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Products People Might Stop Buying If They Knew How They Were Made

Some things are just better off not knowing, if you ask me. For example, if you’re not interested in becoming a vegetarian, you probably don’t need to know how chickens are processed. Just don’t do it.

There are other things, like working conditions in factories that sell goods to American retailers like The Gap, that perhaps more people should be aware of so they can make the right choices when they’re out shopping.

Below are 16 products that people might stop buying if they knew how it was made, and I’ll be honest, the list contains a bit of each type.

16. Make sure to Google this one.

After I found out the story behind the palm plantations for production of palm oil I made it my personal mission to completely throw it our of my life (and that sh.t is in almost everything you eat).

Palm oil is the biggest reason for massive deforestation around the world. South America and Southeast Asia (Indonesia in particular) are producing the most. There are moratoriums on new palm oil plantations, but companies are skirting that issue by paying individuals to start forest fires so that the companies can then buy up the land that is no longer a forest.

The deforestation is destroying habitat for animals like orangutans and tigers. And all of the burning of the forest is also burning peat. Peat is essentially forest detritus that houses huge amounts of C02. By burning it we are quickly releasing all of thst C02 into the atmosphere. Worst of all, the plantations are only good for one or two cycles, then the land is essentially discarded, and new plantations are made.

In my opinion, palm oil production is the greatest ecological disaster in history. It is nearly everything, and essentially impossible to avoid. There are so many different names for it, so it can go unnoticed so easily. Even the supposedly sustainable palm oil production is extremely damaging to the environment it is grown in.

15. It’s all in the bottle.

Most low to mid tier vodkas. I work at an industrial distillery where we make millions of gallons of very high purity ethanol from corn.

We have customers in the beverage market that literally just dilute our product to 80 proof or so, run it through a filter, and bottle it to sell.

Those customers sell their products from anywhere from $8-$50+ for a liter. And you know what the main difference is? The more expensive vodka’s bottle is “fancier”.

It’s almost all brand perception with these corn based vodkas.

14. That’s less than appetizing.

I’ve work in 2 different meat departments in 2 separate grocery stores.

The meat in the case that has had work done, (marinated or like put into kabobs) are usually the old meat we didn’t sell that is about to go bad.

That marinade is hiding how shitty the meat looks.

13. Special doesn’t necessarily mean “special.”

Certain signed art work. Used to work at an art printing company that we did signature editions of certain pieces.

Guess who did the signing me and some coworkers, we were all design and art majors so they just had us learn all the artists signatures, we even had machines that could mimic the signatures too, I wish I had a picture of the devices they were pretty cool.

It was in the fine print that we were doing it and was approved by the artists but I guarantee most people would never buy the prints if they knew the signatures were forged. So always read the fine print when buying items, especially “special” editions of stuff.

12. Eight hours is kind of blowing my mind.

RVs.

They aren’t insulated fully. Nothing is sealed correctly. All the electronics that are “fancy and new” are outdated and inefficient.

The manufacturers use the cheapest materials possible AND all RVs are built in 8 hours. A vacation home. On wheels. In 8 hours!?

11. I never would have guessed.

This reminds me of a documentary series my dad once watched. Garlic. The garlic industry is a hell of a lot darker than most people would think.

I don’t remember everything, but apparently a lot of Chinese companies that sell to restaurants overseas use prison labor. These inmates have to peel the garlic completely by hand, no tools whatsoever.

There were a few inmates missing fingernails. If I recall correctly, one man said that he had a friend who had to resort to using his teeth because he didn’t have any nails left. They work unimaginably grueling shifts, in which they have to meet a quota for the day or face consequences. They get paid very little, if anything at all. They all seemed so miserable. The series is titled “Rotten”, you can find it on Netflix.

10. This one is hard to stomach.

Chocolate produced by child labor.

9. I guess it’s not so fresh.

“Fresh-squeezed” is marketing. You can deliver orange juice year-round in three ways:

1) buy fresh oranges and squeeze them yourself.
2) squeeze the oranges, remove most of the water and freeze the concentrate. This is sold as frozen concentrate.
3) squeeze the oranges, then separate all the components of the juice mechanically and chemically. Store the various components in huge tanks – sometimes for years. Then mix it with flavors and preservatives, bottle it, and sell it before it separates again. This is sold as fresh squeezed, because it’s never been frozen.

Unless you physically see method 1, method 2 is far, far fresher.

8. I’m going to have to use that.

“Anyone who enjoys sausage and respects the law should never find out how either are made.”

7. Of course they didn’t.

In high school, the girls in my class were horrified to find out what their Uggs were made of.

They had no idea.

6. I hope we’re on the way to fixing this one.

Most baby powder is made with talcum, which is potentially carcinogenic since it works via breaking down into some of the finest pieces we can make, fine enough to cause problems for your cells.

Use cornstarch, we have too much of it, it works by absorbing the moisture. The only caveat is that you have to make sure to shower if off of you regularly enough that it doesn’t mould on you, but that shouldn’t be a problem for someone that showers at least once a week.

5. What a jerk face.

My parents decided to build a house in another state. The builder did not know I lived in the neighborhood. The builder took this nice piece of land and spread about 2 feet of broken concrete over where the front yard and house would be. Not knowing much about construction practices, I took a picture and showed it to a construction engineer friend. He said that was messed up and there was no reason for that.

Hired a local third party engineer to visit the building site, and he said the builder was destroying the land. Parents had a lawyer send a letter to the builder. Builder’s lawyer wrote back, denied any wrong doing. Parents threatened to sue. Builder offered to refund deposit. Rather than waste time/money on a lawsuit, parents took back deposit and walked away. Wasted money on architect fees. Builder completed house.

The finished house was raised 3 feet above of where the natural ground was. Whoever bought that house either didn’t know or care that 6 inches below was tons of broken concrete debris. Fuck that guy and every builder like him.

4. It sounds cynical, but…

I really don’t think there is one. If it’s because the ingredients or preparation are disgusting, I think most people are perfectly happy to keep eating/using it because the finished product is fine.

If it’s a moral reason, I just don’t think most people would care enough to stop using or eating whatever the product is. We’ve known for years that Air Jordans are being made with child labor in sweatshops, and sales haven’t dipped one bit due to that.

And I don’t say this as a cynic, I think we should work to improve conditions for all humanity, but the proportion of consumers who would be bothered enough to stop buying a thing is vanishingly small.

3. Definitely awful.

Silk.

Bonus story: Had a friend who worked briefly in bridal and was fitting a woman who was boasting how vegan and eco friendly her wedding was going to be. No one was allowed to wear leather etc. All while wearing her dress with huge amounts of silk on it.

ETA: 17/07/20

A lot of people asking if my friend told the bride, so I asked her:

“No I didn’t. The bride and her friend started making fun of my disability when they thought I wasn’t in the room and couldn’t hear them. I would have also lost my job if I had lost the sale”.

2. Womp-womp.

Nothing. People know what goes into hot dogs and chicken nuggets, they still eat them. They’ve seen what the sweatshops look like, and they still buy stuff from there.

1. That is the sad truth.

I want to say sneakers by brands like Nike, who exploit, underpay and abuse their workers, but sadly most people already know how they are made and still buy them.

Well, I’m going to do some soul searching, how about you?

Is there something else that belongs on this list? Add it in the comments!

The post Products People Might Stop Buying If They Knew How They Were Made appeared first on UberFacts.

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The Quality of These Products Has Gone Down While the Price Has Gone Up

Pretty much everything increases in price, right? I remember being stunned when I first learned that my grandmother could go to lunch, a movie, and get ice cream with a single quarter!

We expect to have to pay more for those things, now, but we don’t expect to pay more for products that aren’t as good as they used to be – which is the case with these 12 things, according to savvy Redditors who have noticed.

12. We all need more space.

New homes.

Cookie cutter houses, built with cheap contractors who cut corners left and right, situated in neighborhoods with ever higher HOA fees: and the HOAs are getting more expensive too.

11. All of the razor burn.

Face razors. They had it perfected with double edge blades in a metal razor. Cheap and incredible shaves. Modern plastic disposable razors are worse on your skin, give a worse shave, and grotesquely expensive.

They are nothing more than monopolies controlling the availability and accessibility. When you go to the razor section at the store you can only choose from their garbage.

I give double edged metal razors to men and women loves ones as gifts and universally their minds are blown realizing how much better and less expensive they are.

10. Definitely applies to washers and dryers.

Certain house appliances.

My grandma has had the same fridge for 40 years. My parents recently had to replace theirs. It’s their third in 20 years.

9. Just a fact of life.

There used to be this burger joint called “Joe’s cablecar” near me. Great place. I miss it so much. A few months before it closed down, I was there and the owner, Joe, was having a heated conversation with one of his suppliers on the phone. After he hung up, he looked over at me and just said, “price goes up, quality goes down.”

It took me a while to realize that that wasn’t the particular supplier he was dealing with, just a fact of life. People like Joe can’t tolerate that. That’s why the truly great things never last. Only the mediocre things are able to endure long enough to degrade into the universally hated embodiment of entropy that the physical world allows for.

8. We can all agree Nestle is the worst.

Everything Nestle takes over.

In general, anything that ANY corporation takes over.

7. This one physically hurts.

Health Insurance.

It really is an ugly situation. We should have better care if the price increases.

Who’s making all that money?!

6. Capitalism rears its ugly head.

Any service ever.

Not gonna lie. Modern business is based on a model of cutting costs.

5. Those are some big words but I agree.

Almost everything.

Planned obsolescence and expediency has taken the place of quality and craftsmanship.

4. This makes me sad.

Disney Theme Parks. (Speaking pre Covid world)

They were better when you could do an entire park in a day, cost much less, like $40 vs whatever the insane price is now, and they limited who could get in.

Universal is the same way, specifically Halloween Horror nights. It was $15 the first time I went, they capped how many tickets they sold and you had time to do every house plus a couple of rides. It was my favorite and we would go every year.

Now? It’s like $70 for a ticket, you have to buy fast pass for another $30 or $40 just so you have a chance to do every house because the lines can literally be hours long because they don’t cap ticket sales and they recycle the same houses but pretend it’s a new theme. It’s so miserable we stopped going.

3. And it’s chock-full of preservatives and other stuff.

Food.

Unless you make it yourself.

Even then ingredient quality is lacking unless you’re dropping way too much money.

2. Ben & Jerry’s is the only ice cream.

Ice cream containers that were originally one-half gallon have been “shrinking.”

They went from 64 oz. to 56 oz and now 48 oz. – but the price hasn’t “shrunk” (it’s been increasing steadily) and the quality often isn’t as good as it used to be when containers were a true half-gallon.

1. Lots of people feel this way.

Reese’s peanut butter cups.

Their “Big Cup” is basically the size of their original cup for double the price.

Also it tastes different. I remember as a kid the original peanut butter cups came in those 4 packs and you could individually peel away the chocolate from the peanut butter. Like, part of the game for me was to try to peel back the chocolate so all I had was an intact peanut butter disc.

Can’t do that anymore. The chocolate is super thin and has no “snap” to it. It’s just mush.

I definitely have to agree with most of these.

What would you add to the list? Share with us in the comments!

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Parents Admit Whether They’ve Ever Regretted Their Child’s Name

What we name our kids is very personal, and most people will defend those choices like they’re making a last stand.

Even, let’s be honest, when they should be embarrassed and have many, many regrets.

These 15 parents are ready to get honest on whether or not they wish they’d named their little bundle something completely different.

15. This is why I made a popularity rule.

There used to be 7 kids named ‘Ayden’ in my grade but all were spelled differently, or had different last names, until an 8th Ayden showed up with the same last name and spelling as another kid in the same grade.

We called him ‘new kid’ for the rest of the year.

14. So many baby girls whose name was once beautiful.

Isis. Back when it was just an Egyptian Goddess (7 years ago).

We don’t yell her name out in public anymore.

13. Yeah, that’s a no from me.

I’m named after a song. It was also in the top 5 names for the decade in which I was born. Pretty sure they started to regret it the first time there were more than 5 kids sharing my name in my class.

12. That’s such a pretty name, though.

My friend’s name is Sepfora, and she was named that before the popular make up company Sephora got big.

It’s the greek version of the biblical name Zipporah (Moses’s wife).

11. Someone is a drama queen.

Before I was born, my dad wanted to name me Harley after his favorite bike, but my mom insisted that I needed a Bible name. At age 4 I chose a nickname for myself because I couldn’t pronounce this Bible name, but then as a teen I questioned my younger self’s choice and explored new nicknames, including Harley.

When I brought this idea to my dad thinking he’d be pleased, he got red in the face and said “I had to sell that bike to put you in school! It’s nothing to me now, just a random chunk of metal. You want to be named after a random chunk of metal? Fine! I’ll call you Crankshaft how about that!” And he did, for like 2 years. I don’t know where the regret is in that story, but it’s somewhere.

10. This is a very weird story.

My wife and I don’t like all the family politics of naming the children. Someone’s going to get bent out of shape because one family member got used and not another. So, we racked our brains to agree on a name not used on either side of the family.

Didn’t announce the name until the birth. Neither my mother or father said anything for a year. Then, one day they casually mentioned the name of my uncle’s first son that I wasn’t even aware of. He had died at only 6 weeks old, 15 years before I was born.

I don’t know that I regret the name of my son. But, it would have been crossed off the list of contenders had I known.

9. Kids are merciless. Remember that.

There was a girl in my elementary school named Nida Butt.

I suppose it’s hard to come up with a good name ending in Butt but “need-a” would not have been my top pick.

8. Depending on the kid, this could have been epic.

I was almost named Luke Sky.

One guess as what my last name is.

I honestly probably wouldn’t have minded much, I already took on a lot of flak in school anyway

7. A sad tale, this one is.

My dad regrets my name. He wishes he had named me after his father. When my parents had me both his younger brothers were engaged, so he figured they’ll probably have sons and name him after their dad.

Well one had two sons and the other had one. None of them need after my grandfather. My dad regrets picking the name he preferred and has said, “If I could go back in time, I would name you Thomas.”

6. Well that’s awkward.

Well I don’t think they regret it or care but my name is Latina and I’m black.

I always get asked about it and have to explain that it was completely arbitrary and I speak no spanish.

5. They probably don’t regret it. Because they should.

Not me but my SO teaches two sisters named Princess with their middle name as the differentiator.

If they haven’t regretted it they will when both ‘Princesses’ grow up………..I hope (gulp).

4. Oh, man, no you’ve gotta change that.

I knew an analyze once, and when she was 8, they realized that the unique spelling of her name was a popular personal lubricant.

3. Something to think about with the “he can just go by his middle name” decision.

As far as I know, my parents don’t regret my name, but it’s an odd situation… I was their first born, and my dad wanted me to be named Jerry, after himself. But we have 7 other Jerrys in my family… So they named me Jerry, but they decided, from birth, that I would go by Caleb (my middle name).

I don’t mind, because I don’t like the name Jerry. But it makes things confusing at work, cause I don’t like to explain to everyone that I prefer to go by my middle name… So I usually just go by my first name at work.

2. Like a name out of  ‘Twilight’

My name is Jessica, which is the name my dad wanted. Mom wanted to name me Clarissa. I was born early and they hadn’t settled on a name, a nurse suggested combining them… they seriously considered naming me Clarissica.

They had even decided my nickname would be Rissy. I am so glad Mom decided Jessica was fine, I never would have forgiven them.

1. Why would he want to memorialize that?

If I had been a boy, dad planned to name me Luke…in honor of his mother getting diagnosed with leukemia that year.

So thankful I am female. Of course, they still let my sister name me, who was 3 at the time.

I love both of my kids’s names, so fingers crossed nothing happens in the world or pop culture to change that anytime soon.

Do you regret your kid’s name? Tell us why or why not in the comments!

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13 Parents Admit They Have Regrets About Their Child’s Name

Most people take the responsibility that is choosing another human being’s name seriously. We opt to honor family, favorite literary characters, names that we’ve loved since our youths, or any number of meaningful options.

Some people seem to just toss something down on a birth certificate without much thought to things like initials, potential nicknames, or the fact that no one should be named that, ever – but at least these 13 parents have enough sense to regret their choices.

13. No one could have seen that one coming.

I named my daughter Karen.

Thanks, Internet.

12. Why are men, y’all?

Luckily my mother stopped quite a few bad names proposed by my father, but the worst one had to be when she proposed Levi, but he insisted that Garrett be my middle name if that was the case.

For those uninformed in the tobacco industry, Levi Garretts is a chewing tobacco brand. My father was well aware of this.

11. Maybe they were delirious.

I know triplets named Wild, Winter, and Wolf.

Feel bad for all of them except for maybe Winter cause that’s a OK name.

10. Whyyyyyyy though? Call CPS!

My mom went to school with a girl named Pennis, but everyone called her Penny.

9. Oooh, man, someone was in the doghouse.

My mom regrets my name. They thought I was going to be a boy, and had a boy’s name picked out. I arrived, very much not a boy, after 12 hours of labor and no epidural (sorry, Mom). She told my dad to just pick a name, so he named me after his sister. My mom and my aunt don’t like each other. At all.

Dad did not get naming privileges for my siblings, and Mom made sure to pick one name for each gender well before they arrived.

8. This is a stinking Greek tragedy.

i hope no one who knows me happens to be scrolling this sub… my mother absolutely REFUSES to call me by my name, and has my (22f) entire life. she named my older brother, so she let my dad name me, despite her so badly wanting to name me “laramie” (gag). my dad named me alexandria. I don’t like it, and i hate being called alex which literally everyone does no matter how much i insist on alexandria. But it’s better than what my mom wanted to name me, and calls me.

my mother hates my name so much, and is so pissed she didn’t get to name me, that she refuses to call me by my name. so instead, she came up with a nickname for me that she’s called me since i was an infant: buddha. not my real name, not a shortened version of my name, not my middle name, not my initials, not a bearable nickname, not even the name she wanted for me, but fucking buddha!? BECAUSE THATS SO MUCH BETTER THAN ALEXANDRIA!? to add insult to injury, i was a very overweight child with a large protruding stomach. her yelling “BUDDHA!!” in the grocery store was always a mortifying experience.

she got “buddha” from calling me “beautiful baby” in a baby talk voice. so she would say it like “boo da ful baby” and it got shortened to “boo da” very fast. but of course when you see a mom calling her fat ass kid “buddha” the last thing you think is “oh, well thats CLEARLY short for beautiful!” no amount of begging or pleading (even as an adult) has made my mother stop calling me “buddha”, she will not use my actual name. its kind of ridiculous and annoying and upsetting, but i realize theres no winning. i am forever “buddha” smh.

i think i have name dysphoria.

7. Well that’s a big ol’ yikes.

my mom always told me the story of my eldest sibling (died at about a month old) who was named after our dad and his dad. my mom’s mother chooses all the middle names in our family, so the middle name was non-negotiable.

unfortunately for my brother, our last name starts with a K, and the men are all named Kevin, and our grandmother really liked K names. RIP K.K.K. the third

6. You never think about the details, hmm?

I’m the son. My father regrets the name he gave me, because it’s nearly identical to his name. Only difference is the middle name / initial- which rarely shows up on paperwork. So almost any time that either of us goes to do any paperwork or sign up for something, we run into issues involving our nearly identical names.

For example: We both face roughly a 20 minute delay when trying to vote because they mix up which of us is which. I receive his best buy receipts. He gets packages and mail meant for me and I for him. His credit card routinely pops up on my credit report, my student loan routinely pops up on his.

5. Too bad because it was really cute!

Before my son was born, my husband and I were having a lot of problems picking boys names. Everyone in my husband’s family has two middle names so that made it a lot harder.

After a few days, we landed on a name we loved. Harrison Atlas Henry Ames.

After a few hours of blissful happiness, I stopped dead in my tracks, telling my husband we can’t name our son that.

His initials would’ve been HAHA.

4. It was an awesome show and also I like that name!

Hi, the child here.

My birth mom named me Sabrina, after her favorite tv show, Sabrina the teenage witch.

You can bet that when a certain someone from my middle school that for some reason absolutely hates me found out, he started calling me “Sabrina the teenage bit*h.” I don’t go by Sabrina at all, by the way.

3. Please excuse my secondhand rage.

I don’t mind my sons name but I regret that I didn’t stand my ground and insist that his middle name be my great grandpa’s name. I really wanted to honor my opa who was a big part of my life and my ex insisted it was “too German” and insisted he have a “good Irish name” and “allowed” my alternative.

My ex is like a quarter Irish through his grandma that he never met, meanwhile my German dad literally didn’t speak English til he was 7 and my mom is German and I grew up in a household where German was spoken too but go off i guess.

2. Whew, dodged a bullet there!

Lol I’m not a parent, but my dad was going to make me Arizona Corona. I’m very thankful he didn’t name me that considering the times..

1. It’s a minor inconvenience, but…

Didn’t anticipate spelling her name every single time you need an appointment, prescription. It’s a strange but known spelling of a common name. Used it television, fashion, and an author with it.

Like Cierra for Sierra kind of difference.

I was also unaware of how people butcher my now husbands last name (German but short). We weren’t married at the time. So this kid has to spell out her first And last names every single time usually twice.

She just starts spelling now vs saying then spelling bc people still get it wrong.

Some of these are appalling, but others are just bad luck, right?

Do you love your kid’s name? Have regrets? Tell us about it in the comments!

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People Share Their Travel Horror Stories

There’s a huge world out there full of adventure…and uncertainty.

I love traveling in the U.S. and in other countries but you have to know how to be aware of your surroundings, or else you might end up in a very compromising position…

Then again, sometimes things are just totally out of your control and you fall into some bad luck for no reason at all.

Traveling can be a crapshoot, ya know?

AskReddit users weighed in with their stories of travel gone wrong.

1. City of lights.

“Went to Paris with my buddy for the night in September. Trouble at the hostel around midnight. No place to sleep. Bar/club hopped until about 4.

Froze my ball$ off while I slept at a bus stop until we got chased out by a couple of cops. Spent the rest of the night in front of an ATM on top of a heat vent. Took the first train back in the morning. Cr*ppy night, great memory.”

2. Into the slammer.

“Thrown in jail for a night on an island in Thailand (Lanta) because I was working illegally (bartending at my hostel without a workers permit) and they were asking 30,000 baht (1,000 USD) in order to let me go.

I said nah because I wasn’t about to pay that, especially knowing they would take less. They were just being greedy knowing I was a young American kid and trying to take advantage of me.

I got out of it by staying in jail for much longer than needed in order to drive the price down (total of about 16 hours). Eventually paid 6,000 baht (200 USD), and even got a ride back to my hostel from the police. Overall, very civil extortion and bribery to be completely honest.

Got roughed up a bit in the beginning but never really hurt or anything.”

3. Not friends anymore.

“I decided to travel with a friend of mine for Spring Break. I flew to Venice a day before him. Next afternoon I randomly ran into him on the street, when he told me he had lost his wallet in London and had decided to fly to Venice anyway. He had no phone or way to contact me so it was an act of God he found me and didn’t get stuck without money in Venice.

Later on in our trip we got separated on our way to a train station in Rome. He freaked out and instead of looking for me, smuggled himself onto a train and hid in the bathroom. We found each other again on the plane out of Rome and we were both furious at each other.

The guy is a cartoon character and made that trip fiftyfold more stressful than it had to be haha. But at least he’s lucky. We also had no money the whole trip because I had to pay for everything so we were constantly hungry. He spent the last night at Heathrow because I only had money left for a single train ticket back to London.

Our friendship didn’t quite survive that ordeal.”

4. USA.

“I took a road trip solo across the US. It turned out that my 17-year-old car was not up to the task, and it died on the side of the road ~5 hrs from home.

I had to hike down the highway until I found a farm where I could get the number for a tow truck, and then I got towed to the nearest town, a couple miles away. I was in contact with my family the whole time (this was when I still lived with my parents), and eventually my grandparents decided that they would drive down in two vehicles and give me their spare car.

After I got that car, I managed to get through the rest of the trip without any major problems (aside from one flat tire that i was able to get replaced easily), up until the third last day of my trip. I still had about 1000 km (600 miles) to go, and I rear-ended another car, totaling my grandparent’s vehicle.

Again, I was extremely lucky. I was only about 2 hours from my brother’s place, so he drove out to get me and all my stuff, and then I spent the night with him and took a greyhound home.”

5. Oh, boy…

“My husband I have such a history of bad travel luck that it’s a running joke.

Our first big trip together was to Taiwan, during typhoon season. We got trapped overnight in Taroko Gorge due to a landslide and had to replan several activities due to weather closures.

Six months later, he crashed a motorbike in the Philippines, breaking his collarbone. It’s taken two surgeries, but he’s perfectly fine now. Unfortunately, it happened on the 3rd day of our trip to a place that required a boat to get to any nice beaches, and he wasn’t able to get in and out of the boats. So we ate and drank a lot at local restaurants.

This February, we found out I was pregnant 6 days before a long awaited trip to Thailand and Malaysia. We’d been planning it for 18 months. The first few days were great, but after a long day in the sun, I got very sick.

Long story short, due to low blood pressure, I fainted through a glass door, shattering it and landing in the glass. I sliced through the tendon in my hand and was unable to use it for the next six weeks. Then the morning sickness started. I spent a lot of time in hotels while my husband did all the fun things we planned (I insisted).

We’re a little hesitant to plan any future travels.”

6. That’s bad.

“I was barely three weeks into a planned 9-month RTW trip. Started off in Peru, hiked the Inca Trail and came down through Bolivia into Chile. Spent 24 hrs on a bus from Calama to Santiago. When I got off the bus my legs buckled under me. At first I thought it was just muscle fatigue/cramps from sitting cramped so long on the bus.

Went to the hostel but later that day I fell down on the floor and couldn’t get back up again. I didn’t have any strength and had to crawl back to my room. Luckily there was someone in the dorm and they called an ambulance.

Got to the hospital and was having trouble describing what was happening to me… luckily there was a doctor there that spoke some English and said I most likely had Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Spent the next 10 days in the hospital in Santiago as my strength kept getting worse and worse.. I couldn’t open a bottle of water or even squeeze toothpaste. No pain though so it felt really weird.

They put me on immunoglobulin therapy. I was supposed to travel with a girl through southern Chile.. hadn’t met her before other than talking on the phone. Luckily she had given me the name of a local contact and I was able to get in touch with her and she came and visited me in the hospital. Ran up a $300 bill on the phone using the Internet (this was in 1998).

At the end of the 10 days though my strength was finally starting to return but still very weak. Needless to say, being paralyzed meant an end to the trip. Had to go back to the US where I spent two months in physical therapy. I still couldn’t run or jump.

After two months I decided to try to resume my trip, at least partially… doing 3 months instead of the original 9. I went back to Chile and Easter Island, then continued on to South Africa and spent a month on an overland safari truck going up to Nairobi.

I think being outside and active helped me get better much faster than moping at home. Even when I got back from the trip I wasn’t 100%… took another 6 months or so. Now I’m fully recovered and haven’t had any relapse.”

7. As we speak…

“Currently in one.

Bought a Chinese knockoff Honda Win 110 in Hà Nội. Drove to Ninh Binh. Drove further to Dong Hoi… But the engine busted two days ago. Got a new engine for about 80 Euros or 2 million Dong.

Started yesterday at 4 in the afternoon to make it to Đồng Hới. Drove 40 kilometers. Engine died every 10 kilometers. Dies uphill. Neutral and 1st gear are almost impossible to get in. Drove back to mechanic who gave me the new engine.

His store was closed at 8PM when I arrived there. Went to the hotel across the street where I slept the day before.

Then he showed up. He was a little bit embarrassed that he did not fix it correctly. Hotel staff gave us a room (gf and me) and huge plate of food for 8 Euros.

Now I am sitting and waiting for the motorcycle… in a small deserted town between Nịnh Bình and Đồng Hới.”

8. Ouch!

“Got so badly sunburnt in Thailand every time I smiled my face bled.”

9. Not a good time.

“I stayed in a really sketchy hotel in Cairo, with mice running along the skirting and bare wires protruding from the wall just above my pillow.

After a couple of days I wanted to find out whether the wires were live, so I touched them together and shorted out three buildings.”

10. Scary.

“Parents got mugged in Colombia.

My brother and I were about 50yds ahead of them and heard my mom scream in panic. Sprinted back, just in time, to see her swing her purse around and connect.

Guy went down hard thanks to the $1200 Nikon in her purse.”

11. Bad luck.

“In Ecuador my wife’s bag was stolen, she lost all three of her passports.

In Botswana, I was hitching a ride in the back of a truck which ran off the road. In Morocco my train derailed. In Israel, my friend fell down a mountain and was taken to hospital by helicopter.

But in every case, everything turned out fine. Traveling is awesome!”

12. OH MY GOD.

“My family took a trip to Sudan (To visit my Dads family). My brother came back with a sever rash all over his back.

The rash persisted for a few weeks, and the doctors had no idea what it was. Then, we were at the park one day and he started complaining about the rash to our mom, saying it starting to hurt more.

She ignored it, thinking he must have rubbed it on something by accident, when he feel to the floor screaming with pain, and literally hundred and hundreds of flies came flying out of a single hole at the base of his neck. He was 8.

Apparently some sort of African fly had laid eggs (or more likely cocoons or something) in his back when we slept. They hatched when we were back in England.

Scary.”

13. The friendly skies.

“Flew with China Eastern Air to visit family in Hong Kong.

The businessman seated in the aisle was a rude as$hole that constantly made displeased faces at me. He wouldn’t even f*cking stand up when I needed to get past him to my window seat (f*cking bizarre). He clearly knew I needed to get past him, but made me climb over him, glowering at me as I passed.

The seats were concrete, the air was stale, and the food was stand-up-comedian level inedible: dry rice and sh*tty, bland fish. There was no in-flight entertainment and they announced that no electronic devices were allowed at any time.

I only brought my phone with me to keep my occupied, so I was SOL. So all I could do for hours was just try to force myself to sleep as to not be conscious of how awful this all was.

On my return flight back to Japan, the airline decided that they couldn’t let me fly without having a ticket booked to leave Japan. I explained that I have flown into Japan almost a dozen times without a departure ticket and it has never been an issue.

They did not care and insisted that it was illegal (it’s not) and they would deny me entry (they wouldn’t). By the time I jumped through enough of their idiotic hoops to get on board, they decided that 1 hour was not enough to make my connecting flight in Shanghai, so they would have to book me on another flight tomorrow and charge me a few hundred more dollars for that.

I flipped them off, went down the hall to Cathay Pacific. I gave them money, they gave me comfortable seats, pleasant crew, good food, in-flight entertainment, and no f*cking bullsh*t.”

14. The Dirty South.

“Atlanta.

Downtown was really nice. Olympic Park, World of Coke, a very good Aquarium, and blah, blah, etc.

Outside the perimeter was like running the gauntlet in the post-apocalypse. I had a guy come up to me, pull up his shirt showing a revolver in his pants, and say, “Hey, white bread, you got fi’ dollas fo’ a hit?”.

I still tell myself giving him $20 while my daughter went pee in the worst gas station bathroom her or my wife have ever seen wasn’t a “mugging”.

I’m certain if our car happened to break down there we would have all 3 died terribly.”

15. Indonesia.

“Traveling in Indonesia, we had just landed in Jakarta and after one night we were headed to an ‘idyllic’ surf spot (near Cijulang) that was meant to be a quiet paradise according to the lonely planet guide.

We had done extensive planning for the trip, although we seemed to have missed that we arrived just as the biggest Muslim festival of the year (ede) was finishing that included some of the only public holidays in the year.

The bus travel from Jakarta to the South Coast took an extra 6 hours, nearly doubling the time due to the traffic on the road.

We arrived and couldn’t find a hotel, being followed by the local mafia that make hotels charge more when they direct you there. Managed to find a suitable place in the end.

Unperturbed the next day my friend and I (the third friend was throwing up all day due to bad food in Malaysia a few days earlier) tried and reach this ‘idyllic’ spot. We find out the only way to get there is along this windy track and the best way is on the back of a moped.

So my friend and I (who are both over 6 foot) get this local to drive us there on the back of his moped. This seems like a bad idea already, until we arrived at a bamboo bridge which when driven across with 3 people ends up with a moped falling over. Luckily we didn’t fall in so kept going to this beach.

We arrived to the lovely spot only to find about 15,000 locals that had the same idea

We were the only white people there, also the only people over 5’10. People stared at us, asked to take pictures with us and were generally just confused when they looked at us.

All in all it didn’t go great but IMO that’s what makes the difference between an adventure and a holiday”

Have you ever had any bad experiences while traveling?

If so, please tell us about them in the comments.

We’d love to hear from you!

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People Share the Scary Things That Have Woken Them up at Night

I’ve never been woken up in the middle of the night by someone in my house or a person peeping through the window or anything like that.

But it seems like a lot of people have had genuinely hair-raising experiences while being snapped out of their slumber.

It’s a big, scary world out there…and you never know what’s lurking in the darkness…

Here’s what AskReddit users had to say about scary things that have woken them up out of bed.

1. Time to panic.

“The night I watched the movie The Conjuring, I woke up to my bed shaking and all the clothes hanging in my closet rattling like crazy. Took me quite some time to realize it was an earthquake and not the devil come visiting.

When I was in my final year at high school, I had trouble sleeping at night with my final exams approaching. I think I dozed off for a bit and suddenly woke up to see a person’s face staring in through my window grill.

I was in such a panic I literally couldn’t move or scream. Luckily he saw me wake up and escaped.”

2. Eerie music.

“Once i woke up because i heard music playing from the kitchen and i thought maybe mum forgot to turn the radio off.

I went through the dark hallway to the kitchen to turn the radio off but when i was standing in the dark kitchen there was no music playing everything was as quiet as always at 3am.”

3. The neighbor.

“The worst was when the neighbor boy, 9 y/o, came banging on our door and ringing the doorbell at 1am.

His mom and stepdad were fighting, stepdad hit mom and had her on the ground with his hands around her neck trying to choke her. We’ve never had to call 9-1-1 before that night.

This poor little boy had his 2 y/o sister in his arms with a completely dazed look on his face. While my mom was on the phone with 9-1-1, I sat the boy down and made sure to tell him that he was incredibly brave and no matter what anyone tells him, he did the right thing by coming here.

Even sadder is they had just moved here from across the country that week and he knew no one.”

4. Sounds like a movie.

“When I was 18 I’d broken my leg, so I was sleepingon the sofa downstairs.

Woke up to a guy climbing in the window directly over my head. I’d obviously left the window open a crack and he’d seen an opportunity.

As scared as I was, I’m fairly sure I scared him too as he screamed and ran away after I hit him with my crutch.”

5. Clowns are terrifying.

“My sister had an all white clown doll that hung from the ceiling on a little swing. In the summertime, we slept with our doors and windows open to get the cool air in.

When I woke up one night hearing some tapping against her window down the hall. If i sat up in bed and look down the hall, and I could see into the front of her bedroom.

So I did, and I see this f*cking clown swinging back and forth against her window, back lit by the street lamp, but clearly staring directly into my soul like it was all it desired in this world.

I didn’t sleep well that summer.”

6. Who’s there?

“I heard someone quietly trying my front doorknob late at night (I wasn’t quite asleep yet).

I checked with my roommate later, and it wasn’t them. It happened once or twice more, but I never got to the door quickly enough to see who it was through the peephole.

Nothing ever came of it, and I live somewhere else now.”

7. Camping.

“Camping is so terrifying.

I went once and woke up to the sound of something EATING inside my tent. I couldn’t even move and just laid there in fear listening to a creature eating in complete darkness 5 ft away from me.

Turns out it was just a hedgehog eating our hot dogs.”

8. Whoa. That’s scary.

“My dog barking because “cops” were banging on the doors and windows of our airbnb, flashing their lights into each and every room.

Called 911 and she told us to not answer the door because she doesn’t see cops in our area.”

9. Hahaha, oh my…

“My dog decided to hop onto our piano and started walking along the keys in the middle of the night.”

10. This might take the cake.

“I had an industrial size rat dying from rat poison come thru a panel in my closet and up into bed with me at 2 am.”

11. NO WAY.

“I had a large camel spider run over my face at about 3 am.

That was not a pleasant sensation.”

12. Sleepwalking.

“I woke up with chunks of teeth in my mouth and severe abdominal pain (probably swallowed some tooth).

Then, I looked across the room and there was a pool of blood on the opposite side of the room. After quickly spitting out the rest of the teeth bits, I went to the bathroom and was shocked to see my ENTIRE face was bleeding, but from a deep cut in my chin and not from my missing tooth.

I realized that I had sleepwalked, then decided to fall asleep while standing on the other side of the room and did a belly flop straight on the floor, and then somehow after all of that, got up again and WALKED BACK INTO BED and fell asleep for a few more hours.

I had to get a new tooth from a student doctor that I’ve never gotten fixed. I also ended supergluing my busted chin together because I couldn’t afford stitches.”

13. Scary.

“On a camping trip with friends in a state park. In the middle of the night our tent is woken up by the sound of gun shots. It is illegal to go hunting in state parks, so we weren’t sure if the shooter was hunting animals or just shooting a gun randomly into the woods.

Gun shots grew louder over the next hour, so it seemed like the shooter was getting closer to our campsite. A state trooper helicopter started flying overhead with a spotlight trying to find the shooter.

We eventually heard a bunch of cop cars up the hill from our campsite, and heard the state troopers get out and order the shooters to drop their weapons, and they brought the shooters into custody.

The next morning we asked the people who ran our campsite what happened. The people who lived in the house up the hill had apparently done a lot of meth, then decided to use cars driving down the main road as target practice.

There were rvs and trees in our campsite that had bullet holes in them. Luckily none of the bullets hit any campers, or caused any of the cars to go off the road, which would have sent them hurtling down a mountain side.”

14. Dogs are our best friends.

“The sound of my front door handle jiggling and the door being opened.

My dog launched off the bed and slammed into the door while snarling. He’s never acted like that. I called him back to me because I knew it was my roommate coming home.

Roommate came out of his room and asked what was going on. Apparently he’d forgotten to lock the front door.”

15. Glad he’s okay.

“A few years ago at 6am some random night, my mom burst into me and my brothers room and says “your dad has just had a heart attack, keep the dogs in here” before she proceeded to try and direct the ambulance to our house by giving directions over the phone and turning on all the lights.

The hospital is a 45 minute drive from us so getting back to sleep wasnt gonna happen.

He survived and is pretty much completely back to normal now.”

Now we want to hear your creepy stories.

In the comments, tell us about a time when you were genuinely scared.

We’d love to hear from you!

The post People Share the Scary Things That Have Woken Them up at Night appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Discuss the Life Advice That Has Made a Difference

A lot of advice is a dime a dozen and not that helpful, but every once in a while in life you’re smacked upside the head with GREAT advice that you hang on to forever.

Maybe it came from a parent, a sibling, a boss, a teacher, or even a complete stranger.

When you hear it and it sticks with you, you know it’s valuable.

Check out the best advice that AskReddit users say they’ve received.

1. Can you live without them?

“My grandpa told me this after I had moved into with my girlfriend and said living together was coming so easily:

It’s not the person who is easy to live with, it’s the person you can’t live without.

We’re married now.”

2. This is good.

“My dad told me a story about a time he bought some firewood. He paid for a cord of wood, but the guy only dropped off half a cord.

When he went to the guy’s house to confront him about it, the guy pulled a gun on him, so my dad left.

“The lesson,” he taught me, “is that when you are dealing with crazy people, always leave them feeling like THEY owe YOU. That way, they will go out of their way to avoid you.”

I have used this advice several times in my life.”

3. Seems pretty true.

“Nobody has any idea what’s going on.

A lot less people actually have their sh*t together than you might think, but in reality everyone is just really good at faking it. Usually, they may have a true grasp of one or two things at best.

That advice made me a lot less anxious about doing things like trying new hobbies, giving presentations, or applying for jobs I know nothing about, because I know very few people are actually qualified to judge my performance.”

4. I like this one.

“My step-dad once told me:

If there is a problem and you know the solution, you can solve it, so stop worrying about it. If there is a problem you can’t solve, then there is nothing you can do, so stop worrying about it.”

5. Just enjoy it.

“The meaning to life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.

Yet everybody rushes around in a great panic as if It were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves”

6. They’ll notice.

“When you find a place you like to work in, make yourself indispensable.

I’m a waitress and for the last 3& 1/2 years I’ve worked in a place I love to be in. There is no job there I turn down. I clean the toilets, I can run the potwash, I’ll do the hoovering.

If cuts ever have to be made, my name will not be on the list.”

7. Just go for it!

“There comes a time when one must risk something, or sit forever with one’s dreams”

8. You gotta go get it.

“I’m a 45 yo woman.

As a teen my dad told me to go after what I wanted… College, jobs, clubs, a guy I was interested in, any goal.

He said if we all just sat around and only took the opportunities that fell into our laps we would all be miserable, so don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Rejection can be survived, but there are some regrets from which you’ll never recover.

This has served me well professionally and relationship wise. My amazing husband only asked me out because I made sure he knew I was interested.”

9. Words to live by.

“Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard”

-College professor in my life drawing class when I got frustrated about not being as talented as other students in class, I buckled down and got my B and beat the class average by the end of the quarter.”

10. Don’t be an idiot.

“You are an idiot to focus on things you cannot change, instead of working on things that you can change.

That changed my life a lot.”

11. Use it to your advantage.

“The reason a lot of us experience anxiety is because we are idle or unhappy.

The best advice I ever got was from a random stranger. “Anxiety some times isn’t a bad thing it’s our bodies way of telling us to get in gear, and to press forward to give our life meaning and fulfillment” I went back to school quit my old job and it actually worked.

I have been Anxiety free for 2 years.”

12. Thanks, grandma.

“My grandmother was walking with me down the hall when I was in 3rd grade and noticed I was walking with my head down. She said, “always keep your head up high, and your shoulders back”.

I’ve done it ever since, and to this day I get compliments on how well I carry myself, and how much confidence I exude.

Every time someone says that, I’m taken back to that moment in time with my grandmother.”

13. It’s true!

“Every day you’re either getting better or you’re getting worse.

And the choice is yours.”

14. Do it the right way.

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.

That was my dad’s consistent line when I was growing up. Now I’m a thirty-something father, relatively successful in life, and that line is the consistent theme for me.

If I’m going to put effort into doing something, I will do the best job that I am capable of doing. Everything from home renovations, work projects, cooking a meal, to reading bedtime stories. Giving less than my best effort to the task at hand is doing myself a disservice, and the people I am working for.

That’s not to say everything has to be perfect all the time, sometimes your best effort is just getting the job done. But half *ssed attempts at anything mostly just lead to disappointment, and more work when you have to re-do the thing.”

15. Be positive.

“Go a week without complaining about others and yourself.

Actively stop yourself for a week and see how your outlook changes.”

16. It’s just the way it is.

“The world doesn’t care about you and it’ll leave you behind unless you try to make something of yourself.

The world isn’t cruel, it’s just apathetic.”

Do you remember the best advice you ever received in your life?

If so, please share it with us in the comments.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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People Talk About Loopholes They Discovered and Exploited

You never know when you might find a loophole.

It could be at your job, somewhere out in the business world, or maybe something completely random that you happen upon by accident.

But when people actually DO find loopholes…look out, because they’re gonna use ’em!

Here are some pretty interesting stories from AskReddit users about the loopholes they found AND used to their advantage.

1. Wow.

“Microsoft used to have (still might for all I know) online training for videogame retailers in order to train store employees on current and upcoming products that they could sell.

The training gave points for each video and knowledge quiz you took, which could be exchanged for free games, computer hardware, store gift cards, etc.

By signing in under a random Gamestop store ID number (which was posted online), skipping the video, and brute forcing the knowledge quiz, was able to rack up a whole bunch of points and get several XBox games and simple computer hardware for essentially nothing.

Never worked a day of retail in my life.”

2. A big glitch.

“The soda machine at a dorm I lived in had a weird glitch. If you put in five cents more than the asking price and pushed the product select button, the machine would empty all of its change out at once.

We did this a few times and got $20-40 each time!”

3. Raking it in.

“1 Credit Card point for every dollar spent.

But up to 5X for every dollar spent abroad.

I’ve been on a 6 year “holiday” abroad and they haven’t brought it up.”

4. Smart move.

“I was visiting a hospital on a daily basis for many weeks ( premature twin babies) but they didn’t do multi-use discounts. “There’s the hours you were here – pay up” type of thing. And it was costing something like £5 – £10 per day

Until a few days in I realized that the hospital had only recently appointed the car parking company and they haven’t yet installed the “arrival time” machine at the car park entrance but had only put a temporary machine in the Hospital lobby . . . . which you were meant to use on your arrival.

And from that day on I got my “arrival time” ticket when I was leaving and only paid minimum stay.”

5. Never-ending pizza.

“This pizza place local to us had a glitch in their online ordering service for a while. You could technically combine 2 deals of 50% off. One was 50% off for any XL pizza of an order that was normally $30 or more, and the other was 50% off on a XL Pizza, with two 2-liter drinks, wings, and cheese fries at regular price.

If you put both of these coupons in, you only paid for the wings, cheese fries and pop which would be about $18. With delivery charge + tax it would be about $25. Plus 2 Extra Large Pizzas for literally free.

Normally this would be $70+. Any other coupon you could not combine, but this one worked together for some reason. For some other reason it would mark 50% off 2x on each pizza.

We discovered this when we were ordering food the day we moved in. Feeding our friends that helped us move in. We thought it was a 1-time thing. Tried it a few weeks later and it worked. We did this at least once a month for the year or so we lived there.

We always gave the driver a $10-$20 tip and he knew what we were up to. The place never said anything about it for years. Eventually they updated their site a couple years ago, and we had moved out by then.”

6. Hey, that’s pretty good!

“Had intermittent anemia in college that I was trying to improve. But the blood work was about $100 each time.

I started donating blood and if I was too low they’d turn me away and I’d keep trying to up my iron. If I was high enough, I got to donate to a good cause.

Win win!”

7. Extra cash.

“Opened an Amex credit card and the introductory offer was 10% cash back in restaurants for the first year.

I worked for a sh*tty chain restaurant as a server, so I would just stack a few of my large cash tables and put them on my card, then pay it off every week.

Made an extra $20-$30 a shift.”

8. Free burritos!

“There was a summer where I got free chipotle all the time. I had a gift card that had like 2 dollars left on it. I hadn’t updated the app yet so it still had the “use my gift card and pay the rest in store”.

However either the computer at the store said I already paid the full amount ahead of time or I always came in during a time that they were swamped so no one ever asked me to pay.

They also never charged my gift card. I got away with it until the app made me update it.”

9. Playing the system.

“Coming to school 3 hours late.

I found out that as long as you have a parent’s note, you could come in late unlimited times. The only restriction is that after 15 days missed for a class, you’d fail it.

So, at the beginning of the year I pressured my guidance counselor to move my two study periods to period 1/2 and a blowoff class (which I didn’t need the credit for) to period 3.

Came to school at 10-10:30am every day my senior year opposed to 7am. Extra 3 hours of sleep, bringing fast food into lunch, and avoiding the hectic metal detectors made it well worth.

Props to my grandma for writing 140 late notes for me at the start of the year. That my friends, is how you play the system.”

10. That’s a lot of tea.

“The Starbucks subsidiary Teavana (now out of business) would let you use your Starbucks rewards (“stars” or whatever they’re called) to get loose tea by the ounce.

However, there was an error in their point-of-sale system that only deducted 1 reward point, no matter how many you spent in a given transaction.

My wife and I spent 32 rewards on a couple pounds of the most expensive loose tea they had. She checked her rewards balance the next day, and holy sh*t, she still had 31 reward points left.

So we drove to a different Teavana and got a bunch of loose tea from them, and then another, and then another. We were in Los Angeles, so there were a lot of Teavanas within driving distance.

At retail price, we took a thousand bucks or so of free tea off their hands before the loophole was closed.”

11. School uniforms.

“My school had uniforms, it was kinda strict with those… but nowhere in the rules it stated that girls should wear the female uniform and boys the male uniform.

Sooooooo, I bought the male one and wore it. A lot of teachers wanted to give me detention, but when I went over the school rule book and sh*t, they had to stay steaming mad because I was not breaking any rules.

They assumed it was implied, but the only think stated was that the uniform was to be worn properly, be clean and fit well, but that’s it.

By the time I graduated, a lot of students were doing about the same sh*t I was.

That rule changed shortly after my generation went off to university. sorry kiddos, maybe you will find new loopholes to give the inspector an aneurism.”

12. Life hack.

“The Mc Cheapy.

McFlurries were like 4 bucks. All it is is ice cream in a cup with some shots of topping. They don’t even mix it.

So we asked for a soft serve, 30c, two shots of toppings, $1, a cup and a spoon (free).”

13. No permit needed.

“Not me, but my dad.

He was building a deck on their house. If the deck attaches to the house, you need a permit to build one in our city, since it’s considered an addition/improvement. If the deck doesn’t attach to the house, it’s a free-standing structure, and you don’t need a permit.

So he built the deck right up against the house, but it doesn’t actually attach to the house, so he didn’t need a permit.

All he had to do was add a few extra posts under the side of the deck nearest the house.”

14. Free refills.

“Years ago, Burger King sold mugs that you could refill for free any time at all. With soda or even shakes.

My friends and I would bring a single mug, go in and get a chocolate shake, go back to the car to move the contents to another mug, go back in and repeat until all of us got free chocolate shakes.

We did this regularly for about two years of high school.”

Now we want to hear from you.

In the comments, tell us about the various loopholes that you’ve discovered and exploited.

Please and thank you!

The post People Talk About Loopholes They Discovered and Exploited appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Open up About Why They Like to Be Alone

Some people get really energized by spending time with other people and talking and discussing just about anything.

Well, there is a whole other group of folks out there who are the EXACT OPPOSITE. Being around a lot of people drains them and makes them feel totally exhausted.

I like to think I’m somewhere in the middle, but the older I get, the more I think I’m leaning towards the second option from above…

AskReddit users opened up about why they enjoy spending time by themselves.

1. Don’t tone it down.

“I’m a bit of a weirdo and I like being alone because I don’t have to explain why I said something or did something.

I feel like when I’m around people that I have to significantly “tone down” my personality, which can get pretty exhausting.”

2. A deep thinker.

“I like to be alone with my thoughts.

I am a deep thinker and like to have time to figure things out on my own.”

3. Not good for the ears.

“I have really sensitive hearing. I wear earplugs but it is only a dampener.

I have noise cancelling headphones but it is only a dampener.

And people are loud.”

4. No explanations needed.

“I am my own best friend.

I don’t have to explain or justify myself to anyone else. I can do what I like, with whom I like. If I want to play on my PS4 for 20 hrs there is no one telling me to stop.

Having been married then divorced for nearly 40+years being on my own is a blast. I also just love being at home. I don’t miss working, as that was very stressful being around people and all that entails.

Now I can invite people into my space when I want to. Being retired is the most awesome thing.”

5. Exhausting.

“People are nice until they become exhausting.

I don’t want to be rude but i have learned over the years that when i am done socialising i am done socialising and there is really no point in me continuing to socialise if i cant draw no enjoyment out of it.

I wont be no fun to be around any longer anyway.”

6. Give me solitude.

“At first it was quite uncomfortable, but over time it became tolerable, and eventually preferable, for me.

It’s as if the longer I’m in solitude, the more of it I want.”

7. Sorting it out.

“Because I have to sort my feelings and thoughts out which is crucial to me.

In order for me to live with people, I first must have a control over my own thoughts and emotions and be in tune with myself.

Just like there is a world outside, there is one inside of us, experienced through blissful loneliness.”

8. An emotional person.

“I like to be alone because I can’t control my emotions, so if I shut people out, no one can get mad at me.

It’s a win win situation and also social anxiety is a big issue.”

9. As I see fit.

“I enjoy the quietness and the ability to plan my whole day as I see fit.

However, after a few weeks it gets old. I’m married with kids, but travel a lot for work. I’ve been on the road for over a month.

I miss my wife and kids running around. We are all introverts, so we plan our day and do our thing together, sometimes just me and the kids.

It’s perfect.”

10. Not a people person.

“Because I really don’t like people.

Have you ever really sat and listened to people? Some complain about everything, others brag about how great they are.

It’s just annoying as hell.”

11. A safe feeling.

“For a lot of us who grew up in abuse, alone is the only time you’re really “safe,” and that association sticks even after you leave the abuse behind.”

12. Too bad.

“One reason is that I’m lazy as hell. Another is because my old friends are irreplaceable.

Obviously I’m not going to find any exactly like them, and also there are plenty of good people around to befriend. But growing up with a group of friends from what seems like diapers to High School, you just can’t compare.

Moving away from my childhood town was difficult, especially because I wasn’t planning to and it was sudden. Two years later? We’ve all already drifted apart like most HighSchool friends do.

And it just sucks knowing we’ll all never be around each other again.”

13. It’s complicated.

“I am an extroverted introvert. I care about people. I have good social skills. People exhaust me, and social settings are terrifying/manageable/exhausting.

I want to live alone in an empty desert, and be visited weekly by a loving old friend, attend dinner parties with interesting people every other month, and host a raging bash quarterly.

That would do nicely…”

14. The way it is.

“Mainly because I’m heavily introverted and have a fair bit of social anxiety, grew around people constantly judging me and basically grew sick of it

But I like the freedom of just being able to do anything I want and be myself, being around other people for long periods of time, even just talking, is really mentally exhausting for me.”

15. It’s all I know…

“Because that’s all I’ve ever really known.

My mother was a caregiver for my father when he was in hospice for two years so when she wasn’t working full time, she was at his side keeping him company and making sure he was well-cared for and not being abused.

When he was going through multiple surgeries before ending up there, I was at the hospitals a lot as a kid and did spend some time at the hospice, usually alone in the lobby reading or drawing.

Eventually, I begged my mom to just let me be alone. The hospice scared me. It smelled like death and the old folks really made me uneasy. She started either leaving me home alone or dropping me off at the library for the entire day on the weekends starting at the age of 9.

So I just got used to being alone. Once my father passed a year later, she allowed me to spend my summers home alone while she worked and I just got very comfortable with isolation and mostly silence.”

16. Inside my mind.

“Because my world is far more interesting than the one I am forced to inhabit.

It only exists inside my mind, but so do the majority of ideals which structure up our world. They only exist because people demand they do.

In less than 100 years I will be a footnote in history, I’d rather spend that time doing things I enjoy than sacrificing my happiness on the altar of cultural demands for sociability and niceties.”

17. All by myself.

“Because I can completely be myself, and a lack of people make my senses less likely to overload. Also not being around people all the time helps you stay healthy and not catch all kinds of contagious illness.

My father used to get sick quite often but ever since he’s retired he hasn’t been around many people and their germs so now he hardly ever gets sick.

I can do things at my own personal pace. No one is going to complain if supper is an hour later than it usually is. It will still be delicious. No one is going to criticize my taste in music, TV shows or movies.

Or make fun of me for collecting dolls and stuffed animals. And when I’m working on a craft or hobby, I don’t have to worried about being too focused to pay attention to others, or have them interrupt me.

Interruptions are the worst!”

How about you?

Why do you like spending time alone?

Please share your thoughts with us in the comments!

The post People Open up About Why They Like to Be Alone appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Talk About the Scariest Thing That Woke Them Up in the Middle of the Night

It’s always pretty scary to be woken up by something that goes BUMP in the night.

Almost 100% of the time, you know it’s just the house creaking or your cat rummaging around, but every once in a while…something sinister is going on.

Have you ever been woken up by something scary in the middle of the night?

Take a look at these stories from AskReddit users.

1. I’d have a heart attack.

“I don’t know if it counts but we were in the field in Camp Pendelton, CA and sleeping in just our mummy bags under the stars and I woke up in the night for whatever reason and my eyes focused on the next guy over in our circle who had one of the largest spiders I’ve ever seen in the wild sitting on his forehead, maybe getting warm or something.

Freaked me the f*ck out, I flicked it off of him and zipped my bag all the way up so there was just the breathing hole and used my boonie cover to plug that and just breathed through the little vents.”

2. Severe weather.

“Tornado Siren.

In the midwest they test them once a month and you get used to it. But holy hell when it goes off at 3AM your subconscious mind dumps adrenaline into you. I thought i was going to have a heart attack.

Like literally 29 year old about to have my wife call an ambulance.”

3. Creepy kids.

“A silhouette of a small child at the end of my bed that whispered my name in a demonic voice.

It was my daughter.

I don’t care what people say, kids are creepy af in the dark.”

4. Rude awakening.

“A brick being thrown through my window by my *sshole nextdoor neighbors at the time.”

5. The stranger.

“My wife and I were separated and I was sleeping in the basement apartment of our home.

She woke me in the middle of the night to come upstairs. There in the kitchen was an intruder sitting calmly at the table. My wife left me alone with this person at 3 am. I was shaking scared that this person would snap and get violent.

Turns out he was stoned out of his mind and my wife had forgotten to lock the front door. She had left to call the police. I found out later that she had found him in my son’s room.

There aren’t many things scarier than funding a stranger in your house in the middle of the night.”

6. War zone.

“When I was in Iraq, I was woken up multiple times by gunfire or an explosion.

You’d think one of those instances would be the most scared I’ve ever woken up, but you’d be wrong. That dubious honor goes to my wife farting loud enough to make the dog bark about two weeks ago at 3am.

That was, hands down, the quickest I’ve ever shot awake, trying to mutter “…the f*ck kind of apocalypse is this?” around my heart, which had crawled up my throat and gotten a death grip on my uvula.”

7. Screams in the night.

“In college, my friend and I lived on campus kind of out on the edges, near the animal units (think lightly forested, set back from the main road a bit).

One night she knocks on my door and silently motions me to her room, eyes wide. We slept with our windows open because of the gorgeous night weather. Outside her window we hear a high pitched wailing.

After staring at each other for a couple minutes, we stupidly decided to go out with flashlights, expecting to find a woman, injured and wailing. We found nothing, and didn’t sleep soundly, but the next morning found a dead bunny.

Their injured screams are strangely human and I’ll never look at a bunny the same way.”

8. Oh, boy…

“My husband was on a work trip and he was supposed to come home on a Friday while I was at work, so I was home alone for a week.

No kids, no pets. They decided to comeback early and just drive in the middle of the night home. I was already on edge from staying home by myself. Next think I know, I hear my front door open, and I start to panic bc it’s 3 in the morning and someone is in my house!

I finally figure out it was him, but I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. He said he didn’t want to call/text me bc he didn’t want me to wake up. About a week later, our neighbor, who we call “Meth Head McGee” tried for break into our house in the middle of the night while he was high.

He had a small meth explosion in his house, so he came running over to ours trying to get help. Hearing him wiggle the knob and kick the door was terrifying!”

9. The nightmare room.

“Woke up terrified when my hair which was tied in a bun came undone slowly carefully and intentionally like someone did it.

Turned around and saw shadows dancing on the wall and when I blinked it disappeared.

That room was full of nightmares.”

10. What a creep.

“My landlord, drunk off his *ss and shouting at me that I had no right to be there.

I was 19 and alone because we were mid-move and my parents were still at the old house. I was also sleeping naked.

I was so f*cking terrified. He finally left and later denied it ever happened.”

11. True crime.

“I woke up to the sound of gunshots a few buildings down.

3 people were killed.”

12. What the…?

“I heard static, like from a radio in-between channels.

The static lasted about 30 seconds and then I heard the opening lines of the Gettysburg Address. “Fourscore and seven years ago—“ that whole bit. It scared the sh*t out of me and as soon as I sat up, it stopped.

I have no idea where it came from or how.”

13. Close call.

“January of 2020 started off with a bang for me. At 6 a.m. the boiler in my house exploded. 1,100 lbs of metal blew itself about 10 feet across my basement into a large metal wardrobe, reducing them both to unrecognizable heaps of shrapnel.

It literally sounded like a car bomb going off underneath me, and shook my entire house. Grabbed my daughter and we noped out of the house as fast as we could.

We were extremely lucky to get out without injury, and I never want to wake up like that again.”

14. Camping alone.

“When I went cycling and camping alone in Saguaro National Park, Tucson AZ, which maybe wasn’t the smartest thing to do by yourself.

I was in my mid twenties and went specifically to look for and photograph animals, namely snakes, so I had no fear of creatures. I set up camp one night in a gravely area, and was woken up in the middle of the night by footsteps approaching my tent in the gravel.

What scared the living sh*t out of me and kinda, sorry if this makes me sound like a p*ssy, put me off camping alone forever, is that it really sounded like something very heavy and bipedal. Like a crazy person coming to murder me. Or sasquatch. It appoached my tent with slow, heavy footsteps crunching in the gravel. I didnt hear any other sound, no breathing or rustling of clothing.

Just crunching gravel. There were just two footsteps not four. It came right up to the tent, then walked away, slowly. I have no idea what it was, and it may have been a mountain lion, they can walk pretty stealthily. But the thought of a human being walking around in the desert at night and slowly approaching me while I slept is what scared me the most, not the thought of an animal or monster.

I wanted to call out “hello?” but was literally paralyzed with fear. I didn’t sleep again that night, but came out at sunrise to find zero evidence, and just carried on with my trip without incident but have not been camping alone since.”

Have you ever been woken up by something in the middle of the night that was really scary?

If so, please share your stories with us in the comments.

We can’t wait to hear your creepy tales!

The post People Talk About the Scariest Thing That Woke Them Up in the Middle of the Night appeared first on UberFacts.