someplace cool.

I was once poking around the school website and I found an archive of all the winners over the years. When I scrolled down there was a button that said, “Add Points” and naturally, I clicked it. I couldn’t believe what I found. 

I was redirected to a new page that had three things: a dropdown, a text box, and a button. I could select the house, input point value and add points. I added 25 points to my house as a test and saw that it worked. Over the following days, I’d slowly added more points.

Eventually, some teacher got suspicious of my house staying in first place for so long. The rankings typically changed daily and it’s always a close competition.

They checked the logs and saw that there were being points added after school hours. Unfortunately, they disabled access to the site after 3:00 pm on Monday-Friday and you couldn’t use it on the weekends.

It was sort of my own fault but everything we do on our school computers is tracked so I couldn’t add the points during school hours otherwise they would’ve found out it was me. Story credit: Reddit / Irregular_Chaos

Brief Meant Long To Me

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My high school biology teacher added “briefly” to all of the essay questions on his tests and quizzes because if I was bored, I would write unnecessarily long answers in really small handwriting just to take up time.

He pointed out the word “briefly” when handing out a test and said to me, “I added that for you”. So I made my next answer even longer out of spite. Story credit: Reddit / HawaiianShirtsOR

My Best Friend At Graduation

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I graduated with my PhD in April 2020. As my graduation was virtual, they asked us to take a nice picture that would pop up when they read our names off. The email said family that had been integral to your journey could be in your picture. So I took a picture with my dog and sent it in.

The next day they sent another email that said you couldn’t have pets or family in your picture. I never sent them another picture after so they used the one that I had sent earlier. Story credit: Reddit / Alpacaification

Left Behind

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As a Kindergartener, I once fell asleep in the bus. That’s when my worst nightmare actually came true. When I woke up, the bus was in the garage and I had to yell to get someone to get me out.

So to this day, every bus driver in my school district needs to walk to the back of the bus and check every seat before they park the bus. Seems like a good rule to have. Story credit: Reddit / Pikkdogs

Fireworks With No Bang

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When I was younger my dad made a rule, “Tampons will not be lit on fire and thrown out the windows of this house!” Look, dad, if you just bought us fireworks I wouldn’t have needed to improvise. But boy oh boy was that a rough period. Story credit: Reddit / Amy-Paradise

Make Your God Match Your School

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During freshman year of high school, I had to give an oral presentation on a random Greek god. And this was at a Christian school, for context. I got Dionysus, so naturally I spent many hours researching on YouTube how to be under the influence and pretended to be absolutely wasted for my presentation.

It was a great success but my teacher unsurprisingly banned Dionysus for the following years. Story credit: Reddit / Nadirbahama

When Your Work Is Too Good

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I took a Qur’an class in college and my professor assigned us a major project due at the end of the semester on some facet of Islam. We were allowed to pick any topic except for religious extremism. He said that topic wasn’t allowed because of what had happened a few years back.

Apparently, a student of his had chosen Bin Laden as his project. He was a psychology major so he found radicalization interesting and wanted to develop a paper on how someone became a terrorist.

This involved him reading a bunch of writings from Bin Laden and researching terrorist movements and people associated with terrorism. Mind you, this was all for a paper. The student was not religious at all.

He had absolutely no interest in extremism. Well, at the end of the semester, he turns in this awesome project and the year ends. The student is from out of state and is going to fly back to his family except he’s stopped at the airport. That’s when it all falls apart. 

He gets told by TSA that he’s on the no fly list. Apparently, his extensive research flagged him as an extremist and there’s now an investigation on him. They literally took him into another room and gave him a bunch of questions.

They even called my professor to have him show the paper to corroborate his story. It all got cleared up in the end, but it was a nightmare. Because of that, the class stayed away from religious extremism.

My professor said he was even nervous about researching terrorism at all because he didn’t want a repeat of what happened. Story credit: Reddit / SleepyxDormouse

Next Will Probably Be The Library Cop

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My mom got a library card at a new place many months before I did. When she got hers, she was welcome to check out however many books she wanted at a time, so she left with her shiny new card and 30 books for a project.

When I got my library card later on, those books had still not been returned, and new card holders could only take out like five books at a time. She still has those books, so I definitely don’t blame the library. Story credit: Reddit / TheThrowawayMoth

Too Much Of A Good Thing Brings Its Own Downfall

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A local self-serve frozen yogurt shop had a special for birthdays, where you pay for a small cup and can load it up as much as you want. Typically, the yogurt was measured by ounces and you paid based on the weight.

In high school, my friends and I who were a group about eight in total, did this for everyone’s birthday. We would make towers of yogurt that looked like Christmas trees sitting on a very tiny stand. Definitely over a pound of yogurt each. 

On the last attempt, it all went wrong. The owner recognized us and immediately told us that we needed to pay for our yogurt. We told her that the rules were as much as we could fit in the cup, and it wasn’t our fault.

She tried fighting us, but being stubborn high school students, we wouldn’t budge. A couple weeks later, we attempted to get our service again, and they had changed the birthdays to 12 years old and under. No more ridiculously cheap yogurt for us after that. Story credit: Reddit / Tyler123217

I Sparked A World Of Change

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About 10 years ago, I struck a rock with my golf club while trying to chip out of the tall dry grass at my local golf course. The club sparked off the rock and started a fire that burned down four acres of prairie around the golf course until the fire department put it out.

The golf course changed their out of bounds markers and named their new fire policy after me. Story credit: Reddit / Hoesindifareacodes

Rules Keep Changing

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We were allowed a 3×5 inch index card for my anatomy class and I would get the finest point pen to write down all my notes and then use a magnifying glass during the test to read it.

I got a semester’s worth of notes on there for the final. This came after the teacher had to specify that the 3×5 note card had to be in inches because someone brought a 3×5 foot poster board with all the notes on it.

After I did this, they made a new rule that did not allow magnifying glasses in class. Story credit: Reddit / Educational-Grape470

Just Doing What Teacher Said

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My US History teacher used to always say, “I don’t care what you write with. Pen, pencil, crayon, blood; just answer all of the questions” when handing out tests. No one never asked why. Presumably someone’s pen ran out halfway through the test once.

Well, one day my friend is being an idiot with a pen and making stabbing motions at me but stopping short. All the while claiming it’s perfectly fine when I tell him to knock it off before I beat him up.

Well, lo and behold, I was right and that idiot doesn’t stop short enough and leaves a pretty sizeable cut on my arm. I took advantage in the best way. I decided it would be funny if I took a staple out of my bag, and got some practice writing on the test paper like I had a quill and inkwell.

Blood was no longer allowed as a writing choice for the next test. Story credit: Reddit / DirkBabypunch

Kids Come First

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My high school had two parking lots. One in the back for staff, which is also where the buses parked for pickup/drop off, and one in the front where the students who drove parked, as well as parent pickups. The school would stagger dismissal times by about 15 minutes.

Students who took the bus leave first and load up, then the walkers go. For some reason the school had four buses parked in the student lot, and would be leaving as kids were crossing the lot from the designated crossing. I was in the crosswalk one afternoon as a bus tried to leave the lot.

Mind you, there are maybe 30 other kids behind me and this impatient driver couldn’t wait and started going as we were in the way. I stopped directly in front of him, acting like I was digging in my bag, took a sip of water, and let the whole group behind me plus another 15 kids pass before moving.

When I stepped out of the way, the driver was yelling at me. I yelled back saying, “There are kids here, idiot”. My mom and a couple other parents saw the whole thing and complained to the district.

Next year, there were no more buses in the student lot. Story credit: Reddit / Novermber_Dawn_11

I Get Caught Working My Computer Magic

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I got Windows Remote Access rights suspended for everyone at a Fortune 1000 company. Why? One of my co-workers was annoying the absolute heck out of me and I decided I would prank him. So, I wrote a little script that would Remote Access me to his PC.

I waited until he left his desk for a few minutes and did the prep work on his PC for permissions. Then came the good part. For three months I was driving this guy insane.

He would walk away, then I would Remote Access in and close out windows, open new windows, send him blank emails from himself, cancel print jobs, change his background, change his home-pages in Internet Explorer, I even messed with his Host file to re-route him to certain websites, etc.

I even got brave enough to do it a few times while he was at his desk,  since he would text often and you could hear the iPhone texting sounds throughout the office. It was going great, until I took it too far one day. I changed his keyboard scheme from QWERTY to DVORAK.

He was the sort that would just type while looking at the keyboard and assume everything was coming up on the screen fine. So he sent out a few emails that were pure gibberish except for his signature. Someone responded back with just a question mark.

He freaked out and contacted IT, thinking his system had a virus. I Remoted in and switched it back to QWERTY, but I didn’t do it fast enough and IT caught me.

A memo went out to all employees stating that the only approved methods for Remote Access were programs X, Y, and Z, and that the native Windows Remote Access was disabled from there on out. Story credit: Reddit

Senior Year Gambles

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My friends and I created monsters of our fellow classmates by getting dice and poker games started at lunch. Soon people were throwing dice in the hall and calling hop bets before class. My best friend and I kept a sheet of those who owed money to the “house”.

Someone’s mom called the principal and complained that her son owed some other students 50 dollars and he keeps spending all his money. We would still throw dice for a while in the back stairwells or the outdoor area at lunch time.

We collected about half of the money we were owed, which was around $350. After that we turned to selling candy bars and soda from our lockers. That got banned too, but we finished selling our stash. It was a profitable senior year. Story credit: Reddit / Philrickelson

Goth Renews The Separation Of Church And State

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I was an overachieving goth kid who wore a silver pentacle necklace that my great uncle sent me. It was gorgeous with an onyx in the center. One day I got called into the office and was told to take it off because some students found it offensive.

I told him that it was a symbol of my pagan religious beliefs and asked why I wasn’t allowed to wear it. Especially if other kids could wear crosses or the star of David. It was a lie as I had no religious beliefs but I felt what was happening was unfair. 

It still changed the school’s history. He threatened to call my guardian, who at the time was my aunt. I stood my ground, so he called and explained on speakerphone what was happening. She backed me up after sighing heavily.

Thus the rule that no religious emblems should be worn was enacted and was still in place when my youngest cousin went there nearly 10 years later. Story credit: Reddit / OpossumJesusHasRisen

Machete Fruit Salad

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During freshman year of university I found a machete on a hike near campus. Now for every other obvious reason this was a bad find, but there was only one school rule that came out of our shenanigans.

So out front of my dorm there was a little grove of trees, where you could duck/crawl under the branches and get to an enclosed area in the middle of the grove. It was big enough to stand and hang out in and a really cool spot where no one could see you.

So my buddies and I would take a lot of fruit from the cafeteria and bring it all with the machete to that spot. Then we would toss the fruit to each other, and slice it mid air. It was some serious real-life Fruit Ninja stuff, and we were having the time of our lives.

This went on for months, with us even taking pumpkins from the cafeteria in October and slicing those. All throughout this time, we were just building this massive fruit graveyard in that grove of trees.

Well, someone must have found it, because one day as we all tried to walkout with our arms full of fruit, we were told students were no longer able to take fruit from the cafeteria.

So our real life Fruit Ninja lifestyle ruined kids just trying to bring an apple with them throughout the day. Story credit: Reddit / Thefunkjunk

Good Hair To Good Manners, A Curse To An Unfair Principal

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I went to a Catholic school from Pre-K through high school. I was probably one of five Black students in the entire school. I was never a great student, but was liked by everyone. Parents loved me, teachers were annoyed by me because I didn’t try but they appreciated my good manners.

We ended up with a new principal around the time I started middle school, Mrs G. This is where my troubles began. Seemingly for no reason, Mrs G hated me. It could have been for my not stellar grades, but she also made comments to my mom like, “Your son might have everyone else fooled, but not me”.

It was wild. So, come 7th grade I decided to grow my hair out; it had been pretty short prior. My hair grows out into an afro until it gets super long and begins to fall into curls. My school had rules and dress codes.

The dress code stated that students could not have hair that went over their ears, past their eyebrows or over their collar. As stated above, this was a primarily white school and they had not taken into consideration different hair and the way it grows.

Mine grew out, definitely not over my eye brows, and not over my ears or collar. Granted, if one were to grab it and pull it down, it certainly would pass any of those points, but how I wore it technically met the dress code.

Mrs G contacted my mom and told her that I was in violation of the school’s dress code. When asked how, Mrs G stated my hair was far too long and, again, outside of dress code. She wasn’t prepared for the response.

My mom read the aforementioned dress code and told Mrs G that my hair didn’t reach my eye brows, and didn’t touch my ears or collar. Mrs G was not happy about it but couldn’t argue further. My mom, who prefers my hair short, nonetheless told me to stand my ground within reason.

We made sure my hair was done nice and not just randomly growing. We would keep it cut just so that even if it were to be straight, it would still meet dress code. Well, Mrs G still didn’t like it and would continue to state I was outside of policy. Turns out she just didn’t like afros.

Well, the summer between 7th-8th grade, I surprised my mom by shaving it all off. We live in the south and I get hot easily so it was just easier for me to have short hair. Fast forward to the first day of 8th grade.

The dress code had been changed to state hair on boys could only be a certain length despite where it grows to. I just know it annoyed Mrs G when I showed up with a buzz cut. Furthermore, I would go on to be awarded the “Take Time to be Kind” award, the “Most Kind Hearted” award.

Both of these are voted on by staff, students, and other parents. I also got Athlete of the Year that year. These were all presented by Mrs G. My mom loved it. Story credit: Reddit / Successful-Site-8896

Boy Scout Dedication Wins The Day

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When I was a young boy scout, we had competitions at our district campouts. One of the competitions was for cooking. For the winter campout, Saturday dinner was our judged meal.

The judges would inspect our cooking area while we were preparing the food, but for the meal, we had to deliver a plate to the headquarters cabin. My patrol were never great cooks, so we didn’t usually do well in cooking. But this time, I actually bothered to read the judging rubric for the competition.

I noticed that presentation counted for a strangely high number of points, like 40 out of a 100, which was higher than taste or cleanliness. When it came time to serve dinner, I showed up at the cabin with an actual china plate from the thrift store. Our slop was artfully arranged on it.

I had a towel over my arm and was wearing the top half of my school band tux, complete with bow tie and cummerbund. I even sort of combed my hair. I formally presented our meal and left.

We maxed out presentation points and won the blue ribbon for cooking. After that, presentation didn’t count for much, if any, points. Story credit: Reddit / Big_T_464

Our Perpetual Motion Bouncing Balls

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In middle school we had a school store that sold supplies and these tiny bouncy balls. The bathrooms in this school were narrow and made of brick from floor to ceiling. One day, I made an epic discovery. 

I discovered that if you threw a bouncy ball in the bathroom as hard as you can it would bouncy until basically the end of time. I got some of my buddies in the bathroom with a ball of their own. We now had an incredible game that meant everything to us and our classmates.

It became the most popular sport the school has ever seen. People were even placing bets. However, when one kid had to explain that his bruises didn’t come from his parents, my operation was shut down. Story credit: Reddit / AskMeAboutMyTie

Change Brought About By The Sweat Of My ... Back!

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I had a rule rescinded because of me once. Working in Seoul in the summer, it’s really hot and humid, so we would walk to work in shorts and a T-shirt and then change into a shirt and tie once we were inside with air conditioning and comfort. My boss was this conservative old Korean guy.

He was a nice guy, but had a weird list of arbitrary rules. He’d suddenly change them from time to time for no good reason. So one day he decreed that nobody is allowed to change at work, even before customers arrived. We had to walk in the door in a shirt and tie.

The next day I found the grayest shirt I owned, slapped on a backpack, and walked to work in near 40 degree celsius with 90% humidity.

I sat down in the office, pulled off my backpack, and my boss saw how sweaty my back was. Within 15 minutes, there was a new rule; “You may change at work, as long as it’s before customers arrive”. Story credit: Reddit / Uberscheisse

My Ways To Change The Rules

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In high school I took a weightlifting class for my PE credit and we were told that we could bring in a CD of our music and the coaches would play it over the speakers while we worked out. I burned a CD with a bunch of My Little Pony songs and the coach put it into the system without checking it beforehand.

We were allowed to bring in our own music with earbuds after that. But I didn’t stop there. In middle school I went to a science camp and one of the activities was a game called “Dramatic Demise”. Everyone stands in a circle with their heads down.

When the counselor said to look up, if any two people looked at each other they would have to act out a dramatic demise scene. My dumb self decided that when it was my turn, I would go rigid and fall backwards.

Needless to say, I hit the concrete hard. Now there was a rule about how you could “die”. Story credit: Reddit / Skeleterr

All Within Our Rights

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There was a brief time where Verizon stopped offering unlimited mobile data…and my family is to actually blame for that. We used to use a single cell phone with a mobile hotspot as our home’s sole Internet connection.

We went through so much data that they kept trying to contact us and convince us to change our plan. But technically they couldn’t do it themselves since we were grandfathered in on the old unlimited plan. But how I found out about it is even better. 

A teacher at my school was complaining that year about how he couldn’t get a certain data plan for his kid’s phones because the representative for Verizon had told him that they stopped offering it.

They said it was being mis-used by one group of customers within that area. I remember thinking to myself, “Oh god that’s us”. Story credit: Reddit / Spectrumtwelve 

My Dad's Colonoscopy Changes The Rules

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Mayo Clinic now has a rule where you can’t have any procedures that require sedation without someone there to take you home. My dad had a colonoscopy and on this occasion he was still messed up from the sedation when they released him.

He took an employee shuttle somewhere, went and grabbed some food, then went to the Emergency to catch a ride home from his best friend. A nurse that knows him saw him and realized he was geeked out. She took him straight to his friend, doctor in the Emergency Department.

His friend was less than impressed, reported the issue, and the new policy was implemented. That story about my dad is told as a cautionary tale there now. Story credit: Reddit / QueenieRue

Scary Tales Get Scared Away

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In my girl scout troop several years ago, my twin sister and I actually got scary stories around the campfire banned. The both of us love scary stuff and always have, so naturally we were prepared to retell some of our favorite nightmare inducing tales.

We told some stories about dolls and haunted hotels, and ended it all with our favorite rendition of the popular babysitter and clown statue story. After the last one, the whole troop shrieked and no one was allowed to tell anything remotely scary for the rest of the night.

The next year my sister and I were excitedly discussing the stories we would tell this time when we were informed that there would be no scary story telling, and there never was again. Honestly, we weren’t even sorry. Story credit: Reddit / I-hate-sleep23

No More Free Drinks

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Those annoying metal baskets at the bottom of Coke machines where the drinks come out, that usually result in your drink getting lodged in it, is partly my fault. Back in the late 80s, my sister owned a daycare center that I attended as a pre-teen.

She had a Coke machine outside that the route vendor would come refill once a week. One day, my drink got stuck. Being a wirey, scrawny kid, I decided to reach my hand up inside the exit chute to dislodge it. Except I discovered something even better. 

I could reach in and grab as many drinks as I wanted. Soon, I had quite the little racket going, selling them to the other kids for half price. Even some of the parents and on occasion my own sister would employ my services.

I started off small, a few drinks here and there, but at some point I must have gotten overly greedy, high off the sheer power I wielded. The route driver noticed his change collection was a lot lighter than it should have been. You could say, I was power thirsty.

A week later we show up, and that darned metal guard basket magically appeared, taunting me, mocking me even, preventing me from swiping any more of that carbonated goodness. Story credit: Reddit / Funkotastic

From A Movie Shoot Out To Essays

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I had English Media class in High School. The end of the year project was to film a movie. Three other guys and I decided to film a “gangster movie”. We were filming the final shoot-out scene behind a local post office. But we didn’t know something very important. 

There was a retirement residence right next to the space we were in. Apparently several of the residents called authorities about a bunch of kids shooting each other outside. Five cruisers rolled up and surrounded us. The officers all jumped out with weapons drawn.

“Get on the ground!” We were all face down on the pavement with hands to our heads. A miinute later, one cop is like, “They’re fake. They’re all fake”. The officers were upset! They ran our names and unfortunately, the one guy that had nothing to do with anything gets taken away. I felt so bad.

He wasn’t a part of the class. Just last second, we asked if he’d help us film and he agreed. They take the rest of us back to school where we’re sitting in the office as an officer reams out our teacher and principal.

“I almost shot a bunch of kids! How in the world are you allowing this to happen during school hours?! What kind of project allows weapons?!”

The following year, the curriculum was changed and the final project was now an essay to be completed on a popular movie. Fun times. Story credit: Reddit / Maximo-One

Legalized Theft In Wisconsin (And Elsewhere)

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I was managing a hotel when I caught an employee taking 20 dollars out of the cash drawer and putting it in his pocket. I of course fired him on the spot and figured that was the end of it. Nope, I soon found out how wrong I was.

Two weeks later, I get an unemployment notice from the state showing he filed for wrongful dismissal. I responded back stating he was terminated for theft. A week later they ask me to send them our employee handbook and training materials.

Shortly thereafter, I received notice that they awarded him unemployment because nowhere in our handbook or training materials did it explicitly state he was not allowed to take cash from the cash drawer.

You would think that would just be common sense, but apparently the state of Wisconsin didn’t agree.

From that moment on, it was explicitly stated in the handbook and training materials that employees were not allowed to take money or any other property that does not belong to them. Story credit: Reddit / Im68guns

The Dark Roller Coast Brought To Light

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When I was in middle school, my friend and I thought it would enhance the overall experience if we blindfolded ourselves while riding the biggest roller coaster at a local amusement park.

We got one of those pictures they take on the ride and there we are, blindfolded in the middle of a tunnel, having the time of our lives. There was just one problem.

Looking back, we easily could have strangled ourselves or worse because we literally just used scarves tied around our heads. Next year, we went back to the same roller coaster and they had added a “no blindfolds or loose accessories” to the list of rules before the ride. Story credit: Reddit / Idontcare4205