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12 Times Bad Behavior Inspired a Brand New Rule at School or Work

When you’re young, rules can seem all-important and unchangeable (whether you actually follow them or not). Then, when you grow up and become an adult yourself, you realize that adults are really just making up the rules as they go along.

Some rules are broad, meant to address systemic issues. But others created under truly random, highly specific circumstances — like when one student does something wrong and now there’s a whole class rule about that specific thing.

A Reddit user polled people on the question: “What rule was implemented because of you?”

The answers are incredibly entertaining, ranging from childhood stories to work stories.

1. No wrestling in the band room.

“After having my two front teeth replaced…

Band director: “Okay. I never thought I’d have to say this, but wrestling is not allowed in the band room”.”

2. No campfire flames higher than 24 inches.

“At Boy Scout Summer Camp, as a Scoutmaster. “No campfire flames higher than 24 inches.” Turns out that if you make a five foot tower out of ONLY the 1/4″ dowels from small American flags, you get a straight and narrow column of flame about 30 ft high. I was the Clark Griswold of scoutmasters.”

3. Dell takes credit cards.

“Years ago, I bought a computer from Dell. I paid for it with my debit card, and excitedly monitored the build status every day, checking in at work, and on my days off going to the library to check on expected shipping updates.

When I made the purchase, it was a five to seven day expectation for delivery. At day ten, when it had gone from “order accepted” to “order prepped” to “order built” it suddenly went back to “order accepted.” Stage One.

I called their customer service line and was told there had been a glitch in the system, and the order got expedited, and soon was back at “order built” and I was just waiting on shipping confirmation. The next day, back to “order accepted” again. This happened every day for five days. Cue another call to customer service. Apparently, there was a problem with payment, and they referred me back to my bank because the payment was on hold. Called my credit union, and they told me it was just an authorization hold waiting on final confirmation from the merchant. Called Dell back, and they saw the same thing, but even the customer service director couldn’t say why it hadn’t finalized, but every time the payment didn’t finalize they literally took the box with the computer off the loading dock and sent it back to stage one, again and again and again.

This led to a long hold while the customer service director looked into their billing system, and ended up transferring me too a very nice lady in their accounting department. Initially, she thought I was an in house person from the listing dock asking about a customer’s order, but quickly got up to speed. She was covering for a coworker who helped with in house billing system troubleshooting who was out on vacation, and usually just handled tracking the accounting from Dell sending parts from one warehouse and factory to another, but she dug in and figured out that the issue was that I was paying with a debit card, not a credit card. Now, debit cards were still relativity new. Most banks capped the amount you could spend per day at $250 to $500, but my credit union was one of only five financial institutions that didn’t cap it at all; they proudly noted on a monthly statement insert that the credit union felt that it was your money to manage they way you wanted to. However, Dell didn’t accept debit cards at all, not for a dime, not for the $800 I was trying to spend. The nice lady in accounting, however, had just come back from a conference, and knew that there was a push to gay more banks to act like my credit union and remove their spending caps. She told me to hang tight and she was going to get it done for me. I told her I could change my payment method to a credit card, but she told me that would delay the whole process.

Two days later, I got a call from her. She had made a presentation to the CEO, CFO, and several VPs making the case that Dell needed to get ahead of the curve and start accepting debit cards, with no spending limits, because the banking rules were going to be changing very soon and more people were going to be spending money with Dell the way I tried to. They had to implement a process to start accepting debit cards, which had required a rush overnight change from their merchant bank, and my purchase was their test case. She had me check with my credit union, who showed the funds were officially a purchase and not just an authorization hold, then she called the loading dock and made sure my computer was on a truck. Within ten minutes I had an email with a tracking number.

TL; DR I’m the reason Dell takes debit cards.

4. No marbles at school.

“I vaguely remember the convoluted rules we had for playing marbles in 3rd grade, but one that was written in stone was that if you lost a game, you had to throw away a marble of your own. This often drew a crowd of participants eager to get their tiny hands on a free marble.

One day, I lost a game and was forced to throw a marble away (we called it “scrambling”). I had stupidly agreed to offer up as ante for the game my prized “boulder”, a heavy marble with intricately woven colours that was about the size of a golf ball.

When it was time to throw it away, a large crowd of kids had gathered, impatiently jeering me to toss it and start the melee. I took one last look at my boulder and, in a surge of 8 year old rage, launched it with all my strength.

I still remember it gleaming against the deep blue sky as it left my hand. It sailed. Flew over the group’s head, their mouths agape in amazement. It flew until it struck some poor blond kid in the head, who was just walking along kicking dandelions, totally oblivious to the incoming projectile.

It hit him hard. To this day I still recall the way his head snapped back in Zapruder-like fashion. He dropped instantly, like a bag of old socks.

We all scattered to the four corners of the playground as teachers ran to his side. The following day a letter was sent home to every parent, banning all marbles.”

5. No locking people in the tuba lockers. Or tuba cases.

“Our band director had to make a new rule when we moved in to the new band room: No locking freshman (or anyone) in the tuba lockers.

We already had a rule of no locking anyone in the tuba cases.”

“Oh God, there was this really little fella (maybe five feet) who did play the tuba back in high school. Poor guy got locked in his own tuba case more times than I care to remember.”

6. No trench busting during Capture the Flag.

“In my sophomore year of high school during the short World War I unit, the sophomore history teachers had an event where we went out to the football field and played one flag capture the flag using dodgeball rules. One team had the flag and had “trenches” made of football training equipment and the other team had to charge across no man’s land and touch the flag to win. Occasionally the teachers would call out a gas attack and everyone would have to don paper bag “gas masks” or they were out.

I had the genius plan of charging the main “trench” directly without a dodgeball to try to neutralize it to help my team. I handed my ball to a classmate and instead wielded a cardboard trench shovel I had made that morning, and then put on my “gas mask” ahead of time.

When it was time to go over the top, I barreled towards the main trench (think that one Battlefield 1 trailer where the British soldier does the same thing with a club, but this was two years before that game came out). I miraculously was never hit on my way to it and slammed into that thing with all of my might, taking it down, knocking a couple other kids over, and knocking myself out for a few seconds in the process.

The teachers thought it was hilarious but they quickly had to implement a “no trench busting” rule after someone else tried to replicate my antics during the next round. Unfortunately as far as I’m aware that was the last year they did that event.”

7. No C-sections without an ultrasound.

“Because of my wife and I, (Local Hospital) will not perform a cesarean section without having had an ultrasound prior.

Doctor scheduled a C-section on my wife based on her last period. She was only at 7 months. She and son are fine now.”

8. No late assignments without a doctor’s note.

“In my first year of university I took philosophy as an elective and our professor said on the first day that he was easy going and didn’t mind if assignments were late and wouldn’t dock points. I turned all 8 papers he assigned in to him the day of our final exam. True to his word he graded them all fairly and didn’t deduct points for lateness. I took a class with him the next year and on the first day he said that due to past events he’d accept a late assignment only with a note from a doctor or if someone died while making eye contact with me.”

9. Ramen does not count for the food drive competition.

“During the annual canned food drive at my high school you can bring Ramen noodles, but they no longer count towards the total donated for the competition between the classes.

This rule is from when I was a Junior. They did all sorts of various competitions between the classes and of course the Seniors always won nearly everything. Well, during the food drive the Juniors concocted a plan to win the event. Instead of bringing in food we would collect money and a handful of people would hold it all until near the end. It would look like we were losing because our totals would be low but then on the last day they’d bring in a huge supply and we’d surprise them with the win. They wouldn’t know how well we were actually doing until it was too late to do anything about it.

I wasn’t one of the money people but a couple of them were friends of mine. The plan was to buy as much food as they could with the money they’d collected, so naturally they bought Ramen Noodles because it’s the cheapest thing in the store. I didn’t know how much money they had, but I think they must have gotten special order shipments in. On the last day of the drive when I came in there was a roomful of PALLETS of noodles stacked five feet high. I was completely blown away. It was an insane amount of Ramen. Based on the number of items brought in we had like double the Sophomores and Seniors combined. It was nuts.”

10. No historically accurate English grammar on assignments.

“In 8th grade we had an essay question on a social studies test that read something like this: “Imagine you are a miner during the gold rush. What would you life be like? Detail you’re day to day life in a diary entry below” I wrote mine to actually sound like it was written by someone not from this time period. Next time we had a diary entry style essay question I saw in the directions “Make sure to write your essay using clear and proper English.” I never followed that rule and the teacher never cared enough to deduct points.”

11. No tips more than 20%.

“So my company pays for my food when I travel, which is awesome. I was fairly new to the job at the time, so I went to a lovely Nordic restaurant for brunch in Oregon. I ended up getting drunk on some delicious mimosas, (paid for on a separate tab), and $25 worth of food. I was drunk, and my server was awesome, and ended up tipping him 100%. A couple days later my boss calls me and asked me “why the FUCK did you tip $25?!?!” Shortly after that, the company sent out an email to everyone with a strict 20% tip policy.”

12. No streaking.

“Not me but my dad. My dad and his friend streaked through the school and then ran through a meeting. There apparently was not a “no streaking rule” so they only got in trouble for skipping class. When I went to school there 20 years later there was a no streaking rule.”

“My school specifically has a no streaking through the library at night rule.”

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Goodwill Workers Reveal the Item They Wish People Would Stop Donating

You know that feeling you get when you finally sort through your belongings and take your old crap to Goodwill? Well, you might have to rethink that. Not every used item is a good candidate for Goodwill (or any other thrift store), and nobody knows that better than the employees who have to sort through all your old stuff.

A Reddit user asked Goodwill store workers for the one item they wish people would stop donating. Some employees had trouble choosing just one!

1. Broken, dirty, or chewed-up items.

“So so many things. I have to say these shops are not somewhere you should dump your trash. No one wants broken toys and chewed books. We are not ungrateful but it costs us to dispose of these things. I do not want to handle your dirty torn underpants.

I almost had a serious injury when one donor wrapped up blades from a blender in a towel and dumped them in a bag full of clothes. Please don’t do that.”

2. VHS tapes.

“I remember about ten years ago reading that charity shops were stopping accepting VHS tapes because there was such a glut of them.

One person complained that they’d enjoyed getting five VHS tapes for £1… which was pretty much missing the point. VHSs are large and bulky, take up storage space and the staff still have to process them- all for 20p each. Nice for him, not so good for the workers and charity that’s supposed to be benefiting, and probably why they stopped accepting them.

Not to mention that half those tapes probably would have gone unsold and cost money to dispose of.

‘Course, nowadays most of those worthless, mass-market VHS tapes are probably landfill, and it’s 10-to-15-year-old DVDs that my local branch of CEX is selling for 50p each…”

3. Mismatched items.

“Shoes with no fellow, items that don’t work right, clothes that are badly stained.”

4. Sentimental items.

“Folks, go through your stuff before you donate – I once found a memorial album someone had made for a woman who had died, and another time I found an old friendship book full of names and addresses. Really made me wonder what the people who worked in the charity shop were thinking.”

“Someone accidentally donated an urn, complete with cremated ashes.”

“Personalized items. I’m talking about wedding things, shirts, and anything with names on them. I found a memorial shirt one time and I was wondering why someone would donate something like that.”

5. Literal garbage.

“I haven’t worked there in over a decade, but: garbage. People would dump bags and bags of garbage in front of the store overnight, and I mean shit that no reasonable person would ever consider to be anything but garbage.

Busted up concrete. Rusty metal. Basically shit they didn’t want to pay to have hauled away, and couldn’t be fucked to take all the way to the dump.”

6. 50 Shades of Grey.

“I remember a while ago I saw a side news story covering how a bunch of charity places were asking people to stop donating book copies of Fifty Shades of Grey. I seem to recall one store had enough copies they made a book fort out of them.”

7. Old-school TV stands.

“Cleaning out my senior parents’ place we tried to donate a very expensive built in tv stand made of oak. Turns out flat screens don’t fit in them and they never get sold.”

8. Outdated electronics.

“Generally if your electronic device is older than 10ish years the store is probably not going to be able to sell it, 5ish for TVs. The exception is very well-kept and well packaged game consoles.”

9. Personal hygiene items.

“Don’t donate used (honestly don’t donate new) makeup, mouthwash, cleaners, or pretty much anything liquid.”

10. Vintage magazines.

“Do not donate your stack of old Readers Digest magazines from 1994-1998 that was in your bathroom collecting poo particles for years.”

11. Unwashed clothes.

“You know the stank that most Goodwill stores have? They don’t wash donations before putting them out. They just go straight on the racks.”

12. Light bulbs.

“Compact fluorescent light bulbs: please stop. How nice you switched to LED, but nobody buys used CFLs, and since they are classified as hazardous waste due to mercury, we are back to your ‘donation’ actually costs the charity money since we have to properly dispose of them.”

13. Clothes with stuff in the pockets.

“Be sure to check the pockets in your clothes before donating. Around this time of year we find a metric crapton of used tissues and cough drops hidden inside pockets. Our employees get sick pretty frequently from handling so much product, please don’t make it harder on us.”

14. Used undergarments.

“You would be really surprised by the number of people who think it’s okay to donate used underwear. I honestly didn’t realize that people would even consider doing that, but apparently they do.”

“It happens pretty frequently. Another big thing is women who donate pants they’ve worn without wearing underwear to protect the clothing from vaginal fluids. People don’t realize that’s a thing most of the time.”

15. Bootleg DVDs.

“I used to work for the Salvos, and early on in my tenure there, we would get loads of these bootleg DVD’s people would pick up in Bali. Those always ended up in the bin because the packaging was just a flimsy plastic envelope and the label printing quality was awful.”

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People Brainstorm How They’d Drink a 12-Pack Everyday for a $1 Million Prize

Every so often, someone comes to AskReddit with a totally absurd hypothetical question. In this case, the question was about how one would manage to drink a 12-pack of beer every single day for a month while still holding down a job. The prize?

A million dollars.

As many Redditors pointed out, drinking a 12-pack every day is just standard for many alcoholics. But for the rest of us? People came up with some truly creative solutions to this truly random problem.

1. Vacation time, duh.

“Use four weeks of vacation and head to Mexico. Drink no other beer but Tecate Light. Come back home. Collect $1 million.”

“Save up a month’s worth of leave. Make the month February. Stay at home and just enjoy media.”

2. Drink light beer.

“My father was a psychiatrist and worked on drug and alcohol wards.

The typical American beer has a alcohol level that is designed to give a buzz but not get you drunk. A twelve pack fits perfectly in this business model.

He treated many functioning alcoholics who drank a case of beer a day.

A twelve pack was the most common amount drunk.”

3. Start right after work ends.

“Drink after work. I’m a reasonably-sized guy with a passable tolerance, I’ll just start as soon as my day ends. Mornings gonna suuuuck but I can live with it for a month for a flat mil.”

4. Or split it up throughout the day.

“Definitely need to split it up and hide some of the drinking. Down a couple when you get up (before you brush your teeth of course). Sneak one over lunch, maybe another around 3 as well. 8 is much more manageable in terms of not ending up rough the next morning.”

“1.wake up one beer get ready for the day

2. 2 beers at lunch time (food slows the absorption of alcohol into the liver)

3. Get home and start cranking as many as you can before dinner at 6 or 7.

4. Hopefully only have 3 left for after dinner which means you’ll be done before 9 with ample time to do prepare yourself so you are not hungover the next day”

5. Or even throughout the night.

“I came up with the same, although I set an alarm for 3 am and pound two then back to bed.”

6. Non-alcoholic beer.

“Make it non alcoholic beer et voila.”

7. Open all the beers at once.

“Open 9 beer and let them flatten in the fridge during work (To prevent being all bloated and gassy). Moment I get off start drinking. Eat dinner while drinking. Follow every 3 beer with water, walk to the grocery store, drunk groceries should naturally grab me alot of carbs which will be good. Also help me walk off alot of calories. Chug a quarter gallon of water before bed (Pee breaks constantly). Go to bed early! alarm set early, sugar and Tylenol ready to go in the morning try to work out before work to burn more calories, lots of veg and lean protein for lunch.”

8. Make a deal with the boss.

“”Hey boss, if I can slam a case of beers every day for a month and don’t get fired I get a hundred grand!” Offer a 50/50 split and boom $950,000 in the pocket.”

9. Work retail.

“Work in retail. Nobody cares.”

“Worked in retail, sent people home for showing up drunk. Didn’t fire them, was more expensive to train someone new who’d also have their own issues that to just send this guy home a couple times a month.”

10. Be a high-functioning alcoholic.

“Start drinking as soon as I get home from work until I go to sleep. Rinse repeat. So no changes really.”

“I drank a 12 pack a day for almost 2 years, the key is to have a drinking problem.”

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15 People Share the Biggest Mistakes They’ve Made in Life

All of us have regrets and things we wish we would’ve done differently in our lives. Some are more extreme than others, but, as the saying goes, “That’s life.”

In this AskReddit article, people went on the record and shared the biggest mistakes they’ve made in life…so far…

1. That’s not good.

“I tried to walk across a guard rail and ended up slipping and hitting my gooch in just the right spot that it tore my urethra. Had a catheter for about 3 months after that.”

2. Never be whole again…

“On my 16 birthday my much older brother killed himself. My regret is that I had called him to ask him to come out with my friends and I to celebrate at a local restaurant. But on the first ring thought “He probably doesn’t want to hang out with a bunch of 15-16 year olds” and hung up the phone. They found his body the next morning. I will never be whole again.”

3. Not happy with the choices.

“Choosing the wrong degree multiple times. A few years ago finally decided on Computer Science… and I fucking hate it. Only have like 8ish classes left so I would be stupid not to finish it but I have no desire to do anything computer science related.”

4. Debt for days.

“Quitting a job before I had another one (long story), which led to my savings being drained and my credit card debt soaring through the roof.

I’ve recovered about a year later, but my savings are basically non-existent as I spent all of my excess paying down debt.”

5. Still in therapy.

“Holding onto hate and resentment about my dad, has fucked up mentally. Instead of dealing with it in a healthy way, I’ve held onto the hate and resentment and have blamed him for everything wrong in my life. I’m in therapy now and trying to unlearn toxic behaviours.”

6. Just want to be functional.

“Tried to kill myself when I was 24. Did the whole inpatient thing and therapy. Now I’m 28, still living with my parents and struggling to win the battle with my mental health. Really frustrating. I just want to be a functional adult.”

7. That’s intense.

“Having a kid with wrong person. Really ends your life for the most part.”

8. A lot of people do this…

“Staying with someone for way too long because I thought I could help them.

I was 25 when I met her, she was broken and very needy. She had a lot of issues with herself, mainly she always felt insecure and inadequate. For those times when she was ok, everything was amazing and she was the best person to be around with. But those times were rare, she was jealous about anyone and everyone. I didn’t even hang around my friends anymore because she would make me feel guilty later on and she could never get along with them. I always thought I could help her, but only after everything fell apart did I realize that in my effort to always be there for her I broke myself.

We broke up 2 years ago, I’m now 33 and just starting to fix relationships that I’ve abandoned because I was too focused on her. I don’t blame her at all because that was my choice, but it’s been hard.”

9. Just let that go.

“Being scared of what people thought about me.”

10. You can quit!

“Starting to smoke.”

11. Now what?

“Being a floater. Meaning being friends with multiple friend groups in life without really being a solid part in any one. Left with none eventually.”

12. Still regret it.

“Probably dropping out of my dream college to be closer to my now ex.

Regret that decision every single day…”

13. Married to the wrong person.

“Getting married to the wrong person. It led to a lengthy divorce in which time my ex tanked me financially . It took me years to recover.”

14. This is very true.

“Losing friends because I didn’t put effort into maintaining the relationship. Nobody tells you when you’re a kid just how hard it is to make new friends once you’re past your college years.”

15. Say no to drugs.

“Took a very large dose of a research chemical thinking it’d be like acid, went clinically insane for like a year and require inpatient hospitalization. Took me two years after that to build my life up and have a career, but I was never totally the same. Such is life.”

Wow…some of those are pretty rough…

What do you think is the worst mistake you’ve made in your life so far?

Feel free to share with us in the comments. We’d love to hear from you. No judgment here!

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People Discuss What Makes Them Immediately Lose Romantic Interest in Someone

You’ve probably been here before: you’re talking to someone or maybe you’re on a first date, things seem to be going just fine and then, BOOM…they say or do something that immediately makes you lose interest.

You know what I’m talking about, right?

AskReddit users shared the things that make them immediately lose interest in a person…let’s take a look.

1. So, back to me…

“When you come to them with a problem and they turn it into a conversation about them.”

2. Pity party.

“If they constantly make you feel bad for them. Felt so bad and was so worried about him for so long that the one time I needed the emotion I couldn’t have it.”

3. Take it down a notch.

“When they don’t know the difference between being funny and being obnoxious.”

4. I’ll take your word for it.

“If they say the words “I know I’m an asshole/bitch”. Like okay I’ll take your word for it. Also if it becomes apparent that they have no self-awareness.”

5. Forget the haters.

“They enjoy putting other people and their hobbies down.”

6. I’m back!

“Ghosting you then suddenly popping up out of the blue when they want attention. Yes Brittany I know what is happening when you call me, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and I resent the fuck out of being the bottom (wait that could mean another thing but you know the thing I mean.)”

7. Lack of situational awareness.

“Don’t know how to act in public/ are unaware of feelings other than their own.”

8. Who is the real problem here?

“If ALL of their exes were “toxic” or “crazy”

We all have one or two bad ones, but seriously it’s not ALWAYS that.”

9. That’s gross.

“Doing dumb things and should know better. We had a new guy join our Friday social group. Very nice guy. Attractive. At the bar, he took his old gum out of his mouth and stuck it to the bottom of the table. Really? So trashy.”

10. Definitely not cool.

“Selfishness. I am very considerate of others and I am slowly learning that I think I need someone that is too.”

11. Gimme something!

“When they have seemingly no opinion, no voice. When every answer is “I don’t care” or “I don’t know.” Like Jesus Christ I’m trying to find out what you like so that we can talk. Gimme something!”

12. Sounds pretty classy.

“Chewing tobacco. I’m also not a fan of smoking, but it’s not necessarily an instant deal breaker like chewing tobacco is. The truth is, I have seen too many men who would sit there and chew tobacco and then spit it into an empty Dr. Pepper bottle, and it grosses me out more than I can express.”

13. Let’s not meet again.

“Went out with a guy once who talked 90% of the time, 85% of that being about how much money he had made, how much he spent on his now ex wife, all the nice cars he had… I picked HIM up because he didn’t have a ride to meet up. He was legitimately confused why I didn’t want to spend the night with him when I went to drop his ass off. Never saw him ever again.”

14. This! Yes!

“Being rude to customer service people.”

15. Ugh! Run for the hills!

“If they say I love you on the first date. Creepy AF.”

I had a feeling these responses would be pretty enlightening.

Now it’s your turn! What immediately turns you off from a person?

Tell us about it in the comments!

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These Teachers All Had to Deal with Awful Parents

Teachers have very challenging jobs. Dozens of students, ever-changing curricula, low pay, and long days. But throw in crazy parents and their ridiculous requests, and all of a sudden keeping you cool may be harder than brain surgery!

Check out these 23 Reddit teachers who share some of the craziest reasons parents have contacted them.

1. He’s not gay

I’m an assistant school counsellor. We had a furious parent call us several times and accuse us of turning her son gay. The calls stopped after he got a classmate pregnant.

2. No doubt here

I’ve had a parent complain to me about her child. Her daughter was doing really well, 90+ grades and consistent effort in classwork and homework.

Me: [Student] puts a lot of thought and effort into her work.

Mom: She sucks up to you?

Me: No, she wants to do well and be successful. That being said, we’d like to improve her grammar a bit.

Mom: I knew it, she’s stupid. Doesn’t do anything. She will fail.

Me: Uh, no . . . just needs a little more rigor in this department.

Mom: She’s such a disappointment.

And every once in a while I’ll just get a complaint from her…. her complaining TO me about her child. Her kid’s a joy and I’ve been so much nicer to her since I met this lady.

This student is being helped by our fabulous guidance department. I take care to affirm her effort whenever possible, and assure her that she’s doing great. It may not offset the negativity her mother imposes on her, but the other teachers and I will make sure she doesn’t doubt her ability to do well.

3. Sympathizer

I had a parent complain because I played a CD of classical Persian flute music one day in class. The class was World Languages and Cultures and I played a different CD from around the world every day as they came into class. They thought I was sympathizing with terrorists and should “only teach American stuff”.

4. “Cut him some slack”

I gave the kid a D on a homework. Parent contacted me to complain that I was picking on him.

Even though the parent agreed that most of the answers that he gave were wrong but I should have “cut him some slack.”

5. That really is so stupid

I used to teach phonics (basic reading skills) to kindergarten-aged kids. One parent came in after class, irate, and demanded to know why I had taught the er/ir/ur diphthong before the oi/oy diphthong. He didn’t want his kid to be able to read the word “girl” before being able to read “boy”. Kept going on about how “boy” was just more important and common, as a word, and teaching kids less frequent words before more frequent ones would slow down reading progress and was bad pedagogically, and so on.

In hindsight, I’m impressed that he managed to squeeze so many justifications into something so pointlessly stupid.

6. The Star

One mother threatened to yank her daughter out of the school if this student were not given the starring role in the Christmas concert to sing “O Holy Night”. (An incident previously noted.)

The girl had made it perfectly clear to me, the faculty and classmates that she realized she wasn’t musically qualified for the part, neither did she want to do it.

It was entirely her Mom – determined that her daughter should be “the star” of the school, no matter what.

7. School Bullies

There was a mom who was mad that we wouldn’t let her son be in the class that he wanted to be in. Her son was in grade two, but for the first two or so months of the school year he would go to the kindergarten classroom everyday. We’re not a big school, so there’s only one grade two class.

Developmentally there was no reason he should still be in the kindergarten class, he just kept going there because he liked the toys better and when he was in there he would make fun of the younger students because he was older and smarter than the rest of them and would hit them if they were ‘stupid’.

When we told the mom what was going on and that we needed her to support this transition she thought we were doing this just because we didn’t want her son to be happy at school. We finally got him to go to the correct class (my class), but the troubled behavior (hitting, swearing, making messes, being purposefully distracting, disrespectful and generally inappropriate) still continues, and the mom’s ideas that we’re picking on him and are being mean to him still continue.

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These Comments from Grandparents Should Keep You Laughing

Grandparents are the best! They tell stories from the “good old days” and give awesome fashion advice. Take a gander at these Reddit users and the hilarious things they learned or heard from their older loved ones.

1. I don’t get it

My dad calls dubstep “The Devil’s Dialup Tone” or just “The Garbage Disposal.” He’s had a couple more, but he uses those a lot.

Also, whenever he has to go to the bathroom, he says, “I have to poop like a park ranger.” I still don’t get it.

2. Just go!

I take my grandma out to run her errands and get her out of the house for a while. One day we were in a rush to get somewhere, we came to an intersection and the light turned red right before we got there. She looks at me and says “run it, just go.” Being the good grandson I am, I do so. As we pass, she waves to the oncoming cars and says “toodle-loo!”

3. Lol, tree donkeys

My grandfather used to hide behind the BBQ on his patio and shoot squirrels with a super-soaker when they would try to loot the bird feeder. He would yell “Not today tree donkeys” then come back in the kitchen chuckling to himself. I miss that goofy man.

4. Straight up

Maybe not the funniest thing he’s said, but my 93 year old grandfather when he had his picture taken: “I wish I had a camera. I’d take a picture of myself every day because I’m so damn handsome.”

5. Miscommunication

My grandparents told me this story one time. It was their “coming of age” when they realized they’re two old people now.

Grandpa is trying to get past my grandmother who is loading pre made pies into the freezer. Grandpa says, “Can I get by?”

Grandma grabs her pies and says, “What kind?”

Grandpa checks his watch and says, “Quarter after three”.

Both said they didn’t even realize it until ten minutes later, when my grandpa called my grandma old.

6. Tattoo=Jerk

I’m an EMT, we were taking a 90-something year old man to the ER, and as I was putting the cuff on his arm to get a blood pressure, he sees my tattoo on the inside of my forearm and asks “is that a tattoo?” I say “yes it is, sir” he looks me in the eye and says “well then, that makes you a jerk!” and didn’t say another word to me. I wasn’t even mad, it was too funny.

7. I like big butts and I cannot lie

My grandfather explaining the story of how he met my grandma: “I saw her walking down the street with her friends and picked out the greatest butt.” Short and sweet.

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People Share Their Awkward Meet-the-Parents Moments

Meeting your significant other’s parents is always a bit awkward. You want to make a good impression, but not come off to eager. Most of the time (hopefully), things go smoothly and mom and dad give you the nod of approval.

Sometimes, though, things take a turn for the worse, as these AskReddit users shared with the world.

1. Oh hello!

My mom and current wife met for the first time at 2am in my parents’ living room both wearing no bottoms…

2. Racist?

My whole family met my current boyfriend over Easter dinner. My father doesn’t typically say a word to new people my siblings and I bring home. Randomly during dinner my dad turned to my boyfriend and said, “you a racist?”

3. AWKWARD

Ugh, I was the girlfriend in question. I had come over to my long distance relationship boyfriend’s apartment on the way out of town. I had dressed in a plaid skirt, fishnets, combat boots, and a low cut black tank because I wanted to leave him with a good memory. So he’s got me pinned face first against the wall with my skirt flipped up and when his dad walks in. Apparently he’d come by early to take him to lunch and drop him at his job. I was absolutely mortified during the entire lunch with his dad, dad’s girlfriend, and my boyfriend.

4. Dinner time!

When I brought my first girlfriend home I was too embarrassed to say anything to my parents, so we went directly to my room and started fooling around. Here’s what transpired: My mom opens the door to my bedroom and stopped mid sentence “Hey I was thinking we could have turkey for -” I awkwardly remove my hand from the front of my girlfriends unbuttoned jeans “Oh uhm sorry I didn’t realize you had company” “Yeah this is Caitlin” “Hi Caitlin. Did you want to join us for supper?” “suuuuuuuuuurrree” Then we all had a super awkward dinner together. Fun times.

5. Good first impression

He recounted the story of when he drove home so drunk he lost a tire hitting something, then drove on the rim for at least 4 miles down the interstate. Thankfully he’s sober now, but is that something you want to talk about the first time you meet me?

6. Gloves are off

I never thought I would strike a teenager until I saw a boy smack my daughter’s butt in front of me with impunity.

7. This guy seems legit

I was over at my boyfriend’s family’s house for Easter where we all got together for an Easter egg hunt, dinner, and party games. My boyfriend’s middle sister had recently started seeing a guy she met on eHarmony, who apparently lived in Toronto. She spent the afternoon telling us about him, that he owned a delivery business and a flower shop. My boyfriend’s brother joked that he was a drug dealer for his ‘delivery business’, and we laughed as she tried to defend him.

So he finally drives up in a very expensive car, wearing a t-shirt with arrows pointing to the shoulders and the caption “Place legs here” written across the chest. Everyone started interrogating him, but he was avoidant of everything. I worked in a flower shop for seven years, and he couldn’t name any flowers. Granted his English wasn’t perfect and he was very awkward, but the drug dealer possibility became more likely as time went on.

Afterwards he went full-blown creepy stalker. She broke up with him, since he couldn’t explain anything, and he sent her 40+ text messages trying to get her back. Wrote ‘poems’ about how much it hurt to miss her and said he’d drop by her work. She blocked his number, reported him on eHarmony, and everyone in the family has sworn a pact to immediately call police if we see him anywhere. It was like standing next to a train wreck as it happened.

8. Scum

My boyfriend in high school was a senior at a different school, I was a sophomore. At their school homecoming game it was a tradition for all seniors to dress up in camouflage. So my mom first met him when he was dressed head-to-toe in black and white camouflage and wasn’t aware of the tradition. As he was walking toward us she said, “oh god, no.” And didn’t realize I’d heard her. To be fair, he was pure scum.

9. Drinkopoly!

The first weekend I went to stay with my boyfriend’s parents (I had never met them before) my boyfriend and I played Drinkopoly with some of his friends (like Monopoly, but you drink instead of using money). All was grand, I went to bed a little earlier than everyone else, and bf’s friends left saying “she drinks pretty well for a girl!” He comes up to bed, I proceed to throw up everywhere. On him, on his sheets, on myself.

He then put me in the shower and I apparently screamed random numbers at him and got angry when he didn’t understand. His parents were ridiculously cool about the whole thing; the next day as my boyfriend slept off the trauma I washed puke off his sheets then went with his mum to play with the cats they were soon to adopt. Oh, and then the next day his younger sister walked in on us having sex. Still don’t understand how his family likes me…

10. The Panda Misfits

When I brought my first serious boyfriend home to meet my mom he was wearing a Misfits sweatshirt. My mom, bless her, ignored his dyed mohawk, gaged ears and pierced nose and said that she liked his panda sweatshirt. I laughed so hard I cried. Got to give him credit though, he stuck around for 4 years.

11. Whoa

When my mother was 14, she wanted to date this boy who was 17. But my grandparents wouldn’t let her, because they “just don’t trust him”. My mom argues with her parents, but they stand firm on their decision. Flash forward about 8 years, my mom is happily married. Her parents show her the newspaper, and that boy (grown up now) made the paper: drug-deal gone wrong, armed robbery, double homicide and suicide.

12. Sleazy Teens

My most awkward meeting (I had met her mom briefly once before) of a girlfriend’s parent(s) was 9 years ago when I was 18. I was sitting on her mom’s couch chatting with my girlfriend while we texted each other dirty things. We would pretend to talk about being seniors, looking forward to graduating, etc, but we were really discussing the dirty and raunchy kind of teenage sex that abstinence only education warned you about.

As we texted more I started to get a little excited, nothing I couldn’t control but it felt dangerous and naughty which got the adrenaline flowing. Her mom was in the kitchen the entire time cooking up a meal leaving us to our secret naughty conversation. I told my then girlfriend to put her phone between her legs while it was on vibrate, she did and I called her repeatedly. Watching her get hornier got me hornier, the blood must flow!

Let’s pause for a second and examine this situation, I’m sitting on the couch hard as a rock, she’s sitting next to me with a phone between her legs while I call it repeatedly. What 18 year old guy wouldn’t be aroused? I misjudged one thing, how quickly her mom could prepare an entire meal. Panic time. Her mom walked in the living room to tell us dinner was done, but it had to cool down a bit. She wanted to take this time to get to know me. I had met her once before but only briefly, I’d only said hi to her at this point. She had perched on the arm of the love seat which was at a 90 degree angle to the couch we were sitting on, she sat there like a judging vulture disguised as Bettie Homemaker. Her voice and smile were gentle, but her eyes were fiery and alive like she plucked them from Hannibal Lecter’s head. “Are you excited to graduate?”

“Yes ma’am.”

When I’m nervous I get really polite. “Are you two hungry? I made enough to feed everyone and send john home with plenty of leftovers.”

“Thank you ma’am.” My boner was about to burst through my pants.

“Call me Kathy, or mom if you want to.”

“OK Kathy, I’ll remember that.” “Where are my manners? I almost forgot to mention that we hug in this family.”

Oh, please no. Not now at this exact moment.

“Stand up and give me a hug, mister.” No no no no no! There was no way I have escaped this situation without killing two people and hiding the bodies. I did it. I stood up and hugged this woman.

As soon as it happened I could feel my member press into her, she knew, I knew she knew because she backed away from it, as soon as she did I had an involuntary twitch the for a split second pushed it back into her thigh. We parted from our hug, we both tried to be polite, but the shame had set in. Dinner was awkward, I wolfed down my food without making eye contact with Kathy. I made an excuse to leave after dinner, went home, rubbed one out, and wallowed in shame and embarrassment.

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People Talk About Their Rejected Marriage Proposals

Some of these are pretty depressing. A rejected proposal has to be an incredibly tough thing to go through, but in the long run, most of these people are probably thankful it didn’t work out.

Take a look at these 12 stories from AskReddit.

1. Level Headed

Current girlfriend, actually. About a year ago I asked her to marry me and she gave me an incredibly painful but calculated, level-headed response. I took her out to a beautiful place where you can look at most of the Inland Empire and if there are clouds it looks like some shit from a Disney movie.Anyway, after asking, and her saying no (very gently), I remember her exact words: “I love you, but we are both just absolutely not ready.” We talked about it extensively and while I was hurt initially, she’s more than shown since then that she’s committed to me. We’ve built a better relationship since then, not that it was bad, and we could do it right now (and have talked about it) but at this point, I’m definitely not as ready as I thought I was. Table’s kind of turned, actually.

2. Cubic Zirconia

I was in the military at the time (living on ramen so I could save money) .. spent every penny I had on an engagement ring. She thought the diamond was Cubic Zirconia (aka: a cheap imitation of a diamond) and her response to me was “Do I look like a girl who wears glass?”. I haven’t said a word to her since.

I didn’t expect her response, but I should have. In hindsight, I was in my early 20s and extremely dumb.

Before people start talking about how cheap grown diamonds are (like the youngsters on reddit typically do when I mention this story) .. artificial diamonds became available to the public around 2005 or 2006 (and still took time for the price to be worth it). This event happened in late 2003 or early 2004, so no, spending less on an artificial diamond wasn’t an option.

3. No more booze

Ask my current girlfriend to marry me almost every time I am drunk. She always say’s no.

4. Cruise

5 years together

first night of a cruise, she said no

we try to enjoy the cruise anyway

week later she tells me she’s cheating on me

10/10 would not recommend

5. On second thought…

My girl asked me to marry her, and I said “no”. She wasn’t surprised or shocked, but I felt I wasn’t ready. She just said “that’s okay” and we went on dating. About a month later I asked her to marry me (super romantic — we were at the mall eating pizza and while she had a slice in her mouth I said: “So do you still want to get married or what?”) and she said “yes”.

Been married 27 years.

6. “Accidentally”

Accidentally got a no. Proposed in a restaurant to my current wife, the whole ring in the cupcake and everything. I go on one knee, and propose, completely not taking into account how bad her social anxiety can be, I just figured her books have these types of things, maybe she’d like it. She panicked, said no, and ran out.

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Former Gang Members Recount How They Finally Got Out

For some people, joining a gang can be a matter of protection, or brotherhood, or lack of economic opportunity. I’d be willing to bet that more gangs than we think are filled mostly with people who are only there because there isn’t anywhere better for them. And once you’re in, it’s not always even an option to leave. These 13 AskReddit users were lucky: they got out. Here’s how.

1. “He wanted…to thank me for sparing his life”

I saved up enough money to put myself through school and to not have to work. All I wanted was enough money to get out. 5 years later I got my masters degree and now I work as an economist in the social services sector.

Haunt me…yeah. When I went to university I changed my Facebook name back to my real name. This guy who started a fight with me back in the day that I got word on and got the drop on got in touch with me asking if I ‘remembered him’. Seeing as how I maimed the guy instead of beating him (at the time I caught serious heat for this because it was construed as weakness) I thought he was getting ready to settle the score. I got in touch with my boys back home and they paid him a visit. Turns out he wanted to reach out to me to thank me for sparing his life and that he had turned his around. So my boys thought that was pretty funny and I had to paypal them all steak dinners and booze money.

2. Red Bandana

I got older and it all seemed stupid. Felt stupid representing a group of 7th grade dropouts. I wanted to represent myself. The ones that arent dead or in prison still live with their parents and all they have going for them in life is that red bandana.

3. So Dumb

Three things. A) Got too old for that stuff B) Joined the Army and C) realized – thankfully not too late – almost shooting someone dead for “talking crap to my boy” wasn’t in my best interest in the long term. I think back to that point and thank God I did not do something so dumb. Cringy.

4. “Most of my friends and enemies are either in jail, or working”

I was involved in one of the Vancouver gangs. I left around 2006 a few months after I got attacked on a rural road by 2 car loads of guys who had meant to shut down our delivery phone. They got one of our customers to call us on a Sunday morning, when they knew most of the people I’d call for backup would be sleeping.

If it wasn’t for some fancy driving on my part, I would have taken a beating from 8 guys with bats and batons. I’m glad I got out when I did, because even though people were killing each other prior to me leaving. They got really comfortable with it in the years after I left.

Past doesn’t really come back to haunt me, I moved away to grow weed in a different area and there wasn’t any “in it for life” mentality. In 2011 I moved back to the area. Most of my friends and enemies are either in jail, or working square jobs for the most part. I work in the hydroponic supplies industry, so I still work with a lot of gangsters from the marijuana industry, but they’re mostly chill dudes who want to work out all the time and play with expensive motorsports toys.

5. “I left it all that night”

I used to be a tag banger as a teenager. Think graffiti crew on the verge of being recognized as a street gang, due to it’s acts of violence and size. It was about 25 of us in a four block radius with a heavy presence in a half mile stretch of a main avenue. The night of August 22, 2003, I was in my room reading Luis Rodriguez’s ‘Always Running’. I heard gunshots a few blocks from my place. Thinking nothing of it I kept reading.

The next morning I found out it was an 18 year old named O, a close friend of mine. He was a member of a gang called 18th Street. He was caught leaving his pregnant girlfriend’s house by four enemy gang members, he was chased down and shot. I, along with three other ‘shotcallers’ from my crew, attended his funeral and burial. After the burial we were approached by an eighteener rep, he told us to show up to a party that night in O’s honor.

That night at the party we were taken to the back of the house were there was a meeting happening. My friend’s older brothers were big time in the gang, one of them calling shots from prison. And the latter wanted blood. The way they saw it O was killed in our neighborhood and as his friends we had to get back at his murderers. We were given an ultimatum, align with 18th street, drop our graffiti crew, and take care of any enemy members in our territory. In return they would provide guns, drugs, and the right to start our own chapter of the gang. If we refused we should either disband or consider ourselves in their crosshairs.

As silly as it all sounds, you’d be surprised how structured and diplomatic street gangs really are. So we gathered up all the guys and talked about it. We were pretty much split. I mentioned the book ‘Always Running’ because it showed me to consider the fact that the world is bigger than a couple city blocks. And O’s death made me question if dying for a few numbers and letters was worth it. I also had a girlfriend who I wanted to marry, not then at 18 but later down the line.

I left it all that night. More than half the guys took up 18 streets offer. Me and the rest were shunned. The following two months saw a surge of violence which capped off with two dumped bodies in the middle of a field. The police cracked down hard soon after.

I moved out of the neighborhood. Years later I married my girlfriend, we had a son, I worked hard while she finished her university studies. My dad still lives in that neighborhood, it is now an 18th Street bastion. I run into some of the guys when I visit dad. Most are in prison, dead, or strung out on drugs. The younger kids are the ones running the streets now. It’s a never ending cycle.

6. The Pattern

Personally, I ended up getting out cause I realized the pattern I was falling into. Before I even turned 18, I had 6 charges on my record, 2 of them felonies and I was on 3rd strike, which basically means if I commit another violent crime I can be locked away for life automatically and any non-violent crime, no matter how small it is, can be an automatic 7 years if they choose. As of right now, since my charges were all between the ages of 13-16, I’ve been told if I don’t get in trouble for the next 10 years after my last charge (2013), I can get my records expunged so that’s what I’m aiming for at the moment but it’s crazy knowing any little thing can send me back for such a long time because of how stupid I was as a teen. A lot of my friends never got the chance to get out, one of my friends is doing 12 years, he’s been in there since he was 17, and another one is doing life so I’m just glad I got out before that happened but I still have to be careful.

7. Teenage Felon

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I got arrested when I was 16 and charged with felony counts. It was reduced and I got my record expunged. After that, and figuring out that the people or “friends” I hung out with pretty much abandoned me right after the arrest, I got serious with my studies/school and stayed away from fights, getting trouble, etc. I think it has also made me more mindful and mature growing up, since I wasn’t too into parties anymore and hanging out — although it’s definitely made me more conflicted with interpersonal relationships and trust even today. I still don’t completely trust the legal system and cops; especially remembering when I was handcuffed and chained with others (my group) and walked out of the precinct and into the police car to be ushered to jail.

At any rate, the only real time it has come to haunt me was being forced to put it into my law school applications. Even if a record is expunged, apparently I still needed to write it in and write an explanation. Hasn’t affected my admissions cycle, but I was pretty shocked but of course not surprised since records don’t just disappear even after being expunged.

8. Brazilian Hooligans

Brazilian here. I was a teenager in the mid-2000’s. Used to hang with a lot of other kids who were also low-middle class and had a lot of time and liberty to be on the streets causing havoc. A lot of them were hooligans (in Brazil hooligans are really common in major cities with big football teams, but it’s somewhat different from those in Europe. People hang in the “torcidas organizadas”, wear uniforms, sometimes carry guns and fight over petty things with people from other “torcidas”. The main goal is to beat and steal the other crews material’s, like shirts, hats, flags and this kind of stuff. Its not uncommon to see people die over this ridiculous nonsense). Anyway, it was a large gang, but no one did heavy stuff, like killing people (even though sometimes someone was packing a revolver or a pistol), at least I never heard of something like that. We used to beat the crap out of other people from other hoods, though. Some of us were REALLY violent. A lot of my friends trained martial arts just for the sake of kicking people’s butts on the street.

I stopped hanging around because some of my friends got arrested for attempted murder, and they just didn’t care even after jail. Some of them also sold weed and I began to wake up to the fact that things were getting more serious. I had a lot of doubts before, after seeing people get wrecked over nothing. Like, random street fights were common. I chose to focus on school, and years later I’m a lawyer with no criminal background, thankfully. My friends from that time are doing okay, I guess. They are alive, and I think that’s a good thing, considering what they used to do and how many enemies they made.

9. “I was making the world a worse place”

When I was 14 I became involved in a criminal organisation. It wasn’t street crime, it was organised crime (they looked down on street crime but for things they were also guilty of).

When I was 16 one of my best friends was killed. That was the first thing that made me think that this wasn’t something I could do forever. After that, the whole thing kind of just broke down. The walls closed in and a few people had to leave the country and some of us that stayed tied up the loose ends and rolled up our thing into the major thing and called it a day.

Psychologically it was that I was making the world a worse place. That was the thing that for me made me want to stop. I didn’t want to contribute to the suffering in the world and in people’s lives and I was. I made my family miserable, my old friends were scared of me, my new “friends” didn’t like me because I was always lashing out, and there were people I’d wronged for no reason.

My past has never come back to haunt me. There are times when somebody will say something but even when I run into people I had disagreements with but we just go our separate ways.

10. “When you are in a gang you are paranoid”

I was in one of the largest and most feared Mexican gangs in Los Angeles. But the crazy thing was that no one outside of my close friends and cousins knew. To the outside world I was a baby faced kid with a comb over that was enrolled in Honors classes his entire life. What made me leave was the fact that I lived by own code (I did not jump people, I didn’t tag and I didn’t steal) and a lot of other members did not like that. My cousins and uncles were shot callers so I was somewhat safe. But I quickly found myself looking over my shoulder. When, you are in a gang you are paranoid. I was originally recruited for my brain and muscle. These however ultimately pulled me away from the gang life. I ended up getting accepted to colleges and took up boxing and MMA. The final push was when I became a Christian my Senior year of high school.

I am currently double majoring in theological studies and computer science. As for my past coming back to haunt me, I did see a ghost the other day. I was on my way to work at 4am and I heard a skateboard rolling behind me. And I noticed its speed was irregular (you learn this after years of paranoia) I clenched my fist ready for some fool to try to mug me. But then I heard someone say my name It was my best friend from high school. His family was from MS-13 a notorious Salvadorian gang. I say I saw a ghost because he was a shell of what he used to be. He ended up getting high on his own supply, being kicked out of his house and beaten out of the gang for stealing (his dad was a shot caller he would have been killed if not for that). That’s my story and the story of so many poor first generation Latino Americans from the hood.

11. Fleeing the Country

I used to be a “big brother” in a certain chivalrous organization. There were a combination of factors for my departure, chief among them was that I had a serious problem with the newer generations and how they perceived power, and quite frankly, I grew tired. Of those that joined our ranks who were from the newer generations, they did not understand basic concepts of honor, respect, or dignity, which added pressure to an increasingly volatile territorial issue that we were facing – they didn’t seem to understand that violence was only meant to be a tool, not just the way we handled every interaction with everybody that we encountered. We filled a niche that law enforcement weren’t traditionally able to accommodate but there was obviously a darker side to our work, and some people were neither mentally nor psychologically capable of handling the dual nature of our existence in society.

There was, what I’d consider, a huge war that erupted a few decades ago when one of the bosses of a large chivalrous organization had passed away naturally of a heart-attack. This left a power vacuum that wasn’t meant to stay empty because of the ambitions of several men who felt that it was their right to step up and fill that absence.

Long story short, there were many of us who were killed and seriously injured. I was shot several times during all of this but managed to survive. At this point, I decided that I had had enough. I had been learning English, Russian, and German, working on becoming fluent in those languages, which was very difficult. During the chaos of the fallout of what had happened, I grabbed my rainy day fund and fled the country to live abroad.

Since then, I have lived simply, without the ostentatious displays of wealth and power that I had been accustomed to. I hated every minute of it initially and wept bitterly over the loss of my possessions, my lifestyle, my brothers, my home.

I now work as a baker, living a much simpler (but more satisfying) life, and I am raising a daughter. I stay away from nightlife, which is incompatible with my work hours and trying to be a responsible parent. I don’t drink or smoke anymore. I am friendly with the people I work with and with customers, but I never talk about myself, preferring instead to ask them questions about themselves – people will tell you anything if you show interest when they talk about themselves (which was one of the key tools I learned back in my past life.) So far, no repercussions from my past as far as I can tell, which is more than what I deserve if I’m being honest.

I imagine someday everything will catch up with me. But I want to shield my daughter from all of that as much as I can. I want her memories of me to be favorable. I want her to believe that I am a boring person who has banal routines and simple pleasures.

12. “It didn’t feel like I was in a gang at the time”

During high school, I was best friends with this guy Mike. Mike was a really mouthy kid though, and would run his mouth to a group of kids that lived in the co-op across the street from our bus stop. Running his mouth turned into a couple small “fights” — mostly the kind of high school fights were everyone stands around mouthing off but not actually throwing punches. Some days, the co-op kids would be waiting for Mike to get off the bus, so every afternoon when the bus dropped us off, we would check to see if these kids were there waiting. If they were, then a group of us would all get off the bus because we wanted to have his back and make sure that he didn’t get jumped.

This went on for a pretty long time before some of the co-op kids started bringing baseball bats and threatening us with them. I think they were just trying to look tough, and I’m not sure that they would have actually done anything, since most of the “fighting” up to that point was really just standing around and swearing at each other. But when Mike’s older cousin (who was in his 20’s) heard about the baseball bats, he went ballistic and showed up the next day with a bat of his own.

That was the tipping point right there. Now these co-op kids started getting their older brothers and cousins involved too. About a week later, Mike got jumped.

Mike’s cousin got a couple of his older friends involved and, before we knew it, people were being attacked. We didn’t go anywhere alone anymore, and usually brought a group of friends and some of the older guys with us. Anytime someone from our group was attacked, our older guys would retaliate, which would cause the other side to retaliate. It was just a circle.

It didn’t feel like I was in a gang at the time. It just felt like we had a group of older guys protecting us but, looking back, I would definitely now say that it was a gang. The problem was that you couldn’t just get out if you wanted to. If I had cut off ties with my group and the older guys, I would have had nobody to protect me and I would have got the life kicked out of me by the co-op kids.

Thankfully, I got into college and left town. During my first year of college, my family moved, so I didn’t have to go back and deal with the gang anymore. In the couple years after I left, I heard that things had really escalated: one of the co-op kids was killed, and one of the older guys on our side also died. Mike and his cousin started dealing weed by the pound, and his cousin was eventually busted and took the fall for that and went to jail.

I don’t think anyone in my group considered it to be a gang even though it was, so they were all understanding when I left for college and when my family moved. I don’t keep in touch with any of them except for Mike, and even then it’s just an occasional Facebook message to see how he’s doing.

That was all about 7-8 years ago and my past hasn’t come back to haunt me, although I’m still very weary that I’ll run into a couple of the co-op kids someday and they’ll still have a grudge against me.

13. “Eventually you just get too old”

I used to have a very serious drug problem, coupled with the fact I grew up in a rough hood, it was inevitable. Basically I needed protection and drugs. Eventually you just get too old for that. Kicked my drug habit several years ago, found an amazing girl and realized I didn’t have to stay in such a dangerous spot. We moved out to the mountains and aside from my police record and my ongoing struggle with addiction, I left those demons back in the city. For real though, you can leave your hood so easily if you want to. Took me so long to realize that.

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