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15 Interpreters Reveal the Most Awkward Things They’ve Ever Had to Translate

Being an interpreter is a pretty interesting job. You have the potential to really help someone who doesn’t speak a given language (or possibly doesn’t speak/hear at all). That being said, it’s also extremely challenging at times – imagine if you mess up a translation between two hostile world leaders… you could end up starting a war!

Even when the stakes aren’t that high, there’s still plenty of potential to have to translate something rather awkward/unpleasant. Case in point: these responses from translators on AskReddit.

1. Try to remain calm

“I’m an interpreter for the deaf as well, and over the past 11 years interpreting, I’ve had quite a few awkward experiences.

My first most awkward was when I was interpreting for a client and his mom, both were deaf, the son was on probation but had done something to get called into his Probation officer’s (PO) office. He was cussing out both his mom and PO. I’m sure that was just a normal situation for them both, but to force myself to say the vulgar words and phrases he was using was painful for me. Don’t get me wrong, I can cuss like a sailor, but I know my place when I’m in the company of someone in authority and my own family, so I would never say such things in front of people like them. But I did because that’s what he was trying to convey and he has that right.

Second one that comes to mind is when I was interpreting for a couple trying to conceive. They had to test the husbands sperm count so he had to ejaculate into a cup. He’d never done this procedure before so the nurse had to explain step by step what he had to do. Trying my best not to blush was the hardest part of this job.

I just maintained as neutral a face as possible and did this job as professionally as I could, but when I walked out of that room I knew what he was doing behind that door, and then I had to wait with him in the lobby until they analyzed the count. Then there was more after this to explain the results. It was very detailed, and I know they had to give that information and this office deals with it everyday, but I don’t and it was a very interesting experience.”

2. Bad news messenger

“There are a few. One of the worst is having to relay bad news, like cancer diagnosis, especially when the doctor is extremely blunt or hurried. As an interpreter, you cringe and wish you could change even just the tone or the insensitive wording to make it sound more humane, but you really shouldn’t because as an interpreter your job is to relay the info as closely as possible.

Another difficult situation is when you’re called to a patient that is coding (this was especially difficult when I worked with pediatric patients at the Children’s Hospital and trying to calm down the frantic parents).

Another one is being called to the ER and then upon arriving, finding out it’s a person I know outside of work, like a family friend. In that situation, I would try to get someone else to interpret because of ethics, but it’s still a tough situation, because you want to help as much as you can while you wait on someone else to take over. I honestly could go on and on, but these are usually the exceptions, as I love my job. There’s just some days that are more difficult than others.”

3. Not gonna translate

“This may not be awkward/uncomfortable per se, but I once worked for an American teacher in Taiwan who expected his interpreters to be able to translate puns into another language. He did not or would not understand that a pun in English isn’t a pun in Chinese.”

4. Time for a talk about the birds and the bees

“I’ve been on multiple medical trips to Mexico with my urologist father. Bringing translators that have little to no medical experience is incredibly difficult, and in the OR, no one knows the different names for instruments (differs between states/ countries).

I’ve sat in on multiple appointments and surgeries with translators, and by far the worst is when my dad makes the (usually very religious) translators talk about sexual health.

In addition, often times people only speak Mayan in this particular village, so there has to be a English to Spanish translator, and a Spanish to Mayan translator.”

5. RIP

“I was interpreting for a high school teacher who was participating in an event to try to get dropouts to come back to hs in a majority hispanic neighborhood. Anyway, the school gave us a list with addresses that we had to go to to try to persuade the kids/parents. We go to this one house and ring the bell, the mother answers. I start translating what the teacher was saying and we go back and forth with the mother, asking her to see the kid, lets call her Maria. The mom kept insisting we couldn’t talk to Maria and the teacher kept giving the whole spiel about dropping out and to think of the future etc.

About 10 mins into the conversation, the frustrated teacher wants me to ask the mother why on earth couldn’t we talk to Maria, to which the mother breaks down crying and says that she died a week before from a long illness, that’s why she had dropped out. Ensues the worst and most awkward maybe 5 mins of our lives, between apologies and condolences. Needless to say, we didn’t go to any other house that day.

Btw, the school turns out was aware of the kid’s passing but had forgotten to take her out of the list, smth…”

6. Your number

“I was called to the lab to help a patient register for, understand, and drop off his semen analysis following his vasectomy. I am a female. As we were finishing up the interaction, I asked the patient if he needed anything else.

“Your number.”

“The lab has our number (their interpreter team) and can get us if anything else is needed or to call you for results.”

“No, I need your number.”

“Um, sorry but I don’t give out my personal number to patients.” Cue guy putting sunglasses on inside, under the florescent hospital lights and awkwardly trying to get out of there as fast as possible. It still took at least 5 minutes before he was done confirming everything with the lab team.”

7. Sexy time

“I worked at a place that captioned telephone calls for customers who were hard of hearing. We only heard one side of the phone call then basically repeated what we heard into our voice recognition software and then corrected it on the fly. Most of the conversation we’re boring as hell old people talking to other old people, 50 people in a row calling in to vote for Dancing with the Stars.

But ever so rarely you get a good one, mine was what I’m assuming was a deaf young lady and her boyfriend because the conversation very quickly turned from how are you doing to I want to to tie you spread eagle on the bed and lick you all over. This continued for about 15 minutes but the best part is all the cubicles around you hearing you loudly and very clearly speak (so the voice recognition doesn’t f— up) graphic sex acts while they are trying not to lose their shil*t laughing and still keep up captioning an old ladies cookies recipe.”

8. Vulgar language

“The company I work for has a Spanish translation team that I use very frequently and know all of them. We basically do customer service. The most awkward conversations is when you have an irate person on the other line that is cussing you out. Our translators are supposed to translate word for word unless vulgar language is used, then they can summarize.

Basically what I hear is about a minute of someone screaming at me, using multiple choice words that I can recognize as curse words, then the translator “translating” essentially “they are not happy with your answer.”

It’s awkward for everyone because the translator is basically getting yelled at and has nothing to do with anything other than he picked up that call, and I have to just sit there for minutes at a time listening to someone scream and a short 5 word translation. The customer usually catches on after the first tirade or two that there is no point and they should just calm down and be a decent human being and talk it out.”

9. I don’t need your advice, thanks

“Similar to others, not an actual translator but my parents spoke poor English when I was younger. When I was 12 they filed for bankruptcy and took me to the lawyers office to translate for them. Having them go through and tell me everything they blew money on was extremely uncomfortable. Now as an adult they get offended when I don’t want to take financial advice from them.”

10. Metaphors

“Translator – was working with a group translating transcripts that were going to be used in a legal case, and the speakers were using really filthy, really creative curse words. We all had to discuss frequently, either to figure out what it meant, or the best way to say it in English.

So there we all are in a law office, in our suits and ties, deciding whether it should be “rip his a** up and drag him home” or “plow his a** and drag him home”. (Subject matter was financial, they just enjoyed a colorful metaphor, those guys).”

11. Not until the age of 50

“My elderly parents spoke English very poorly and I often translated for them. After my father passed away, I took my mother to the Social Security office to take care of paperwork. One of the questions they asked was whether there were any other potential beneficiaries of my father’s benefits such as other children or ex wives. Being an only child, I immediately answered “no”.

My mother asked me what the question was. I interpreted with my answer. She looked at me sheepishly and answered, ‘that’s not exactly correct’. It was then, at the age of 50 in the Social Security Building, that I learned that my father had previously been married and had had a child. Mother and baby died during childbirth.”

12. Try to keep up

“I was translating during a divorce trial. You have to swear that you’re translating to the best of your ability, just like a witness swears that they’re telling the truth. No sweat. You’re pretty much a machine, you just translate whatever they say so the judge, clerk, attorneys, and husband and wife hear what is being said.

Well, at one point the accusation comes out that he was sleeping around. Well the husband loses it and starts cursing up a storm, calling her a whore, prostitute, etc. Well… I just translated what he said the best I could. Eyebrows were raised and I just shrugged my shoulders. Just doing my job. The judge reprimanded him (the wife was testifying at the time) and the guy yells back at me asking what did I say? The judge was cool and winked at me. It was awkward. But he did tell me afterwards that I did a great job.”

13. Cussin’

“My mom is a sign language interpreter. And she’s the most sweet as pie mom you can imagine. I’ve never seen her take a single sip of alcohol (I’m 30), she says things like oh durn, and son of a gun…

She told me about one time interpreting on the psych ward at the hospital. The deaf patient was throwing chairs at the doctor and signing every obscenity you can think of and many that don’t even have an actual sign to them. And, as an interpreter should.. my American sweet as pie mommy had to aggressively cuss the doctor out word for word.

It was the best thing I could ever picture… I was dying laughing.”

14. Emoji translation

“I’m a trained interpreter and translator but I’m a better at the former. I recently had to translate a document for immigration that were text messages from a married couple that frequently used emojis. It makes sense, they’re two people still learning each other’s language, so they would use the emojis to completely replace the words in the text (eg I love your ?). I had to send out a huge email blast to my colleagues on how to translate emojis, it was a bizarre moment for me. I think I’ll stick to the spoken form.”

15. “Not kind things”

“I work tech support and often have to use a language line. My favorites are Asian languages and when people are pissed. The interpreters bless their hearts will faithfully translate, but every so often will say “They are saying not kind things about you personally.”

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Museum Workers Reveal the Coolest Things That Aren’t on Public Display

Back when I was in college, I spent a few months working at a local museum, and let me tell you: if you think the stuff on display is cool, you’d be absolutely mind-boggled by the stuff that’s in storage/behind-the-scenes.

There are plenty of things that have been rotated out and might be put back out some day, but there’s also tons of stuff like rare artifacts and ancient documents that, sadly, will never see the light of day.

These AskReddit users share the coolest things they’ve seen in museums that guests don’t get to view.

1. Weapons

“I interned at the US navy museum for a few months, primarily in the armoury

There is a long list of awesome stuff, but the best was all the Vietnam era SEAL weapons. China lake grenade launcher (002), prototype .50 rifles, modified shotguns, suppressed m16e1’s…..

And that’s before the really spooky stuff like a g3 lacking all external markings and a soviet SVD donated by the state department in the late 60’s…”

2. Storage

“My mom was a helicopter pilot for a tour company and Jay Leno had a hanger next door to her company’s for storage. The security guard let me walk around and the amount of rad sh*t he has in his back up storage (not even his real shop or main storage) is insane.”

3. Great grandfather

“Obligatory don’t work at a museum but……. My great grandfather built a homemade motorized bicycle that was put in the Billy the Kid Museum in Fort Sumner NM. I went to see it a couple of years ago and when the curator found out I was related, he took me in the back and showed me a homemade sawmill my great grandfather had also built that they had taken off display because they didn’t have room for it.”

4. Cold storage

“Didn’t end up becoming a museum professional, but had a museum studies class in college that took some behind-the-scenes field trips with local curators. The wildest thing I saw as the cold storage room at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. It’s where they keep all the taxidermy, and there are a TON of animals.

Imagine walking through a giant refrigerator full of animals that don’t go together at all “in real life”, cheetahs next to wolves, moose next to lions, gazelles with raccoons between their legs. Shelves full of squirrels and birds. So many birds–like going down a grocery store aisle, except it’s full of birds. You’re surrounded by animals, but everything is motionless and staring at you with glass eyes. It was completely surreal.”

5. A lot of guns

“One castle type museum I did my work experience in I was taken in a room just full of guns.

I am a lot older and work in a museum again now so I know how things are stored carefully, in controlled conditions, but these guns were just piled about. There were ton of musket looking guns but two that stood out was something that looked like a revolver but with a barrel like a canon, and a musket that was much bigger barrel and eleven of my feet long.

It was in the early nineties so I’m sure they’ve tidied up a bit now, but so so many guns.”

6. “Best job ever”

“Hmmmmm. Where to even start? Fun fact – most museums only have about 0.1-10% of their collections on display at any given time.

My desk used to be right next to an atomic bomb.

A couple of times, I was in Charles Lindbergh’s pants. Also Neil Armstrong’s boots. Also saw Buzz Aldrin’s underpants.

I got to hold a pair of Roald Amundsen’s skis.

SPACE SUIT STORAGE. It’s like a morgue but better. Fun story – one of the best ways to transport space suits is in coffin boxes. Always tripping over coffin boxes everywhere on shipping days.

A drum hand-collected by Margaret Mead that’s one of three like it left in the world (iirc).

Victorian hair art. So disturbing we didn’t have any on display at that museum. As one classmate said, “that’s not art, that’s the shower drain!”.

Airplanes made out of plywood.

An actual military medal that was a hand flipping the bird – Order of the Rigid Digit. Still my favorite use of taxpayer dollars to this day.

Napoleon’s handwritten notes for his autobiography. There was also a collection of prints with his face that made excellent memes among my friends.

James Doolittle’s pilot license signed by Orville Wright.

Lindbergh’s prize check for crossing the Atlantic.

135 laxatives previously belonging to Charles Lindbergh. Fun story – Jane Addams used the same kind of laxatives.

Used tissues. Used bandaids. Random trash. Unidentifiable fragments of wood. A board that was supposed to call cats to it or some weird hocus pocus like that. All things we had to take very seriously and treat with the same care we did everything else because some dumdum decided to accession everything.

A very wide range of baccula, aka penis bones.

Dinosaur storage, need I say more?

The super secret Egyptian temple buried in the bowels of the Field Museum.

Teddy Roosevelt’s samurai outfit, gifted to him at a state dinner by the Japanese ambassador. He then drunkenly put it on and ran around the White House in it, iirc.

A second atomic bomb.

Ugh, best job ever. I make myself jealous sometimes. Even when I had to alphabetize and chronologize 653 barf bags.”

7. Mummies

“My wife is an art curator. In her younger life, she was working at a museum and came across a box that said, “mummy head”.

Guess what was in there? A mummy head, as advertised.

My favorite experience from visiting her at work (besides meeting Cheech Marin… seriously, dude! He borrowed my guitar!) was blowing as much time as I wanted looking at a Warhol print from 1966. It was mind blowing to see all that effort to make something seem shallow and simple.

By the way, prints are awesome. You can buy art for less than the cost of furniture, directly from the artist. You are putting beer in one’s mug, gas in the van, alimony in the envelope.”

8. Super Important

“I went to a Super Important Museum (at least in my city? I don’t think I should name it) with my 11th grade anthropology class, and apparently my teacher had an in with someone there. We were brought to a conference room where there was an Incan mummy just sitting there on the table. This mummy had been specifically freed from the unknown depths of the museum to say hello to us.

It was a teenage girl sort of hunched over, and I remember she had braids. My teacher encouraged us all to touch the mummy. Like, barehanded. I seriously doubt every tour got to touch it. We were totally allowed. “You’re never going to get another chance to do this,” my teacher said.

I touched the mummy’s hand, I think, and the dress over her knee, vaguely horrified at the whole situation. Was trying to eat my fries a couple hours later and thought about the fact that I’d touched a dead body with those same fingers I was using to eat lunch and almost retched. I have not in fact ever gotten another chance to touch a mummy.”

9. Huey

“I volunteer at an air museum. We had just got a Huey helicopter to restore and it was in the maintenance hangar. Some Vietnam vets that flew a Huey found out that we got one in. We let them into the maintenance hangar to check it out and while they were looking at it they discovered it was the Huey that they flew in Vietnam. They had no idea that it had survived.

I was just hanging out and got to witness the whole thing.”

10. Creepy

“I volunteered in collections at a state history museum for a while. Two things especially have stuck with me.

A huge collection of dolls that are stored head down with their tiny little hands (and sometimes eyes) wrapped. It’s just as creepy as it sounds.

Also one time I got to vacuum a buffalo hide. That was fun.”

11. Hidden

“The prison cell door which housed Rudolph Hess when he died in 1987. It is preserved in a back room in a museum in the US. I was told by a staff member that it was not on display, and likely never would be, due to avoiding neo-Nazi attention.”

12. Zoo life

“A few things come to mind:

I spent several years working as a field biologist surveying headwater streams on private timber company land in the backcountry of Oregon. A lot of that land is only accessible through locked forestry gates, but it is many thousands of acres of gorgeous wild land that the public typically doesn’t get to see or access.

I used to work at the Oregon Zoo as well and have been allowed to go behind a lot of the animal exhibits to help clean or feed or whatever. That was tons of fun. The rhinos were my favorite – very friendly, and absolutely immovable objects when you touch them.

Now as a scientist I get to do some unique and fascinating work at times in some high-tech or high-profile labs, and also often work on research vessels at sea. Most of this is not directly open to the public.”

13. Words from a veteran museum worker

“I’ve worked at multiple museums and Archives/Special Collections sections of libraries (in various capacities). Some of the highlights:

The full collection first editions of Mildred Benson’s Nancy Drew hardbacks from the 1930s
the autographed Arthur Rackham-illustrated copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales that we had sitting on our shelves in the Archives of my university, owned by his aunt-by-marriage and donated to us
The Virginia Museum of Transportation had so many cool railroad bits and bobs floating around in storage, especially while they were working on the restoration of the 611 steam engine.
a Lewis and Clark original map of the Pacific Northwest, kept in the Library of Congress archives because it’s too fragile to display

Another one that I just remembered:

the beautiful illuminated manuscripts and Book of Days from the Middle Ages that my university had sitting around in Special Collections. We occasionally wheeled them out for the Medieval Lit undergrads, but other than that they were generally locked up.”

14. Experiments

“Worked in a science museum. It’s not exactly not public, but when the museum was closed or on slow days we used to test out ideas we found on the internet for science activities. Anything from liquid nitrogen hurricanes to green and purple fireballs – if we had the ingredients, we could try it.”

15. Middle of nowhere

“I used to work in a local historical society, and their exhibit space was very small. Someone donated some land and a large barn to the historical society. My co-worker and I went to go check it out, and there was a huge horse-drawn hearse inside and literally nothing else. It was super creepy. It would be cool to display somewhere in the right exhibit, but we didn’t have space or the audience. As far as I know, it’s still during there in that barn in the middle of nowhere.”

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10+ People Who Survived When Others Didn’t Share How They Deal With It

It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to survive an event in which other people lost their lives. If they were people you knew, the sense of grief and potential guilt you’d feel would undoubtedly haunt you for the rest of your life.

In this AskReddit article, people who survived such incidents share how they cope.

1. Guilt

“I met a man who survived the Korean airliner crash on Guam. He had bent down to tie his shoe at the moment the plane hit the mountain and a fireball went through the interior of the plane. He told me he felt so bad that so many had died while he had survived. At the time, I was so confused and only years later realized he suffered from Survivor’s Guilt.”

2. Strong current

“I was swimming off a beach in Vietnam. There were a whole bunch of people. I was on the edge of the group further out. There was another guy, maybe 50 years old maybe five feet further out than me. Strong current swept me and the older guy out even further away from the group. In a slight panic, I started swimming and made it back ok. The older guy did not. I remember making it back to the shore and the lifeguard on duty was being yelled at by other people to go save the old guy.

The lifeguard froze up and it was several minutes before he swam out there and pulled the guy back in. The old guy was limp and they didn’t even try CPR. They just loaded him up on an ATV and drove him off.

I think about it and wonder every now and then if I could have saved him. But not being a great swimmer or trained rescuer, I probably would have died too if I tried.”

3. Remorse

“Was in a boat accident with my entire family when I was 8. I wasn’t injured but my sister was killed. I saw her bloody body in the arms of my grandfather in the remains of what used to be his boat. He was never the same man after that. I’m still unpacking how much it’s affected my life, but I know I’ll never forget the image of my dead sister.

Yes, I have very real survivors remorse, as this boat trip was the first time the whole family had been on the boat together, and my sister and I fought over sitting at the tip. I won, she died.”

4. I see their faces

“In the summer of 2012 I was taking a road trip with my family when we got T-boned by a guy going 50 mph. Luckily I was sitting on the left side of the car right behind the driver seat but my sister and my step mom weren’t so lucky. Almost every day I see their faces right before the crash happened and the sheer terror split second before they died. I very rarely take automobiles now and only like biking or trains.”

5. Boston bombing

“My mom was waiting for my sister at the Boston Marathon bombing. She saw the bombs go off and as a medically trained professional, she felt that she should have gone there to help but she also didn’t know where my sister was and whether more bombs would go off.

So she left and found out that my sister had only avoided being at the finish line because her period had started in the last mile of the marathon. It took them hours to get out of Boston. My mom said she could still smell the bombs and felt intense guilt for not helping and a lot of rage towards the bombers.”

6. Lucky to be alive

“Hit by car at 50 mph.

Ironically the girl in the car died from all of the glass and I only needed a few months to recover been 6 months still can stop thinking about her.”

7. Crazy story

“A relative of mine served in WWII, and apparently when he was stationed on an island base in the pacific (fighting Japan) a Japanese plane just showed up out of nowhere and landed on the airstrip. They just kind of left it there for a few days until they decided that it probably wasn’t a kamikaze, and went to confront the pilot.

They found him there starving to death and chained to the cockpit. Eventually he told them that he was supposed to have been a kamikaze pilot, and that all of the propaganda about how brave and willing to die all of the kamikaze pilots were was just to cover up the fact that no kamikaze pilots were volunteers, and they were all forced to die in those planes.”

8. A sad story

“I was in a head-on collision in which a drunk driver hit me and another car in the lane next to mine. The 82-year-old lady in the other car died the next day due to her injuries. When she was pulled from the car, one of her legs looked badly twisted and broken. But other than that, she looked much younger and in good shape, so I figured she’d be fine. I walked away with only some scratches from glass in my face, and some soreness. The drunk driver was taken away on a stretcher, but she survived and is in jail now.

I felt terrible for the lady who was killed. I didn’t find out till a day or two later when a police officer called to get my statement. I didn’t feel survivor’s guilt, because it had nothing to do with me, and I just felt lucky to be alive. I was 41 years old and getting married a few months later. The daughter of the lady who was killed contacted me a few years later, just to hear first-hand what happened that morning. I felt terrible for her and her family, especially since i lost my own mom and dad within two years after that accident. But I didn’t feel guilty. Just sad.”

9. Bomb

“I was on my way to school with my sister, our driver was making a turn onto the street where our school was when a bomb went off. Everything stopped and I huddled my younger sister under me as glass exploded.

It was just scary because I had no idea what to do in that kind of situation, I was just 13.

What’s crazy is that we had stopped for gas otherwise we wouldn’t have been late. A few kids and teachers lost their lives and one happened to be a teacher I was very close with.

I wasn’t able to attend school there anymore, I used to get scared from the vibration of big trucks and loud pops, even balloons lol. I don’t have survivors guilt but always will have that morbid feeling in my stomach wondering what if we hadn’t stopped for gas.”

10. PTSD

“Las Vegas shooting.

I actually don’t have survivor’s remorse, but I think I have (minor) PTSD from it. I feel uncomfortable in large crowds because I’ll imagine gunshots going off and seeing people running everywhere in chaos. It’s gotten better but still unsettling sometimes.”

11. Awful

“I do have survivor’s remorse. 13 years ago, I was running errands with my mom and my little brother.

My brother, who was 17 at the time, had just got his first job in the cafeteria of our local hospital. He just needed to complete his pre employment drug screen. We stopped by the clinic first thing to get it out of the way. After waiting for a bit I went back to my car because I wasn’t feeling well. I was a few weeks pregnant with my son and had awful morning sickness.

While I was in the car I saw a truck come speeding through the parking lot towards the clinic. I thought “wow they’re going too fast to take the turn” and they were. The truck hopped the curb and slammed through the clinic’s window at the end of the little road. My mom and my brother were sitting right where the truck hit. They died an awful, painful death and I nearly did too.

I feel so guilty for not being with them. It’s taken years but I have realized that my mom and brother wouldn’t be angry or upset that they died and I didn’t. I miss them so much.”

12. I miss him

“When I was 21, I was in a tandem hang glider accident that killed my dad. Just a few seconds after takeoff from the hill, a wire came loose and the glider plummeted to the rocky hillside. He took the brunt of the impact for the both of us and died two days later, while I was relatively unscathed.

My dad raised my brother and I on his own from the time my brother was still in diapers. I credit him for my values and my resilience in the face of misfortune. He died just as I was starting my career and finding my own way. I often miss being able to share my trials and triumphs with him – adventures, marriage, births and his grandbabies growing up.

But I never once wondered why it had to happen this way. Our only thought on the subject was to imagine that he would’ve had it no other way. Maybe he even, in those last few seconds, did what he could to shield me from injury. He was a skilled and advanced pilot, achieving his instructor rating after almost three decades of enjoying the sport. He likely knew the outcome of our predicament. But I’ll never know since the seconds before and after the impact are a blackout.

So no, there’s no guilt. That’s not where my head goes for acts of pure chance, however tragic. I just miss him, sometimes terribly.”

13. Poor souls

“I was born with cancer in the late 80s (Canada) and at the time chemo wasn’t really used on kids. A European doctor came to Toronto and took 14 of us and gave us chemo. I was cancer free by the time I was 4 but only half of us walked off the floor. I’m 31 now and have 4 kids but I often think about those poor souls who didn’t make it.”

14. Close call

“I didn’t ‘survive’ it, but I did make a choice to not get in the car that killed one and severely injured my best friend.

The driver was the one killed, but there was no remorse for the guy. He was always a dangerous driver.

However, there was a bit of anger towards him for what he did to my friend. It changed him. Years of childhood memories wiped away due to the head injury. The stuff he did remember was some of the bad times we had, including the argument that led to me not getting in the car.

Our friendship was never the same after that.”

15. Terrorist attack

“I survived a terrorist attack. Many people died and I survived and now I have the worst survivors remorse. I remember reading headlines about all the people that died. There was a father and a son who died together and the son was little like 12. I feel so guilty every single day that I got to to go my prom, go to college, make mistakes, have fun, get my driver’s license, and keep doing all those things when this little boy can’t do anything ever again.

He doesn’t get to keep learning every day like I do. His family will never get to learn his personality, he’ll never meet his first love, or feel pain, or accomplishment, or try something really hard and succeed. Its really hard to put in words the feeling that I feel every day. Its not that I want to die, its more that I feel this incredibly deep sadness and this feeling that I don’t deserve any day or any joy that I feel.

Other than that, any time I hear a loud noise, my entire body stops working for a second. I cant run or I have a flash back of running. Sometimes I feel like ‘That’s So Raven’ because I’ll be doing a totally normal thing and then everything just stops and I am transported back to the place. And I have a permanent bruise on the top of my foot which is annoying. Also, I have learned to use humor as a coping mechanism and it makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable, which is a bummer.”

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These People’s Families Were Upended by DNA Websites, and Here Are Their Stories

I know a lot of people who have done DNA tests and gotten some fascinating results. Personally, I’m still wary of handing over my DNA to some corporation, who could easily decide to sell their database of information to, say, a pharmaceutical company.

Judging by these responses from AskReddit users, I think I might have the right idea.

1. Holier than thou

“Spouse found out his dad wasn’t his dad. His judgmental holier than thou Catholic mom had some explaining to do. He lost an immense amount of respect for her, especially when the bio dad tried to reach out to him. She is still in contact with the married man she had an affair with over 4 decades ago. He refuses to speak to him and has limited contact with her.”

2. Neanderthal

“I discovered that I have some of the highest known Neanderthal DNA, more than 99% users and over 4% of my total DNA. 3 tests submitted and a flight provided to a university in Australia for a testing. Was cool at first, and then not.

It bothered my wife a bit at first thanks to watching a couple documentaries.”

3. No one ever told them

“Not me, but one of my bar regulars did the test with her older sister. Turns out not only are they not related to each other, but both of them are adopted. And, their adoptive parents are both dead. And, their entire extended family knew the whole time but no one ever told them.”

4. I feel like this probably happens a lot

“I found out I’m not Irish after taking one….I have an Irish tattoo. My mom’s family always bragged about how Irish we were. My life obviously wasn’t destroyed but funny anyways.

It was over twenty years ago, I was 18 and stupid. The tattoo is a nautical compass with a Celtic knot in the middle on my shoulder.”

5. A happy ending

“My story has a rough beginning, but a happy ending. I apologize, this will be a bit lengthy.

I ordered 23andme to try to figure out “what” I was, not to track down any long lost family members. I had known since I was a teenager that my dad who raised me wasn’t my biological father. I used to ask my mom if I was adopted because I don’t look like anyone in my family.

My mom is almost 100% Irish and my dad (who raised me, he is and always will be my dad) is also Caucasian and I look a bit ethnically ambiguous. Olive (but fair) skin, dark hair, and green eyes; no one else in my family looked like me. My mom finally told me the truth when i was 16.

When I got my report back, I was mostly European by my breakdown, I was still confused. I had several cousins show up, but contacting them didn’t interest me at all. One day I got a notification that I had new relatives and a half sister popped up. This caught me completely off guard and I didn’t know what to do…because I wanted to contact her.

For the first time ever, I wanted to know more. I messaged her, not telling anything about myself, just that if she’d like to know more about me, I would be open with all that I knew. I never got a reply, this kind of broke my heart if I’m being honest, but I accepted that she probably knew nothing of me and that the revelation of my existence may have hurt their family horribly.

A few months later a second cousin popped up and she was shown to be the first cousin of my “half sister,” this confused me even more. Why was she my second cousin and my half sisters first cousin?She contacted me because she thought I may have answers for her, I told her that I had tried to contact my half sister but heard nothing and apologized for not being able to help her. (Her story is oddly similar to mine.) She also told me that she had communicated briefly with her first cousin, but after bringing me up, she cut off contact with her.

That made me feel horrible. But through our brief interaction, i realized that the three of us were connected through my “half sisters” maternal blood line. I know my mom is my mom, there’s no question there, so I started thinking, how could this be?..then I realized that my “half sister” was actually my aunt, my biological father’s sister. Half-siblings, aunts and uncles, and grandparents all share 25% of their DNA, all the connections on these websites are based on probability.

I messaged her again and told her that I thought she may be my aunt and I told her more about myself…my birthdate and where I was conceived, and that if she had a brother who was in that area at that time, he was my biological father. She messaged me back in no time. It turns out that my paternal grandfather had passed away years ago and when she got the first message and saw the half sister connection, she assumed her father had a child that none of them knew about. I’m younger than her and her siblings, obviously, so I would have come along after them.

She didn’t contact me because she didn’t want to hurt her mother, and I’m sure she was hurt by this too. I understood, completely. She then went on to tell me that they all knew about me but didn’t want to disrupt my life. She said my biological father never forgot about me…I had always thought I was his dirty little secret. (He and my mother were both married to other people when I was conceived..that’s another long story.)

Anyways, my husband, children, and I have since met them all. I actually have three half siblings that also knew about me. It was so strange to finally meet people who I resemble. I’m a spitting image of my paternal grandmother when she was young, they were all blown away by that. We stay in contact and I couldn’t be happier that I bought the 23andme kit.”

6. Scandalous

“My 75-year-old grandmother just found out her dad was not her real dad. Turns out her mom had an affair with the family doctor and never told a single soul. Not only did she find out her family doctor was her real dad (the one who birthed not only her but also all of her own children) but turns out this family doctor was sleeping with a lot his patients.

She now has a bunch of new half sisters and brothers, some of them knew who their real dad was and some of them didn’t. My great grandmother was quite the secret keeper.”

7. White mystery

“My dad turned out not to be my dad. So the basic 23andMe family surprise I guess? Also found out that my heritage can best be described as white mystery.”

8. Pissed

“When my birth mom was pregnant with me she was too ashamed to admit who my father was. She was too young to be a mom and so she gave me to my current parents when I was born.(they were 10 years older than her and already had a kid) I love my parents and couldn’t care who my birth father was but I wanted to see what I was made of.

Everyone was pretty pissed when we found out my dad was my birth dad.”

9. At least three

“Not destroyed, it just confirmed what we already knew that there was more than one Father between 5 siblings. At least three as it turned out.”

10. Dreading the future

“My grandpa passed away from Alzheimer’s, so my family uploaded our raw DNA to another site to see if any of us have the same genes that make it likely for any of the rest of us to have it as well. Luckily most of us didn’t have the gene my grandpa had, but my uncles have it. So while my immediate family knows we’ve got average chances, my poor uncles are probably dreading the future.”

11. Finding family

“I’ve been searching for my father my whole life and through 23andme I just found a half-brother, finally answering the question. Our father is unfortunately passed, but we’re meeting in person in April.

A couple weeks after we found each other we were also contacted by another half-sister.”

12. Inconclusive

“My brother got our whole family 23andMe kits for Christmas last year. Everyone did the swab and got their results back which showed how we’re all related and yada yada yada, but my results came back inconclusive. 23andMe sent me a new kit to do it again and THAT one also came back inconclusive. So the company sent me an email basically saying I can never do it again probably because I’m using a bunch of resources with no results.

Anyway now my family says I don’t have any human DNA and that I must be a lizard. They make lizard sounds when I’m around and I am ashamed.”

13. What are the chances?

“Kind of the opposite. I found out I have an older sister, apparently my dad was being a little promiscuous lol. RIP old man. And she also shares my birthday, what are the chances?!”

14. He didn’t know

“I just got off the phone with my newly found bio dad. My mom died in 1980, my dad in 2012. I logged Friday in to AncestryDNA to get my results from their Black Friday sale. It said that this person in NC was my father, no doubt. Turns out it was my moms boyfriend before my dad came along. I have no idea if anyone knew. My newly found father certainly didn’t.”

15. Oh, Papa

“Ours was backwards. A French lady messaged my mom and said she thought they shared a father. Very believable because Papa was a proven whore. Sure enough she did a 23andMe and sure enough papa is a great big slut. Rest in peace.”

 

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10 People Who Successfully Dodged the Cops Reveal How They Did It

It takes some balls to run from the cops, especially as an adult. If you dabbled in juvenile delinquency, I’m sure you remember your adolescent chases, but these stories are a bit different.

AskReddit users shared how they successfully ran from the 5-0. Run!

1. Minutes feel like hours

“I was “trespassing” in the park after dark with some friends. Two police officers showed up and flashed their lights so we ran around a baseball field to get away. We noticed they were following us so we all hid under those orange construction barrels you see along the highway.

Minutes felt like hours to a young teenager running from the long arm of the law.”

2. Thank god for garages

“My mom was speeding and the cop was heading towards her. He turns his lights on but has to go a ways further to U turn. My mom speeds up being only a couple blocks from home. We see him u turn just before we turn the corner. We pull into the garage and close the door and see the cop drive by less than a minute later with no clues.”

3. Brings back memories…

“House party in HS. About 30-40 kids in a basement drinking. Suddenly cops walk down the stairs (someone just let them in).

Tell us to sit tight and nobody go anywhere. Cops walk back upstairs. We’re all wasted.

I finagle a window open and help my friends and a couple brave souls up and out. I get out, run for a fence my friends just hopped, cop grabs me, hauls me back into the house.

Neglect to put me back in the basement. It’s my friend’s house so I pretend to belong. Open the fridge, grab a Mt. Dew. Cop walks in with bag of 100 breathalyzer tubes. I meander to the living room by the front door.

Wait for the clear, casually walk out the front door. Make it 3 steps and spolight hits me, cop yells at me. I meander back in, just by the front door.

Spotlight turns off, I wait 5 seconds, f*cking bolt out the front door again. Leap off front porch, sprint through front yards for 4 blocks until I’m in a field. Lay flat and call friends.

Cops patrol by with spotlight, can’t see me, go back to the house. Friends pick me up.

I have a lot these we were really good at almost getting caught for stupid sh!t.

Tldr; Escaped a house party surrounded by cops

Edit: This was early 2000’s in a suburb in the United States. They took underage drinking very seriously. If caught, you got a Minor In Possession ticket. Fine and court fees were $300-$500. So 30+ tickets that night would net the county quite a bit of cash.

We had a lot of kids showing up in hospitals with alcohol poisoning around that time too. So they were trying to help (maybe).”

4. Manhunt

“Oh man, one I can finally contribute to. This one was a while back, I’m 32 now so this had to have happened when I was like…13-14 maybe?

Anyway, a bunch of my friends and I had gathered to play man-hunt. Essentially hide and seek with teams. Except we went all out. We all wore all black, played at night, ..and definitely hid in places where we shouldn’t (neighbors backyards, under their cars, etc)

Anyhow, everything was going great this night..everyone is having fun. I got made (scoped out) and had to ditch the current spot I was in and started heading out towards an intersection in my neighborhood. Out of nowhere I heard a speeding car, it slams on the brakes, and I hear a booming voice, “GET ON THE GROUND, NOW!” …ooohh f*ck.

I instantly turned heel and booked it back down the street that I had came from. I hear footsteps gaining on me and got super nervous, but the cop must’ve saw someone else in closer proximity because he turns 90 degrees and started chasing them. I’m still running for my damn life when I hear, “yo! over here!”

I turned to the right to see my best friend hiding under a van in someones drive-way, so I jumped under there with him. We hid there for about two more minutes, but more and more cop cars were showing up – and I hear my best friend say, “man, f*ck this” and he takes off jumping fences/backyards of houses leading back to his place. I followed suit.

Somehow we made it, and he gave me a change of clothes – a white t-shirt and white hat, and told me I had to go because his parents were getting suspicious. Luckily the game of man-hunt had started at his house, so my bike was there.

I definitely rode my bike home the long way. On my way home I saw cops looking through bushes and yards with k-9 units and flashlights, but because I was wearing essentially all white, and on a bike..I guess I didn’t fit the description of the guys that they were looking for. They even brought a chopper out in the search.

Funny part is, everyone that got caught and rounded up were sat on the curb literally across the street from my house. So I saw my friends in handcuffs as I rode by. I was terrified that they’d rat me out for some reason, but they didn’t. My parents still give me shit for that one. They, naturally, were worried that I’d end up one of the ones in hand-cuffs.”

5. Escape

“I had just gotten off of the highway, driving 70. And was on this frontage road and was still in the fast driving mode.

A cop goes by in the opposite direction, and I immediately look at my speed and see that I’m doing 65 in a 45. I wasn’t speeding on purpose, just in a kind of cruise.

I see him slow down.

My destination wasn’t far away so I put the hammer down, just in time to see him pull a U turn. I got up to about 90 before I had to pull in to the place I was going. They had the garage door open already, I pulled in and jumped out and slammed the door down.

My friends were giving me the “care to explain” face. Just in time to the the cop fly past at about 90 with lights on. I waited about 6 hours before I went home.”

6. Kegger!

“Ended up going to a massive kegger (500+ people) in the middle of nowhere Iowa. Shortly after we arrived, about 10 or so sheriffs showed up and began getting plate numbers/handing out public intox tickets and mips.

I hopped in my trusty little 93′ Geo Storm and waited for the sheriff by the field entrance to get a little ways away from his vehicle before slapping it in first and dumping the clutch.

Made it about half a mile from my friend’s house before I looked up and spotted cherries in my rearview mirror. At this point, I figured there was no point in running, so I conceded and pulled over. Turns out that particular sheriff was on his way to a separate call! Biggest sigh of relief, ever.”

7. Training

“I was in the military as medical on a training course. Nearly all of us were normally civilian doctors and nurses with limited “real” military training as far as combat readiness. Part of the course was a night time Escape and Evade exercise that was basically hide and seek in the woods.

They flew over a helicopter for noise distraction and had taught us some fundamentals, then gave us a red card and informed us that there were U.S. Marines out there looking for us who got rewarded for collecting red cards from every dumbass they detected. We had two hours to cross the woods and reach a lighted tower without being spotted.

The winner was a guy who just walked to the light tower without hiding while loudly muttering about the stupid f*cking Marines and the stupid training exercise and he just wanted to have a cheeseburger. All the Marines assumed that he was already detected and had his card pulled and they focused on idiots like me trying to sneak around. He walked up to the officer at the light tower and handed in his red card for the victory.”

8. Out the back door

“A party got busted on spring break and I boogeyed out the back door when the cops were filing everyone else out the front. Hopped a fence and ran into a neighborhood security man who was quite out of shape. He asked if I was running from the cops (as the blue lights flash behind us). I say “of course not” he asks for my id and I promptly turn heels and run again. This is where it gets good.

Drunk me decided that I needed to run in zig zags to dodge any taser shots and sure enough, I cut to my right and the taser line hits the ground next to me. Turned my head to see the fat guards mouth opened and ran 2 miles back to my hotel room. Safe and sound.

Also cops came for a noise complaint. It was a large rental house in a neighborhood and cops getting called on spring breakers is very normal. For those wondering why he shot the taser, this is America. My brother got a taser pulled on him by the school resource officer for jokingly taking his shirt off in high school. Not saying it’s right but it’s fairly common for excessive use of force.”

9. A long tale

“When I was a child, early 80s an officer on a motorcycle pulled my sister over on her bike for crossing to the wrong side of the road for about 40′ before turning on our home street. She saw a break in traffic, took it to cross safely, hit the sidewalk and turned on our road. He followed her to our home.

She was 16, first week of first job and he thought it more important to lecture and intimidate her for 40 minutes about bikes following rules of the road and no one is exempt to laws before writing her a $15 ticket. She was devastated as she hadn’t even seen her first paycheck.

So I made it my life’s purpose to spite this cop, we’ll call him Dan F. At first it was just talking crap on him with friends. Then yelling at him on traffic stops stupid stuff to irritate. I knew his name and he was the only motorcycle officer in my town at the time and easy to spot and an easy name to joke about.

I eventually was quite the adept cyclist and somewhere around 1985-86 it escalated to every time I spotted him I’d find a reason for him to give chase to pull me over for some stupid infraction. The only difference was I rode like the wind and he underestimated that as soon as his lights went on, I had a knack for disappearing.

My irreverence for authority was getting the best of me and I made him chase me too many times, often traffic gave me an advantage to lose him. I even repainted my cycle often or changed up bar tape just to keep it fresh. He knew my hood but I’d goad him all over town. One slow day he was giving me a good run for my money on a Saturday, I bit off more than I could chew and he wasn’t relenting today.

So took to a school yard I knew well that I didn’t attend hoping he couldn’t fit that Harley through the back alley pillars that prevented cars on the school yard. He kept on me through the grassy field but it worked. Though landed me in a decent sized neighborhood with only two exits to main arteries and a distance to get to one of them and he spun around going for the one I needed to be closer to safe spots and a radio to alert a car to the other that put me in plain sight way to long to get back without pissed off small town police to grab me.

I saw a lifted truck parked next to an RV in a stranger’s drive and laid the cycle in the bed and ducked under the RV. I had to wait him out several hours as he knew he had both exits covered and He rode by about every 20 minutes. Finally after he hadn’t been by for an hour I left the same way I went in. I kept worrying my $600 paper route earned racing cycle was going to drive off in that truck.

I decided to chill out for a while and leave Dan F alone. Repainted the bike and avoided him as it was just big enough of a town to have anonymity but small enough to be remembered.

Fast forward to about 1997 I’m graduated school, started a career and professionally our paths cross. I knew him right away in plain clothes and when I saw his name I was glad he didn’t know/remember me. When we finished our business he is thanking me for my service and says “Glad to see you grew up well, it’s a good thing I never caught you in the act on that damn bike. Say hi to your sister for me. How did you get out of ‘neighborhood name’ anyway?”

“Same way I went in.”

He was always a prick locally by reputation but just doing his job. He remembered me from that first traffic stop when he pulled my sister over with excellent recognition that job requires and when I would yell stupid crap at him after it only cemented my face in his memory. Could’ve shown up at my door anytime but always wanted to catch me in the act. Turned out to be a pretty decent guy- out of uniform ? Never gave him a chance to pull me over in a car in that town.”

10. Gone

“I was a lanky middle school kid smoking weed behind a building in Canada. I ran short distance track at the time so I was gone as soon as I saw them taking the corner and I guess they decided that the chase wasn’t worth the effort.”

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10+ People Confess the Most “Loser”-ish Thing They Do

We all have something we do that’s kind of lame. Some silly, nerdy behavior that others might look down on if they knew, but that we just can’t stop enjoying. These 15 things definitely fall into that category.

I say let your freak flag fly!

#1. Alone in my house.

“Act out conversations with people…alone in my house.”

#2. At least 5 hours a day.

“I spend at least 5 hours a day watching meme compilations and gaming videos. Sometimes I won’t even be watching them. I’ll have them playing in the background as I work. I swear to god I know like every single Vine by heart.”

#3. I hate small talk so much.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve pretended I’ve never met someone with the hopes that they would pretend they never met me too. I hate small talk so much. It’s worked more than half the time.”

#4. Real life.

“Cry over fictional characters more than I cry over my own real life scenarios.”

#5. My precalc teacher.

“go to tutoring everyday because my precal teacher is honestly one of the only people i relate to”

#6. It stung.

“There was a shop that offered to rent rooms by the hour for games. Good for groups of four or six since they offered interactive motion detect games like Just Dance. The console was put at the top middle of the room so it could project the image in the entire surface of a wall. Imagine an enclosed room and an entire section of the wall was the game. It was fun playing with people. I asked my friends out to play there many times but they always had some excuse so I decided to go there alone and enjoy it.​

The look the girl gave me when she learned I was renting the room by myself stung. Normally I don’t pay attention to those kind of things. In my mind, I’m here to have fun and I’m not bothering people but still, that look she gave me made me self-conscious. I spent my hour there and never came back.”

#7. Mommy dearest.

“I’m 36, single, child-free (prefer it that way), live with my mother (She had a stroke a few years ago, so I came back to help out). Last year she had a blood clot in her leg that freaked us out. She asks me to quit my job so I could be here full time with her. I did.

Now I have no job, no money, and rely on my mother to pay my bills. Since my mom is mostly independent (She can’t drive anymore, but can get around with the help of her cane or wheelchair), I have a ton of time on my hands, so I just play video games all day when I’m not doing house work.”

#8. League of Legends.

“I’m 29 and I play League of Legends. And I honestly prefer making some coffee and nachos, putting on some music in the background, and just jamming on a Friday night playing League while just hanging out on my own.

I feel like a loser explaining this haha.”

#9. A dinosaur Instagram page.

“Im 19 and i run a dinosaur instagram page”

#10. Nothing better to do.

“I work weekends because I have nothing better to do. At least I’m making money”

#11. I literally sit at home.

“I moved to a new city three months ago and I have 0 friends herel, so I literally sit at home alone every single Friday and Saturday night.”

#12. To unwind.

“I love to drink alone. I have a family, I have friends, I’m more than happy to go out and hang with them, but I also like to just chill by myself and have a few drinks to unwind. I usually watch a movie, listen to music, or read, and just unwind.”

#13. 100% more relaxing.

“Every day on my lunch break at work I take my lunch to the stairwell and just sit by the window on the top floor and watch youtube videos while I eat . It may be loser-ish but it’s also 100% more relaxing then listening to people loudly talking in the break room.”

#14. Play video games.

“Play videogames instead of worrying about my future”

#15. All the ideas.

“I add ideas to my Wedding Pinterest Board. I’m not in a relationship, nor engaged.”

Love yourself, friends. Loser-y tendencies and all.

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People Reveal the Scams That Most Folks Don’t Even Know Exist

They say there’s a sucker born every minute, and thanks to the internet that number has only gone up exponentially.

We all know the infamous Nigerian prince emails, but it might do you good to read up on these scams that AskReddit users shared. You never know when someone will come at you with some shady business.

1. Try again next year

“School fundraisers. My kids school tells the kids they can win a grand prize (junk toy) if they have the winning ticket. They send forms home for the parents. You have to go to their website where you learn that you have to validate your email and give them 5 other emails of friends and family and after they validate those you can enter your ticket number to see if you won. It provides me a good time to talk with the kids about scams.

This year I told my 7 year old that I’m thinking of a number 1-100 and if he guesses right on the first try he can have the grand prize. He guessed wrong and I said he can try again next year.”

2. A common one

“This almost got me but it is pretty well known. They send you an Email saying that they need someone to buy things for them. They will pay like 13 an hour. They send you a check for like $3,000 tell you to put it in your bank. It has a wait time on it to go through in like 5 days. They than say they need you to send money to their wife or husband somewhere, and go to Walmart and do the money transfer thing.

Transfer like $2,700 to their wife who is stranded somewhere in Africa. The check “clears” in 2 days. you don’t do it the first day, but they harass you for the entire second day to try and have you send them the money. Of course the check doesn’t go through and the bank charges you for it, and if you fall for the scam you are out $2.7K. it is so common that in money transfer places they have pamphlet explaining the scam.”

3. No thanks

“Hey, we see you’re using an ad blocker. Please disable the blocker on your browser to be able to view or website”.

No thanks. I’ll just look up how to beat this difficult boss on one of a thousand other gaming websites.

Look, I get the websites are maintained by ads. I have no problem with that. But f*cking “popups” and other intrusive ads are bullshit. And not one single person in the world thinks they’re cool. Not even the dickheads who make them. And another reason I use an ad blocker? Because even with high speed internet I have to wait 30 seconds for your g*ddamn page to load because you have half a dozen videos embedded on it. This is one of the reasons I had to stop going to Cracked.com: the aggressive ads kept causing the browser on my work computer to crash.

And while we’re talking about scams on sh*tty websites: “Click this button to see the next slide” only to have to wait for an entire new page to load (with another 25 banner ads and popups) just so I can see one pic and a half a paragraph to find out what these celebrities from 80s sitcoms are up to.”

4. Not those teeth

“Delta dental told me 80% of fillings are covered so I would sign up. Got work done, wasn’t paid for, found out they cover 80% except all your back teeth.”

5. Haven’t heard that one yet

“Received an e-mail from “me”, threatening to release a split screen video of me pleasuring myself on one side, while the other side shows the porn video I was watching. But for the one time only, low price of $587 bitcoin, the video would be deleted. Closed off with “Best wishes!”. At least this was more entertaining than a Nigerian prince.”

6. Total scam

“If anyone calls and tells you they can get rid of your interest on your credit cards, or anything credit card related, it’s a scam. The only person who can really do that is your actual credit card company, and you can call them yourself to see if you qualify for any deals.

If anyone calls and says “The IRS is going to pursue legal action if you do not act now” it’s a scam. The IRS will not call you. They will send you official mail.

If you are sleuthing through ads on one of those bootleg TV sites and an ad comes up saying “your mac needs to be cleared of viruses!” it’s a scam.

These might be common knowledge, but I have a friend who fell for all of these.”

7. The spectrum

“First the mild end of the spectrum. It’s not legal to cold call people on the do not call list for sales. You can do so for surveys though. Some companies, most prolifically in my area Eagle Water, abuse this They call for a survey which is only 2 questions and they really don’t care about your answers. Afterward you’ll get a call back saying you’ve won something, where they try to get you to let someone from their sales team into your house for some dollar store piece of junk.

Recently they’ve also taken to sending out mail spam with the same general concept. Basically fake scratch-off tickets which always say you’ve won something, possibly even a jeep or other nonsense. It’s all just a scam to sell massively overpriced water filters though.

On the infuriating side of things some shady apps will claim you have to hold your finger on the home button for several seconds as some kind of login or scan. Then when your finger is held there they’ll try to process a large payment hoping you’ll accept it accidentally. Here is one such app.

One of the more successful scams, the baby formula scam. Someone with a child in a store will say they can’t afford formula for their baby, and they’ll even let you know they don’t want money. They’ll try to get you to buy baby formula, diapers, and things like that, then they’ll return all the items later for money.

Finally one of the worst scams which seems far more common than it should be and which has the potential to really screw someone. People will try to rent out properties they don’t own. Any listing for renting a property which seems too good to be true, often is. Really they just want your deposit.

I had to move for work at one point and didn’t really know the area at all. So I was just looking to rent for a bit before finding a more permanent arrangement. I picked up on the scam pretty quickly after contacting anyone, but there were so many of them that I ultimately gave up on that plan. I just became way too uncomfortable with the idea of giving money to someone for something I hadn’t seen when half of the listings seemed to be scams.”

8. Sketchy

“I’m a freshman in college looking for internships and someone messaged me on LinkedIn and said they would like the talk on the phone. I asked for the company name, company website, and what the internship was about but they said they’ll tell me everything over the phone. This was a bad mistake, if they’re reluctant to give the information when you ask then they’re hiding something. It turns out they wanted me to pay for this special program at her company.

I kept asking her what the name of the company was but she just brushed it off and continued talking about how she thinks I’d be a great entrepreneur. After the phone call, every time she messaged me on LinkedIn I would keep asking for the company website until she eventually sent it and I looked it up and it was a pyramid scheme.

I told her I wasn’t interested but she kept calling me so I blocked her number and she contacted me from at least 7 other numbers after that (I could tell because I can see the location of the phone calls and they all came from the same location). I regret giving her my phone number because I still get phone calls and I believe she gave my information to telemarketers because I’ve gotten calls from random numbers too which I haven’t before.”

9. Listen up

“Publishers Clearing House’s various sweepstakes.

Source: I spent almost three years working at their distribution center.

In a legal sense, they do the absolute bare minimum required to not be a “scam,” but that doesn’t mean they don’t screw a LOT of people.

First of all, there’s the legal definition of a contest vs. a sweepstakes. A contest can’t require an entry fee, purchase, etc. or have any kind of payment improve your odds of winning, while a sweepstakes can. PCH is TECHNICALLY a contest, but they do everything they can to hide the “no purchase necessary” disclaimer. You’re automatically entered with a purchase, which is fine, they just can’t REQUIRE it. They make this even less clear by using the terms “contest” and “sweepstakes” interchangeably in their literature.

So you probably think PCH just sells books and magazine subscriptions right? You’d be surprised. You know all those late-night infomercial products? Flex Seal, Slap Chop, the Thighmaster, and all those crappy CD compilations? Pretty much any “As Seen on TV” product is distributed by PCH (side note – the majority of these products are also available through regular retailers, despite what they’d have you believe). The infomercials aren’t exactly forthcoming about this, and when you order any of that stuff off a TV ad, you end up on the PCH contest/mailing list. That wouldn’t be so bad, except…

Regardless of what you buy, being put on the PCH mailing list is actually a subscription service. This is yet another thing they purposely avoid telling you. You buy one thing from them, and every month after that they’re going to send out some other product that they “think you’ll love,” and automatically bill you for it.

Now of course there’s a returns process and a way to cancel your subscription (and technically there’s a way to opt out of subscribing when you make a purchase in the first place, but again, you have to know that because they aren’t going to tell you), but as you might expect, it’s purposely as convoluted as possible to discourage people from canceling. Oh, but you get another contest entry every month that way, so that’s cool, right? Well…

You know how you get that cute contest entry form with your package? I bet it was like a peel-and-stick bingo card or a scratch-off lotto ticket kind of thing? I bet it said you were pre-selected as a finalist for the contest! That’s exciting right? Well no, because every single one of those inserts they send out is exactly the same.

Everyone is a “finalist,” and back to the “no purchase necessary” thing, they conveniently package the contest form with an insert that lists other products, to make it look like you have to order more stuff to get entered in the (non-existent) “next round” or whatever. The golden rule we had to follow packaging products was to NEVER accidentally put two contest inserts in a package – can’t let people catch on that they’re all the same, and therefore meaningless!

It’s a pyramid scheme, except there isn’t actually even a pyramid, they just want you to think there is! When all is said and done, they just randomly select a winner the way any other luck-of-the-draw contest does.

So how do they get away with all this and not have angry people show up at their HQ? This is the best part – the return address on the packages they send out is fake! The warehouse IS in St. Cloud, MN, but the street address flat-out doesn’t exist and the zip code is one that isn’t assigned anywhere in the United States. They have a special arrangement in place with the post office so their workers all know where stuff sent to that address is actually supposed to go. The same is true of their customer service address in NY -both use a fake “Winners Circle” street name.

Also, said warehouse is listed as “Office of the PCH Controller” or something like that on the envelope, but nobody from PCH actually works there (I never met a single PCH employee the entire time I was there, although SUPPOSEDLY they show up to tour the place every once in a while…)! It’s a third-party distribution center whose only client is PCH, and in turn is the only place PCH distributes through. There’s no PCH signage on the building, it’s purposely as nondescript as possible.

So yeah, people do win and the Prize Patrol shows up and all that. But pretty much everybody who doesn’t win is getting screwed, or at least deceived.”

10. Avoid them

“Activated Charcoal products: They are more harmful than good.

That activated charcoal toothpaste…it’s nothing but an abrasive powder that will slowly erode away your enamel. It will leave you with whiter teeth but weaker ones

That activated charcoal lemonade…all that will do is actually absorb the essential nutrients…this is why doctors use them in case of poisonings. The activated charcoal would absorb the poisonous compounds to a certain degree…

EDIT: I am referring here to the AC products that are being ingested or used for toothpaste etc.

AC is widely used in many other applications like water filters etc where they work great.

They are just not recommended at all to be ingested.”

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Waiters Dish Out the Most Ridiculous Customer Requests They’ve Ever Received

Being a server in a restaurant is pretty much the worst job ever, mostly because of the customers. Sure, most of them are fine, but inevitably there are always some that try to make all these extra demands and get really rude about it.

In this AskReddit article, servers revealed the most ridiculous requests they’ve ever received from customers. Maybe they’ll be like cautionary tales to help keep you on your best behavior at restaurants?

1. At least you made some money

“Working as a server (17ish) had a drunk lady ask to give her a ride home. I finished up closing out my section and gave her a ride because I knew the area pretty well. She was really nice and everything, but had a couple drinks too many and her friends had already left a little earlier and she was too embarrassed to make a scene or call someone. She gave me $50 and I was stoked.”

2. Dry steak, please

“I haven’t waited tables in about 10 years now but I’ll never forget the guy who asked for his steak “dry.” When I pressed him for what he wanted explicitly he explained that he wanted “no juice” to come out when he was eating it. I told him it would take about 30 minutes to cook his steak that done, he said that was fine and off I went.

Our steaks were pretty miserable portions in the first place, and the cut he ordered was the smallest one on the menu, so when I returned with his tiny little 6 oz flat iron that had been absolutely desiccated on the grill he looked understandably disappointed. He took a few bites of it and decided “it wasn’t very good,” which was underselling how bad it looked and almost certainly how bad it tasted.”

3. The regular

“I had a regular at my bar who spoke with a thick Southern accent, always wore an Alabama Crimson Tide shirt or some variant, would only drink beers from the South (Naked Pig Pale being his go to) which I kept in stock just for him, and would sit at the bar, bet the horse races, regale us with tales from his youth, get a little too drunk and leave to take care of his mother. He was there every single day except Thursdays. He demanded we keep Alabama beer in stock and always wanted replays of old Crimson Tide games on TV. It got to the point i started downloading them into a drive and playing them for him, since espn U is only good for so much.We all thought he was crazy but he was nice enough.

This went on for an entire year. Our entire staff knew him and he was pretty well liked. We had to ask him to leave once or twice because he decided to impress someone or would win a couple races and start drinking scotch and get a little out of hand, but he was generally really polite and respectful.

One day he just stopped coming in. One of the older ladies who worked at the track had his phone number, since she had the habit of saving him race books for the tracks he liked, so she called him a few times. Nothing.

About a month later the Police showed up to ask some people at the bar about him, if they might know where he is. We all told them what we knew but apparently not a word of it was true. His name wasn’t Scott, he wasn’t from the South and his mother had been dead for quite a while. Turns out he had seduced an older, southern lady with his charms and wiles, created an entire life with her for her money (supposedly), then disappeared with the money and the lady turned up dead. Police said it was from natural causes but the timing was so odd they still needed to find him to question him.

He came back in for a single drink about 4 months later and he left an envelope for our 3 bartenders he liked and the lady who held racing books for him. $1500 in each. I served him and asked my manager at the time what she thought I should do. She asked if I felt uncomfortable; I said no and since cops aren’t great for business at a horse track we just decided to leave it be. I walked back out and he had left, leaving a simply written “thanks for being a friend” on a napkin with $704.50 in cash under it. The $4.50 was for the beer; and my rent, as he had asked about many months before in a random conversation, was $700 at the time. Dunno if he remembered or if it was just a coincidence.

He was gone and I never saw him again, and his phone number is now out of service. I think about him a couple times a week at least.”

4. Ridiculous delivery order

“I used to work in a sub shop that had delivery. A woman called asking if the driver could pick her up a pack of cigarettes and baby formula when he was bringing her her food… this woman kept claiming she knew the owner (who was not present at the restaurant) and that he told her beforehand that it could be done.

It was busy and I didn’t have time to fight with her so I asked the delivery driver if he could do that for her and he did. Not really a big deal I guess, just a little ridiculous to ask a delivery driver.

Also – asked the owner if he knew the woman… he does not know her personally but just knows her from being a crazy customer who orders frequently.”

5. Wine experts

“I worked in a wine store in a dying shopping mall owned by a local winery We had this ‘wine club’ program and I’m pretty sure this couple were the only active members.

But the level of entitlement these people had was something else. We’d offer samples of a few of different types – usually a Pinot Grigio or a Chardonnay, a merlot, and maybe a riesling or a fruit wine or something that was mass produced and inexpensive.

These people would come in and start ordering me around, would start demanding samples of this Cabernet Sauvignon that cost $80 a bottle (which we never sampled for obvious reasons). The guy would drink the strawberry wine and start critiquing it like he’s a sommelier or something. Once a quarter the winery sent out coupons to its members where if you bought one bottle, you got another one half price – the woman always tried to buy a $15 bottle then get the $80 bottle for half price. It became this quarterly fight she’d try to pick.

They’d always try to pull this right at closing time, too, which is really when I lost patience for it.”

6. The best chicken ever

“Not a server, but I used to be a line cook. I once had a server come back to my saute station and tell me she was about to ring in a chicken dish and the guy specifically wanted it just overcooked to oblivion. I cooked it like I normally would, then I microwaved it for three full minutes, then I held it in tongs and burned the crap out of it directly on the burner flame. I was totally ok with getting reprimanded for overdoing by a mile.

She came back to me a while later and told me that the guy insisted that she thank me because it was the best piece of chicken he’d ever eaten. It was basically the food equivalent of finding out that some guys like to hire women to step on them in high heels. I was absolutely blown away.”

7. What is this charge?

“Table of two. They both ordered the same thing.

Lady A wanted to add a salad. Sure, it will cost extra though. She said that was fine. Lady B then decided that she also wanted a salad.

At the end lady B wanted to know why she was being charged for a salad. Only lady A was told that salads cost extra.”

8. I’m allergic

“I used to work at an Italian restaurant similar to Olive Garden. I had a lady once order a Penne With Chicken and Broccoli… a tasty dish to be sure, but the lady requested that we make it with spaghetti pasta instead of penne because she “is allergic to penne”.

Not sure how exactly you’re allergic to a specific shape of pasta… we’d gladly do the substitute even if she wasn’t allergic.”

9. Coupla quirks

“I was a bartender, but I certainly had my share of ridiculous requests.

– The weirdest was a woman who would come in on her lunch break from the Sprint store nearby and would drink a lemon drop martini before heading back to work. This was a fancy bar and it was a $12 drink. She’d give me an extra $5 to swirl my finger around in the drink before she drank it. It was definitely a weird sex thing.

– One time I had a lady ask for a blueberry mojito made with tequila instead of rum. All other ingredients to remain the same. So this was a mint, lime, blueberry, sugar, and tequila drink. It’s the single most vile cocktail I’ve ever made. She absolutely loved it and tipped me $20 for the drink. As above, it was only a $12 drink.

– We had one regular who was a horrible gross old man. He would constantly request to be changed into the section of a particular waitress (who hated him) so he could make sexual comments to her. I would never honor these requests (fuck you, gross old dude) but my manager also wouldn’t let me kick him out (fuck you, shitty manager). One day he offered to pay me three cents to change tables. Three. Cents. Uh, no.

– Had a former NFL lineman come in and order a, “steak, very rare.” “How rare would you like it?” I asked him. “Tell the cow about fire,” was he response. So yeah, he ordered a 16 oz. piece of raw meat. We briefly described what flames were to the plate after we set it on the table, and he thought that was hilarious.”

10. Enough with the kale, people

“When I waited tables, it was before the whole “Kale is a SUPERFOOD” thing, and I worked at an IHOP where they would put a sprig of kale on every plate as garnish. I didn’t even really know it was edible. I thought it was, you know, just a green thing to make the plates look fancy or whatever.

A man came in one day and ordered something that came with a side, and he asked if he could have kale. I was like… the garnish? Yes, the garnish. He just wanted a bunch of kale. I was really confused but put a bunch on the plate for him and it made him happy, so… there we go. He was years ahead of his time.”

11. Bay leaves

“Friend of mine went to Cheese Cake Factory and ordered a “coffee with bailey’s in it” for dessert. Took ages. Server comes back and confirms. More time goes by – the cook comes out and confirms.

Finally the waitress comes back with a cup of coffee with two bay leaves in it. I can only imagine how confused they were putting that one together.”

12. A classy couple

“It’s been a few years since I’ve worked in a restaurant…I had a couple that would come in regularly, be total assholes the whole time. He’s a trucker, she was a fucking lot lizard that he married. She would order a glass of ice (packed as full as I could get it), hot water and lemon..because she brought her own tea bags and would make her own fucking iced tea at the table.

They would order salad with crackers instead of croutons and soup with croutons instead of crackers. Depending on the food, things had to be on separate plates and very specific items added or left off. “Blonde” french fries. Well done grilled cheese. I loathe these people and I still see them around town.

Edited to add; I’m in Pennsylvania. I honestly had no idea croutons were common in soup in other countries/areas of the US. I guess that makes me sound bitchy instead of just an odd request. Whoops.”

13. No free beer

“Early 2000’s.

Working in an Italian restaurant, this one cat insists he needs lime juice for his meal. As we’re an Italian restaurant, we don’t have any on hand for our menu items, but the bar should have some. Thinking out loud I mention that the kitchen doesn’t have any, but the bar throws those into bottles of Corona, so I might be able to get some there.

Customer: Are you going to charge me for that?

Me: No, I think I can get a garnish for you.

So I come back with the lime and he looks confused.

Customer: Where’s the Corona?

Me: I’m sorry – you said you wanted the lime? Did you want to order a Corona as well?

Customer: Yeah I want one, you said you wouldn’t charge me.

Leading into a back-and-forth wherein he’s upset I didn’t bring him a free Corona with his free lime, because he misunderstood me.”

14. Livin’ that ranch life

“A Mom and young son (maybe 8?) came in to the restaurant I waited tables at for lunch. The Mom asked her son what he wanted to eat, and he replied with “ranch.”

I politely asked if he meant, like, a salad with ranch? Or French fries with a side of ranch?

The Mom looked at me, rolled her eyes in embarrassment, and clarified—he wanted a soup bowl full of ranch dressing…

I walked into the kitchen and discussed with my manager, because I had no idea how to enter that into our POS system. My manager and I came to the conclusion that we should charge her for an entire bottle of ranch, so she paid $10.99 for a soup bowl full of ranch dressing. (Yuck).”

15. No!

“> Oysters!

I explained we are a burger joint, no oysters. He takes off his coat, talks to his date, then stares at me for a second.

> Oysters!

I explain again, no oysters.

> Two dozen! Oysters!

After a third and fourth time where he barks an order at me, then acts all busy so he ‘can’t hear’ my response, I stop and stare at him. He asks again, I just stare, he asks again, I just stare. He finally makes eye contact with me. “Sir, we are a burger joint, no oysters.” He is finally forced to acknowledge me.

> So go get some!

We were in a casino, we were the only restaurant open at 2AM, he knew this but expected me to run around to some closed restaurant and grab raw shellfish them just happen to be hosting during closed hours.”

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10+ Technological Advancements We Really Should’ve Made Already

Do you ever go have an idea for an invention that you just know would make millions, if only you knew how to actually invent/build it? I get like that all the time, and I also wonder how someone else hasn’t done it either. There are definitely a lot of everyday problems that really should have been solved by now.

I know we’ve come a long way, but maybe we should be farther ahead in some ways? These AskReddit users agree wholeheartedly.

1. Fix it!

“My biggest thing I want advanced is our monitors on ambulance. Doing a chest pain call you have ten wires for the ECG, a blood pressure cuff, spO2 monitor and maybe a capno. It’s a hell of a wire mess that gets caught and rips off the sensors and it’s super frustrating. Make them all Bluetooth! If my furnace filter can alert me that it’s at 75% capacity I’m sure we can fix this.”

2. Glare problems

“Some kind of film/treatment on windshields that completely eliminates sun glare. There have been so many times where I’ve been momentarily blinded and had to let Jesus take the wheel and just hope for the best for a few seconds.

Also whipped cream caps that don’t fall off if you even think in their direction. how is this still a problem??”

3. Not a bad idea

“Glow in the dark or light up lines on the road for when it is difficult to see in the rain at night.”

4. Just that easy

“It’s almost 2019 how the f*ck do TV remotes not have a built in page button. Can’t find the remote? Walk to the TV hit the page button the remote starts beeping. It’s just that easy guys.”

5. Gimme those numbers

“Why is there not a toll calculator implemented into online maps? It seems like it shouldn’t be hard for Google or whoever to get the toll data and just display it when you have tolls on your route.”

6. We need this

“Reverse microwaves so we can cool sodas and beers really fast.”

7. Primitive

“I can’t believe no one has figured out how to get rid of cavities without drilling out your teeth. It’s so primitive.”

8. I can’t hear you

“A cure for tinnitus.”

9. GPS

“I drive for a living. GPS tech, including Google Maps and Waze, is amazing and works beautifully the majority of the time. But why in the HELL does it not know which way I’m facing when I take off? In a big truck, it is a MASSIVE pain in the ass when I don’t know which way to turn when I take off because the GPS doesn’t know which way I’m facing. Making a wrong turn in a big truck costs a lot of time and trouble, and sometimes causes very unsafe situations.”

10. A lot of people would be very happy

“A cure for baldness. I can remember watching Captain Picard on ‘Star Trek The Next Generation’ back in the day and thinking “they haven’t cured baldness hundreds of years in the future yet?!?” “

11. Just an fyi

“Improving technology has actually probably been the cause of shorter battery life. These days smartphones are mini computers, and their processors are more powerful than any computer 10 years ago (probably even more recently than that, I’m just being conservative). A lot of that is due to the rapidly increasing amount of transistors we can fit in a given area.

More transistors running means more power consumption, so despite the fact that battery technology has actually improved over the years, it has kept up with the rate the power consumption has increased to allow us to do all the cool shit we can do with our phones now. The reason old phone batteries lasted longer is not because those batteries were better, but because those phones didn’t do sh*t.”

12. Need a cure

“A cure for migraines. Sometimes it seems more like voodoo rather than a scientific discipline. They can’t even tell us why my wife gets them. She just does, and these two medicines that normally treat totally different conditions, when taken together, seem to help for some reason.”

13. No more coughing

“A cure for allergies/the common cold.”

14. Calm down

“A f*cking machine that will fold your f*cking laundry.”

15. Unreliable

“Printers that actually f*cking work when you need them.”

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15 People Share the “Childish” Things That They Still Love as an Adult

Being an adult means letting go of a lot of the things that you enjoyed as a kid. Playing with action figures is fine when you’re 3, but not so much when you’re 33.

There are so many fun things that adults are supposed to leave behind with their childhood, but these 15 people make great arguments for why we definitely shouldn’t.

You can (and should) bring the delightful things you enjoyed in your childhood with you (even if a little judgment might follow).

#1. Plain Band-aids are for sad people

“Scooby doo bandaids. Every bandaid in my house is scooby band aids.”

#2. English sweet shops

“Old fashioned English sweet shops. The kind with the big jars behind the counter were the assistant weighs stuff out for you like a deli. These places also tend to be the mecca of imported American candy!”

#3. Best thing ever

“Swings. They are the actual best thing ever.”

#4. Right in your pantry

“Sticking my hand in a bag of rice.”

#5. Cats ruin everything

“Made a blanket fort with a girlfriend once. The cats took that one down.”

#6. Nostalgia overload

“Enjoying the smell of the radiator turning on for the first time in fall/winter, nostalgia overload. I used to sit against it under a few blankets playing videogames.”

#7. Muppet everything

“Watching the Muppet Christmas special.”

#8. One of everything

“My wife and I went to a drive-in movie on our honeymoon.

When I was a kid, my parents refused to let us have candy at the movies, or maybe one tiny thing you ate in the first five minutes.

I told me wife this and she looked at me unblinking and then flatly stated, “We’re buying one of everything.”

Best stomachache ever.”

#9. Very often

“I guess the fact that I give/call everyone silly names, very often.

“Hi, my name’s Marco”

“Ayy Barko Wadup”

“It’s -M-arco”

“Whatever Garco”

“Eyy Skarko come here really quick”

I think people hate me.”

#10. Brother love

“Making my older brothers mad by repeating what they say. We’re in our 30s.”

#11. A good laugh

“When I’m driving past a bus stop and the people are waving at the bus coming up behind me I like to wave at them as though they were waving at me. Gives me a good laugh and they usually get an odd look on their face.”

#12. So I can play with cars

“I want to buy that carpet with roads, so I can play with cars. My parents never bought it for me and I still hate them for it.”

#13. Loud toys

“Not me but my dad. Whenever he sees a toy aisle he just has to go down it and turn on every single loud toy that he can find. Whenever someone walks over to see what’s going on, he looks around as if he’s looking for some kid that did it and ran off. Then he shrugs it off as if he was in the aisle to buy toys for his grandkids.”

#14. “Swords”

“Using sticks as ´swords´.”

#15. F*ck gender roles

“whn i was a little girl, all i wanted was a set of those large, metal, yellow tonka trucks. they’re so cool. my mother wouldn’t get them for me, wouldn’t even let me play with the little boy’s next door. (this was more than 60 years ago) because they weren’t toys for girls.

first thing i did 20 years later with my first pay check from my first real job was buy a set of them: a dump truck, one that lifted piles of stuff with a front loader, and one that had a crane. i still use the dump truck as a fruit bowl on my kitchen counter.

go buy your carpet. you won’t believe how damn happy it makes you.

also, fuck gender roles.”

Screw the haters, my friends, and you do you.

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