Dates that crash and burn. Jerks who play the victim. "Jokes" that die on arrival. First-hand embarrassment is hard enough, but there’s something particularly difficult about digesting the most humiliating and infuriating moments of others in real time. But things get even worse when people don't even realize that they're making fools of themselves. From horrible bosses to cringe-inducing parents, shudder to these shocking moments of people who have no self-awareness.
1. It Runs In the Family
Was at a friend's brother's 21st birthday party and was standing around talking with some other guys. On the driveway, a bunch of girls were dancing to the music. It was a really chill night. But it was about to get a lot chillier. The guy next to me said to the guy on his other side "How about the rack on that blonde chick?" The other guy replied, "That's my daughter.” The first guy mumbled something and left at a brisk walk.
2. I’m Getting Whiplash From Your Lies
I was in a crowded parking lot, driving around looking for a space. There was one car ahead of me. The car ahead of me stopped, so I stopped as well. I'm not sure why she stopped because there were no empty spaces and no one was pulling out, but whatever. Then, before I even had time to react, she did something that made my blood run cold. Her reverse lights came on and she came flying backwards towards me.
I didn't even have time to honk. She slammed into the front of my car, got out of her car, and started screaming that I hit her. When officers arrived, she was crying and shaking and complaining that her neck hurt. And cursing me for slamming into the back of her car. I was really worried and thought that I was done for. Thankfully, two people had been walking through the parking lot when this occurred and told the officer what really happened.
Later, the driver of the car that hit me tried to tell her insurance company that I knew the witnesses and that's why they lied. I didn't know the witnesses by the way, but you probably already knew that.
3. You, But With a Woman’s Touch
My buddy tried hitting on my sister. "I always thought it would be cool to have a chick that's a female version of [my name here]." Swing and a miss.
4. A Bill Is Just a Number, Right?
Have this uncle who is extremely cheap and once took us out to dinner. After he got the bill, he asks for the menu again and takes out his calculator and starts double checking the bill prices and menu prices. This goes on for 15 minutes while the waiter patiently waits next to the table. At the end, he realizes he forgot his wallet and asks us to pay. Don't think I’ve ever tipped that generously.
5. Fork Off, Lady
I was driving a forklift in an area open to the public. I'm basically in a narrow hallway (about as wide as my forklift is long) and have to spin the forklift around to grab the next pallet. I check my surroundings then start to spin the forklift. As I reach the point where I'm basically touching the wall with my backend, a woman pops around the corner and decides to basically jump through the shrinking gap.
Seeing movement, I immediately stop (saving her from being a smear on the wall) and tell her how close she was to being hit. She says, "Well, I wasn't hit." I told her she's welcome. Don't think she got it.
6. Momzilla
My mom ruined my courthouse wedding, called me selfish, and made fun of my shoes on my wedding day, and made me swear to her that I wouldn't tell our family I was getting married until we had a big ceremony. Then proceeded to go behind my back and tell people anyway. She is now genuinely surprised that I am upset and she’s going around crying to all my aunts and uncles about how her only daughter will not speak to her.
7. Bad Moms
My friend's sister is the absolute worst. She doesn’t feed her kids nor send the oldest one (who is seven) to school. Obviously, her neighbors reported her to CPS, and now she's posting statuses about how cruel people are for separating a mother from her kids.
8. The Last Dance
On our first date, this guy played Dance Dance Revolution for a good 45 minutes while I just stood there. I left and played a couple arcade games by myself, then came back and he was still playing. But it got worse. On the car ride home, he asked how many children I wanted and started suggesting names for “our kids.” Then he tried to make out with me when I got home. Nope goodbyeeeee.
9. I’m Gonna Need to See Some ID
My mother forgot my birthday, then called me a liar when I told her. I had to get my driver's license to prove it. I was in my late 20s.
10. Constructing a Defense
An older lady walked into a construction area to snoop around when the workers weren’t there. Then she sued because she slipped on a plastic floor covering. That's when we learned the disturbing truth. She worked there. She knew the area was off limits. Did it anyway.
11. A Shooting Star Lands Among Us
A VERY talkative co-worker claimed to be very humble, generous, and "prim and proper." She once asked me how my weekend was, only to not let me answer and spend 20 some minutes telling me about hers. Once she was done, she just walked away. She was at the age of retirement but was barely making ends meet and asking for money all the time. She kept telling the manager that she needed to be reimbursed for every little thing gone wrong with her personal attire.
She always talked about how her friends would tell her she could be a movie star, but she was too humble to accept that lifestyle. She was divorced and always complained how her kids were so disrespectful and ungrateful because they never spoke to her anymore, and how they wouldn't give her any money, but she would give the jacket off her back for them.
I could easily add more to this list, but I'll try to sum it up here: despite her very friendly first impression the more you listened to her the more bizarre and hypocritical it got. You realize pretty quickly to avoid her at all costs.
12. A One-Passenger Kind of Brain
Ex-friend was complaining about how she was so nice and always there for other people, but no one was there for her. In an attempt to empathize, I said, “I understand entirely. I felt the same way when—“ She cut me off mid-sentence to say, “No offense, but I don’t have the capacity to deal with your problems.” She then went on to talk about her dad blowing up babies in Vietnam.
13. Read It or Weep
My mom REFUSES to show people at Walmart her receipt when we are leaving. It is annoying that they ask, like all of our stuff is bagged, c’mon. But she will fight them over it. She says she hates being treated like a criminal when she has clearly paid, and I get that I guess. But come on, just show the darn thing and we can leave. But she’d rather stay and argue until they admit defeat.
14. My Sister, My Killer
I witnessed an accident where a lady blew through a stop sign without looking or slowing. Her mistake had awful consequences. Tragically, her sister, who was in the car, died from injuries sustained in that accident. She then tried to blame the other driver, who had full right-of-way, for going too fast, and that she had, in fact, stopped at the sign.
She basically tried to set up the other driver to take the fall for recklessly killing her sister. I came in to the arbitration and sunk that real fast.
15. An “F” for Effort
My dad came with on a field trip back in elementary school. We had an admittedly attractive substitute teacher that day, and she was introducing herself to all the parents. Sub: "Hello, I'm Miss Fine" Dad: "Why yes, you are." She immediately just walked away.
16. So Much for the Language of Love
My sister was on a first date with some guy she met online and was nervous, so she had my significant other and I meet up with them. The guy was super braggy about being able to speak German, not knowing that my S.O. was raised there and speaks it fluently. So, my S.O. tries to start a conversation with him in German. The guy apparently only spoke a few words of German and left embarrassed and without any chance of a second date. My S.O. still feels a little guilty about it.
17. Need to Drum Some Sense Into This Guy
An employee was being fired for a multitude of infractions at a coffee shop. Management caught him calling customers things like “dumb” and “stupid” under his breath and several customers had also reported the behavior. He was constantly late or would leave early or beg others to cover his shift. Oh, but there’s so much more.
Instead of restocking or cleaning the area during down times, he would take out his drumsticks and “practice,” which annoyed the other employees and customers. During inventory counts we noticed whole pallets of sandwiches or baked goods were “missing” as well as bottled drinks, etc...We were mysteriously out of huge five lbs bags of the espresso roast. The numbers were not adding up.
The guy blamed all the issues on everyone else. Late to work? “I missed the bus." Leaving early? “I got a call for a gig." Food missing? “I didn't have money to eat and it's the company’s responsibility to ensure I'm fed while on the clock.” Calling customers names? "They misunderstood me.” All the other employees stopped inviting him out because at bars he would order drinks and tell the bartender one of us was covering, then skip out before the check was presented to us.
Great guy.
18. Threat Level: Midnight
I have a friend who is basically a young Michael Scott. Seriously, sometimes when watching The Office, I cringe not because of what Michael is doing, but because it reminds me so much of my friend. One day, our group of friends got on the topic of what Office character we’re most like. He loudly and immediately declared he thinks he’s most like Ryan...
19. Mother Knows Best
My mom called me 13 times on my wedding night, posted pictures of my dress on Facebook when I specifically asked her not to, got upset when she wasn't the one cutting the cake, and has been making up all kinds of details and scenarios about the wedding that are outright false or misconstrued and posting it on Facebook.
After my husband took my phone and told her to stop calling me every 10 minutes and to leave us alone, she sent him a long "boo hoo you don't have to worry about me ever contacting you two again" type message that I had to defuse before World War III started in my family. Same thing when we asked her not to post any pictures until we got the professional ones back.
Every time there's a family event, she has to try and divert attention to herself. I can't even have one day to myself.
20. All in All, He’s Just Another Brick in the Wall
In middle school, a kid decided to don his karate wear and break a brick for the talent show. This intense music starts playing, and he comes out. Bows his head and...HIYAA! Hits the brick. It doesn't break. Tries a couple more times. It remains unperturbed. He stomps off the stage in tears. I'm sure to console him people told him, "No one will remember this in 10 years!" It's been more than 10 years. I still remember him as the kid who couldn't break the brick.
21. Pebbles or No Bam-Bam
So I was 18, in the Air Force, and living in the dorms. My roommate set me up with his girlfriend's cousin, and the four of us went to a movie. There was just one thing: she brought a stuffed animal. Not a tiny little thing some (young) women clip to their keychain. It was a gigantic blue rabbit at least as big as a toddler. She said she brought it because she sometimes gets scared in movies.
We were seeing a comedy. After the movie, we grabbed some ice cream and drove the cousins home. My date then invited me to kiss her at the door, but told me I should also kiss “Pebbles” the stuffed animal so he wouldn't be jealous. Of course I kissed Pebbles. My date was actually out-of-my-league hot. But straight-up crazy.
22. So Much for “Father” of the Year…
I was one day going out with my dad and his working colleague in a bar to have some drinks. I had a fresh driving license, so I was going to not drink and drive them home after. It was not my dad whom I was embarrassed by, but his colleague, who said to some hot blonde sitting next to me on the bar totally drunk: "I think you need a proper daddy."
The girl looks at him in disgust, and stands up and moves two seats further down the bar. She was my age as well, and the friend of my father was nearly double my age. Maybe because the girl was my age, I was even more embarrassed.
23. Daddy’s Not Home
Sometimes my children ask me why they've met my mother but never met my father. I tell them he died a long time ago when I was a kid. But that's not the truth at all. In reality, my dad used to be an abusive drunk, and my mother had to kick him out because he used to beat on us kids. We used to spend weekends at his new house, but not for long.
Around the time I turned 10, he told my mother to stop dropping us off and gave her a shoe box full of all the pictures he had of us. We tried calling him on holidays every now and again, but he finally just told us to stop contacting him altogether. Last year my mother passed away and he decided to reach out to me and expressed he had changed and wanted to make things up to me.
I told him it was OK, I filled him in on how I was doing in life and sent him pictures of my children...but I expressed I was already a man, and don't need a father anymore, but he was forgiven for the 20-year absence. He then proceeded to tell me that I'm horrible for pushing him away and abandoning him, that he was dying and just wanted to fix things.
So I just explained to him, it's already forgiven but he abandoned me and I had no time for his foolishness. I wish things would have been different, but he's too much of a bad influence to allow in my children's lives.
24. It’s-a-Me, Dustin
I went on a date with a guy who faked an Italian accent the entire time. He was from Florida.
25. She’s Better Than the Real
I saw a white woman at Taco Bell have a very loud, very condescending conversation with the guy behind the counter about how Taco Bell isn’t authentic Mexican food. She obviously wanted the whole restaurant to hear, and obviously thought she was the only person at the restaurant (employees included) who was culturally aware enough to know this fact. She ended up storming out shouting, “Maybe if you guys had authentic Mexican food I’d eat here more!”
Oh, I should mention that the guy behind the counter was Mexican.
26. At Least They’re a Happy Family
Sleeping over my friend’s house in seventh grade. I was trying to sleep on the floor, however, his parents decided to have very loud, wall-rattling sex. I laid there trying to fall asleep for about 15 minutes, when a loud shriek hinted that it was over...I kinda laughed a little and my friend, who I thought was sleeping, just says "I am so sorry.” We awkwardly laughed about it and then went to bed.
27. I Only Love Myself and My Mama
I went on a date with this guy who talked and talked and talked all evening about himself, his parents’ divorce, his ex’s bedroom preferences, and his depressed best friend. And he joked about murdering me. At the end, he told me he lived at his mom’s, but I can come by if I want to.
28. Something to Be Thankful For
For some inexplicable reason, my mom decided that it would be a good idea to casually tell everybody at Thanksgiving dinner at her boyfriend's house about my tween bouts with anorexia. I didn't want to be there in the first place, and she just kept going on and on about how I used to just eat carrots for dinner for a year. It got so bad that I eventually had to shout at her to get her to stop.
29. The Doctor Is Out
I have a friend who is extremely susceptible to pop psychology articles on the internet. If she's seen some article on her Facebook feed about being a "hypersensitive person" or an "introverted extrovert," it'll be all you hear about for the next few weeks, and she'll give her unqualified self-diagnosis to anyone who will listen.
She'll start accentuating those traits and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's especially irritating because in psychology it's pretty well known that psychological self-assessment is extremely invalid and that people are way worse at knowing themselves than they think.
30. The World’s Least Exclusive Club
Saw some lady at Costco throw a tantrum because the line was long. She kept screaming, "But I have a membership!!!" You literally have to have a membership to shop there, the entire line had memberships.
31. Maternal Lockdown
I was 13 when this happened. My mom had made a reservation at a hotel for a trip, but when she got there the lady said there was some error with the reservation and that my mom’s payment didn’t go through, so the lady offered us a double bed room for a discount. Rather than just taking the room, thanking the lady, and leaving, my mom decided the best course of action would be to scream, in the middle of a hotel lobby, “NOBODY IS GOING ANYWHERE TIL I GET MY FREAKING ROOM!”
She then proceeded to pester the lady, who clearly couldn’t do anything about it, until eventually, she called the police on my mom for public disturbance. Mortifying.
32. Go Back to Comedy School
Almost every day this past school year, this girl who sat next to me in our math class. Jesus, she'd literally raise her hand until the professor saw her, then say these incredibly dumb jokes. Example "Haha! Who has the brain cell?!?" And other trash that almost made sense but definitely didn't fit the tone. Professor was a super quiet mid-30s guy who didn't even try to smile in response.
I don't blame him. Deeper in the year the worse it got, like two or three times a class. I'd actually have to physically put my forehead against the desk because I felt so uncomfortable. I actually made a friend through it though. The other girl who sat next to me hated it too. We'd make uncomfortable eye contact and cringe together until the moments passed. I just hope everyone knew I wasn't a part of that whole mess.
33. A Heavy Issue
I lost a lot of weight (150lbs), and my overweight friend didn’t. I don’t care, she’s my friend, I love her. I tried on a pair of size 12 (size 8 US) jeans, but they were too big so asked for the smaller size. Before I could try them on, my friend stormed out of the shop and when I followed her, she screamed at me for rubbing my weight loss in her face. I lost the weight in 2015, I’ve been this size for four years.
34. Leave a Part of Yourself in the Book
Our teacher picked her nose while reading from the textbook and everyone saw it.
35. Change the Channel
You know those PA systems at car dealerships that you can hear several blocks away? The sales manager used to use them to yell at us, like even when we were inside the showroom. I've never seen a grown man cry at work other than at this dealership, and it would happen fairly regularly. The worst is that he would call his wife and scream the most awful obscenities at her in the middle of the showroom.
It's hard to sell a Camry when there's a man screaming at his wife 10 feet away.
36. The Border of Human Decency
My husband and I went out with his family to celebrate his birthday. We went to a Mexican restaurant for an early dinner and was being served by a Mexican. My father-in-law started saying trash like, “Wow do you even know nowadays if they’re legal?” that he doesn’t hate immigrants, only the illegal ones. My husband was so upset and embarrassed because his dad talks so loud, people around our table and the waitress definitely heard him.
37. The Most Unladylike Leader
My last boss told me I only made good sales was because I was sexy (our customer base was middle-aged women), and then posted on Facebook about writing an essay on feminism. She didn't do all the work and I had to pick up her slack, resulting in her getting bonuses. She constantly touched me and called me her wife. And then put me down in front of customers.
When challenged about her behavior, she claimed she had undiagnosed autism and I was being unfair due to her disability. She compared a girl who worked there who grew up in foster care to her being an only child. Even though she had been privately educated since nursery school and, at nearly 40, she still got an allowance from her parents.
38. Curiosity Kills
My crazy college girlfriend cheated on me and then blamed me for causing problems in our relationship by being "obsessed with the truth" as I figured out what had happened.
39. Don’t Follow Her Down This Rabbit Hole
There’s this woman at work (about 60 people) who tells everybody everything about her life. She just monologues and when she’s done, she just walks away, doesn't reciprocate. People avoid her like crazy. I've been talked at by her for over a year. I avoid if I can, but she’s gotten me cornered in the bathroom. She talked about how she's a private person and I'm such a great listener. At the end, she asks me what my name is.
It's like dude, you've told me what your gynecologist has said about your cervix, and after a year you're just asking me my name?
40. With a Face Like That, Who Needs a Heart?
I am a paramedic and I recently brought a cardiac arrest patient to the ER. I was trying to transfer the patient onto the hospital bed as the doctor walked in. It's my job to give the report to the doctor, letting them know if I gave drugs, if I defibrillated, the history of the patient, etc. I start to give my report and the doctor says, "You look just like someone..."
I start to give my report again and he stops me again, interrupting and goes on about how I look just like some celebrity...I have heard this before, so I toss the name out and he is thrilled to have the name...meanwhile we are still doing CPR and breathing for the patient who is still very much in cardiac arrest. I ask the doctor if I can give the report now and he comes back to reality.
41. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Car Ride
When I was a senior in high school back in the day, I had accidentally left the lights on in my truck all day long and had to call my dad to come to my school and help me jump start the car. Now, my father is 6'1 and has a very large belly. For some unknown reason, he shows up wearing nothing but cloth shorts and no shirt to try and jump-start my car. In front of all my classmates...
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he did it again another time a few years earlier when my mother had sent him out to my school to come and give me a sandwich to eat before a big football game I was in. The man’s boxers were literally longer than his shorts.
42. Cut and Run
At used clothing stores, my mother would cut tags to get discounts, since the cashiers would basically make up whatever price they thought it would be on the spot. If they high-balled it, she would get a manager involved, and I hated that.
43. Intolerant of You
My best friend’s ex-girlfriend got kicked out of her parents’ house when she told them she was a lesbian. She moved in with my best friend since they were dating at the time. At first she said that she was too depressed to find a job. My best friend was okay with that even if it meant she'd have to work more, which she did.
She even found a second part-time job. For the next six months, whenever my best friend asked the girl if she found a job she'd always get the "I'm too depressed" response. Eventually, she discovers the horrible truth: her girlfriend cheated on her. Her excuse for cheating was "You're always at work and never have time for me. I need someone who will be there for me."
My best friend kicks her out and then her ex blames her for having to move back in with her parents. The kicker: Turns out her parents never really kicked her out, she was just tired of them telling her to get a job.
44. You Could Say They Were the Talk of the Block
I live in a city with a very large university in the middle of it. One day, years ago, I was driving through campus. At the crosswalk I was stopped at, two girls who knew each other stopped, said hi, and started having a full conversation IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. I had to honk at them to get them to realize they were still in the crosswalk.
45. High School Heartbreaker
At my senior prom, my (now ex) friend and I were talking about our experiences in high school. Reminiscing. Or at least I was...she was nonstop complaining about how everyone around her hated her, how another friend of mine was annoying and needy, etc. etc. The conversation gets to a point and she just bluntly says to me, "Yeah I know, between the two of us I'm a better person, not that it matters!" As I later learned, she was hooking up with a guy a grade below us who already had a girlfriend.
Who's the better person now, Mikaela?
46. Director’s Cut Commentary
My mom went through this phase where she would talk out loud during movies, specifically about whatever is going on in the movie. She was also terrible at paying attention to what was going on, so often times what she was explaining was totally incorrect. In addition, she would try to talk over the movie. Mom would occasionally have to yell to make sure that she was being heard over the action scenes.
Imagine, if you will, watching the aftermath of the stampede scene from The Lion King and the person next to you in the theater yelling out "SIMBA IS SAD BECAUSE HER DAD DIED!"
47. Newsflash, Spellcheck Exists!
I was a news reporter and I went to cover a local NAACP event. The host had a written out a history of the local chapter she wanted a teenage girl to read. The girl took one look at it and handed it back, saying "I can't read this, it hasn't been proofread." Very awkward. The host read it herself—it sounded like it had been written by a first grader.
48. You Kiss Yours With That Mouth?
I was at a college basketball game years ago when there was a bad call on the ref's part, and the guy like two rows ahead of me and my friends yelled out something like, "You screw your mother with that mouth?!" Like it was really weird and inappropriate and not something you'd yell at the ref because it makes no sense...and then like everyone around him just got quiet and turned around to get a look at the guy who just yelled that with a "What the heck is wrong with this guy" look on their faces.
49. Bound in Holy Awkwardness
Recently went to a wedding where the groom had five or six different groomsmen, and they all gave a speech. First few were pretty good and funny. The last guy that went tried way too hard to make it funny. He started off with some lame cliché joke about how the bachelor party was crazy and that they'd never talk about it again.
He actually paused and waited for laughter and not a single person laughed out of over 150. Then his hands started shaking, and he kept losing his place. I think he eventually gave up after about two minutes of torture and just said, "To the bride and groom!" It was horrific.
50. Face the Faces: You’re Annoying
Every clown who FaceTimes or uses a speakerphone to hold a conversation in PUBLIC. It's not cute. You're not cool and everyone around you thinks you're a jerk.
51. None of Your Business
Local business owner/friend asked a lot of his regular customers to invest in his new business in Atlanta by buying shares. I bought in, knowing we wouldn't break even for at least three years, but that he could sell religion to the Pope. Had losses for two years, broke even at three as predicted. But then it got bad.
Four years in, he closes the Atlanta store and opens in another town, but this time he's doing it all with "his own money." Um no, he's doing it with the inventory and proceeds from the Atlanta store. Even has a shiny new house, cars, the works for his new venture. He's shocked to the core, and hurt, I tell you, hurt and disappointed! when all the share holders took him to court.
52. Spitting out the Silver Spoon
Our whole life my brother has blamed our middle class upbringing for him taking zero responsibility. He’s basically a 40-year-old version of “no one gets me.” He spends his money recklessly, has turned down opportunities to advance himself in lieu of making YouTube videos in his shed ranting about how “richies” keep him down. It’s pathetic.
53. It’s Not Him, It’s You
When I was teaching, I had a student with some behavior problems. I did everything I could to support him. One day, we were taking a test and he was talking. I reminded him several times that talking during a test is not allowed, and I would have him go in the hallway if he continued. He continued talking, so I told him to go into the hall.
He called me autistic on his way out (his favorite insult) and so I wrote him a referral. I called his parents and they didn't answer, so I sent an e-mail explaining what happened, that he got a referral, and that I hope we can work together to help him manage his reactions. His mother responded. When I opened her e-mail, my jaw dropped. She said that my behavior was UNACCEPTABLE.
She said that she is done speaking with me and I will hear from her lawyer. She went all the way up to the district level to complain about me, telling all sorts of lies and making me look like a horrible person. I don't teach anymore.
54. The Cry of Crowns
Knew a sister-of-the-groom (also maid of honor) who pitched a violent fit because the bride was going to wear a tiara for the ceremony and therefore, the sister couldn't. Literally screamed at both families, "I am the sister, for God's sake!"
55. Get a Whiff of This
My boss's office shared a wall with the bathroom. He got caught with a pipe that routed the smells and sounds from the women’s bathroom into his office. When he got busted, he had the audacity to try to deny it and claimed he had done nothing wrong.
56. Waterworks Won’t Make It Any More Original
Once in high school, we had an assignment to write an introduction for an imaginary movie/book/play or whatever you wanted. The teacher showed us a short text as an example. The weird girl in my class used that text and read from it at the end of the VERY SAME class and we were all like "You didn't write it, it was the example the teacher showed us just now."
She burst out CRYING and said that we were all mean to her and that she wrote it all by herself and that it was just a coincidence that it was identical with the example. Cringed so hard.
57. Gone for Good
My mother pulled the old "going to the store" routine when I was a kid. She called three days later from halfway across the country complaining because dad had shut off the credit cards. To this day, she tries to make my father the bad guy for her failed attempt at abandoning her family. They divorced shortly after, and I stayed with dad.
I've always been second-rate to her for being (in her words) "disloyal."
58. Bossy Rants
My fiancé’s manager tried to strong arm her into staying at her current job instead of taking one that won’t destroy her mental health, then cried about how no one at work likes her.
59. There’s Got to Be a Better Way to Say “Occupied!”
I was on a train going between London and Manchester (UK) and went to use the bathroom. The toilet at the end of the carriage was disabled-accessible, so it had a wide curved door that automatically opened at a steady and slow pace—about 20-30 seconds to complete, uninterruptible, retracting in a semi-circle to allow wheelchair access to the carriage.
If you've traveled on these trains before, you'll know that to close the door you enter the stall, push a button to close the door, then when it's finished closing, you press another to lock it. Someone had not told this to the lady in the loo. Just as I arrived, another person coming from the other direction pushed the outside button to open the door and it started its inevitable arc.
For at least 30 excruciating seconds, the button pusher, myself—and eventually everyone sitting in the packed commuter carriage beyond who was facing in our direction—got to see the woman bend up from the seat, reach and hop to the other side of the cubicle and desperately pummel the door-close/lock buttons inside. Pants around the ankles the whole time.
White bottom flashing. At a merciless pace, the door opened fully, contemplated its life and then closed on the pitiful image within. The button pusher and I looked at each other, said nothing and went back to our seats.
60. Not the Brightest Bulb in the Smartphone
Dude took MULTIPLE photos of the Declaration of Independence using flash photography, all while people yelled at him to stop. Other than the array of signs, you are advised multiple times to NOT use flash. They even have a special room to test if your camera is accidentally on flash. His response was just to listlessly stare at the workers and walk away.
The sheer mixture of obliviousness and entitlement on his face made me momentarily lose faith in the idea of democracy while standing in the National Archive.
61. Her Own Secret Admirer
My cousin's friend came over to stay for a few weeks. She was very vain and before she left, she wrote the creepiest note to my uncle (who is friendly to everyone) saying how she had to sadly reject him, even though she knows how much he is secretly in love with her. We all found the note together after she left addressed to him (he was with us and opened in front of us).
He was creeped out.
62. I Won’t Be Seeing Red
I was someone's maid of honor and the bride told her soon-to-be husband to tell his mother that she can't wear red at the wedding (even though she had already bought the dress) because it would clash with the mint and coral color story of the wedding. She then proceeded to say how she, the bride, is so easy going and isn't one of sweat any of the small stuff.
63. Ex Hex
My ex-wife loves to play the victim. She had an affair, left me and our kid for the guy, got a DUI and the car I co-signed for was repossessed. Every time I hear from her, I get to listen to her complain about how she has to walk to work and how she has to borrow lunch money because child support took $129.00 out of her check.
She also complains about how our son never calls her and she hasn't seen him in over a year. I wonder why?
64. Mr. Wrong
A former friend and housemate—who I stupidly let live at my place rent-free and who I gave some pretty significant help towards lawyer fees—lost her mind when I started voicing my concerns over her new boyfriend. She was still technically married to another man, and the new boyfriend was into all sorts of cultish, New Age, Spirit Science craziness.
Oh, and they would do things like make these lavish meals in the kitchen and not clean up, or block my car in the driveway. Then she went on a rant in which she compared me to her abusive soon-to-be-ex-husband—because I had completely betrayed her with one cruel action: I hadn't put away a container of cinnamon immediately after using it. When I served an eviction notice to the b-bomb, she gave Academy Award-level performance for melodrama of her own making.
65. The Dance Must Go On
One of my older coworkers thinks she knows how everyone should do their job. She whined at me one day for talking to another coworker while working on filling a large number of orders (we work in a pharmacy). Literally the next day, during the same daily drop of orders, she and a different coworker stopped to sing a song and dance a little jig, then spent just as much time laughing at themselves/each other.
Not the first or last time she told me to do or not do something and then swiftly ignored her own instructions, but this really stood out.
66. The Right to be Big is Selectively Given
My mother-in-law. One day, my sister-in-law came over to my house, bawling her eyes out, because her mom told her she was fat. My wife spends quite a while comforting her, calming her down. Finally, she's feeling better and leaves, and my wife calls her mom and tells her not to be so hard on SIL, that she's damaging her fragile self-esteem (she'd been bullied in school and had just gotten out into the world as an adult and was building herself up, making friends).
MIL gets very haughty and tells my wife that she's just looking out for SIL so that she doesn't wake up some day and realize that she has allowed herself to be fat and ugly. That will damage her self-esteem far more, my MIL says. About a week later, MIL comes over crying. She works at an old folks home, where her mother lives, suffering from Alzheimer's. MIL had bent over to pick something up, and her mother came up behind her and said, "Jesus Christ you're getting fat, look at your big fat ass!"
So now, MIL is crying to my wife saying, "How could she say that to me, doesn't she understand how hurtful that is?" I had to leave the room to laugh incredulously.
67. Please and Thank You, Next
My ex cheated on me and I left him. He then said he cheated because he felt like he couldn't please me in bed and it made him insecure. Okaayyyy.
68. In My Professional Opinion, You Suck
A colleague of mine whined about her job 24/7. She quit eventually, then she went to see a psychiatrist, because she needed to feel justified that quitting her job meant she had no regrets and she was actually mentally ill and couldn't cope, since it was a residency program in one of the best hospitals in the country.
Her psychiatrist, after evaluating her, had the best response ever. She straight up told her that she was a whiny brat.
69. Best Friends for Never
I’m a teacher, and there’s this one guy I work with who is not a teacher, but sometimes “helps” in our classrooms. Every time he “helps,” without fail, he’ll tell us about some kid he made a great connection with who he feels like he really got through to...only for that kid to complain about how annoying and fake he is the next day.
Teens recognize/respect realness over pretty much anything else.
70. Getting Both Sides
Recently, I went out on a date with a guy. During the date, he proceeded to hit on someone and get their number in front of me. Apparently it was my fault because I'm bisexual, so clearly that meant I'd be interested in her too. I was just like ???
71. Giving New Meaning to Getting Smashed
A girl I know who's a complete drama queen got extremely drunk a few weeks back and got into her car to go to her ex boyfriend’s to start stuff with him. She put the car in drive and passed out. It rolled forward and hit a vehicle that was parked in front of her. When the police showed up, they found her passed out behind the wheel, with her car in drive smashed into another car, and charged her with driving under the influence.
She wants to fight it because "she technically wasn't driving at the time" and because the police were bullies for arresting her. She's going to start a gofundme because she needs money for a lawyer to "go after the police" and "teach them a lesson." All she does is complain about how they were being unfair and should've let her go.
72. All Bets Are Off
My buddy and I were at our local bar with some friends, and he got smashed on one too many shots. He suddenly decided he was a pool shark and tried to show off in front of some girls, as he challenged everyone in the bar to beat him. In four games, he sank two shots—both by accident. All I could do was shake my head as he continued to make an ass of himself. Worst of all, this was in front of a bar full of regulars, so he heard about that for years after.
73. A Not-So Clean Break
When I kicked my abusive ex out of MY house, he started playing the “homeless victim” card. Understand, when I kicked him out, it had been 10 months after we broke up; he strong-armed me into letting him live with me when I got a better place and he got kicked out of his friend’s house; and I was the only one working. He also refused to watch our child while I was at work, he would get aggressive and violent if I even talked to another guy, and there were multiple cases where my best friend and ONLY ally would have to basically “kidnap” me to get me away from him and keep me safe. Yeah, it was all just a mess, but HE started telling everyone I was this crazy horrible person.
He said I kept him from seeing our son, and how I was “being a witch because I was jealous.” For years afterwards, everyone believed him, and I lost every friend I had. Thankfully, this story got a happy ending! It’s been years since this happened, and now I’m in a healthy, happy, and really safe environment.
I met and married an amazing human being who held my hand and had my back when I started going to therapy to heal the wounds that were left. He is the father of my youngest, my son is now nine and is an amazingly sweet and strong boy, and I have an amazing group of friends who are the best support team one could ask for!
74. Beauty is Only Skin-Wound Deep
One woman (who is 40 and in great shape but absolutely desperate to be married) to another woman who is funny and sweet but overweight, “I can’t believe someone like you is married and I’m not.” No lie...and it didn’t even occur to her that it was insulting. She’s too much of a narcissist to realize that.
75. My Own Worst Enemy
My cousin basically screwed up her own wedding by doing things like “firing” her maid of honor at the last minute because the maid of honor took her husband to the hospital rather than coming to the hair appointments. She also kept getting pissy with our grandmother for “not being helpful enough.” She's almost 80 and isn't the most mobile; what did my cousin expect?
She also forgot to make sure her brother wasn't still running errands for her when the ceremony started, which led to him missing the ceremony. And then she whinged for the entire reception and a significant period after about how her wedding didn't go the way she wanted. Hmmm wonder why that could be, hun?
76. This Is Just Sick
I’m a nurse. The nurse I gave shift report to was later seen in a contact isolation room without a gown or gloves on. She claimed she had no idea because I did not tell her in report that it was an isolation room and she needed to wear isolation gowns. I was called and woken up and yelled at by my boss....because the other nurse was in the room.
Not me. Her. So I got in trouble and was told to “think of her kids, she has two little kids at home who you could have contaminated by not telling her to put gowns on!!!” But that's not even the worst part. There is literally a giant colorful poster in front of every isolation room that tells you to put a gown on before going in. Like you have to push this poster out of the way to even go into the room.
If that’s not the biggest phony point-the-finger, then I don’t know what is. And that was the moment I learned I couldn’t trust my boss because she was the head of that clique.
77. Small Business, Big Problems
Small business. 20 employees +/-. Boss made a big speech about austerity measures and no raises this year. A week and a half later he drives up in a brand new Silverado with all the bells and whistles. Expensed to the business of course. He would hate to have to pay taxes on those profits. One of the less subtle members of the staff took a literal dump in front of his office door.
78. Hell on Wheels
Someone I was dating and I were ordering at Culver’s drive-thru. She was talking to her mom over the car’s Bluetooth and then all of a sudden, her and her mother started cussing and yelling at each other. Well, if you don’t know, at Culver’s the whole shop can hear you if you’re at the drive-thru. The manager came barreling out with a red face telling her, “You have to leave now! This is a family establishment as people don’t want to hear your profanity!”
That only angered her more and she started going off on this manager. So, dumb freaking me, thought maybe I could be the voice of reason. I say, “Hey let’s just go somewhere else. We don’t need them spitting in our food.” I personally don’t think they would’ve, but she’s a germaphobe to the max and I was just trying to convince her to leave.
She left alright....and I just stood there with the manager feeling so embarrassed about her anger issues and then getting kicked out of the car.
79. Well Actually
I dated a man who corrected my Polish, because his grandmother was Polish and she told him how to pronounce some words. Mind you, I was brought up in Poland, went to school and college there, read a zillion books, saw a zillion Polish movies etc. But this guy was very condescending about my pronunciation of the few words he learnt from his grandma.
80. Skimming off the Top
My mother stole $200 from my college fund and then told me I was bullying her when I confronted her.
81. You Crack Me Up, Old Man
First class of summer semester in grad school, we were going around introducing ourselves. Professor wanted a typical "what do you do for fun" kind of answer, and this 50-year-old IT guy just deadpan says, "I love smoking crack cocaine." Clearly it was a joke, but it did NOT land, everyone else in the room just stared at him until he said he was kidding.
82. Nowhere to Turn
From my father's side, they thought me moving out equated to me abandoning them. I mean, I did choose to go no-contact, but when you deal with 27+ years of narcissism, you kind of need to get out of there. From my mother's side, she chose to ditch my high school graduation because I called her out on her needing to air dirty laundry about my father when I was in the middle of studying for exams.
My stepfather always took her side and would spend hours lecturing me, given the opportunity.
83. (Don’t) Put the Blame on Me
My ex got a DUI and said it wasn't her fault. Literally blamed everyone else and took no responsibility for it.
84. Wrestling With My Feelings
I was talking to dude on a dating app and we decided to meet up for coffee one day. Our coffee did not go well. He only talked in impersonations of WWE wrestlers and then asked me to go to wrestle mania with him and his entire family later that night. It was excruciating. What is wrong with these people?
85. Mic Drop
I worked with an awful boss. He would always flirt with the young female staff and make us all uncomfortable, even though he was 50 years old. We all knew his wife and two young children, but about six months into me working there he began to “date” a 22-year-old customer. By date, I mean he used to go downstairs to his office and sleep with her—all while he was on shift.
No one was allowed to talk about it but we all knew. He knocked her up quite quickly and ended up breaking up with his wife, but he still flirted with his staff relentlessly even when his new baby was born. He once told a male employee that he liked asking female staff to pick up things from low shelves so we would bend over and he could check out our butts.
He always broke health and safety rules if he could get out of doing a task he didn’t want to. He was prolific at asking staff to clean human waste—vomit/poop customers had done on the floor—even though legally anyone cleaning that stuff needed to have passed a certain health and safety qualification. I spoke to my assistant manager about this and she confirmed that only management can do it, and I should refuse next time.
One day he demanded I cleaned up vomit in the male toilets, and I refused, repeating what the assistant manager told me. My boss went absolutely mad—he wasn’t used to people standing up to him. He told me to come downstairs to his office to speak about it. At that moment I knew I wanted to quit, so I told him I won’t be going downstairs with him.
He asked me why, and I replied: “The last girl who went down there with you ended up getting pregnant.” I lost my job instantly but it was totally worth it.
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86. Saint Mom
Pretty much anything my mom has ever done. She lives to be a martyr. One example: She complains it takes her a whole week to put all the Christmas decorations up. But I told her over and over not to and she doesn't have to. Nah, she gets a kick out of whining about it and playing the patron saint of misery.
87. Mousy Girl
I went on a date with a girl who revealed that her hobby was buying dead little mice, doing taxidermy on them, and then dressing them up in tiny little metal battle armor and swords to stage historical battles...using dead mice...that she bought online. She showed me lots of pictures before the date ended.
88. Whining on Lock
We were fishing on my family’s private property. My grandpa locked us in without telling us the code. After hitchhiking to an area we could get a signal, we got the code and hitchhiked back to get our car. We left the gate unlocked because the family of the other owners were having a birthday party there and we didn’t want to lock them in.
When my grandpa heard we left the gate unlocked, he drove 30 minutes to lock it again, and then had the balls to complain when people were calling him at 10 at night asking for the code so they could leave.
89. Mixed Messages
I matched with a Chinese exchange student on Tinder. She asked me to meet her at her apartment, then we'd go link up with some of her friends at the waterfront. We're texting as I'm on the way over, and she says she didn't realize this was a date. Nonetheless, she asks me to pick up dinner for both of us on the way over.
I get to her apartment, and before I can even take my jacket off, she says, "So, do you have anything to say to me?" Presumably because I'd spent 15 seconds in silence. I offer her the food she asked for, she said she wasn't hungry. I try to strike up a conversation, but she dead ends every topic I bring up. She starts texting and making phone calls.
She was speaking Mandarin, presumably, but I was able to make out the name of the place we were supposed to meet her friends. She said something about how plans might change because her friend needs help. Throughout all this, I just sat by myself, eating my sandwich in silence. When I was finished, I asked if she just wanted me to leave. She said yes, then gave me $20 for dinner. Girl straight up used me for food delivery.
90. Don’t Blow Hot Air up My Brain
I had a boss who insisted I was imagining things when I told him there was a gas leak. He told me to just keep working when I later told him I was getting light-headed. When it turned out the next day that there WAS a gas leak (I reported it since he wouldn't), and I confronted him about it, he told me that I should've just walked out on my job if I knew there was a problem.
91. A Zero-Tolerance Policy for Some
I’m a manager at a corporate restaurant. There are a general manager and two other assistant managers like me. We work on a college campus and so all of us assistant managers are students, which is why corporate excused this BS, I guess. Well, my co-manager completely tormented this one employee. Like this was movie-worthy sexual harassment. He stalked this kid on every social media platform, was blocked on all of them, and just kept going at it.
This employee got so upset with his advances one night that he left work in the middle of his shift. My co-manager ripped him a new one, telling him that he was going to be fired unless he came over to his house right that second. The employee refused, blocked him, then my co-manager found him on another social media and continued to say that he would completely forget that this happened, and he could still have his job if he just answered him and came over.
This went on for nearly a week and said employee kept no-call no-showing. He came in one day when my co-manager wasn’t working and reported this to me and my actual boss. We told him that it is difficult to terminate a manager unless he wanted to file a report. He said he just didn’t want anything more to do with this and was just going to quit. It was really sad, but we understood where he was coming from.
Well, during this time, there was another employee, who was like 50 years old, flirting with some of the younger female employees. He had also flirted with me and asked me out, so when one girl came forward it was definitely believable that he was being inappropriate. He wasn’t harassing anybody, but he was making other girls uncomfortable. Literally, the SAME day that this poor harassed boy came in, told us everything, showed us all messages, and quit, my co-manager (the one who was harassing the first kid) freaked out on this one guy.
We told him we were all working on it and he literally THREW a filing cabinet over and said “There is NO grey area when it comes to sexual harassment. I am firing (blank) right now.” And he went out and fired this guy, ripped him to shreds in front of the whole kitchen, and yelled “sexual harassment” the whole time. This one guy wasn’t harassing anyone, he was a little slow and barely ever spoke, and had asked a few younger girls to dinner. Yes, it was uncomfortable, and yes it would’ve resulted in a conversation with him, but he did not do anything wrong at that point.
It was just so insane to all of us that my co-manager literally fired this man for asking employees on a date the SAME DAY that this 18-year-old kid came in and told us about the torture he was putting him through. He literally said, “There’s no grey area when it comes to sexual harassment,” like, screw you dude.
92. Leaving Your Mark on the Eardrums
I have multiple coworkers who have conversations on speaker phone, or blast bad music, or catch up on their obnoxious Instagram stories (street fights, car racing, and multiple instances of rappers practicing their machine gun noises) in the break room. They do not find this disruptive or inappropriate in the slightest.
I have it on good authority that they do the same stuff on the bus.
93. What Goes Around, Comes Around on Your Outfit
Riding home on the express commuter bus a few years ago, about a 45-minute ride. Everyone on the bus was professionals after a long day, so it's very quiet, as opposed to a city bus. We're just finally pulling into the station when I feel something splatter all over me. The lady behind me has thrown up rather violently, and because she was trying to hold it in, it shot over herself, me, the guy next to me and the guy next to her.
I understood what was happening and the first thing that I thought was, "Oh god, I bet she feels terrible." I snapped open my work bag and handed her some thick napkins I keep with me, then cleaned myself off. One of those moments where I really felt like an adult, thinking about another person first.
94. Good Grief
My mother and I were out walking and we came across an older couple we knew from the local church. Their eldest son had died the previous year from an inoperable brain tumor, and their younger son just moved out for university. Mum starts with, "Must be nice to have the house to yourself! More time for Church!"
The conversation devolves from there. She ignores all hints to drop the subject, including the mother stating they hadn't been back to the church since their son died. The couple were obviously horrified. I couldn't end the convo quick enough. Afterward, my mother told me I was just being immature and had no conception of what "polite adult conversation" was like.
95. The Seven Seas of Regret
Stuck on a cruise ship for three days after my friend proposed to his girlfriend on the first freaking day and she said no. That same first night she made out with some random guy in the hot tub. I'm honestly not sure how devastated my friend actually was, but it was intensified by the fact that he'd drink himself stupid daily by 2 pm, which would lead to him going to beg her to get back with him.
At one point, she was sitting on the new guy’s lap at the bar and he grabbed her hand and “confessed his love for her” for what must have been the fifth time in two days. It was a constant battle of trying to pull him away and convince him to either go to sleep or come with us to another part of the ship. He is a good friend, so I felt terrible for him, ‘cause that was super awful on her part and tried to help him all he would allow, but it was awful to watch.
By the end of the cruise, the entire boat it seemed like knew what had happened. When I tried to bring it up with my girlfriend (who was on the cruise with me as well) days after we got home, she straight up refused to talk about it, saying that was painful enough at the time so we never need to speak of it.
Sources: Reddit, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
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