fact
There is a job called ‘Shampooers’ These shampooers do what you think they do; put shampoo in peoples hair at hair salons. They are the least paid full time workers in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The post There is a job called ‘Shampooers’… appeared first on Crazy Facts.
Ebenezer Scrooge is not alone in harkening back to Christmases past.
Many of us reflect on prior holidays.
We enjoy both sharing and hearing about the happy holidays people had.
“What is your best Christmas memory?”
“Every Christmas Eve, at Grandma’s house, we’d all have a giant nerf war. We all had our teams of cousins we’d pair up with, and it was awesome!” ~ polysnip
“Not really my ‘best’ but it’s one of my favourites. It was when my dad told me Santa wasn’t real when I was maybe 7 or 8.”
“He was on the road working so it was over the phone, and I immediately hung up and started crying. Then, I called his dad and told him the ‘lie’ my dad just told me.”
“He just laughed… I was so convinced that Santa was real I seriously thought my dad was lying.” ~ jimothy-pickens
“A few years ago, on Christmas Eve we found a box of our baby videos, and we all sat down and watched them for hours.” ~ reammachine
“Shocking my 16-year-old son with his first car.” ~ Scrappy_Larue
“The Christmas my parents decided to say we were old enough to not have Santa visit anymore. My brothers and I (6 of us in total) ranged in age from 15 to 26 and we threatened to boycott Christmas if Santa wasn’t part of it.”
“So my parents went out and bought a load of cheap toys for Santa to deliver—water pistols, foam dart guns, swords, shields, dress-up items like Viking hats and crowns and feather boas that could be worn by adults.”
“We spent the day playing like little kids again and it was so much fun. ~ KittikatB
“I’ll do two. One is the best memory I have that occurred on Christmas, the second is a good (can’t really choose a best) Christmas memory.”
“The first is being surprised three weeks early with the birth of my first child, on Christmas Day. Her birth itself is the absolute best part of the memory, holding her and seeing her for the first time, best present ever. Afterward I failed to even think of checking the nearby Chinese restaurant to see if they were open.”
“My Christmas dinner that year was a bowl of Cheerios sitting in front of the Alastair Sim Christmas Carol before heading back to the hospital for the next two days.”
“A good memory from my childhood (I was probably in Jr. High, if not high school) was the year I decided to stay up all night.”
“After our Christmas Eve festivities, when everyone else went to bed, I set up shop right by the tree, turned on the radio to the all Christmas music channel, grabbed a big mug of cocoa (with mini candy cane dropped in), and spent the night gazing at the tree, reading A Christmas Carol and A Child’s Christmas in Wales, and eventually ending up lying under the tree, where I probably ended up dozing for a bit, but would wake up, see it was still dark, hear the music, and be so happy the night could keep going like that.”
“In the morning, I stoked the fire, grabbed more cocoa, and made our traditional morning pillsbury orange rolls and waited for everyone else to get up. So much fun because it really stretched out my favorite part of Christmas (Eve) and let me enjoy everything with no distractions.” ~ RealPwaully
“I’ll do two.”
“Childhood: I was 10, it was Christmas Eve 1996, my dad was dying (it was his last Christmas). He hadn’t lost his voice yet, the cancer hadn’t spread to his throat at this point. We usually did a big Christmas Eve thing with all my mom’s family but this year they left fairly early and we had time as a little family unit to exchange our gifts for each other.”
“I don’t really remember what anyone else got but I do remember that my dad handed me this little box and told me to open it. It was a beautiful white gold charm bracelet with one charm on it, it said my name on one side and the other said Love, Dad Xmas ‘96.”
“He told me he wanted me to fill it with charms from all my travels and adventures. It’s the greatest gift I could ever get. I look at it now and know that my dad loved me. I miss him everyday.”
“Adulthood: I was 30, Christmas 2016. I had started hosting my mom’s side of the family on Christmas Eve a few year before but this was definitely the best. I rearranged my furniture to make sure everyone could fit in our little townhouse. My house was full of delicious smells from cooking all of our family staples for Christmas Eve dinner and the smell of the tree.”
“Everyone showed up on time, there was zero family drama, everyone had an awesome time and left by 10. Christmas Day we went to my husband’s parents’ house and celebrated with his family and his grandparents.”
“It’s also his mom’s birthday that day, she used to make us spend all of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with her which left no time for my family. This was the first year she didn’t have a hissy fit that we weren’t with them Christmas Eve even though we had been doing it that way for a few years already.”
“It was a good memory.” ~ mirandawg
“My fondest memory as a child is when we had Christmas away from home because my mom’s dad was dying. It was maybe a week or so before Christmas and suddenly my mom said we had to go to Arizona because her dad wasn’t doing well.”
“I didn’t see my grandpa often and he didn’t speak English, but he was always kind to me. As a kid, I was bummed that we were not going to be home for Christmas.”
“He passed and mom was very sad. It was hard for me to process the feelings as a child.”
“I remember Christmas Eve was lackluster since it was at my dad’s mom’s house (she was distant and cold to us grandkids.) I was bummed because I thought Santa wasn’t going to find us.”
“Come Christmas morning there were a bunch of presents under the tree. I got a pet robot dog, which had me so happy because my parent’s never let me have a dog despite always asking.”
“Now that I’m older, I appreciate what my mom did. She was going through a very hard time in her life. She lost her mom when she was 3, so losing her dad was a tremendous loss for her.”
“Despite all this, she made sure that we had a good Christmas with presents. I remember being in disbelief that Santa found us, and she told me that she let Santa know where we would be so he can bring our presents.” ~ FoxPaws26
“When I was in kindergarten, my parents used to decorate the entire house for Christmas overnight while I was sleeping unawares. I remember going to sleep as usual, with the home as usual, and then waking up into what only could be described in my little mind then as magic.”
“I remember running back and forth to the pretty candles and runner on the side table, to admiring the garlands along the staircase rails—giddy with excitement.” ~ Reddit
“When I was in high school the history teachers all did a toy and food drive for Christmas. They had a friendly competition of whose class would donate the most.”
“I told my Mom about it and for some reason she decided to go all out. We went to the Walmart toy department and filled up a whole cart. Then we went to the grocery store and did the same.”
“When I came to school the next day I felt like Santa Claus himself with my sacks full of toys and food. I got there early so my classmates wouldn’t see but my teacher happened to be there early too. The look on his face was priceless.”
“Needless to say we won!” ~ Badw0IfGirl
“Christmas was on a Sunday. My brother is a pastor, and for our families, Sunday meant church. We decided to have our Christmas celebration (presents, the big dinner, etc) on Monday.”
“For Sunday dinner, I was making a huge lasagna (Monday’s feast would be the traditional turkey with all the fixings). We were staying in the area for a short time before relocating for my husband’s military assignment, so we didn’t know many people.”
“My brother called me and told me that a sick elderly woman named Jean (who used to attend the church and whom he frequently visited) was at home, very near death, and her husband (Al) was keeping vigil by her side, with the hospice nurse coming by daily to administer pain meds. The woman had been a faithful church member when she was younger, before the cancer, but her husband was known to be a cantankerous old grump who had never darkened the door of the church.”
“My brother asked if, since I was making this big lasagna, would I make a smaller pan for Al. Of course. My husband and I started planning, and I called Al to arrange to stop by and drop the lasagna off on our way to church. This was all quite sudden; it was Christmas Eve early afternoon.”
“Al answered the phone, and I introduced myself as his wife’s pastor’s sister. My brother had told Al to expect our call and told Al that we were new to the area, and that my husband was in the Navy, just as a sort of introduction. I told Al that I was making a lasagna and would like to bring it by in the morning.”
“Well, Al exploded. ‘You’re making a what?’, he yelled. ‘A lasagna’, I repeated. ‘An Italian pasta dish with meat and sauce and cheese’.”
“Al shouted and I held the phone away from my ear. ‘I thought that preacher guy said your husband was in the Navy. Is he a Nazi? I don’t want any %($)@ Mexican food. It’s Christmas, for (@(#’s sake. Why are you asking to make me Mexican Nazi food?’”
“I was stunned. Mexican? Nazi? That’s quite a stretch from lasagna. I didn’t know what to say.”
“Then Al spoke, sternly, spitting out every word. ‘I want a turkey dinner. And gravy. And it better have NO LUMPS. And cranberry sauce. The kind with NO LUMPS. And carrots. The ones cut into round shapes, cooked nice and soft. [my husband silently mouthed to me ‘with NO LUMPS’ and I almost lost it at that point]. And mashed potatoes. With NO LUMPS. You can come at 9 tomorrow morning. GOOD BYE!’ and he slammed the phone down.”
“I looked at my husband, my red-haired Navy husband, and just said ‘Mexican? Nazi? No lumps? A whole turkey dinner? What did we just get into?’ It was now 3 pm Christmas eve.”
“We ran to the car and drove to the supermarket which was closing at 5 pm. There were no turkeys. None. We frantically scanned aisles, and at one point we considered buying frozen tv dinners and re-constructing them to pretend they were homemade.”
“But we couldn’t bring ourselves to do that. This would be Al’s last Christmas, last dinner with his wife of almost 60 years.”
“Then, in the corner of the meat department, I saw a little package among the beef roasts. Could it be a turkey? It had that familiar yellow packaging. Someone must have picked it up, then set it down far from the poultry.”
“It was as if an angel was guarding it. It was a fresh, not frozen, 3 pound hotel-cut turkey breast! I grabbed it like it was a fumbled football that I had to pounce on.”
“A quick run around the store like we were in a race followed, and we soon had potatoes, carrots, jellied cranberry sauce, and sadly, a jar of gravy which we would ordinarily never use, but as my husband kept hissing into my ear every ten seconds ‘no lumps!’ we settled for jarred gravy.”
“The two of us were giggling like fools. We found a nice silver-colored plastic serving tray, and some inexpensive serving bowls that didn’t look like cheap plastic storage tubs, and a pretty little votive candle. Then we raced home to cook.”
“At 9 the next morning, we showed up to Al and Jean’s home, with a tray bearing a beautiful roasted turkey breast, a dish of gravy (LUMP-FREE), mashed potatoes (NO LUMPS), nicely sliced cranberry sauce, perfectly sliced carrots cooked soft and drizzled with butter, a Christmas cookie, and the candle.”
“Al glanced at everything and said not one single word, not even ‘hello’. I asked if I could see Jean, and he nodded. Jean was laying in a rented hospital bed, seemingly unaware of everything, breathing quietly. I set the votive candle (unlit, but in a pretty container) next to her bed and whispered ‘merry Christmas Jean’ and quietly left.”
“Al said nothing. His expression was mean and sneering. He stared at my husband, and I’m sure he was wondering how this handsome man in a United States Navy uniform somehow thought that Mexican Nazi food would be appropriate for Christmas.”
“Al’s eyes narrowed as he suspiciously looked us both over. We told him goodbye and left in fear before he could inspect the meal for lumps. Al had not muttered one single syllable.”
“We heard nothing more, as shortly after that we moved to another Navy base. But about three months later, I got a phone call from a lady who attended the church.”
“She told me ‘I just had the strangest thing happen. I ran into Al at the hardware store. What a mean man he is. But I felt sorry for him and I greeted him’.”
“‘I don’t know if you heard, but Jean died shortly after midnight on Christmas, and Al has been a recluse in the house since then. But he had an errand to do, and when I expressed my condolences, he told me the strangest story. He said that “that preacher” (my brother) asked someone to make him a Christmas dinner’.”
“He said the preacher told him it was his sister, but she’s married to some Mexican and that the dinner was going to be some kind of Nazi food. I thought Al was crazy, but then he described the meal that he got’.”
“‘He remembered everything—the perfect turkey, the smooth gravy and potatoes, the sliced carrots just the way he liked them. And then, his face softened and the mean ugly sneer disappeared’.”
“‘And quietly, without a single curse word, he leaned over and whispered to me: “it was the best meal I ever had, and I ate it beside Jean’s bed and I told her how everything tasted. And I sat there until she died. I don’t know who made it, but that preacher said it was his sister. He’s a liar. But it was the best dinner I ever ate”‘.”
“The woman continued ‘I know you and your husband made the meal, because at the funeral, your brother told me that you had brought a meal to Al the day Jean died. I have no idea where he got the idea you’re married to a Mexican Nazi, but I thought you’d want to know that it was the best Christmas meal ever’.” ~ eb04
May this year bring the happiest of holiday memories for you and yours.
Getting a tattoo can be very exciting. Maybe you’ve been deciding on what you wanted for a long time and saving little by little to have enough for a sizable piece.
There’s nothing like the nervousness and excitement of that very first tattoo. In fact, when we experience that kind of pain, our body releases endorphins. That might be why we keep going back for more after we’ve gotten our first done.
However, some people faint during their first tattoos from that pain. That’s caused by Vasovagal or ‘reflex’ Syncope. Our blood pressure and heartrate can drop and cause us to be a puddle on the floor before we know it.
“Tattoo Artists of Reddit, who was your worst ‘tattoo virgin’?”
There are tons of first timer stories of people passing out, being rude to their tattoo artist, or having unconventional things happening to them while under the needle. We compiled this list of the best stories from real tattoo artists.
“One of my coworkers was tattooing a girl on her 18th birthday or something like that. She was getting script on her wrist, nothing huge but after 3-4 lines her face drained of color and she went completely limp and passed out.”
“He had caught her so she didn’t fall out of the chair but we then heard the sound of something similar to a leaky faucet as everyone realized the poor girl peed herself when she blacked out.”
“After a few minutes and a soda to get her blood sugar back up one of her friends brought her some gym shorts to change into as we cleaned the area. She finished the tattoo that day like a f*cking champ but we’ve never seen nor heard from her again.”
“I’m sure she was mortified…remember kids always eat a good meal before getting tattooed or pierced no matter how small or simple you think it is.” – Gemini_Sol
“Worth mentioning that this advice is for everyone. I’m a large guy and I felt really faint during one tattoo as I simply hadn’t eaten or drank enough.”
“Chocolate bar / sugary drink beforehand and a bottle of water for during is something I now consider essential pre-tattoo purchases.” – cat666
“Piercer but I have seen sh*t. A very large guy came in and wanted a tattoo on his inner arm fat. Tattoo artist tried to talk him out of it because of the loose skin in the area. Guy is like ‘I have a high tolerance for pain’.”
“Well now he has a curved line on his inner bicep. They tried three times and he couldn’t sit still and the pain was unbearable.”
“He was jumping out of the chair while a needle was near his arm. And yes, when he left we sh*t talked him for about a week. Mainly because he just was acting so tough before hand and wouldn’t listen.” – I’mStillaPrick
“I’ll take this one. I had a client who got a Jesus fish with Greek letters on his chest. I put the stencil on, he looks down says ‘looks good’ and we do the tattoo. Guy sits like a CHAMP through his entire first tattoo.”
“I finish up after about 45 minutes, he checks it out in the mirror and immediately goes pale, starts to sweat and sits down. Dude looks at me and says ‘it’s BACKWARDS!’ All shook.”
“I look at his tattoo, look at him on the floor, look at the mirror and tell the guy ‘I’m gonna take a photo of it for you to see, because you don’t know how mirrors work’. A couple minutes go by as I’m handing the dude paper towels.”
“The guy stands up all quick and try’s to play it off like he was just messing with me even though for a minute there, there was a corpse on my studio floor….” – tattoosbyjerad
“Imagine you didn’t point out the mirror effect. So next time he comes in he writes/draws out the plans backwards to get the right affect hahahah.” – OutrageousFix7338
“Okay no lie, that is exactly what happened to one of the football players at my old high school. Our school logo was a capital F between two offset parentheses (it was supposed to look like a hurricane, yes it was stupid) and the moron got the tattoo done so that it looked correct in the mirror. He has yet to live it down, and that was ten years ago.” – ArchaicGeek
“Getting your high school logo tattooed really screams ‘I peaked in high school’ But getting it backwards?? That screams ‘I haven’t peaked and probably never will’.” – luckyveggie
“One shop I worked at we had a couple come in on the day we did $100 two inch by two inch tattoos, they both were getting these small triceratops outline tattoos behind their ears, nothing too crazy or detailed so maybe about 15 minutes each in the chair at most.”
“The guy is losing his mind, he’s hyperventilating, laughing, jumping up and down and yelling questions at all of us, visually very nervous. He tells one of our apprentices that this is his first tattoo and keeps asking them how bad it hurts over and over again, the owner went into the back and grabbed an ammonia packet, worried the guy would pass out the second needle touched skin.”
“Turns out it was this couples first date, he had told her he was impulsive and she tried to call his bluff and suggested they get matching tattoos. To his credit he got the tattoo and didn’t pass out, paid for them both too!” – Hellcathowl
“They later got married due to a series of escalating dares.” – MC_Hale
“FIRST DATE!? Wow. I kinda respect that though.” – casseroled
“My first tattoo was the outline of three stars behind my ear. I could hear the buzzing and feel the artist fiddling around behind my ear but was anxiously waiting for him to start, thinking that it would feel like a scalpel to my thin skin.”
“Nah, he gave a firm wipe of the ink and said ‘Done!’ I said ‘Bullsh*t’ 
he flew through it so easily that I didn’t believe him. So now with a dozen good sized tattoos later, I’m always wanting another one thanks to how well he did my first.” – harleyqueenzel
“Girl comes in to get her ex boyfriends name tattooed as a tramp stamp…. Comes in with friends and proceeds to scream throughout the process of doing the outline and she leaves with a half outline of her ex’s name.” – bobjones136
“… why would anyone tattoo their ex’s name on themselves?” – sixthandelm
“Because now he has to come back!” – Traskk01
“It’s not the worst, but I love this one. At the expense of my very good client, I generally use this story to help newbs ease in to my chair more comfortably.”
“So it was his first and I’m getting my stencil prepped. He was so nervous, he was basically white. Kept asking if he was good. Yeah he was ok..I guess. Place the stencil on him and ask him to take a look.”
“He looks at his arm and immediately passes out in the chair lol. He’s sliding out of the chair, we get him back up and he comes to. He got over it, eventually and has his sleeve.” – -THE_ENDR-
“I was getting lettering and dude finally got to my spine. He asked me how I was doing. I said a little light headed, but keep going. He said nope we are stopping for 15 minutes. I guess he’s had a bunch of people pass out on him.” – Daggermoth
“I had the same deal. Got the crook of my elbow done. I was feeling real shit but I didn’t want to stop because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to start again.”
“The artist noticed me sweating, getting dizzy, and breathing hard. He handed me a glucose tablet and some water then got me a cool towel until I could handle it again.” – smaugismyhomeboy
“Not a tattoo artist, just heavily tattooed and have a lot of friends who are artists. Allow me to tell you the story of Danny the Dummy.”
“Danny at the time of the story was a 21 year old oil field worker who had more money than sense, he wanted to get an entire sleeve tattoo done but couldn’t decide what he wanted, he would come in for a consult, the artist (my friend) would take everything he said and draw up what he wanted, then he would come back and completely change his mind.”
“That’s not the reason why he’s called Danny the Dummy though, he’s called that because, among other things, he never once could remember the name of the animal he wanted to get. He first asked for a lion ‘pack’ on a mountain with the moon above them and them roaring into it.”
“My artist friend said ‘oh you mean like the end of lion king?’ and Danny said yes. The next time he came in he said the animal was wrong and when he showed the picture it was a wolf pack, so my artist friend drew that.”
“Danny comes back and decides he doesn’t want that, he instead wants an ‘eagle in flight’, so my artist friend draws that, and if you guessed the animal was wrong you’re keeping up, he in fact wanted an owl in flight.”
“After this my artist friend was basically done with Danny, he was going to do this last drawing and if Danny changed his mind again he was going to fire him as a customer and blacklist him in his shop. Well he drew an amazing owl in flight and Danny said he loved it, so finally a date was selected and Danny was going to come in and get it.”
“Well Danny never showed, about half an hour past his appointment time my artist friend calls him and Danny says ‘oh damn man, I’m sorry, I’m out of the country today, I’m in North Dakota’…..the artist is based in Arizona.”
“Danny thought that different states were different countries. Never saw or heard from him again and my friend ended up putting that owl on a coworker of his that loved the drawing.” – amalgamas
“I hope your friend charged him for each drawing. That’s a lot of time and effort. Most artist I’ve been too usually ask for money down to draw up the concept.”
“One, it means you won’t get a no show because they already got money into it. And two, if they no show well you didn’t waste your time drawing the art.” – Metal-Butterfly
“$60/consult.” – amalgamas
“Not the worst client. But just an unfortunate event. The apprentice at my shop who had only been tattooing for a little under a year was tattooing this girls wrist recently, her first tattoo the word ‘undefeated.’ Gets the tattoo, it goes smoothly, she likes it, walks to the lobby, shows her dad, he likes it.”
“Walks back to get bandaged up, gets bandaged, they walk back to the counter as he’s explaining aftercare she blacks out. Falls back hits her head on a giant painting hanging on the wall (an ed hardy original) the painting falls, glass breaks.”
“He runs over picks her up and is checking the back of her head. Realizes a giant piece of glass had punctured her shoulder/trap. EMT comes, tell her she needs stitches, they end up having to take her to the emergency room where she got 6 stitches.”
“The next week the girl brought him a giant tub of cookies. She wasn’t the worst, but it was an incredibly unfortunate experience for the both of them. His first time having someone pass out and her being ‘defeated.’” – tattoocaleb
“She can claim the tattoo is undefeated. It took her out.” – GloInTheDarkUnicorn
“Hey, she only fainted after leaving the ring. She’s still the champ.” – ActuallySatanAMA
“There’s a few different ways you can go with worst. Is worst most reactive? Is worst most picky and unreasonable?”
“I’ve been pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things. My worst most reactive / annoying client was this dude who was very clearly a drug addict.”
“He came in, wanted a simple tribal tattoo on his stomach, I saw sure no problem but he starts haggling me about the price, at first it was $400, then he said no more than $200, we finally settled on $300 after about 20 minutes of back and forth.”
“I get all setup, we start the tattoo, within a minute he says he needs to stand up, that’s he’s in too much pain and needs to walk around. He walks around for about 2 or 3 minutes, then lays back down, gets tattooed for another couple minutes and then same thing.”
“He does this constantly throughout the entire tattoo. During this time he was constantly scratching his head, twitching all over and complaining loudly.”
“But the worst part wasn’t the fact that this 2 hour tattoo turned into almost 4 hours. The worst was that he kept going out for smoke breaks, but kept only taking 2 or 3 puffs, putting the cherry out and then putting the smoke back in his pocket.”
“So all I could smell the entire time was musty cigs, it was fucking disgusting. (The cigarettes smelled old, if you’ve ever smelled old cigs you know what I’m talking about. He also kept putting it in the pocket that was right beside my face).” – CircleK-Choccy-Milk
“No chance I’m haggling with somebody who’s about to permanently mark my body.” – Barbarossa7070
“A friend who had never had a tattoo before wanted one on her ankle and was adamant about that. I told her several times that the ankle is a very not fun location, and asked her if maybe she’d prefer the shoulder instead.”
“She insisted on the ankle. Okay then. The moment the needle touched her she hollered. You sure you want to keep going I asked?”
“She said yes. That was the loudest appointment I ever had but to her credit she made it through.” – Odeiminmukwa
“Oh wow, reading this thread is bringing up some repressed client memories. My worst one by far, though, was about five years ago when I was apprenticing in a college town.”
“This girl came in with her boyfriend for a traditional butterfly above her elbow, I was still super new so it took me way longer than it should have (maybe 2hrs). I lay her down on her stomach with her arm bent at her side—this is relevant later.”
“Anyway, we start tattooing and within maybe 10 mins she starts getting a string of texts from her freshman friends, telling her they’re essentially ousting her from their group and they don’t want her to contact them again.”
“Super mean stuff, obviously she’s upset. As she’s relating all this to her BF, she starts crying, then full on sobbing. I asked her if she wanted to stop, but she insisted on me continuing, and I felt too awkward to counter her.”
“She continued to sob on and off for probably another hour, while I just kept plugging away at this dumb little tattoo. At this point she had cried so much that her tears had gathered where her arm was pressed against the massage table and had started to spill over into my lap.”
“So I’m feeling uncomfortable as hell, and now also damp. THEN, as I’m within 30 mins or so of finishing, she begins whimpering, then moaning…loudly. At one point she tells the BF ‘this is more intense than anal’ and I wanted to die.”
“As soon as I finished and checked her out, my coworkers (who had all been waiting on me to close) were like ‘what the actual f*ck was going on, and why did you keep going??’ But in the moment, all I could think was to finish the tattoo asap.”
“To her credit, she came back (a year later!) and told me she had been too embarrassed to come back but loved the butterfly and wanted another tattoo from me. Her second session was pleasant and without incident.” – More-Presentation-52
These stories are definitely unique.
Hopefully, we’re able to learn from these professionals tales so we can be better first timers.
And remember to treat your artists well when they’re putting something permanent on your body.
We are, to our knowledge, the only species on earth that uses complex language and as such the only species on the planet that uses insults.
Can’t really go around just insulting everyone who gets on our nerves though, so we developed a work-around that saves face while also taunting someone else.
According to Idioms.online people have been using backhanded (or left-handed) compliments since the late 1800’s.
Good to know we’re a consistent species.
Some people just want to use a compliment to get past the defenses we naturally erect around ourselves. Others just want to be mean.
Of course, not every suspect compliment comes from a negative place—often it’s just a matter of poor word choice or bad timing.
Complimenting someone’s hair just after they failed to get it the way they wanted it can hit a bad nerve real fast. No, we don’t speak from experience, why would you think that?
There are times, though, when a compliment working double-duty as an insult is the only way to get someone’s attention—to call attention to poor behavior for example.
“What’s a compliment but an insult at the same time?”
“You must have been beautiful when you were young” ~905marianne
“You look good for your age.” ~ superspud0408
“You’re actually not as dumb as you might appear” ~ TrumpHairedHarambe
“You’re beautiful in your own way.” ~ CIoud_Wolf
“You’re much prettier in person.” ~ plutoforprez
“You move well for someone of your size. ~ ReesieVA
“You don’t sweat much for a fat lass.” ~ Novack_and_good
“Wow you’re so brave going out in public like that! I would’t be able to do that if Iooked like that, I am not strong like you!” ~ oursider
“You clearly don’t care about what the haters say” ~ Helpful-Meringue-735
“A girl I used to work with looked at me one day and said, ‘I love how you’re not embarrassed by your laugh’.” ~ Redditor
“This happened to me! I’m very slim.”
“One day I was about to hook up with a guy and we were getting undressed when he started giving me tips on what I should eat to put on weight.”
“When he saw my reaction, he tried to dig himself out of the hole by saying ‘don’t worry, I like you for your personality’.”
“He was so surprised when I put my clothes back on and asked him to leave!”
“He later texted me he was just trying to be nice and wanted to give me advice about my diet because he works as a fitness trainer and knows a lot about nutrition 
.”
“He also said I was too sensitive 
” ~ Economy-Vanilla-967
” ‘Bless your heart’.”
“The ultimate Southern compliment and insult in one package.”~ GALINDO_Karl1
“Your clothes look comfortable.” ~ observantpariah
“I just got a Master’s degree in Physics.”
“I wear makeup when I go out and dress cute girly.”
“A lot of people tell me that they couldn’t believe I was doing physics. ‘Oh, you’ve got beauty and brains’ They basically mean two things:”
“People who do STEM subjects are supposed to look bland and unattractive.”
“They assumed I must be dumb just because I look girly/feminine.”
“Ugh!” ~sriracha_97
“ ‘You look so pretty for a lesbian!’ ”
“The f*ck is that supposed to mean?“~introverted_lesbian
“‘Ohh, you’re/she’s/he’s very pretty’ when someone is doing/saying something stupid” ~ Impenetrabletoad
“You’re brave for wearing that.” ~ Big-Ambitions-8258
” ‘you’re pretty for a black girl’ “ ~ chivalrousninjaz
“You know, you aren’t the type of girl I usually go for”~ Kritisk_
“Wow, you really clean up nice.” ~ cactusbishh
“Lol, this reminds me of a conversation with a coworker I once had.”
“He’s a real muscle-head and is always hitting the gym, whereas I’m the opposite.”
“I’m average height and was just under 300lbs(at that time).”
“Somehow we got to talking about weight, can’t remember what his was but he was shocked at mine!”
“His words after hearing I was close to 300lbs….”B*llsh*t! I’ve never seen a 300 pound person move like that!”. I couldn’t help but laugh.”
“The thing is, he’d seen me casually hop off 4-5 foot high loading decks with ease.”
“And I never had much issues keeping up with him.”
“Since then I’ve started working on my weight (totally unrelated to this exchange) and have lost about 50 lbs. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.” ~ RedBeardedMex
“An old ‘friend’ once said to me ‘your hair looks nice…for once’ “
“I cut her out a few months later for being a shitty person” ~ theginger_buffalo
“You’re really cool. Not at all how I thought you’d be when I first met you.” ~ leese216
“Anything that goes by the standard:”
“You are [insert compliment] but you are also [insert insult]. Should do the trick” ~ YikesMaAssFellOff
“You’re *insert a compliment* for a *insert race*” ~ BastardousHuman
“Phrases like ‘with all due respect’.” ~ Prestigious_Skill_20
Backhanded compliments are often a way for people to save face while also putting another person down.
Of course, the compliment isn’t always meant as a sly insult, sometimes the words just come out wrong, or the meaning gets lost along the way.
Always be aware of what you’re saying to the people you care about, but also be mindful of the way in which you say it.
Compliments can do wonders for someone’s self-image or as a way to pick up their day – but a misspoken word or some hesitation in the wrong place can do just as much damage.
A turn of a phrase can move someone to excitement or dash their hopes.
The proper phrasing can ease someone’s mind or cause them to panic.
A full set of nails used to cost $25—$15 if you were a student.
I regularly see them priced from $80 – $125 now and feel like I missed some major shift in the nail art world.
How did this happen? Inflation is one thing but this is … a lot.
Are nail brushes now made of ethically-sourced unicorn eyelashes? Is there a nail-art-world equivalent of the whole blackest black v. pinkest pink thing? Is there a nail-art villain behind this price hike?
“What used to be cheap, but is ridiculously expensive now?”
You know my answer, but Reddit has so much more to say about it.
“Everything.”
“The cost of living has gone up 1,544% since 1940. And that number was from an article written in 2012.”
– dixie5oh
“Being alive.”
– InsomniusEyes
“Houses.”
“Sad time to be buying in the UK, but congratulations to all those who bought a house for like 3 grand 50 years ago, especially in London lol”
– whysomaditonlygame
“It’s actually pretty evil what is happening. They’re being bought by corporations with deep pockets who don’t care how much over asking they need to pay.”
“Partly greed, partly trying to destabilize foreign economies, partly investment strategies… it’s modern warfare.”
“If you made a rule that only citizens can buy property and there is a 2 property limit per person… housing prices wouldn’t be in the millions for sub-standard homes.”
– visionsofcry
“Used to be like $20k for a 2 story, 4 bedroom home with 2 bathrooms, 2000 sq. ft. and a 2 car garage… now you’d be lucky to find a house with those stats for under $500k.”
– ELPwork
“Insulin.”
– rpjut5ha
“This needs to be more widely known.”
“The inventor gave the formula away to save lives, but now companies are pricing it so high that diabetics can’t afford it.”
“There’s a reason it’s so expensive and their greed is literally killing people.”
– Evening_Rose_619
“Bus fare.”
“I had to get a bus from the city centre to the train centre less than five minutes up a big hill and it cost me £2.60!”
“When I first started secondary school it cost less than half that for a thirty minute trip.”
– ValenciaHadley
“Same.”
“I live in a small village in Romania close to a pretty big city. Like ‘hop on the bus and travel 6 minutes’ kind of close.”
“It used to be affordable, but fares basically tripled once the company that connects that route ensured itself to be the only one serving that line.”
– XauMankib
“Seafood was for the poor.”
– Renoir_Trident
“They used to feed lobster to prisoners because they were considered the cockroaches of the ocean.”
– ELPwork
“People hear this fact now and think ‘oh man I’d love to eat lobster every day!’ but what you’re missing is the context of how it was prepared.”
“They would grind the entire lobster up into a slurry paste, shell and all, and feed them that. We’re not talking about grilled with butter and lemon.”
“Some places had to pass laws declaring the lobster slurry ‘cruel’ to feed to prisoners more than once or twice a week.”
– [Reddit]
“Brisket was cheap until hipsters discovered BBQ.”
– valeyard89
“In a similar vein, the ‘trash’ cuts of meat.”
“Osso Bucco, Lamb’s Fry (liver), ox tail, and lamb shanks, for example.”
“They became trendy at some point and the prices sky rocketed.”
– orcwordlaugh
“Same with chicken wings, thighs and drumsticks.”
“Used to be that wings were cheap bar food, drumsticks and thighs were for frying. But then people discovered that they are awesome, and now are priced at a premium.”
– squats_and_sugars
“I noticed this with marrow bones in the last few years. About a decade ago they would basically be given away, and I’d grab some to give to my dogs as a treat. Now they are like $10 a pound.”
– Throwaway47321
“Computer parts.”
“Around 10 years ago custom purpose built computers were exploding in popularity. The technology was advancing fast and it was getting cheaper.”
“It made a lot of sense that if you didn’t need a portable computer and you needed a specialized machine for work or entertainment, it was actually better to build one yourself and upgrade it every few years.”
“It would still come out cheaper than getting a laptop or a tablet which were only getting more expensive and upgrading meant total replacement.”
“But we all know how that’s been going the past few years. I myself have not upgraded my computer in 6 years despite wanting to.”
“The costs are ridiculous across the board for computer parts, laptops, cellphones etc; which doesn’t make sense but it doesn’t have to make sense because it’s being done on purpose.”
“Functional obsolescence makes you buy more stuff. Also, all this expensive tech is less and less reliable.”
– PckMan
“Long time ago there was a coffee shortage. Prices went through the roof.”
“A cup of coffee at a diner went from 10 cents to a dollar and ground coffee tripled or more in price.”
“Everyone suspected it was not real, just the coffee industry trying to jack up the price.”
“People stopped buying ground coffee and the price quickly went back to normal, but diner coffee stayed at a dollar and never went back down.”
– JackNuner
“In the UK its gotta be cigarettes.”
“Back when I started you could get a 10 pack for £2 now its like £11 for 20 and you cant get 10 packs.”
“It went from a 10£ a week habit to a £77 a week habit real quick.”
“I still smoke, but I buy pouches of Tobacco and roll what we call ‘Rollies’ in the UK.”
“50g cost about £25 and last me 8/9 days. Still a £75 quid a month habit but a lot cheaper than £11 a day.”
– stevemate
“In Australia a pack of 40 costs $65+ now. If you’re in a pub or an airport they can be $80.”
“It’s all legislated tax increases, the actual price for the manufacturers hasn’t changed nearly that much.”
“It’s a weird situation now, because the extreme and endlessly increasing taxes were passed on the basis of all smoking revenue being directed straight to healthcare to offset the burdens caused by smokers.”
“However, they’ve hit a point where they’re so expensive that now they’ve gone past offsetting costs and ended up in a place where they are a net profit for the government. This sucks because I believe the original plan was to eventually ban them outright, and now they’re a moneymaker so they never will.”
“Meanwhile, smokers being statistically more likely to be from lower socio-economic areas means that the government is effectively milking the poorer end of town for a metric f*ck-tonne of money whilst doing nothing to actually force people to quit – whilst claiming that what they’re doing is the best way to help.”
– ohimjustagirl
“I remember having co-workers who kept saying they would quite smoking if cigarettes ever went up to a dollar a pack.”
“They never did quit.”
– JackNuner
Now that you’ve heard what Reddit has to say, take a look at your world. What used to be affordable that now seems astronomical?
Let us know.
Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.
Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.
Whether we’ve been on such a trip before or not, many of us enjoy ruminating on the fun that could be had on a comforting cruise.
But after hearing from some Redditors with cruise ship experience, the voyage may not be as merry and happy-go-lucky as we might have thought.
“Cruise ship staff of Reddit (cleaners in particular), what are some disturbing secrets passengers should know?”
“A lot of people die. Depending on the line, it’s not unusual for a couple a week.”
“Depending on the age of the ship, there are decent odds someone died in that room.”
“Also, if you receive an upgrade mid-cruise, there’s a reason why a room is suddenly available.” – Watertightdoors
“That if you die onboard at sea from something other than natural causes (heart attack, old age), your death will probably not be investigated properly.”
“Ships need to get back to port on time to load up the next set of passengers. Which means details are swept under the rug.” – cruisefromottawa
“Especially if you’re on a flag of convenience ship far from that country’s territory. Panama, Liberia, or Malta aren’t going to send someone across the world for one homicide.”
“If the death happens in international waters, the country of the ship’s registry is what law applies and who has the right to prosecute.”
“Only Malta might even try and that’s assuming you were near an EU port where they might be bound to investigate as part of being a member.” – SouffleStevens
“I was touring a ship for a future event. The ship was about to leave for a 100+ day cruise.”
“I saw a lot of old people getting on with oxygen tanks. I asked him what happens if they die on board.”
“He said it was very common for old people blow their life savings to come to spend their last days on this cruise. He also said they have a fully functional morgue.” – Crusha79
“I’ve been working on ships for almost a decade now, engineering department. When the Eb*la scare of 2014 went down, I was crewing a passenger ferry.”
“During a safety meeting, someone asked what would happen if we got a passenger showing symptoms.”
“We were told the ship would be quarantined until the disease had run its course. Imagine just sitting in the bay on an Eb*la ridden ship.” – i_hate_msds
“There have been a few relatively high-profile cases where someone has disappeared from a cruise ship, there are plenty of places to hide.”
“Rebecca Coriam and Amy Lynn Bradley are two of the most well-known ones.” – Chalantcop
“On my last cruise, my wife and I were woken up at 3:30AM by the Captain over the loudspeakers throughout the entire ship. He announced that a 15-year-old girl was missing, requested anyone with any info call a specific number.”
“It was really unsettling to be woken up like that and given that information. My wife and I started talking about it and I remember saying, ’15-year-old girl on a cruise in the Caribbean unsupervised, all this booze flying around? She’s been raped, murdered, stuffed into a suitcase, and thrown overboard.’”
“My wife just stared at me disgusted and asked, ‘What the f**k is wrong with you that you would think that?’ Law and Order SVU, my dear, that’s what.”
“About 15 minutes later the Captain came back to announce they found her safe and sound. She was in the library and fell asleep (SURE she was.) Still, it was unsettling and left an impression on me.” – dinosaur_copilot
“Getting airlifted off a ship in a medical emergency costs a fortune, and your insurance will likely not cover it. It’s the best reason for purchasing travel insurance.” – Scrappy_Larue
“Travel insurance is also cheap. I think it was $20 for a week for me and my wife the last time we traveled. Included like $1 million in airlifting coverage on top of other stuff.” – RedTib
“I was a musician on cruise ships for a year. As mentioned before, you’re not going to get cleaners on here because their work schedule is a disturbing secret. Anyone that works below deck and not always in view of passengers usually works 70-80 hour weeks while sharing a cabin the size of a closet with 4 people.”
“Also, crew members from India aren’t allowed to get off the ship in the US during their first contract (maybe two, can’t remember) because too many Indian cruise ship workers would get off the ship and never come back.” – whiteglassfan
“Are the stewards trained to read minds? Or are they just amazing at their jobs? Do they have monitors watching the doors to see when you leave so they can clean?”
“I was taken along on a ladies cruise by a cruise-crazy family member (husband’s aunt), and I’d never been on a cruise before. We stayed in the Concierge level (because the one who was paying was posh).”
“My room steward was a Filipino man and he absolutely made my stay amazing. I asked about an extra pillow one day to use as a body pillow, and he took pillows and sheets and made me this big Tootsie roll thing for a body pillow. Every day it was rerolled with a clean sheet.”
“I loved the toiletries and used up an entire bottle of lotion every day on my sunburnt body, so each day I began finding 3 bottles of lotion with the clean towels.”
I ordered an iced tea with 2 lemons in 2my room after dinner 2 nights in a row and for the remaining nights of the trip, when I came back to my cabin after dinner there was a cold iced tea, 2 lemons each time.”
“I swear, the second I left the room for meals it got cleaned or turned down or fancied up.”
“I was a poor slob who spent a week feeling like a queen because of that guy.”
“I asked my posh host about tipping etiquette at the end and she gave me an envelope for him. It had $400 in it. I added another $100 from my spending money.”
“He made the trip for me. Thank you, Filipino steward dude on my Celebrity cruise in April 2013, you rock.” – chickenpants80
“Not sure if it’s true or not, but a casino staff member told us that the poker machine payouts are set higher in the first two days to make you win, and thus make you want to play more.”
“Then as the ship enters international waters, they don’t need to have the same regulated payout percentages and it gets lowered to like 50 percent, so you have a very very slim chance at winning anything after the first few days.” – smallpotatoes_
“This is why gambling on poker machines is so utterly stupid – they can be programmed to deliver payouts whenever the owners want.”
“It’s not like gambling on roulette, or a card game: those are based on physical objects which can’t be manipulated like a computer program can.”
“H**l, you could program a poker machine to never pay out, but you can’t stop a roulette ball from falling in slots with a particular probability.” – humanoid12345
It may be fun to go on a cruise, but this particular group of Redditors was ready to remind us the trip may not be as great as it appears to be.
Even if we don’t see something worrisome on our trip doesn’t mean there was nothing to worry about.
Not every job is a glamourous endeavor.
Sometimes you work in the deep underbelly of the world, making things work behind the scenes and helping society function as a silent hero.
And then there’s aestheticians, people who work in salons or a spa and remove unwanted hair—often with wax.
And sometimes things go wrong. Beauty isn’t pretty, it would seem.
Also, in case it wasn’t obvious, some of these stories are certainly NSFW.
Be warned.
“People who shave or wax private parts for a living – what are your horror stories?”
“Laser Tech for 4 years. Lady started her period on the table mid session. Luckily the area was completely covered for sanitization and I was almost done zapping her. Finished up and sent her on her way.”
“She was MORTIFIED, I felt bad for her. Not her fault, aunt Flo is a nasty cruel bitch sometimes. Lol. She gave me a generous tip tho, that was nice.” ~ JadedFennel999
“I wasn’t the practitioner but my BF and I were practice models thanks to my high pain tolerance and he was the only male willing to do it. They did sugaring practice…”
“I had a girl get her hand sugar wax glued to my arm for 20 minutes, another get her hand stuck literally to my bf ass cheeks, and a third girl got her glob of wax stuck to her own face.:.all in the span of one session.”
“I felt so bad for them, the trainer had to go get the dissolve spray stuff to unstick everyone.”
“Also one girl apparently accidentally got a tampon stuck to the wax and pulled earlier that week…” ~ S3xySouthernB
“My mom was an aesthetician and she told me of a horror story she had. A woman came in for a Brazilian waxing, a regular of my mom’s.”
“My mom said that she must have been dehydrated that day, which can make the skin easier to tear, because when she pulled the strip way, she ripped her lady bits. Blood everywhere.”
“My mom described it as ‘looked like a bowling ball down there’.”
“The woman was totally chill and made a joke saying something along the lines of ‘I guess I won’t be having sex for a while!’ It took a while to heal but she eventually did go back to my mom as a regular again.”
“And made sure she was hydrated.” ~
“When I was in cosmetology school, we had to practice Brazilians on one another. My usual class partner (who was chefs kiss at waxing) wasn’t there for the day it was my turn to be waxed, and I was partnered with another girl.”
“I liked her as a person but omg she had no idea what she was doing.”
“She wasn’t pulling my skin at all so I was trying to grapple down there and make everything taut. She was waxing in improper directions, and PULLING THE STRIP THE WRONG WAY THEN HAVING TO REWAX AND DOING IT AGAIN.
“A classmate stood over my face at one point and asks ‘how’s it going?!’ and I SNAPPED. Do NOT approach me while my coochie meow meow is being massacred.”
“The prof ended up having to take over. By the end of it, I had burns, some tears, and my entire no no square was red for a week. 0/10 do not recommend.” ~ funnygirlsaywhat
“I talked to a beautician friend about this once so I’ll just get the big one out of the way…”
“People who don’t wipe properly and lie about it like they did.” ~ MrShortPants
“Who the f-ck doesn’t shower before this sort of thing?” ~ prostateExamination
“Not my story, but our teacher in beauty school. She was waxing someone on her period (not uncommon, just wear a tampon) and she didn’t realize that the wax had stuck to her tampon string.”
“When she went to pull the strip, the tampon flew out and was obviously an embarrassing mess. Now we’re taught to put an applicator over the string or push it out of the way while laying the strip.” ~ supagirl277
“One of my instructors in beauty school told us about when she was a student and her class learned to do waxing (back then cosmetologists in my state were taught to wax everything but these days we only do neck and above).”
“Her instructor grouped the ladies up and then told them, ‘ok, go ahead and remove everything below your waist’ and the students proceeded to wax each other. Talk about getting to know your beauty school pals well!” ~ BurningValkyrie19
“While in esthetics school during Brazilian training I was a model for 2 girls. One of the girls spreads my butt cheeks apart to the point my skin was hurting to evaluate the situation and she commented on how nice my butthole was.”
“Will say it was extremely awkward and interesting sitting there on all 4s while they wax me lol. Just for reference, typically when waxing you start from the back coming forward or at least that’s how we were taught” ~ Kashhuu
“Oh wow I have so many. I am a full body waxer and I probably do 15-25 Brazilians a day.”
“The amount of women who come in with poop in their butts is ASTOUNDING. Like it’s a regular topic of convo between me and my coworkers.”
“I used to have a male Brazilian client who would always tell me I was hot during his wax and then ask me to leave the room when I was finished so he could get dressed (in private, after I already saw the whole kit and caboodle??).”
“And then there would always be a mountain of tissues in the garbage. Not discreet bro.” ~ msnic21
“A coworker was doing this nice lady’s bikini. When the time comes to do around the butthole, the lady grins and says « you’ll get a little surprise! »”
“So coworker, of course, wants to know what she means, client tries to get cute by going « oh, you’ll see, haha! » Coworker stands her grounds so the clients finally says that she was back from a trip where she got some sort of butt worms that she called her « little buddies » and that she says are « very cute, haha! »”
“Coworker sent her out without touching the client’s butt.” ~ Leipreachn
“Oh Damn. I’m leaving my phone in the garbage just reading that. Goodbye!” ~ RegularLisaSimpson
“STDs, unknown smells, unknown discharge, and a guy who blew his load everywhere while I was waxing his balls. Beauty industry is not glamorous at all.” ~ _3309
Oh. My. Lord.
I think I’ve hit my TMI limit.
Believe it or not, doctors are human, too. They don’t always get it right and it can be difficult to narrow down symptoms and come to conclusions.
That’s why many of them might ask you a million questions–or repeat some that you were under the impression you had already answered.
Doctors depend on you just as much as you depend on them! That’s why it’s up to patients to advocate for themselves and be as open, direct and as honest as possible about any and all of their symptoms.
As you can imagine, all doctors have crazy stories about how they were able to come to a diagnosis… and how it came down to a patient mentioning something, no matter how innocuous it might have appeared on the surface.
“Doctors of Reddit, what’s your ‘I’m glad you mentioned that symptom’ moment’?”
“Family member recently had a breast cancer diagnosis and in passing mentioned their hip hurting really badly. The oncologist decided to stage the cancer immediately and it had spread to the bones, specifically the hip and spine.”
“Was encroaching on the spinal cord…they started radiation fairly quickly and were able to control its progression on the spine before starting hormonal treatment. But it’s a good thing they did mention the hip pain as they usually don’t like to “complain” as they put it.” ~ surfinwhileworkin
“Absolutely lovely patient presented with low back pain. We worked together for a few weeks, she was getting better, and she mentioned she got up several times a night to urinate. She was relatively young, that isn’t super normal, so I asked how often.”
“Six to eight times a night! Not only was she exhausted from lack of sleep, she mentioned intercourse had been painful for years since the birth of her child. She thought it was normal, and just suffered through.”
“No one wants to talk about urinary or fecal incontinence or pain with intercourse, but it happens so frequently in reproductive age women I’ve started screening questions so I can direct people to pelvic floor physical therapy.”
“She caught up with me later and said the PT was life-changing.” ~ anthrologynerd
“I was a patient. I’d gone in to see one doctor, complaining of headaches. My eye was red and swollen, and I was sensitive to light. She said it was allergies and migraines, and told me to use eye drops and take Midol.”
“After two weeks, it was so much worse, so I saw a different doctor in the same building. I gave her all the same symptoms, but this is where I changed it.”
“I said, ‘The pain in my head is so bad, it’s only on this side, it feels like fireworks behind my eye, and I want to take a knife and cut my head right here’ – I pointed directly at my temple – ‘so the pressure can be released.’”
“Apparently the delusion of believing I’d survive that, combined with the way I described the pain, clicked something in her brain.”
“20 minutes later I was on the way to the ER with a diagnosis of orbital cellulitis which was eating its way towards my brain and had been for nearly three weeks. They were close to removing my eye and surrounding tissue but I luckily responded to the emergency antibiotics.”
“The pain was so bad that I was screaming even on morphine. Eventually, they switched me to Dilaudid when my dad mentioned that morphine didn’t help him or my grandfather. I guess we metabolize it too quickly or something?”
“So I learned two things that night: If I hadn’t mentioned how severe the pain was and the lengths I’d go to for it to stop, I don’t know if they would have caught it before there were more serious consequences.” ~ itsbadtonight
“I had stomach pains for months and kept going back to my GP about it. We tried tons of different meds, but I still kept waking up in the night with this horrible stomach pain. Finally, probably my 7th or 8th appointment, I mentioned having shoulder pain when my stomach hurt.”
“Boom.”
“She immediately knew I had gallstones and had to have my gallbladder removed. I think because I was young and in good health, it didn’t even occur to her until I mentioned the shoulder pain. Apparently, that’s a symptom of gallstones.”
“Doctors aren’t perfect, but people have to be their biggest health advocates. If I had just given up or gotten frustrated, I might never have figured out the problem.” ~ ScarletWitch2138
“Patient here. My eye doctor mentioned in passing that I needed to come in if I ever saw new flashes or floaters. I am young but very nearsighted.”
“Months later I started seeing flashes. I wasn’t worried about it but did have my doctor’s voice in my head so I made an appointment. Sure enough, my retina had detached and I needed emergency surgery to save my vision.”
“I am so thankful the eye doctor casually mentioned that and I listened to my gut.” ~ moor1238
“I had a dude come in with abdominal pain and vomiting. Had been vomiting for days. Was going down the surgical route with him until he mentioned that he showered up to 20 times a day to help with the pain.”
“Turned out he had classic cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome.” ~ kenhutson
“Doctor currently in residency here.”
“Had a patient I was taking care of in the inpatient medical ward who was admitted for seizures in the context of alcohol withdrawal.”
“He was a young guy who had become depressed due to several life stressors including divorce and losing his job which exacerbated his pre-existing alcohol use disorder.”
“He also was extremely malnourished (not uncommon in alcoholics) and had a very low BMI. Apparently, he had zero appetite due to depression. At one point he had started feeling better and his appetite improved.”
“However, his heart rate was consistently very high for no clear reason and he was experiencing palpitations. I had a hunch to check electrolytes and several had dropped to very low levels. The reason for this is something called ‘refeeding syndrome.’”
“Basically if someone has not eaten for a while and suddenly starts eating a lot, they become very insulin sensitive which can lead to electrolyte disturbances that can cause abnormal heart rhythms and even death.”
“We put him on continuous cardiac monitoring and aggressively replaced his electrolytes, but it was scary how at-risk he was to going into an arrhythmia simply for just eating food.” ~ PMME
“Google doctor.”
“I had food poisoning once. For a couple of days, I didn’t eat anything, couldn’t hold down much water. The vomiting passed, still didn’t feel like eating, could drink water though. Felt like death, really weak, on edge, like I was going to die.”
“‘Impending feeling of doom.’ – I Googled that phrase plus ‘food poisoning’ and came across electrolyte depletion.”
“One dose of rehydration salts and I went from ‘I feel the end is near’ to ‘F*ck, I’m starving, where’s the nearest Subway?’ in about 20 minutes.” ~ nousernameusername
“Patient. I was getting awful brain fog, getting pretty sleepy in the day but almost insomnia at night, I’d get random heart palpitations that made me feel sick, manic states of anxiety at night, and I’d get a UTI pretty much every other month.”
“I felt like I was losing my mind. My partner at the time just said I needed to exercise and lose weight. My doctors in the U.K. said I was just getting older and the UTIs were normal for reproductive age.”
“I went to my doctor to talk about getting another set of antibiotics for a new UTI when I mentioned I had been getting some heart palpitations. Luckily he probed further and sent me for a blood test.”
“Turns out I have a lifelong autoimmune disease that attacks the thyroid, essentially depriving me of hormones and sending my adrenal gland into overdrive.”
“Now I’m medicated I no longer have any of those symptoms aside from afternoon sleepiness. I hate to think what state I’d be in if I didn’t get it sorted when I did.” ~ MD564
“Black stools. Folks, if you’re having black poops for f*ck’s sake, mention that sooner rather than later.”
“This lady has been seeing nothing but black for MONTHS before she thought to mention anything. We found several gastric ulcers and a hemoglobin level that circled the drain.” ~ RowanRally
These stories are wild, and if you’re currently re-evaluating your prior approach to doctor’s appointments, then good. They’re there to help you, so you might as well be honest, right?
The lesson here, and we’ll repeat it, is be your own advocate. You are your best advocate.
Speak up!
You’ll be happy you did and doctors will thank you later.