15 Young People Share the Life-Altering Advice They Got from an Elder

One of my favorite things to do is try to strike up some conversation with the elderly. It’s the folly of youth to think you know everything, and you better believe I am all ears whenever an elder wants to share some valuable life advice with me.

As these stories from Reddit prove, we have a LOT to learn from old people, so treat them with respect!

1. You can’t ignore it

“Once you become aware of a wrong doing or injustice – the responsibility to correct that in yourself can not be ignored.

Basically if you know better – you’re required to do better.

Olowale was his name , he was a family friend originally from Nigeria. He was super smart and very humbled. He taught 14 year old me a lot about self responsibility and has no idea how much that one thing clicked for me and changed my life.”

2. Stop being a coward

“A street preacher who was homeless told me to stop being a coward and switch to the career I wanted.

He had earlier helped me when I was lost in bad part of the town I was living in. We talked for a while – him about his life, me about mine. He told me that he worked in finance for years before quitting because he was miserable, had forsaken his physical possessions, and decided to live on the street and spread the gospel. We had very similar educational backgrounds.

He didn’t want anything, except a promise that I wouldn’t waste his advice. I never saw him again.

If you believe in angels, it would be hard to find a better candidate than him for being one.

I followed his advice and am very happy I did.”

3. You might still get nothing

“My Nannie grew up in rural NC after the Great Depression to a poor family. She had hundreds of great stories about life growing up “on the Charles” or her grandparents’ farm, but one that sticks with me, and will color how I raise my daughter, was about Christmas. She and her siblings believed in Santa, but they rarely got more than fruit or maybe new clothes as presents.

She would return to school and see a little girl in her class that was a notorious bully and particularly cruel to Nannie with fancy new dolls, new clothes, things money could get you and she felt awful because she believed she was doing her best to be a good student, to be a caretaker for her younger siblings, to follow her religious beliefs. Traditional Santa mythos tells you good gets rewarded but that’s devastating for kids who work hard at following the rules, being kind, etc. and still get nothing.”

4. Don’t put work before family

“I was at a close friends wedding and most of his family was fairly well off. Many of them were feeling nostalgic because they were surrounded by family and everyone has grown up. Many said they regretted how many hours they worked when their kids were young in order to be a better provider. Up until recently I was making great money and working 60+ hours a week.

When I noticed what I was giving up I did some networking and took a job as a contractor in a small consulting company. I work 40 hours a week now and leave my laptop at the office and don’t have work email on my phone. I now feel like more of a provider because I’m a lot more active in my family’s lives and it’s awesome.”

5. One at a time

“Don’t do more than one illegal thing at a time. That’s what gets you caught.” Security guard at my high school. It’s good advice.”

6. Them’s the rules

“One of my high school teachers who just passed away a couple years ago gave me advice that I still live by to this day. He called it the “Four rules to breaking rules.”

Don’t break the rules
If you break the rules, don’t get caught.
If you get caught, take responsibility for your actions and make yourself better.
If you can’t do number 3, refer to rule number 1.”

7. Tell the truth

“Tell the truth all the time so you if you have to lie they will believe you.”

8. Wise words

“Met a woman in a nursing home while on clinicals who the nurses called a nightmare. Actually talked to her and she was not only incredibly kind, but also wise.

Not an anecdote, but she said something she lived by was a poem she had memorized in grade school. “Suppose”, by Phoebe Cary. Just a snippet, but I recommend reading the whole thing:

And suppose the world don’t please you, Nor the way some people do, Do you think the whole creation Will be altered just for you? And is n’t it, my boy or girl, The wisest, bravest plan, Whatever comes, or does n’t come, To do the best you can?
She allowed me to record her reciting the poem. I’ll remember her fondly, and I hope the nurses treated her well after we left.”

9. Sticks with them

“Met an elderly hispanic lady at a bus stop in Albuquerque. We went back and forth in Spanish for a bit (I’m a white guy so she was pleasantly surprised) and she told me about her travel plans to go to her son’s wedding–a real cute story involving him and his high school sweetheart finding each other after a long time being broken up.

I had recently been dumped, and said something a bit mopey like “I wish I could find love like that someday.”

She smiled, shook her head and said “Chico, love like that isn’t just found. It’s built. How many perfect, decorated temples do you think my ancestors stumbled across in Tikal or Tenochtitlan? No. They found a good, level spot, maybe some water nearby, and said ‘Here. We can build something here.’ Look for a clearing in the forest, young man. Not a hidden city.”

That one will stick with me for years.”

10. Get through it

“Sometimes you’re not meant to go over, or under, or around it. Sometimes, you’re meant to go through it. You just have to get through it.

Elderly client in a lucid state, describing his battle with dementia.”

11. Right now

“My old friend (he was 99) HATED when people said, “if only it was like the good ol days.” He would always say something along the lines of “the good old days??? Picking cotton every day for $2 a week wasn’t ‘the good ol days’ right now are the good days!” “

12. Do it smart

“If you’re going to do something stupid, do it smart.” We were playing with… “Fireworks” at the time

That was a lesson that I’ve taken to every job I’ve worked at since. Every time I go to do a job I look it over and see the stupid things I am about to do (Dangerous parts of my job) and try to figure out how to do it smart (Figure out how to minimize the danger in my work.)”

13. Just do it

“The path looks tougher and longer before you start walking.” My grandad used to say something similar to that , can’t translate it perfectly. He passed away a couple of years back. When I think of him, I always remember these words.”

14. Always present

“For my college religion class, we visited a Jewish Synagogue and observed their service. They have a ritual where they pray for loved ones who have died, and an old woman (80-90) participated with tears in her eyes. The Rabbi explained to us that she was a Holocaust survivor, and only she was able to escape as a girl. She didn’t know if anyone in her family was dead or alive, but since they’re presumed dead, she still prays for them every service.

That really hit me, because people my age tend to think of the Holocaust as more of a historical event that happened a long time ago. But for these people, it’s ever present in their lives. They also had a Torah that was badly burned that had been recovered from the Holocaust, I think as a reminder of those that were lost.”

15. Patience

“Take your time (with answering questions), whoever is listening can wait.”

The post 15 Young People Share the Life-Altering Advice They Got from an Elder appeared first on UberFacts.

February 26, 2019

13+ People Confess How They Crossed a Line They Swore They Never Would

“I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”

Even a lovelorn Meatloaf knew that you’ve gotta draw the line somewhere. We all have certain things we swear we’ll never ever do, but sometimes life gets in the way of best-laid plans and you end up breaking that promise to yourself. Maybe it’s not that big a deal (like not following through on the “No Girls Allowed” policy for your bedroom), or maybe it’s something life-altering like falling victim to substance abuse.

It can be hard to admit when you’ve gone to your own personal dark side, but that’s just what these 15 people are about to confess…

#1. Just like you’d expect.

“Taking back a cheater. Turned out just like you’d expect.”

#2. I was naive!

“Thought I’d never have sex before marriage. I WAS NAIVE.”

#3. There you go.

“The Maginot Line

I was a poor kid from the States and thought I could never afford to be one of those fancy pants who backpacked Europe for the summer but hey, there you go.”

#4. I’d never do that.

“I remember being a teenager, looking at all my friends going out drinking and doing drugs and thinking that I’d NEVER do that.

Welp.”

#5. Funny how that works.

“I never thought I would start smoking. It’s funny how it works. A drunken drag off a friend’s turns into a bummed smoke which turns into buying your own and then waking up coughing and realizing you’ve been smoking for X years.

Luckily I’ve been off of them for 8 months now, and quitting sucked so badly that I never want to start again. But then again, I never thought I would start in the first place.”

#6. Every parent.

“One that pretty much every parent does at some point in their life.

When I was 12, I was all like “I’m never gonna be THAT parent that stops my kid from doing what I wanted to do right now but Dad said No.”

Now, I’m like all “Now listen here you little shit.”

(Not really. I use “brat”. But I think “shit”.)”

#7. Shooting up.

“Shooting up. Been an addict since 15 years old but i had never shot, then i did and loved the shit out of it. 3 ODs, scars on my arm for life. Just made it to 6 months off the needle on aug 7th.”

#8. What I know I need to do.

“200 lbs. Then 250. Now I’m staring down 300, telling myself I can’t go there, but it’s so hard to do what I know I need to.”

#9. Two of those things.

“I always told myself I’d never ride a motorcycle. “They’re fast, you dont have self control, you’ll kill myself.” Turns out I was right about two of those things.”

#10. Cardboard crack.

“Buying Magic the Gathering singles. It’s cardboard crack, it really is.”

#11. Weird fetishes.

“Probably my weird fetishes relative to sex. My partner just so happened to have the very same so here we are wearing latex suits and calling each other names.

Edit: A lot of these responses have been pretty hilarious and genuinely “heartwarming”. Thanks guys.”

#12. For obvious reasons.

“Always said I would keep my work life and personal life separate for obvious reasons. Dated a co-worker.”

#13. Not overly different.

“Having sex with a girl on her period. Always thought it was very wrong. Turned out to be not overly different.”

#14. After college.

“I never thought I’d live with a family member after college.

But then I started thinking more about expenses. Long story short, I can deal with annoying family debacles if I’m saving over 12 grand a year from rent.”

#15. The most shameful thing I’ve done.

“I was blacked out drunk and drove home. I don’t remember when I left, which route I took, or where I parked my car. I thought I took a cab home until I went to get my mail and saw my car parked outside.

It’s one of the most shameful things I’ve done. I was young and dumb, and it shook me to my core. I didn’t realize how easily someone could make that decision and am forever thankful no one was injured. It’s a line that should never be crossed and I swore up and down I wouldn’t ever. After that night, I either plan ahead or take a cab. Especially with Lyft and Uber being so prevalent these days, there’s just no excuse.”

The post 13+ People Confess How They Crossed a Line They Swore They Never Would appeared first on UberFacts.

February 26, 2019

10+ Foodies Talk About the WORST Meals They’ve Ever Had

Are you a foodie? I don’t love the term -because I think just about everyone is a foodie to an extent in that everyone loves a great plate of food – but I am definitely someone who goes out of their way to find a great place to eat. Sadly, when the food doesn’t come out the way you’d expect it to, it can be a massive disappointment.

I’m not sure I could have handed any of these experiences, tbh. You?

#1. It used to be great.

“Paid $9 for a tiny burrito that contained a spoonful of rice, two pieces of fried tofu, about a teaspoon of pico and about three shreds of Monterey jack. It was soaked in a sauce that was so spicy I felt it for hours afterwards, and then all over again when it passed through. Absolutely disgusting. I was with a group who insisted that the food would be absolutely delicious. Talked to a relative who knows the area and she said that the restaurant used to be great but had gotten to be terrible within the last year.”

#2. Noped out.

“My aunt made some Hamburger Helper and fucked it up. I will never understand how you can mess up Hamburger Helper. Even my two year old cousin noped out of eating it.”

#3. I tasted tacos for the next two days.

“My husband made tacos. He misread the seasoning instructions and put in 3/4 cup instead of 3 tablespoons. I remember thinking that the mixture looked a lot darker than normal before I took a bite. I seriously tasted tacos for the next two days. He’s not allowed to make tacos anymore without supervision.”

#4. I hate milk.

“Mom made me drink some milk right after I’d eaten a grapefruit and the milk curdled in my mouth. I hate milk.”

#5. Don’t mess around with chicken.

“I got salmonella poisoning from undercooked chicken. After throwing up once I basically dry heaved for a few hours. Also, I had an insanely high fever, like 103/104 and hallucinated that I went to hell. I was dripping in sweat and saw shadowy figures in my peripheral vision dancing around in a circle.

After experiencing that I can totally see why people think they were visited by demons or went to hell. Don’t mess around with chicken.”

#6. She whipped up some food.

“My first time at one of my best friends house, his mom decided to make is a snack while we did homework. She was a single mom for a lot of his upbringing, so she worked all day and was usually not up for cooking lunch/dinner. She wanted to be nice and offer me something though, so she whipped up some food. She served us undercooked whole wheat pasta. She also didn’t have any sauce or topping for it, so she just crumbled some Triscuits over the top of them. My friend was severely embarrassed. His mom has since remarried and has learned much more about cooking food for others.

Edit: a word”

#7. The same damn thing.

“I made a microwaved pizza for myself when they first came out in the late 1980s. I loaded it up with extra cheese.

I hear the microwave go BING. I pull it out and it flips over onto my hands. I had boiling hot cheese stuck to my fingers. I screamed like a banshee. My mom looked at me like I was some kind of weirdo. And my best friends was there and started laughing at me with blisters forming all over my hands.

A few weeks later I was over at his parent’s place with him. He throws in a microwaveable pizza. I hear BING then him screaming like a banshee. He did the same damn thing.”

#8. I still remember the flavor.

“Probably a tie between the bad tortilla chips that gave me food poisoning and the time my sister tricked me into eating Cat Chow. Decades later and I still remember the flavor.”

#9. Like sweaty balls.

“Back in the days when I used to hate sushi I tried some in Tokyo just for the bragging rights. I don’t know what I ordered but it was slimy and gooey and salty and tasted like sweaty balls. It took all my strength to stop myself from chundering at the table.

Love sushi now so would probably enjoy it if I tried today.”

#10. A near poisoning.

“We travelled to Sicily and decided to get some pizza. Found a really nice place at the beach, where we could watch the sunset over the sea. We ordered our pizzas and everything seemed perfect. Then the pizzas came and my bf tasted his. First he thought his pizza had a funny seasoning and gave it a shot, but after a few bites he said his tongue began to tingle. I tried a few bites myself and it was a really weird sensation in my mouth. Like when something is really spicy, but more in the acid kind of way. So he tried to explain to a waitress something was off with the pizza. There was a huge language barrier, so in the end she took the pizza away and looked quite irritated. My bf decided to walk towards the kitchen because we had the feeling they didn’t understand our complaint. From my point of view, a saw different staff members rushing out of the kitchen, including a cheff, and tried to explain something to my bf in quite a panicky way. Turns out their dishwasher was broken and all the plates where covered with highly concentrated dish soap. Their head chef ate some pizza and had to be picked up by an ambulance, fortunately we didn’t get food poisoning and just left the restaurant with empty bellies.”

#11. I had to excuse myself.

One of my ex boyfriend’s grandmother had the whole family over for dinner one night. She cooked spaghetti and my ex’s mom warned me that it would be terrible. Boy, was she right. His grandmother boiled water, put in the noddles, DID NOT DRAIN THE WATER, and then dumped some salt, pepper, and KETCHUP into the pot and served it. I had to excuse myself to the bathroom so I could dry heave over the toilet.

#12. Disgusting beyond belief.

“I tried to eat andouillette, a kind of pork sausage, while I was in France. It’s notorious there. When I ordered it the server sort of said ‘are you sure?’ It was disgusting beyond belief. I was actually retching.”

#13. To this day.

“Food poisoning Benihana Millburn NJ. Age 16. BRUTAL. Cold sweats when passing any Japanese steakhouses, to this day.”

#14. Like we were eating houseplants.

“I had Chinese take away that was sub-par a couple weeks back. The rice was meh, nothing to write home about.

But then I tried the chow mein. Somehow, it tasted like soil.

I thought my tastebuds were tripping, but my girlfriend then tried hers and, yep: Like we were eating houseplants.

I still don’t understand.”

#15. For the next two years.

“I got food poisoning from a Mexican restaurant. I shit my pants twice, popped a blood vessel in my eye from vomiting so hard, and I couldn’t even think about Mexican food without getting nauseous for the next two years.”

The post 10+ Foodies Talk About the WORST Meals They’ve Ever Had appeared first on UberFacts.

February 26, 2019

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.”

The post 15 Interpreters Reveal the Most Awkward Things They’ve Ever Had to Translate appeared first on UberFacts.

February 26, 2019

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.”

The post Museum Workers Reveal the Coolest Things That Aren’t on Public Display appeared first on UberFacts.

February 25, 2019

10+ Secrets About Men That Women Probably Don’t Know

I’m always amazed when my female friends complain to me about how difficult men are to understand. Maybe it’s just because I just live it every day, but I’ve never had a hard time understanding another guy. It wasn’t until I got married that I finally gained perspective on just how different a day in the life of a man is compared to a woman.

It turns out there’s a whole lot about being a guy that women have no idea about – but not anymore, courtesy of these gentlemen of Reddit:

1. Men like our hair however we wear it. There is no need to ask a million times.

Photo Credit: Reddit, u/banjohusky95

2. Keep the compliments coming, ladies!

Photo Credit: Rear Front

3. My heart just burst. Cuddle your man!

Photo Credit: Rear Front

4. Is there any other way?

Photo Credit: Rear Front, u/InevitableSignUp

5. Direct communication.

Photo Credit: Reddit, u/DepressedBard

6. They truly have a mind of their own.

Photo Credit: Rear Front

7. There’s no need to feel like men are hiding something.

Photo Credit: Rear Front, u/AmericanPixel

8. So sweet!

Photo Credit: Reddit, u/Krzysiuu

9. Man, that sucks!

Photo Credit: Reddit, u/gregn8r1

10. Men are fixers so give a heads up!

Photo Credit: Reddit, u/realbadaccountant

11. Patience is key.

Photo Credit: Rear Front

12. We all show our emotions differently.

Photo Credit: Reddit, u/ShakaWTWF

There you have it, ladies. Keep it simple, communicate directly, and be concerned for their junk. Easy peasy!

The post 10+ Secrets About Men That Women Probably Don’t Know appeared first on UberFacts.

February 24, 2019

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.”

The post 10+ People Who Survived When Others Didn’t Share How They Deal With It appeared first on UberFacts.

February 23, 2019

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.”

The post These People’s Families Were Upended by DNA Websites, and Here Are Their Stories appeared first on UberFacts.

February 15, 2019

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.”

The post 10 People Who Successfully Dodged the Cops Reveal How They Did It appeared first on UberFacts.

February 12, 2019

This Guy’s Duck Story on Tinder Is Easily the Greatest Way to Score a Girl’s Number

Dating these days is… well, let’s just say it’s not like it used to be. Thanks to Tinder, manners and charm have seemingly gone out the window. Welcome to the world of the insta-date. Swipe right, swipe left, match, get the number, set up a date, sleep together…then what? Lather, rinse, repeat, I suppose.

Well, this guy has all the other Tinder men beat with his funny and intriguing story about a duck – all to get the girl’s number. His creativity charmed her, and I bet he actually made her laugh enough to hand over the digits.