Category: life

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People Explain Which Things Are Far Deadlier Than Anyone Realizes

When we’re sick, we take medication. When we’re not looking our best, we might seek out a cosmetic surgical procedure.

And when we sit in the same position for hours, we don’t think twice about the gradual effects being sedentary can have on our bodies.

The seemingly innocuous activities we don’t think twice about being potentially harmful to our health got dissected here when Redditor ILikeIceCreamSoMuch asked:

“What is far deadlier than most people realize?”

Take notes.

Some of these examples could potentially save your life.

The things you usually don’t associate with death may surprise you.

Affording Proper Care

“Being poor. You can’t afford basic health care basic dental basic decent anything and your health pays for it. Not going to the dentist can kill you. Not being able to afford medication can kill you. Not being able to afford a day off to rest when you’re feeling bad.”

“Being broke doesn’t just suck because you can’t do ‘fun stuff’ being broke sucks because you have to choose between your health and your immediate well being. And hard work alone won’t lift you out of that deadly negative cycle.” – TaysteePotayto

Dangerous Fruit When Mixed

“Grapefruit in combination with many — MANY — prescription drugs. Basically, grapefruit can affect the way your medications work.”

“With some meds, adding grapefruit screws up the way your body metabolizes the drug, so you end up with far more than the prescribed dosage. It can also work in the opposite way with other drugs, leaving you with less than the prescribed dosage.”

“This is especially bad if you have high blood pressure or arrhythmia.”

“This article on the FDA site explains it way better.” – A-RovinIGo

Abruptly Quitting

“Quit drinking. Been an EMT for a while and work with a lot of the homeless population. Will gets calls for people who decided today is the day to finally quit drinking and do it cold turkey.”

“As soon as the next morning people can present with delirium tremens, severe withdrawals can induce seizures and can also lead to death. A lot of these people will think because they quit hard drugs like heroin or meth cold turkey alcohol would be the same without knowing the major effects it can have on your health.”

“Guess I should add this is only for people with alcohol dependency and not all your casual or even heavier drinkers.” – DiscountSheriff

Beware The Great Outdoors

“Vacation. Particularly in nature if you’re not used to being in nature. There’s a book called Death in Yellowstone and talks about all the weird ways people have died there.”

“Walking off cliffs, falling trees, falling into boiling water… there’s the obvious wildlife attacks but there’s plenty of less obvious ways. The thing is, people are relaxing for once on vacation and they put themselves in different environments than they’re used to. They have their guards down.” – kitkatpaddywat

A good night’s sleep can be hard to come by, especially when you’re not in the proper place for one.

Stay Alert Behind The Wheel

“Driving while tired. All you need is that one slow part, or that one part that lulls even a little to put you out.” – ChryWolferyn

Sleeping Disorder

“Not sure if it’s been said, but untreated sleep apnea. You literally stop breathing, and get little quality sleep. The stress on your cardiovascular system is immense. Get tested. Period.”

“Then wear the CPAP no matter how unsexy it is. Or maybe surgery to eliminate or reduce the problem.” – mengelhart

Being sedentary while awake, however, can lead to tragic consequences.

The Risk For Pilots

“Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a well documented effect of long haul flights too. Which is why pilots who fly long haul and ultra long haul (flights lasting more than 10 hrs) wear pressure socks.”

“Passengers are advised to walk around the cabin once every few hours. With flights lasting up to 18 hours, this is a necessity. Get the blood moving. If any of these clots somehow dislodge and reach your heart, it is goodbye.” – Deepimpact1234

The Risk For Truckers

“Trucker here. I’ve had two blood clots in my legs from driving long distances and having my leg pressed against the corner of the seat for hours on end. One almost killed me.”

“Apparently it’s very common with truckers. You’re supposed to stop and walk around every hour and a half to keep things circulating (which almost nobody does due to time constraints).”

“The same thing happens in gaming chairs apparently – people forget to move their legs because they’re so focused on the game. You don’t need to worry so much if you’re younger, but if you’re a gamer who’s a little older, please be aware.” – tjfergusen

Beware of these below-the-torso ailments

Mood Killer

“Penile Fracture – if this happens to you do not hesitate to get medical help. 12 weeks ago this happened to me. The tissue that fills with blood and makes the penis erect can fracture when impacted awkwardly.”

“Bend at 45 degs and a huge hematoma and swelling. I went the ED and after the poor student doctor saw it, I was rushed into hospital. I was informed if it wasn’t surgically fixed it could mean necrosis and removal!”

“The surgical procedure involved de-gloving the penis, removing the hematoma, stitching up the fractured tissue under the skin and then stitching the skin back on.”

“Still having nerve pain not mention the effect it’s had on our sex life.” – Benellibro

Consequences Of Getting That Perfect Instagram Shot

“A Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) gives people a figure reminiscent of the Kardashians and is hugely popular for getting that instagram body. But a paper in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal found that 1 in 3,000 BBLs resulted in death, making it the world’s most dangerous cosmetic procedure!” – jamestxt

Don’t Drop The Ball On This One

“Testicular torsion – don’t be embarrassed to ask for help. In ALL honesty, the embarrassment is ALL IN YOUR HEAD. Doctors & nurses REALLY don’t give a f’k, they really don’t care, and aren’t judging you one bit.”

“They have seen EVERYTHING, and then some more. But they WILL judge you if you make the foolish decision not to seek help coz of made-up embarrassment and lose your balls.”

“The pain might not be severe, but you have a few hours tops before your balls die.”

“To put some numbers to this – if you wait longer then 6 hours, permanent damage may occur. After 12 hours, there’s a 75% chance of losing the testicle.” – CircleBox2″

Just because there is potential harm in almost anything around us as we go about our daily lives doesn’t necessarily mean we should constantly live in fear.

Thankfully, the examples above could inspire further research into the things you found particularly alarming.

Which example were you most surprised by and how did it change your initial perspective about it?

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People Share The Facts That Completely Changed Their Perspective

“You never know.”

That is an age old saying that may also be one of life’s truest truths.

We do never know. Because there is so much out there to know and learn and sometimes random things happen.

And sometimes your new knowledge changes everything.

Redditor ettleboy wanted to discuss the knowledge some of us have acquired over time, that lead our thoughts and opinions in a different direction.

They asked:

“What fact totally changed your perspective?”

Let’s share some perspectives…

Switching Metals…

“It took mankind 4 times longer to switch from copper swords to steel swords than to switch from steel swords to nuclear bombs.”  ~ Im_gonna_fart

“This sucks because I am having way harder time cutting my steak with my nuclear bomb, compared to when I used to do it with my steel sword.” ~ hyelander

resist, Resist, RESIST!!

“The longest a nicotine craving will last is 180 seconds. That means all I need to do is resist for 3 minutes.”

“My last cigarette was January 25 2008.”  ~ nivla73

“YMMV. I saw this fact (have no idea if it’s true) when I was a heavy smoker and it helped me ease back on my intake.”

“I decided that if this is true then what I’d do is think back to my last craving.”

“If I had a cig last time then I’d skip this one and wait for the next craving to go have one.”

“As my body got used to only smoking 5 a day instead of 10 then I was smoking 4 or 3, then 2 until finally I was only smoking when I was out with friends or particularly stressed.”

“Now I only smoke on occasion and while I want to eliminate that entirely.”

“I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to have one every so often (maybe once a month now) as long as I don’t go buy a pack and start back up smoking regularly.”

“This approach simply doesn’t work for some people. No solution is one-size-fits-all.”  ~ ej255wrxx

“I quit, after 30 years of smoking, in 1995. Even after 23 years I sometimes (rarely) get a craving.”

“Mine last less than a minute and are not intense. I will never go back to smoking. Smoking killed my wife before age 70.”

“She just didn’t have the willpower or motivation to give it up.”

“At the end, after being released from the hospital because she had almost died from COPD, she went back to smoking.”

“Two days later she was taken in Emergency and she died about a week after. “

“By that time we had been divorced for 14 years.”

“The divorce was partially caused by her inability to change her bad habits.”  ~ La_Lanterne_Rouge

With each passing minute…

“Time doesn’t stop.”

“That speech I’m about to give in front of my class and I’m sweating balls over, in the next 2 minutes, it’s going to be done with. 2 minutes is two minutes.”  ~ DinoTerrorisT

“This has helped me so very much in life. I always tell myself the same thing – this time tomorrow, it’ll be in the past, a distant memory.”

“I’ve just got to get through it, but it will be over.”

“I hope your speech went well!”  ~ BasketballShooter

“I love thinking like this.”

“I kind of adopted it from the movie ‘We Bought a Zoo’ where they talk about how all it takes is just like 30 seconds of insane courage to do something.”

“You wanna ask someone out on a date? You want to ask for a raise? You want to try something crazy like skydiving?”

“All it takes is 30 seconds where you are just unstoppable and you just do it!”  ~ Reddit

“Hope your speech went well.”

“One of my favorite sayings related to a speech is, ‘For every speech you gave, there will be 3 versions. The speech you were prepared to give.”

“The speech you actually gave. And the speech you wished you gave.’”

“Unrelated to the question. But felt like sharing it here.”  ~ tempemailacct153

Truths…

“I’m capable of being entirely convinced of something false.”

“As a result anything I’m convinced of doesn’t necessarily reflect reality.”  ~ AssadTheImpaler

“The one thing we all had in common is that we all think we’re right.”

“Now you’ve gone and fucked it up.”  ~ briffobroffhouse

Back in the Day…

“Can’t remember exactly where I saw this, but the first Western movies filmed in Hollywood were made around 1915, when the industry moved there.”

“At the time much of the area outside of Los Angeles was ranchland and there were still some sizable cattle drives going on.”

“Directors would hire actual cowboys for a pittance to train horses or be extras.”

“Basically they made movies fantasizing these big cattle drives and gunfights as American history, while people who had actually done all those things irl were chilling in the background.”  ~ bradthaphoend

“They also used trained sharpshooters to fire real bullets at things before the invention of the squib.”

“All the cannon fire in the 1915 film ‘The Birth of a Nation’ were live. Blanks were available, but not pyrotechnics.”

“Someone was killed during the filming of Cecil B DeMille’s ‘The Captive’ because they forgot to swap out their live ammo for blanks in one scene.”

“The Captive (1915) Silent film review.”  ~ behemuthm

All the Money in the World…

“There are real life castles that are less expensive to buy than a New York City apartment.”  ~ yerrrdoobie

“You can actually get a free castle in France as long as you can provide a plan for how to keep up with upkeep of the castle so that it won’t become a ruin.”  ~ Christian__N

“There are planets out there without suns, planets that are hurtling through space in absolute total darkness.”

“Imagine being there.” ~ Reddit

Run Faster…

“Balto only ran the last leg of the route.”

“The dog that ran the longest and most treacherous parts of the route (and at night) was named Togo.”

“Balto toured the U.S. as a hero, but couldn’t be bred because he was neutered.”

“Togo’s owner was pissed Balto got so much attention, and then his story got out and Togo got to tour the U.S. and was bred like crazy, so most Huskies are descendants of the greatest sled dog in history.”  ~ FnkyTown

The Pull Around Us…

“How strong gravity is at a neutron star. If you were to stand on top of one, you’d be flattened at the subatomic level.”  ~ verymuchlol

“What’s really cool, is that it wouldn’t just crush you, it would crush you so hard that the molecules that make up your body would stop obeying what we typically think of as fundamental laws of particles.”

“Everyone goes on about black holes, neutron stars are cool as crap.”  ~ contrivedpanda

Shuffle Along…

“If you shuffle a standard deck of cards, it is most likely the only time that sequence of cards has ever been shuffled in the history of cards.” ~ Leaves_1991

Pets on Pets…

“An example of being mutually beneficial.”

“Giant tarantulas keep tiny frogs as pets.”

“The tarantula protects the frog from predators – and the frogs, in turn, eat insects that could possibly harm the tarantula’s eggs.”  ~ Back2Bach

Well my brain is full for the time being.

I love new knowledge.

You just never know all there is to know.

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911 Operators Describe The One Call That Haunts Them To This Day

WARNING: mentions of violence, suicide, death

Though many of us have difficult, exhausting jobs, most of us are fortunate enough to be able to say our work is not especially scarring.

Emergency dispatchers, on the other hand, have terrible stories they could tell.

Redditor Onatic420 asked: 

“911 Operators, what call scares you till this day?”

Some remembered being there for someone’s worst moment.

“My sister called 911 and while she was trying to do CPR, she was begging, ‘Daddy, please wake up!’ and that’s something that’s been branded into my mind ever since then.”

“I still think about that a lot, even though it was 4 1/2 years ago already.” – Enuke2003

“Every call where someone is reporting an unresponsive relative. Some will let you walk them through the CPR process if they don’t know it, some won’t.”

“Every one of them, you hear the caller at some point pleading with the patient to not leave them. Most times they do though.”

“Parents, spouses, children, I’ve had them all call. Never gets easier.” – RaisinBranCrunch

“My husband died of a sudden heart attack. I feel terrible for the 911 operator who took my call.”

“He had passed by the time paramedics got there, so the guy on the phone with me had to listen to me scream and cry and beg. I cannot imagine having to hear that at my job.” – LivingDeadCode

Others had gutwrenching stories about children and families.

“I was a 911 operator.”

“When I asked for the address, I got an angry man yelling, ‘Just get the f**kin’ ambulance here!’”

“When I asked what happened, the caller said, ‘You don’t need to f**kin’ know that!”’

“‘I just need to know what happened so I know who to send and what equipment to bring, sir’.”

“‘Just send a godd**n ambulance, my kid’s having a seizure! Don’t send any f**kin’ police’.”

“‘Don’t send police’ coming from a caller is basically them telling on themselves. Please send police, because the patient or the EMS crew or both could be in danger.”

“So I passed a note to my partner, who was dispatching: ‘Send PD. Extremely uncooperative caller’.”

“I tried my best to get through the rest of the questions (how old is the kid, are they conscious, are they breathing, has the seizing stopped, etc…). I got nothing but verbal abuse.”

“All I knew is that a pediatric patient had a seizure when the call started, there was yelling in the background, and there was some terrible yelling in the foreground.”

“‘PUT YOUR HANDS UP’.”

“‘HEY, WHAT THE F**K, B***H’.”

“And that was it. Police had the caller.”

“The patient ended up being a toddler, who had been beaten to within an inch of their life by that a**hole. That was terrifying and sad and I hugged my own kid a little tighter that night.” – insertcaffeine

“Not scary, but I think about them often.”

“Mother of 4 called in saying the trailer was on fire and her bedroom door was locked from the outside. I could hear her kids screaming and coughing in the background.”

“I asked her if she could open a window, but they were nailed shut for some reason. Then we had her shove blankets under the door to stop the smoke from coming in before the fire department gets out there.”

“After about 5 min the coughing dies down and she stops responding to me. Nothing at all.”

“Then the fire department comes over the line saying the homeowner came out and that no one else was inside so we could slow the ambulance. We kept telling them we’re on the phone with people inside but they assured us there was not.”

“Eventually, they pulled the people out, mother and 2 of the kids died. The man who came out was letting this family stay with him and he torched it and left them in there.”

“The second was a woman calling on her husband while they were fighting, she was screaming, saying he was in the room and had a gun and wasn’t sure if he was going to shoot her or himself.”

“Seconds later I hear a gunshot and blood curdling screaming. I asked who had been shot and she said he shot himself in the head.”

“Impossible to get that 1 minute of chaos out of my head and it was months ago” – raegirlheygirll

“Got a 911 call with just screaming. Nothing intelligible, just the loudest screaming you’ve ever heard. I started officers to the house.”

“Then a kid started yelling that her uncle was trying to kill her, her sister, and her grandmother. She started screaming again, there was a thud, and then no more sound.”

“Officers got there and a man walked out into the driveway and said, ‘I did it. I killed them’.”

“He was mentally ill and lived with his mother. She had been trying to get him committed, with doctors saying he wasn’t a danger to himself or others. His 9-year-old twin nieces were visiting from out of state.”

“He snapped that morning. Bludgeoned them all with blunt objects, including a large vase. His mom and one niece died. One twin survived with extensive injuries. It was a horrifying call.” – IWantALargeFarva

“A guy in my neighborhood killed his whole family, then called 911 and told them what he had done before killing himself.”

“I always wondered what it was like for the person who took that call and the cops who showed up to find the scene.”

“I knew the son pretty well. I was on my way to school that morning when the cops were rolling in and blocking off the street.” – markitf**kinzero

There were awful break-ins.

“A family member worked as a police dispatcher and received a call from an elderly woman.”

“Her husband had just been killed in their garage by an intruder. She heard it happening. She’s wheelchair-bound but the phone was next to her.”

“She frantically begged my family member to help her. While he was on the phone with her, the criminal cut her throat. My family member stayed on the line three more minutes until the cops got there.”

“He could hear the sounds of the attack, her gasping and gurgling noises. He kept telling her help was coming and to hold on.”

“Amazingly, she survived.”

“The criminal was later caught. A 17-year-old who just wanted the thrill of killing someone and picked them at random. He’s on death row now.” – peeweemax

And there were tragedies.

“My neighbors when I was a kid, Mrs. C had dementia, possibly Alzheimer’s, and Mr. C was like a third grandfather to me.”

“We hadn’t seen him in a week so my mom went over to see if they were ok. Mrs. C told us Mr. C was still asleep, so my mom called 911.”

“I’m glad we didn’t go in there because apparently Mr. C had passed in his sleep a few days before and Mrs. C didn’t realize.”

“Very sad for us, but I’m very grateful for the police officers who were so kind and made sure a little kid like me didn’t have to see the details. Great memories of him, though! He taught me a lot about gardening that I still use today.” – ahw34

“Former 911 operator here.”

“Sometimes the calls that stick with you aren’t the most physically traumatic. I once had a call from a 17-year-old kid who came home from a sleepover to find that his mother had moved.”

“Just packed up his sister and everything in the house and left while he was gone with no forwarding address or information. She also turned off his cell phone that morning so literally, the only number he could call was 911.”

“He was trying so hard not to cry and his voice was shaking as he kept apologizing to me for calling 911. He just didn’t know what else to do and had no other family.”

“She also took everything so all he had was a couple of things that he had taken to the friend’s house. He told me his 18th birthday was in a couple of weeks and he literally had nothing.”

“The officers that responded took him to a shelter. I think about him often and I hope he’s ok. Even if he was a kid who got in trouble or had behavioral issues, I can’t imagine coming home to find your mother has abandoned you.” – gabbobbag

These stories will surely stay with us for a while—we can only imagine how the dispatchers felt.

These are the kinds of stories, whether horrible or heartbreaking, that make us want to hold onto our loved ones a little tighter.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

 

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People Who Signed An NDA That’s Expired Finally Spill The Tea

The Non-Disclosure Agreement, or NDA , is a tried and true method for keeping a secret.

Hollywood, corporations, political groups and even everyday people all use NDA’s to prevent the spreading of information they don’t necessarily want out in public purview.

The trick, though, is NDA’s have expiration dates.

Redditor SkullLikesCreepiness just had to ask: 

“People with expired non-disclosure-agreements, what’s the juicy info you can now tell us?”

The diamond in the rough? 

“I signed an NDA after discovering that the diamond ring I dropped off at a very famous jeweler had the diamond removed and replaced with a junk version.”

“How did I know this? My father-in-law is a retired jeweler and he picked up the ring after sizing for me.”

“He knew the stone wasn’t the same and he immediately challenged the store manager and got a copy of the appraisal certificate.”

“Many apologies, a diamond worth significantly more than mine and an NDA later, all was remedied.”

“Moral of the story, always check the stones in your rings or other jewelry when it is returned from the jeweler for sizing etc.“~TinktheChi

The bark AND the bite.

“I walk dogs ..I’ll repeat this: I’m a dog walker- and I have signed three NDA this year.”

“It’s amazing what people want to protect.”~Quiavonna

Get them while they’re young!

“That the charter school I taught for was, in reality, a Scientologist school.”

“We had to do training in Scientology after school for two hours a day.”

“We had to sign an NDA to get our $1000 ‘bonus’ for doing the non-elective training.”

“Those parents had no idea the school was Scientology.”

“We did not teach them how to be Scientologists, but we certainly used the terminology and ol L. Ron’s ideas.”

“This was about 25 years ago before we knew much about Scientology.”

“I didn’t buy in and I wasn’t invited back the following year.”

“The school dissolved about 4 years later.”~momo871

It’s not who you know, it’s what you know. 

“If you have a comcast voice remote and you say, ‘Make Robert Happy.’ It will turn the TV to Doctor Who.”

“There used to be a lot of hidden voice commands in the system.”

“We had to take a lot of them out over time, but that one is still in there.”

“Edit: A couple people have asked me who Robert is.”

“He is one of the software engineers working on the voice remote system.”

“As a proof of concept early on he put that in, and just never removed it.”

“Edit 2: Some people are asking for another one. If you say ‘Big Boss’ it’ll make your TV go to an empty page left over for the Minions movie and make your tv play a minion noise.”

“It seems they removed a lot of them, but that one is still there too.”~Baron_Greyfallow

The Trees know things…

“Had to sign an NDA in order to reforest an artillery range that was last active in the 1920’s, just in case we found some high-tech military secrets from 90 years ago.”~Synched2020

Behold the roar of the tiger!

“TigerDirect was once a pretty successful computer hardware store in North America.”

“There was a whole sh*tstorm of reasons why their brick and mortar stores collapsed quite quickly.”

“Some of that information is public.”

“However, I know they were being sued for shamelessly trying to force their clients’ to buy an antivirus software that was in fact just a well-dressed virus.”

“It dramatically impacted system performance, it didn’t really do anything more than Defender, it was alarmingly expensive and ultimately didn’t actually work without paying a ton of additional fees.”

“More worryingly, once your credit card information was recorded it continued to charge you even if you canceled the subscription, and your fees were astronomically higher after a few months.”

“And it was notoriously a problem to remove.”

“Calling their helpline for help only resulted in their agents refusing to help you unless you gave them your credit card info and more money. So;”

“Want to use the software? Gonna be more money.”

“Want help using the software? More money.”

“Want to stop using the software? More money.”

“Already giving them money? More money it is then.”

“Employees who questioned this software were terminated.”

“They were forced to sell it and fired if they did not sell a substantial amount.”

“It went so far that the stores stopped carrying any other antivirus just to prevent sales of anything but.”

“Couple this with illegal firing practices, with the company considering reselling computers abandoned at their tech bench back to new people, some employment violations…”

“And that’s just the stuff I know about.”

“There’s more, but I wasn’t privy to it all.”

“They like to cite the decline of brick and mortar stores and the success of their online store, but I haven’t seen any other brick and mortar stores for competition closing (actually the opposite!).”

“And focusing all your eggs on the, ‘let’s compete with NewEgg’ basket doesn’t seem wise either.”

“I am almost certain their collapse was due to overwhelming lawsuits and or an attempt to avoid more by almost dissolving, but like I said, I know only of the lawsuits and violations that happened in my district, not necessarily the whole chain.”~TheNorthernNoble

Of course, secrets often do more harm than good.

“I was given a near fatal overdose of Tylenol as a toddler at a daycare called la petite.”

“The young worker walked away when I was on a diaper changing table when I rolled over and fell off.”

“I ended up breaking my femur and was understandably wailing my little cubby head off.”

“She was afraid to get fired so she kept feeding me painkillers until I stopped crying.”

“Turns out that’s a bad thing.”

“Well safe to say I spent over a week in the hospital and some time in a full-body cast.”

“My legs grow got stunted just enough to make my legs just a bit shorter than my torso in portion.”

“Medical bills were paid and I got 25,000 dollars in an annuity.”

“Plus the girl got fired but not prosecuted.”

“My parents refused to press charges on her cause they believe in second chances and forgiveness.”~Hobbit893

Spelling is hard.

“The State of Oklahoma once busted a counterfeit check ring because the individuals misspelled Oklahoma on the front of some checks.”

“They were damn near perfect copies with valid account, check and amount numbers and were caught when an employee who ran a reader/sorter machine noticed a rejected check with the spelling Oaklahoma.”

“I was that employee and had to testify in court regarding finding the checks.”

“I think I’m still not supposed to talk about certain details, even though it was a long time ago.”~JustGimmeAnyOldName

NDA smash?

“Into the Spiderverse was originally planned to be SpiderMan vs Hulk”~kidzordon

It’s all in the name. 

“Mercedes actually uses Renault engines on most of their smaller cars”~Jertzuu

NDA or not, secrets have a way of finding their way out into the public.

While not all of these secrets were terrible, it is nice to know that RDJ is a good person.

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People Explain What They Realized Only As They Got Wealthier

There’s no doubt that making more money can change the way you think and feel.

Research into this field has only increased in the years since the 2008 recession while high rates of income inequality and limited socioeconomic mobility have become more apparent than ever.

Psychologists found having more money can drastically affect the way we see and experience the world.

Why is that?

Well, wealth gives you more autonomy and freedom. And with that can come other changes, too.

The wealthier someone is, the less empathetic they are to others. By contrast, those who make much less money tend to be much more empathetic, generous and compassionate.

Wealth can cloud your moral judgment, according to one UC Berkely study.

But guess what? So can merely thinking about money, according to a study conducted by researchers from Harvard and the University of Utah.

We haven’t even gotten to the way other people treat you when they know you have more money!

We were reminded of all the ways money can both simplify and complicate life after Redditor SheelahSchimek1980 asked the online community,

“What are some things you realized as you got wealthier?”

“There’s a lot less stress…”

“Money doesn’t buy happiness so much as it buys security. There’s a lot less stress about really critical issues with money, which has the unfortunate effect of freeing up your brain to be worried about more trivial things.”

“But not having to worry about certain expenses or fret over whether a minor indulgence will set you back is simply relaxing.” ~ AmigoDelDiabla

“You’ll always want one of those things…”

“Time is money.”

“You’ll always want one of those things more than the other. I’m not wealthy, but my income is enough to cover my expenses and still save a little bit, and I now realize that time is worth far, far more than money.”

“It’s why I always use my PTO time for vacation instead of cashing it out for extra money like all the dupes I work with.” ~ Polumbo

“Also, the cushion of safety…”

“Fortune and luck are not ignorable… they matter more than a lot of people are willing to admit, perhaps for ego reasons, or perhaps they’ve simply fooled themselves.”

“Also, the cushion of safety and ability to have most of what you need provides a lot of dignity that can’t be ignored either.” ~ ZookeepergameNo4680

“The difference in quality…”

“The difference in quality between cheap crap and middle range is often far larger than the difference between middle range and very expensive, even though the price gap is about the same or more.” ~ Arctelis

“Buying things in bulk is cheaper…”

“I realized how being poor makes you poor. Everything costs more when you’re poor.”

“Paying six or 12 months at a time on car insurance is way cheaper than month to month. So, when I was poor I spent more on that because I couldn’t save or plan ahead.”

“Buying things in bulk is cheaper, aka Sam’s Club. But when you’re poor, you’re not buying a toothpaste multipack. Too much upfront.”

“When you’re poor, you’ll buy a $50 pair of boots every year. When you have a financial cushion, you’ll buy a $300 pair of boots that last ten years.” ~ foodzillavsgothra

“The Dollar Store chains…”

“The Dollar Store chains are literally the biggest ripoffs you’ve ever seen. When you do unit pricing for things like toilet paper, diapers, etc. it’s amazing they’re allowed to market anything as saving.” ~ PetiePal

“I started hiding my wealth from people.”

“Wealth changes relationships and not in a good way. I lost friends because they found out I had wealth and felt that they were entitled to it and I was a bad person because I wouldn’t pick up the check for everyone at a restaurant.”

“They never expected this before but now they did. I started hiding my wealth from people. I drive beaters. I live in a small house. I became more conscious of people who just hate wealthy people.”

“Found out that I have several friends who believe they are poor because other people are rich and they blame rich people in general for all their problems not knowing that they’re literally talking to someone they hate and loathe.”

“The thing I really found more than anything though is that money doesn’t really make you happy. I’m just as lonely and isolated as I was when I was broke and money doesn’t help with that.” ~ agreeingstorm9

“I realized that time…”

“I realized that time is my most valuable asset. That’s why wealthy people pay someone else to do things like cleaning their house, mowing the yard, etc.”

“That’s low-value work. Wealthy people use that time to make more money.” ~ [deleted]

“As someone who’s moved over time…”

“As someone who’s moved over time from sleeping in my car and ‘staying late’ at the office just to have a place to rest my head to someone with a mortgage and a family, I’d say that it takes such a short time for improving circumstances (housing, decor, employment, financial freedom) to become ‘the new normal.’” ~ Following_the_Sun

“My effective tax rate…”

“How unfair the tax system is. My effective tax rate went down as I made more money. My lowest effective tax rate was 17% in my highest earning year (I was in the top 1% of earners). Tax regulation around real estate is absurd in particular.” ~ greeperfi

“We keep financial information very private…”

“I realized that you can’t talk about raises, promotions, or bonuses with certain people.”

“Those certain people will either not be happy for you at all or will expect to be able to borrow money from you. Or both.”

“We keep financial information very private for this reason. There are still people who are mad at us for not being their personal ATM. It sucks but you learn quickly how people see you.” ~ SnooSketches63

Is the grass always greener? Perhaps.

The fact of the matter is, don’t expect money to suddenly fix all your problems. It sometimes creates some entirely different ones.

But wouldn’t it be great if you or I could just find that out for ourselves?

Who do I have to give my bank account information to?

I’ll be here, just waiting patiently.

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People Break Down The Wildest Rumors From High School That Turned Out To Be True

As often as we were told not to believe—or spread—them, we tended to love rumors in high school.

Whether it was an overheard tidbit flying around the hallways or some juicy gossip in the lunch room, it wasn’t uncommon to find ourselves bending our ears to hear every eye-widening detail.

Apparently Redditor tall_hopelessromantic was feeling a bit deprived of the tea lately, because they kicked off a thread with the following question:

“What popular rumour in your school turned out to be true?”

Plenty of people, of course, spoke of romantic affairs. 

“Our science teacher was having an affair with our science technician and regularly left the class to have sex with her in the technicians room.”

“That rumour started day 1, then 4 years, 2 divorces and 2 very quick departures later it was confirmed and what was left behind was a technicians daughter in my year whose life had fallen apart.” — Porochaz

Some were quite upsetting. 

“That a 12-year-old 6th grader had gotten pregnant over summer break. Our Los Angeles county suburb (it was a small and far-separated from LA itself, see how large that county actually is on Google if you are unawares)…”

“…was so scandalized by this ‘rumor’ that a newspaper article came out with a cartoon drawing of a pregnant girl in a pretty little girl dress and ribbon in her hair — playing with dolls and kneeling next to a doll-house — accompanied the story about the ‘little girl who got pregnant and planned to keep the baby.’ “

“She was interviewed. I remember her name but it’s unnecessary— the whole damn town knew who it was.”

“What’s wild is that the kids in Jr. High actually had a baby shower for this 7th grader as she got close to full-term, and all brought in packs of diapers and formula for her on a designated day. With the teachers, principal, and probably the school district in support of this. The year was 1984-1985.” — RelentlesslyCrooked

But others were a bit more wholesome.

“In my Catholic (Jesuit) high school, one of the priests and one of the nuns were very close friends. We all loved them, and we could see that they were quite fond of one another (and they made a really nice looking couple).”

“We used to affectionately kid them about ‘meeting in the tunnel’ between the convent and the rectory. A few years after my class graduated, they both left their Orders, got married, and had kids. We’re all happy for them.” — SmokeHimInside

Other rumors hinged on crime and other questionable activities.

“In high school: that the biology teacher was growing weed in the environmental lab. Supposedly he did it for 30 years without anyone noticing. No one could ever prove it though.”

“Later on, I was assigned to be the agent taking care of some of his financial matters, so I went to his house to have him sign some paperwork. He had a hydroponic setup there, so I asked him about the environmental lab. It was like Han Solo in The Force Awakens.”

“ ‘It’s true. All of it.’ Then he offered me a brownie.” — JayMax19

In one case, the truth was stranger than fiction. 

“That one of the students was actually a cop. Turns out he was a cop and busted one of the actual students for selling handguns in school.”

“If you thought 21 jump street was unrealistic think again. Cop was a 33 year old male and undercover for like half the semester.” — AllThotsGo2Heaven2

Then there was the horrifying kind. 

“That one of the seniors in my school wrote all over the men’s room bathroom about bringing a bomb to school.”

“The bomb squad evacuated us all, dogs came and they found one in a random locker. It was absolutely nuts, kid got arrested two seats next to me in english class a couple of days later once they could prove he did it” — Alienexxa227

And of course, more weed. 

“There was always a rumor that the head janitor was a huge pothead and would smoke with students in one of the storage sheds away from the main building.”

“I always figured it was bullsh** until my friend CJ sent me a pic of him and the janitor smoking weed while surrounded by folding chairs.” — apocalypticradish

In one case, the rumor was shownto be true, rather than told. 

“At our school this one kid was rumored to be a son of one of the local gyms amateur boxer teacher. Non of us had no real reason to think twice about it. Once we got to high school this kid started teasing that kid.”

“I had a couple of mutal friends with the bully so I warned the guy he might want to let up on teasing him. A couple days go by the dude didn’t stop. And the boxer’s kid proceeded to give this guy one of the worst one sided fights I have ever seen.”

“The bully learned his lesson and never bullied anyone else for the rest of our high school years. So it turned out to be true.” — gibry12

For one teacher, the scientific method left every door open. 

“Biology teacher decided to use the scientific method to personally prove or disprove to himself that humans could photosynthesize.”

“He did this by laying bare ass naked on his front lawn, landing him a public nudity charge.” — Arikan89

And some were just plain bizarre.

Like this one, which involved an animal.

“this was a roumour that went around my elementary school. basically my school had a lock down but they didn’t tell us what it was for.”

“one kid came in the next day and told us that his sister said it was a cow in the field in between the high school and middle school. so my second grade class went and told everyone else in the school. the next day we had an assembly that confirmed this rumor.” — Ptential_Hedgehog92

Or this one, which also involved an animal. 

“In middle school, there was a rumor my 7th-8th grade Social Studies teacher owned a pet donkey. Turned out to be true. The donkey’s name was Pedro the Donkey.” — MasterAqua2

But no matter how wild or out there these rumors may sound, we can rest assured there plenty more—perhaps wilder—out there as well.

Only you know how your school stacks up .

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People Explain What They’d Want To Do With Their Final Hours On Earth

The average human lives an approximate 692,040 hours on Earth, according to a recent sleep study done by Dreams mattress company. This tops out at 28,835 days, or roughly 79 years.

While it might sound like a long time, considering time is ticking away as you’re reading this, we never have as much as we think.

So if life ended tomorrow and you knew about it in advance, what would you do with your final hours?

Reddit user, di_guyo, wanted to know what you would do with finite time when they asked:

You find out you have 1 hour to live, what do you do with your last hour on earth?

Indulge In Your Wildest Fantasies

“I have allergies. I will eat everything I had to stop eating because of them.” ~ shortinha

If We’re Being Real With Ourselves Here…

“Panic for an hour then die” ~ Grape_Jamz

“Most realistic answer here.” ~ lemaquilleur

Actually, This Feels The Most Realistic

“Scroll Netflix or Hulu until I find something to watch while I wait it out.” ~ bitterherpes

“You’ll be dead before you find anything!” ~ di_guyo

Get Those Likes In While You Can

“Have a beer and post on facebook—“if this post doesn’t get 5,000 likes in the next hour I will die.” ~ Talkaze

Why Change Perfection?

“Hang out on my couch with all my pets i guess. The usual” ~ induceddaftfan

Make The News In The Most Violent Way Possible

“Get in my car and drive as long as I can and as fast as I can. I’m talking 5 star wanted level; I want to make national news. And right before my timer goes off, I want to drive straight off a cliff and put on the most spectacular car crash anyone’s ever seen.” ~ StaySharpp

Say Good-Bye And Take A Seat

“Load the kids into the car, drive out to my parents’ place, give them all hugs and kisses, grab one of their whiskey bottles, walk out back to the lake, sit on the pier, and spend the last 10-15 minutes drinking and enjoying the view.” ~ AZNDavyJones

Get All The Important Messages Out Of The Way

“Hug all my immediate family. Make videos to send to all the people I love. I just lost someone and I’d kill for more voicemails and videos of them to replay when I miss them. I don’t wanna forget how they looked or sounded.” ~ Crimtot

“I’d have to hug my family as well, all jokes in this thread aside. My kids especially. Then for the last ten minutes I’d drive somewhere and park my car, call an ambulance. I want to give my family hugs, but I don’t want them to end up suddenly holding onto a corpse.” ~ Akhi11eus

“Record messages to my daughters for all of their major events in their life they have gotten to yet, graduations, weddings, births, that I won’t get a chance to be there for.”

“I would tell them how proud of them I am, and how they need to always look out for they mom.”

“I would tell my wife I love her, and my dogs they are the best boys/girls.” ~ An_aussie_in_ct

Give Blessings, Not Trauma

“Assuming I’m at home when I find out…Facetime my family and tell them I love them and talk about the good times we’ve had and tell them that they’ve made my life amazing.”

“Text my friends and let them know how much they mean to me and thank them for their friendship.”

“Hug my dogs and give them scratches. Sit on my balcony with my girl in my arms, dogs beside me, and let death take me.”

“…yeah dying in front of my fiancé would probably traumatize her…maybe I’d slip away the last 5 minutes and walk to a bench down the road so a passerby could find me.”

“Also I’d tell her it’s ok to move on, I wouldn’t want her to be alone the rest of her life” ~ adirtymedic

Mess With People In The Future

“Take a couple thousand dollars out of the bank. Die with that money clutched in my hand and surrounded by cryptic messages with allusions toward a much greater hidden treasure.” ~ remembernottopost

“Put GPS coordinates in a note that lead to a landmark/statue/whatever that you hate. People trying to find the statue will destroy it.” ~ BlatantConservative

This Does Feel The Most Likely…

“fall in a spiraling anxiety attack, trying to find out what to do for my last hour.”

“go see my parents? spend the time with my bf? eat my last meal? watch one more good show? walk in nature? say my good byes to my friends?”

“I have to make choices, what if I disappoint people because I didn’t contact them? I don’t have a will, what do I want to leave to whom? the dog won’t even understand that I’m dead!! I spent all my life studying for WHAT?”

“I’m gonna die having done nothing but that! No time to think about that, I should go play fetch with the pup… Do UberEats deliver lobster?”

“Is it gonna be good? Imagine having for last supper rubbery cold lobster. Let’s go out in a bang with champagne and sex! I don’t want to die naked though.”

“I don’t want my bf to be traumatized that way either. I’ve wasted already 5 minutes out of my last 60 minutes trying to figure it out, what if I get to do nothing because I was indecisi” ~ ChibiSailorMercury

But What Happens When You’ve Actually Lived It?

“I lived in Maui during the ‘Ballistic Missle Inbound this is not a drill’ event. We had 15 minutes. I was frantic trying to find out if it was true.”

“Then the resolve I was gonna die hit. I went outside smoked a cigarette and looked out at the ocean. I called none of my 6 kids.”

“Nobody picks up anyway and I didn’t want it to look like I favored one over the other. I reviewed my life and I was good.”

“Luckily it was a mistake. But I’ll never forget that feeling.” ~ itsrainingkids

Maybe have that donut today?

After all, it’s not like the world is ending tomorrow, right?

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People Explain Which Scientific Advances May Sound Futuristic But Are Actually Reality Today

The future is now. There are so many advances happening on the daily, it’s impossible to keep up.

Science seems to be moving at warp speed. Everything we thought would be possible is now more than possible.

Soon, we’ll all be in space.

Well, those of us with billions of dollars of course.

Redditor emeister26 wanted to discuss all the fascinating facts about life and science that are already upon us by asking:

“What is something that sounds futuristic but is happening now?”

It’s all about the T…

“CAR T cell therapy.”

“They take the T cells out of a cancer patient. They train the cells to kill the specific type of cancer that the patient has and then they put them back in.”

“This therapy doesn’t work 100 % of the time, but when it does it does miracles.”

“(It’s also expensive as sh*t for now)”.  ~ strange_socks_

“I currently work in this field, and am currently commercializing my second CAR-T product in my life (my first was Kymriah).”

“It doesn’t always work 100% of the time, but the next generation of CAR-T’s have shown 100% remission rates.”

“Example of 100% remission.”

“CAR-T is roughly the same price as a monoclonal antibody, Amgens Blintocyte is $300k roughly, and Kymriah and Yescart are about $220-350k depending on where you are in the world.”

“So it’s pretty competitive.”  ~ arabidopsis

How many types are there?

“I’ve been a type 1 diabetic since 1982.”

“Back when I was first diagnosed, I had to pee on a stick and match the color up to colors on the vial to see approximately what my blood sugar was a couple hours ago.”

“Now I have an anamatronic fish that tells me what my sugar levels are and I don’t even have to prick my finger! We truly are truly living in the future.”  ~ rhett342

A.I. is upon us…

“Robotic prosthetic limbs. I know a guy who lost his arm from a construction accident.”

“He now has an arm that has a fully articulated hand, and is good enough that he can even write with it, though not very well.”

“He said it’s worth about half a million dollars, and also it has done wonders for his ability to hook up with women.”

“I guess a lot of people are curious and that starts off the conversation.”  ~ Youpunyhumans

“There are actually some amazing innovations in the robotic prosthetic scientific field that have JUST been published!”

“Scientists have been able to make a prosthetic arm with a sense of touch! This is very important, as it allows for better gripping of objects.”

“The test subject was able to pour a glass of water in half the time it took him with a non-feeling prosthetic.”

“It also allows people to enjoy the sensation of feeling, which is pretty awesome!”

“Also, piggybacking because it’s somewhat related, scientists have also recently discovered a way to allow a paralyzed man to type and control computers with only their thoughts!”

“The outside of the brain is the part that deals with bodily motion, so they surgically implanted electrodes and asked him to imagine hand-writing letters.”

“Then, a little bit of machine learning magic, and boom! He was able to write on a computer!”

“He was able to write 90 characters a minute! Kinda the ultimate “look ma, no hands!”

“Links to articles:”

“https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/20/998725924/a-sense-of-touch-boosts-speed-accuracy-of-mind-controlled-robotic-arm“

“https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/medical-advances/553323-in-amazing-first-paralyzed-man-is-able-to-type”  ~ cancer_dragon

Photos and texts of the future.

“A program that is able to generate almost any (!!!) photo using short text input.”

“A San Francisco street? Done. Avocado chair? Yes, why not. A photo of buildings of Poland? YES, it can do that.”

“It can generate almost any stock photo you can imagine, like any any, you can add parameters, lighting, ask to specific picture in the room.”

“It uses 12 billion of pictures and descriptions to do this. There are two downsides of course: the first one is lots of lots of computational power.”

“The second is that the program is losing the track after few parameters.”

“Also it can do only 100×100 pixels at the time but it will change fast.”

“It’s called DALL-E and was premiered this year. It’s an AI made by OpenAI. Terrific and amazing at the same time.”  ~ umotex12

Know the Survey

“I’m fourth generation of an excavating company and some of our surveying techniques now are unbelievable.”

“When we started in the 60’s you used a contraption called a theodolite and prism (a fancy level used to measure the distance and elevation change of the prism).”

“One of the fondest memories I’ll ever hold happened two months ago shortly before my Grandpa (the founder) passed away.”

“I showed him how to survey a 30 acre site with a drone in about 45 minutes (all automated), something that would have taken a crew well over a week in his time.”

“I then took the data, had it processed, and showed him the prints of the site right on site with my laptop. He cried.”   ~ cmde44

Visualize it and See it!

“I work in the construction industry.”

“Technology has really made projects easier to plan out and do. Like back in the day, paper blueprints were how you visualized a job.”

“Big huge paper rolls that were a pain in the a** to carry around and store, and the prints were easy to damage because well… they’re paper.”

“If there was ever a change to the prints, you’d have to wait for the drafters to draw them, print them, and send them to your job.”

“Nowadays the foreman or project manager carry an iPad with all of the blueprints, both in 2D and 3D CAD drawing and can look up every detail of the drawings in seconds.”

“And if the drafters have to make changes, they can email or message the site foreman and give them new prints in a matter of minutes.”

“This isn’t your dad’s construction site anymore.”  ~ Mercurydriver

Just think reeeeal hard!

“Being able to control objects with your brain. I know it’s still in its infancy but the fact that we can even attempt do stuff like that is crazy.”  ~ Cruise_alt_40000

Year One

“A blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s.”  ~ Geekla

“It was on Jeopardy tonight, actually, yes! I’ve been reading about it.”

“It’s less than a year old, just getting started and I’m guessing just the first version of more to come, but it’s real and it made my whole day to hear it.”  ~ Geekla

Body Parts

“3d printed organs.”  ~ turn_your_compote 

“I really hope that one day they can just scrape a few of your stem cells, and 3 weeks later they’ve grown you a new heart, liver, kidneys, etc.”  ~ Diligent_Slide

The lifespan of light…

“Something I just noticed the other day.”

“CFL light bulbs became popular and all but got replaced by LED bulbs all within the lifespan of a single bulb.”

“I was replacing a bulb the other day that was a CFL and I remember the last time I replaced it, the previous bulb was an incandescent.”  ~ Restil

The Good Landing

“Rockets landing upright… to me it looks like bad special effects, because it was never in any good movies.”  ~ redmaybe

Technology and science, two things I’ll never understand. But two things I can’t avoid.

We are close to living in The Jetsons.

I can feel it. Can you?

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People Divulge The Craziest Deathbed Confessions They’ve Ever Heard

People on their deathbed must want a clean slate for transitioning into the afterlife, because it is there on which truths are revealed.

Watching a loved one slowly slipping away is indisputably one of the hardest rites of passage to witness.

However, there can be room for the slightest bit of levity when they finally have something they’ve been wanting to get off their chest.

What they impart could potentially change one’s perception of them forever.

Curious to hear some of the memorable things strangers online heard someone on their deathbed say, Redditor random_guy_somewhere asked:

“People who have heard deathbed confessions, what were some interesting ones?”

These final moments were far from peaceful but make for great stories.

A Sinister Confession

“My grandma confessed to murder on her deathbed. Usually you’d think it was the pain relief, but she was such an eccentric it was actually believable.”

“We traced all her ex-husbands, partners and any other likely candidates and fortunately no one was missing or died an untimely death, but sometimes I wonder…” – NotAnEarthwormYet

A Broken Tradition

“Not my story but that of a hospice worker who spoke to my class. For those who don’t know, hospice is a method of end-of-life care that focuses on alleviating the emotional & physical pain of a dying person to ease their passing rather than combatting their imminent death.”

“One of her patients was a bed-bound woman in her 90s who was generally unresponsive but had flashes of recognition & engagement. It’s hard to gauge the level to which unresponsive patients are detached from their surroundings, so they encourage family members to keep their company in hopes of soothing the patient.”

“Now this patient was from a U.S. state that prided itself on its state university (and the university’s football team). The woman’s family had attended this university for four or five generations.”

“During her hospice care, however, her great-granddaughter was the first in their family to decide to go to a different school—the rival state’s university, in fact. Her family was supportive of her decision but often joked about her being the ‘rebel’ or ‘Judas’ or what-have-you.”

“One day, they were all sitting around the woman’s bedside, teasing the girl about her decision. Suddenly, the patient sat up, looked at her great-granddaughter, said, ‘Traitor,’ and f’king DIED.” – scatteringbones

The following confessions were bold enough to elicit a chuckle.

Last-Minute Truths

“My grandpa, a Sicilian man with blessed cooking skills, told us on his deathbed that his meatballs were actually frozen meatballs from the grocery store.” – orangestar17

An Experimental Past

“My grandfather admitted to me and only me that he “accidentally” had sex with a man.” – Aggravating_Fish_169

Why Owls?

“I have an amazing one:”

“My great grandmother lived a very long and interesting life. She was in her 20s in the great depression. She had a wild streak from those days that we don’t know much about, to the point that we actually don’t know our great grandfather’s name. Just the husband she took later.”

“Over the course of her nearly 100 year life, she had collected owls. Literally thousands of owl figurines. She had clocks, wall-hangings, potholders, lamps, stained glass art, salt shakers, and more little figurines than you could imagine, all depicting owls.”

“We all wondered the importance of the owls. She never talked about them, we just all knew she loved owls.”

“Well, when she was nearing death, at the age of 98 or 99, and the docs said she had days, my grandparents went and talked to her and they asked her if she had anything she wanted to share or ask before she goes.”

“She thought for a moment, then said, ‘I never understood the owls.’”

“It turns out, she didn’t really give a sh*t about owls. Near as we could piece together sometime in the 40s or 50s perhaps, she bought either a trivet or a set of salt/pepper shakers that were owls. Then someone got her the other.”

“Those were the oldest owls anyone could remember. But from there, someone got her an owl to match, probably a potholder or place mat. And all the sudden her kitchen was owl themed. From there, it snowballed. The owls flowed like wine, baffling her for 60 years, eventually taking over as the bulk of her personal belongings.”

“The moral is: if you’re not actually into something, mention it early.”

These tender, poignant moments are sure to stay with these Redditors forever.

A Proud Parent

“My dad had Alzheimer’s and ended up in a secure ward. He was blind and almost deaf. I was visiting him one day. He didn’t know who I was, but he started talking about me.”

“He said I had done better than him in life and that he was proud of me. He was a quiet man IRL and never told me that when I was growing up.”

“Looking back, he did things that my dumb ass never realised were for me. Like, when he retired his colleagues asked what he’d like as a present. He chose a scientific calculator (this was back in the 1970’s).”

“He had no use for it. He gave it to me for university. I thought he was just passing it on, not realising that he’d asked for it with me in mind.” – LactatingWolverine

The Favorite

“I don’t know if this counts as a confession but it felt like one.”

“My grandparents have three daughters. Everyone always said that my mom was my grandfather’s secret favorite. He never agreed.”

“I heard he was on his death bed on April 6th. Went to see him on April 8th. He was scary looking and the doctor kept saying he didn’t understand why he wasn’t dead yet.”

“April 9th everyone but my mom had the chance to come and say goodbye. She doesn’t drive and my dad works 10 hours away. My grampa kept saying her name (well, saying.. he couldn’t eat or drink so it was more like a whisper).”

“My mom came by on the 10th. He looked at her.. smiled.. whispered ‘my amy.’”

“He closed his eyes and never opened them again.” – DoctorWhoTheF**k

Ready To Go

“When I was in hospital, the guy in the bed next to me just asked to stop taking his meds as he was ready to die. Last thing I heard him say was ‘There’s no one waiting for me at home, so I’m going where they are.’”

“Wasn’t really a shocking confession, just a lonely and heartbreaking one.” – DanHero91

Deathbed confessions are overrated, I say.

These intriguing anecdotes are a good reminder to ask questions and share as much about yourself to anyone, regardless of their age, while they’re still around.

I would never want to regret not having known a person well or vice versa before one of us expires.

We never know how much time we have with a person we hold near and dear to our hearts.

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Sleepwalkers Break Down The Scariest Thing That’s Happened To Them While Asleep

Are you somnambulant?

If you are, you probably know this phenomenon by a different name—sleepwalking.

It mostly happens at night… mostly, and repeated occurrences can be a sign of an underlying sleep disorder.

A few years back, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers found about 3.6% of American adults are prone to sleepwalking. That’s more than 8.4 million adults, by the way.

And according to The Mayo Clinic, “sleepwalking appears to run in families” so if you happen to sleepwalk a fair amount, you might be genetically predisposed to do so.

Sleepwalking occurs more often in children than adults, however, so if you engage in sleepwalking as an adult, you could have some other underlying condition.

Sleepwalking itself is not harmful.

But it can be hazardous, and there have been quite a few horror films over the years that incorporated sleepwalking into their narratives.

But don’t worry, it can be quite funny, too!

Given sleepwalking’s comedic (and horrific) potential, it makes perfect sense that Redditor michaelw619 asked the online community:

“Sleepwalkers of Reddit, what’s the scariest/funniest thing that has happened to you while sleepwalking?”

“I don’t sleepwalk much anymore…”

“I don’t sleepwalk much anymore but about a year ago I put several pairs of shoes in the fridge.” ~ marleej

“I was met in a dream…”

“Only ever happened one time. I was met in a dream by my doppelgänger. She was a mirror image of me, but more beautiful.”

“Her eyes were bluer, her teeth whiter, her complexion clearer, her hair a shinier, longer blonde. She said, ‘When you dream, you’re in my world. I want to live in your world. I want to trade places with you.’”

“I grabbed my cellphone, backing out of my apartment with my eyes on her when a black shape exploded from a nearby closet flying straight at me.”

“I turned and ran out my front door, and was headed down the narrow staircase of the old house I lived in when I heard a low, gravelly voice say ‘Where ya goin’ Dolly?’”

“The black shape whisked around the corner and then it was upon me. I awoke in a crumpled heap on the staircase, my cellphone gripped tightly in my white fist.” ~ [deleted]

“One time, he woke up one morning…”

“My dad used to sleepwalk. One time, he woke up one morning and had about six cats sitting with him on the couch. They all had owners.”

“According to his next-door neighbor, who was very nosy, she saw my dad running around luring these cats with food and bringing them home with him in the middle of the night.”

“He has no memory of doing that and can’t explain why he didn’t wake up to the meowing and scratching the cats made.”

“Luckily he didn’t get charged with animal kidnapping but had to start tying his feet to the bedpost so there weren’t any more incidents for a few years.”

“We also learned that my dad was allergic to cats, so there’s that.” ~ [deleted]

“I have an Ambien prescription…”

“I have an Ambien prescription and I often cook ambitious meals at night, with no memory in the morning. It’s not unusual for my roommates to find me cooking bacon at 3 a.m.”

“At first it was concerning–what if I burn down the house? However, my unconscious self is extremely diligent–I ALWAYS clean up entirely and usually end up cleaning the entire kitchen.” ~ [deleted]

“When I asked what the hell he was doing…”

“My boyfriend sleepwalks. A couple of nights ago he ripped the duvet off me and threw it in the hall. When I asked what the hell he was doing he just replied that it’s full of spiders and then just stood facing the wall.” ~ Eliza109

“Not my finest moment.”

“So one time I had a dream that my brother (who was too young to swim at the time) jumped into a swimming pool so I dived in to save him… Yeah in reality I just dived off my bunk bed… Not my finest moment.” ~ UkuleleRequiem

“She asked me if I was ok…”

“My mom told me that I stood over her till she woke up. She asked me if I was ok and I just turned around and went back to bed.” ~ th3_pope

“Around 4 a.m. the other night…”

“Around 4 a.m. the other night my girlfriend let out a violent scream and sprinted to the door where she began beating on it!”

“I ran over, grabbed her, and when I did she began screaming even louder and started flinging her arms around until she finally realized it was me and she woke up.”

“She said she was having a dream and there was a stranger trying to kidnap her. I’ve never been so terrified in my entire life!”

“Also found out that if something ever did happen to me in my apartment, my neighbors don’t give a s*** and I would definitely die.” ~ robmacgar

“Apparently I had an imaginary phone call…”

“Apparently I had an imaginary phone call with someone for fifteen minutes about what I was going to have for breakfast in the morning.” ~ ITomza

“I took an entire carton of milk…”

“I took an entire carton of milk from my fridge then proceeded to return it after much deliberation with myself.” ~ CatchingSomeZs

 “He didn’t know our room number.”

“One time in a hotel, my little brother left the room and walked down the hall before waking up. He didn’t know our room number.” ~ sadafasadafagafagada

“The only time I did that…”

“The only time I did that, I walked into the kitchen and started digging around in the junk drawer looking for scissors.”

“My dad asked what I needed scissors for, I grumbled ‘Never mind,’ and went back to bed. Remembered none of it the next day.” ~ Okaylasttime

Humans are wild, man.

Well, that settles it. None of us are safe.

We can’t even enjoy a little bit of sleep without getting ourselves into danger!

This is truly why we can’t have nice things.