We tend to look back on our childhoods with rose-colored glasses—but were they really so innocent? These people delved into their memories and uncovered the dark moments that we so often forget about. Maybe childhood wasn't so wholesome after all.
1. That Pencil Really Came in Handy!
A quiet kid in summer school was being constantly bullied by the loud and obnoxious kid who sat behind him. The obnoxious guy once called the quiet kid a very uncool name. Without missing a beat and in the flash of a second, the quiet kid spins around, sticks a pencil directly and completely through the bully’s hand, and turns back around to sit front ways again.
It all went down so quickly that we were not even sure if it had even happened. If not for the pencil being physically stuck in the other guy’s hand, the loud screaming, and the pool of blood on the floor, we still might not have been sure!
2. When the Temp Job Becomes a Permanent Hire
My dad went out for milk. He told me, as the eldest surviving kid, that I was "the man of the house" until he got back, so it was my obligation to help/defend/take care of them for him until he came back. He never came back.
3. Get Your Hands Off Me, You Dirty Apes!
Fifth-grade field trip to a zoo. During a tour of the primate exhibits, a notoriously ill-behaved student hurls a stick down into the gorilla habitat and it lands near an adult gorilla. Without hesitation, the now angry gorilla arms himself with the same stick and sends it back like a tomahawk to the boy with terrifying velocity and wildly impressive precision. The stick shatters around the boy’s face and he goes down. Commotion ensues.
More gorillas make an appearance and begin to scream at the group of horrified children. Zoo staff start piling in out of the woodwork to see what’s going on. The orangutans on the other side of the trail have now got wind of the situation and have begun mobilizing to assist their gorilla comrades. It's a war on two fronts now.
Gorilla and orangutans launch volleys of feces and students scatter. Throughout the entire exhibit, all manner of primates begins their intimidating chatter and howling. An army of zoo staff has swarmed the primate exhibits and manages to stop War For The Planet Of The Apes.
4. Horrible Thing to Say
When I was in the second grade, my mom died. When I was in the third grade, the evil witch of a teacher held me back from recess one day for something. While it was just us in the room, she asked if I went to church. I said no. She then told me that I was going to hell and would never see my mom again. I hated that jerk.
5. Something’s Popping!
Someone who I worked with at a local movie theater asked me out one time. I told him that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. The next time he was closing and knew I was opening the next morning, he poured popcorn salt all over the office desk and shaped it to say “DIE,” followed by my full name.
6. It’s Payback Time
Our school’s quiet kid once lost it and beat the living brains out of the guy who had been constantly poking, touching, and slapping him in class. I think it was around the seventh or eighth punch when the guy started to shout, “Dude, please stop!” just as the first signs of blood were beginning to show up. Unfortunately for the bully, Quiet Kid was just getting started…
7. A Miscarriage of Privacy
When I was about 16, I was snooping in my parents' wardrobe. Found a diary written by my mother when she was 14, from the year 1970. Read some beautiful and brilliantly written entries about meeting and dating my dad, who was 16 at the time. I had to read a little between the lines in some slightly later entries as they were written with such flowery language.
In one such entry, all of a sudden, she discloses that she's had an abortion. It was performed by my grandfather, who was an anesthesiologist. She never told anyone.
8. Failed Experiment
In a physics class in Community College, a professor was explaining conservation of angular momentum and had a kid sit on a tall chair that spins. He then had the kid hold two books out with extended arms and then spin as fast as he could before telling the kid to pull the books in close to his chest. Think of a figure skater and how they spin really fast.
The kid immediately turns into a blur and the stool/chair starts to tip slightly until it rockets from under him like it was shot from a slingshot. The kid slams into the floor as if he got choke slammed and his head hit the floor in a way that sounded like someone dropped an overly ripe melon. The look on the professor's face said, "Well that was a good run. I guess I have to find a new career now."
Kid turned out OK and everyone got a laugh but it genuinely looked like I had just witnessed a death.
9. Nightmare on Elm Street
I used to babysit for a family with 3 very young kids after school 3 days a week. On the parents’ anniversary, they asked me to babysit at night for the first time. When I got there at 7:00, the kids were already in bed and sound asleep. A few hours later, the oldest, a four-year-old girl, started screaming. Literally horror movie screams.
I grabbed my phone, dialed 911, and carried my phone upstairs, expecting her to be chopped in pieces or something, me being next. I walked upstairs barely able to hold the phone my hands were shaking so bad. I turned the corner, and she was sound asleep, no one was around. The parents failed to warn me of their daughter's horrible night terrors, and were laughing about it when I explained the situation when they got home.
NOT FUNNY.
10. Open Door Policy
A guy who this girl I know had a crush on was living with a few friends and, for a while, their place became a pretty regular hangout spot for a bunch of people. Consequently, they almost never locked their doors. The girl showed up and let herself into their house one afternoon while they were all at work. He came home to find her sleeping in his bed.
He had to threaten to call the police to get her to leave.
11. Better Left On the Cutting Room Floor
When I was eight or so, my old nanny/baby sitter was showing me a video of her time with her boyfriend in Paris. After it blacks out for a few seconds, it then suddenly cuts to her lying on her hotel bed completely naked, telling her boyfriend to “come get it.” She jumped out of her seat, tried to cover my eyes, and told me to never tell anyone. I have now told potentially thousands of random strangers.
12. Some Excuses Are Valid
This was the one and only detention I ever received. I was in third grade, and had a math teacher that had this stupid policy that every math test, after she had graded it, needed to be brought home and signed by our parents and returned to her within two days. During that school year, my mom got in a terrible car accident, in which she got hit head-on by a semi-truck. She almost died, was permanently crippled, and spent several months in the hospital.
We had a math test a couple of days after her accident. My step-dad spent the whole week in the hospital by my mom’s side, no doubt stressed out of his mind and not knowing if she would pull through. He didn’t want to bring my brother or me to the hospital, as he didn’t know if we could handle seeing my mom in that condition.
My brother and I were left home alone all week, with neighbors occasionally checking in on us to drop off meals. Anyway, I hadn’t seen either of my parents in days, and obviously couldn’t get either of them to sign my test. When I tried to explain the situation to my teacher, she cut me off and said that she “didn’t allow excuses” or some similar stupidity.
Then she gave me detention the following day. Since I didn’t have anybody at home who could pick me up, I had to walk the two miles or so home from school after the detention was finished. A week or so later, when my brother told my step-dad about everything that had happened, he showed up to pick me up from school, which he’d never done before, as we took the bus to/from school, and absolutely tore the teacher a new one, almost bringing her to tears. The teacher never apologized to me, or looked me in the eyes again, for that matter, and I forged signatures on every other test that year.
Also, FWIW, I had gotten 100% on the test that led to my detention.
13. I Just Came to Say Hello
This was a while ago in high school, so I don’t know if I can really fault this guy for being an idiot—but he told everyone we knew that I was his dream girl and that we were going to get married someday. He actively sought out rumors about who I was crushing on, or who was crushing on me, or just about pretty much any guy who would talk to me.
He would then approach them and ask them to please, please, please let him have a chance and to not ask me out. The weirdest part was that I barely even knew this guy, and didn't even really talk to him much to begin with. I didn't even know his last name! Our whole relationship was literally just saying hi to each other during calculus class every morning.
14. The Remains of The Day
I swear this story is 100% true. So, in ninth-grade English class, our teacher assigned us to group work for the day so she could chill out and grade papers. She had a “teaching assistant” who was another student at our high school. We will call him "Tim.” He was either a junior or senior at this time? So we're all working (see: messing around) at our tables, and Tim comes over and starts talking with me.
So, we’re on his phone looking at some fire 2013 memes, when a kid walks up and asks Tim a question about whatever dumb worksheet we were assigned. For whatever reason, Tim goes to help this student and leaves his phone with me. So of course, ninth grade me goes straight to his picture folder to see what’s up. So, what do I find? Nudes? Embarrassing pictures from last year’s Christmas party?
No…Tim's phone was harboring much darker secrets. Inside an album with an all-too-appropriate name were over 300 pictures of various poops in toilets. Thick poops, small poops, chunky poops, diarrhea... it was all there. I just kept scrolling down and down and it was just all poop. I was honestly just in shock, and as soon as Tim came back I couldn’t just pretend I didn’t see.
I had to know. "Dude. Why do you have so many pictures of poops on your phone???" "Oh, I, uhh, those are all mine...I send them to my friends as a joke sometimes. Nobody’s ever seen that before." And that was it about that. Long story short, I found the poop folder.
15. That Was an Overreaction
The girls in our elementary school were given proto-sex ed before the boys. The basic puberty stuff—your body is starting to change, you might develop breasts, sweating, all that stuff. They made a huge stupid deal about keeping it quiet. It's the girls' little secret. Don't go spreading it around school. It only occurs to me now that that is kind of dangerous, in the wider scope of things.
Anyway, my best friend was a boy and naturally, I skipped right off to tell him why suddenly half the class had an assembly all by themselves. My teacher heard about it, got me alone, grabbed me by both arms AND SHOOK ME. “Keep your mouth. Shut.” She was my favorite teacher up until then. Totally a great thing to teach a kid.
16. Premeditated Murder
I once saw the school quiet guy jotting some stuff down in a little black book. Me: "What are you writing, there?" Quiet Guy (With a blank stare on his face): "I'm adding you to my Death List." Thankfully, this was the early 90s and we would chat from time to time, so it never turned out to be anything more than just a strange joke—at least so far!
17. A Grandma You Don’t Want to Be Messing With
As a kid, every single time I made a mistake of any kind, whether big or small, my mom would immediately go and tell my feisty grandma. My grandma would then proceed to tell the ENTIRE family all about it. As a result, whenever we had family meetups, I would never hear the end of it. On top of that, this same feisty grandma would always tell me that I didn't know anything, and would then proceed to tell others that I didn't know anything as well if I didn't have an immediate and correct answer to whatever question she decided to throw at me on a given day.
This even included things that I could have no way of knowing at the time of her asking—such as what my work schedule, that someone else made and over which I had absolutely no control, would be like, even though I hadn’t been able to see it yet. I am still very insecure about things like that to this very day as a result of that environment, and I always start to panic and feel uncomfortable when someone asks me a question that I don’t immediately know the answer to even years later. I guess the lesson of this and other people’s similar stories is that, unfortunately, even one’s own family can be super messed up at times.
18. Cry “I Quit”
I started babysitting my neighbors a little before I should have. I was 9 years old, I think, and I had just put the two girls to bed. I went downstairs and turned on the TV. Almost immediately, I heard one of the girls cry, run to the bathroom, and slam the door. But this wasn't like them. I went back upstairs and tried to enter the bathroom, but the door was locked, and the little girl wouldn't respond, just cry.
I decided to check on the second sister. They share a room with a bunk bed. Both of them were sound asleep...But I could still hear the hysterical crying. I ran back downstairs, still hearing the crying. Their parents returned half an hour later, and we all went to check the bathroom, still audible crying. But something was different.
This time the door wasn't locked, and the crying quietly faded as we approached. I retired my babysitting career that night.
19. She’s a Poet and We Didn’t Even Know It
A little short blond girl in my class with a really cute high pitched voice was always very quiet, and usually kind of kept to herself. We would often see her sitting alone and writing stuff down while the rest of us were hanging out with our friends during lunch period. One time, someone decided to try and be nice to her. So, he went over and asked the girl what she was writing about.
She proceeded to read us a poem she had just written about how death is inescapable and how everyone will die. I think it’s pretty safe to say that this was not what even a single one of us was expecting to hear her read…
20. Double Dare
In a full auditorium, a random guy from a higher year entered. He yelled “LADIES, THIS ONE'S FOR YOU,” and then proceeded to take off his shirt and trousers—his boxers still on luckily. He then flexed his biceps and did different poses in front of hundreds of students sitting there not knowing how to react. He then left, saying “sorry to bother you” to the lecturer. Oh well.
Apparently, his friends bet him to do this.
21. Special Delivery
A girl who was enamored with my neighbor showed up at his house on her birthday to give him a present. So he, not wanting to see her, sent his mother to the door to make her go away. My neighbor's mom didn't have the heart to be rude, so she politely accepted the gift. When he later unwrapped it, in front of his mother, it turned out to be a pair of her panties.
We were 16 years old at the time, and the girl in question was 13.
22. Your Lot in the Gene Pool
When I was a kid, my mom was a pretty messed up person, so I have an endless list of stories that I could offer on this subject. The one that comes to mind right now is the time she sent me to go pick up my younger brother from the pool. I, being an active 13-year-old kid, decide to join him and start playing with his friends instead.
I guess she got tired of waiting around for me and decided to come to the pool to check up on us. She showed up and found me in the pool (yes, wearing my regular street clothes, shame on me!) playing Marco Polo with the guys. She yelled my name, took her slipper off, and threw it at my head in front of everyone there.
Then she started calling me names like promiscuous for daring to swim with boys. Every guy there went quiet. I think the silence was one of the most unbearable things about this situation. It still prickles my skin when I think about it. I was so utterly embarrassed that I didn’t know what to do. I vividly remember that walk home, my head down in shame the entire time.
In hindsight, I can't believe that I actually thought I had done something horribly wrong. I cried myself to sleep. What's funny is that she didn't even ask my brother to come back with us. Screw you, Mom! I'm very glad that our relationship is much better now than it was back then, but you still made my childhood a living nightmare, so screw you!
23. I Don’t Know Where It’s Been
So, I really overheard this conversation, but I did look during a long silent pause to see my dad actually on his knees, begging my mom to engage in intimate acts with him. I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but I did hear my mom stand her ground with, “It’s my body and it’s my choice. I don’t want to and you can’t force me to.”
Obviously, at the time, I wasn’t supposed to hear any of that conversation, and even now I’m not supposed to know that my mom was concerned because my dad was cheating on her, hooking up with tons of other women in multiple states, and she was worried about her safety. But I do. I don't think I could ever bring myself to tell her.
24. 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.
25. Now That’s Just Bad Luck
Prom night. Date gets drunk, goes off with best friend to toilet for sexy times. The prom ends, and there’s nobody to bring me home because mom is apparently also having sexy time in toilet. Screw you, Steve!
26. Poetic License
A classmate of mine who I barely talked to came up to me on Valentine's Day and handed me a box of chocolates and a huge teddy bear with my name sewn into it. A bit weird and unexpected, yes, but I was appreciative of the gift nonetheless. It started to really get uncomfortable, though, when they handed me a drawing of myself.
In the drawing, I was leaning on a motorcycle in VERY revealing clothes (which I would never have worn in real life). He then proudly proceeded to recite a 2-page love poem that he had written about me, loudly in public, while I was with my friends. The poem referred to me as his princess, the love of his life, all that kind of thing.
I rejected him and never spoke to him again.
27. Crossing the Line
An older guy who I knew from my neighborhood sent me photos of his private parts, even though I was only 12 years old. My parents and I informed the local police department.
28. Buy My Silence, No Refunds
When I was 16, I went to this bookstore to get some books and notice this guy and girl shopping. The guy looked really familiar to me and when he turned around, I realized it was my friend's dad and he was definitely not with his wife. He noticed me and I started freaking out since he looked pissed. He tried to bribe me with a few hundred bucks, so I took the money, lied and said I wasn't going to tell anyone, and then told his wife and my friend.
29. Stinky Situation
Kid comes into science class in the morning not looking too good. Substitute teacher doesn't care even when we tell her that he is literally going blue. Eventually, he throws up on the floor and the teacher goes to help him. He covers his mouth with his coat so he doesn't throw up on her. He throws up and his vomit goes down his jacket sleeve and gets dumped on her shoes. Substitute teacher walks out of school with a trail of vomit footprints and says nothing.
30. It Seems Like You Didn’t Get Much Sleep That Night...
When I was ten years old, I had invited two of my best friends (one boy and one girl) to sleep over at my place for the night. My dad, being the oversharing chatterbox kind of guy that he has always been, proceeds to tell my two friends the story of how I was conceived in the back of a car on a cold night somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
I was beyond mortified and my friends were just as uncomfortable as I was as the story was going on. When he finally left the room, we all collectively agreed to just ignore that whole ordeal and pretend that the conversation had never happened for the rest of the evening. A few minutes later, dad was back! This time it was to bring us some cake to eat out in the lounge.
He was wearing nothing but his tighty whitey undies and a bow tie as he made this special delivery. It was a rough night to say the least…
31. She Always Thinks of the Right Thing to Say
When I was young, my mom and I used to have this running competition where we would always try and embarrass each other at random times. It was a lot of fun. One day, we were shopping at Safeway and I was in the toilet paper aisle. While I was there, I spotted this VERY hot guy shopping nearby and I was contemplating how to approach him.
Just then, my mom proudly walked in brandishing up a mega pack of toilet paper rolls and yelled out “HEY, SWEETHEART! THIS WILL BE PERFECT FOR YOUR SENSITIVE BUM. HOW'S YOUR DIARRHEA RIGHT NOW???” I seriously thought I was going to die on the spot…
32. Don’t Do Drugs, Parents
When I was 11 years old, I was taken in by the police for questioning regarding drug distribution that had been taking place out of our family’s house. My dad had marijuana growing in the basement, and he had been using it as well as selling it frequently to neighbors and friends. When the police raided the house while my dad was at work, they asked me if I knew anything about what was in the room.
Since I admitted to having had knowledge of it, I guess that that was all it took for them to feel the need to bring me in for questioning. They even cuffed me and everything. My dad didn't show up at the police station til almost eight hours later. As you can imagine, in a small town like the one where I grew up, people talked. A lot. It also didn’t help that I lived next to a massive apartment complex where everyone could see what was happening the entire time as it was unfolding.
I was the talk of the town for almost two years because of this incident.
33. Too Young for That Kind of Candy
I haven't babysat in a while, but when I was a teenager, I watched two kids up the street. The mother was single and had another single friend with two kids, so I usually watched them all. I knew they went out to party—which was fine because they'd come home drunk and pay me more than I expected. What I didn't know is how much they partied.
One evening, I went upstairs to get money for pizza. I found both moms in the bathroom snorting white stuff. The worst thing was when they offered me some despite the fact that A) I was about to spend the night watching their young children and B) I was only 14 or 15 at the time.
34. Not Very Lutheran of You
I was in Lutheran elementary school despite not being Lutheran. In third grade, we were talking about baptism, and the teacher asked for everyone to raise their hands if they had been baptized. I was the only kid who didn't raise my hand, and I was already kind of a weird, picked-on kid. A boy in the class said that not being baptized meant I was going to hell.
When I started crying and asked the teacher if that was true, he said that it was. I felt awful for the rest of that day and my classmates definitely did not let up picking on me.
35. Someone Came Prepared
One time, our quiet kid got very mad. He dealt with this anger by pulling a frozen pizza out of his bag and throwing it at a classroom window, shattering it to pieces.
36. Photo Finish
Someone who liked me took a bunch of pictures of me while I slept. There was a group of us all sleeping in one room. I woke up to see him snapping photos of me.
37. Fire in the Unfinished Hole
When I was a kid, I walked in on our house contractor taking a leak INSIDE the unfinished garage on the drywall. He turned to me and put his finger on his lips and made the “shhh” sound. I think this is the first time I've ever told anyone.
38. Life Lesson From the Second Story
I remember being maybe in the second grade and this one kid in our class kept yelling stuff through the window at some 10th or 11th grader that was outside. Our window was easy to climb in and out of, as it wasn’t placed at a high level from the ground. The dude that was standing outside got annoyed with him, I guess, and just JUMPED on the window stool—which was pretty wide—and said something along the lines of “you kids should not be saying things like this, I’m older and won’t do anything but someone in this life will at some point if you keep this behavior.”
Then he went back to his friends or whatever like nothing out of the ordinary happened. Our whole class of second graders was shocked.
39. More Bully Than Teacher
My elementary school gym teacher, Mr. Hildebrand, was a nightmare. I was a super overweight child, diagnosed with PCOS at 14, had WLS at 19, but am now an incredibly healthy 24-year-old. I attended an elementary school with 60 children K-4, and my class had 11 including myself. I was the only one that was overweight. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
He constantly called me out for not being able to run as fast as anyone else, encouraged the others in class to pick me last for teams, asked why I was sweating like a pig when I wasn’t working very hard, would make me attempt to do sit ups and push ups while the others watched and made fun of me. It was incredibly traumatizing. The school didn’t require the kindergarten class to have gym, so this started in first grade when I was six.
We had gym class once a week, and I would get so nervous that I would throw up. Every single week. I was also a really anxious and sensitive child, so knowing that I would have to go and be embarrassed for 50 minutes was way more than I could bear. I think the school nurse figured it out after a little while, as sometimes she took mercy on me and let me stay in the office, sometimes she made me go.
But, no one ever asked why. No one ever told my parents this was an issue they were having with me. No one did anything to protect me.
40. Penny for Your Thoughts
A boy threw a penny at a girl in our Latin class. Unsurprisingly, she then yelled out "Why did you just throw a penny at me?" The quiet girl just randomly chimed in and said out loud: "Because that's how much you are worth!"
41. An Unarranged Marriage
My parents told one of my best friends behind my back that if she had been the same ethnicity as us, they would have asked her to marry me. I am sure that they thought this would be very flattering for my friend. I only found out about it after the fact, and to this day, over a decade later, the thought of it still makes me cringe big time.
42. Front and Center
My fourth-grade teacher had a reputation for making one boy in her class an unpopular scapegoat each year. Lucky me. In previous years, I'd been just another kid in the playground, but within two months the other kids wouldn't play with me during recess. One day I refused to go outside for recess. She asked why, and I foolishly told her that the other kids didn't like me.
When they came back in, she marched me to the front of the class, and asked for a show of hands, who didn't like me. Fourth grade kids—mostly—did what fourth grade kids do. I broke down that night and told my mom what had happened and what had been going on all along. She marched into school the next day, got a meeting that included the principal, and tore the teacher a new one.
I was still stuck in that class, but the teacher moved on to a new victim. Funny thing how self-esteem influences academic performance. My school used to give us a Stanford Binet IQ Test every year. My score dropped ten points from third to fourth grade, and then rose twenty points in fifth grade when I had a nurturing teacher.
If you are still alive, SCREW YOU, Mrs. Ericson.
43. Orange You Going to Apologize for Attempted Murder?
One time on a trip to the movies in eighth grade, one of the chaperones was my English teacher, who was deathly allergic to citrus (I think we know where this is going). On the bus ride back to school, a kid takes an orange, peels it and throws it at her, HARD. Hard enough to the point where orange juice got all over her shirt.
Not sure if it was revenge related or just being a jerk. Anyway, she immediately starts having an allergic reaction, and we have to pull over on the side of the highway and wait for an ambulance. We go back to school and the day is over. The school sends out an email basically saying, "Please don’t attempt to kill your teachers with allergic reactions" and that she will be fine.
Although, we had a substitute for four days and the kid got expelled.
44. Young Enough to Have Had Enough
I grew up in a very abusive, strict home. My stepfather beat both my sisters and then when they left, I was next. Anyways, one night he made me walk home from the mall because he wouldn't give me a ride. I called and asked around five and he said you better have your ass home at five. I walked the eight miles and was pretty wiped out when I was coming up the driveway. We had a big front window and I saw him sitting in his chair drinking whiskey waiting for me.
When I walked in, he said something, and I replied you won't do trash. The next thing I knew, he had me pinned to the wall and punched me in the face until I was knocked out. When I woke up, I remember feeling the blood from my nose, and my mother was standing there and told me I was a disgrace to go clean my face off.
I went upstairs and grabbed a hat and walked out and never went back. I was 14 years old at the time.
45. Love the Skin That You’re In
I once babysat a kid who had really bad eczema. They had a pool in their backyard, and after he would go swimming, his skin would get really dry and scaly. I think it was really itchy too, because he would scratch all the time, which lead to really gross and pussy blisters. His parents had a bunch of other kids, so his skin went kind of untreated.
He always had a weird smell about him. A smell I can only attribute to dead, decaying skin. Then one day, after swimming, I couldn't find him. I started crawling on the floor looking for him. Finally, I spotted him way underneath his bed, where I couldn't reach him. He was just chilling under there...eating his skin. It was repulsive!
He was staring me dead in the eyes, chomping on decaying pus-coated blisters. I couldn't even reach him to make him stop. It was gross. I watched these kids for an entire summer and made $8/day. Not worth it.
46. Raining Blood
I was sitting in my physics class, trying to stay awake because it was one of the first classes of the day and I didn't get much sleep the night before. I sat at a table in the back of the class by myself, while the table to my left had two of my friends and one other student sitting at it. I forget exactly what was being taught that day but I remember my friends suddenly saying things like, "Oh my god, are you alright?" and "Maybe you should go to the nurse."
I looked over to see my friends grabbing tissues and giving them to the other student whose nose was bleeding, which wouldn't be such a problem if there wasn't so much blood pouring out from this guy's nose. It was concerning, to say the least. Our teacher told him to go and see the nurse, he nodded, stood up, and then rode his Heelys out of the room.
It was probably the weirdest thing I have seen in a while.
47. The Proof Is in the Poop
I have an aggressive case of Crohn's disease that started showing up around the time I was in 8th grade. My mom took me to all of my doctor’s appointments, which were all pretty embarrassing because, as you can surely imagine, no teenage boy in the world wants their mom involved in any of their butt related illnesses.
On one particular visit, we were about half of the way through our appointment when she whipped out a Cool Whip tub. As it turned out, I had used the bathroom the previous night and it apparently didn’t all go down properly. My mom, without my knowledge, happened to have discovered the remaining sample I had left in the toilet, so she thought it would be a good idea to load that thing up in our poor people tupperware and haul it on into the doctor’s office so that he could look it over.
He had the confused "What am I supposed to do with poop in a Cool Whip tub?" face going for a good five to ten seconds, and then he politely dismissed the offer. Who would have thought that there isn't any medical knowledge to be gained from fishing old poop out of the toilet, refrigerating it overnight, and schlepping it up to an office for a visit.
48. Not-So Secret Santa
My mum has done plenty of embarrassing things over the years, however the thing that immediately jumps out at me the most would have to be what happened to my sister. She had been dating this guy for a year or two on and off. Now, normally his ethnic background would not be important, but for this particular story it is. He’s Black and my family is English, so we’re all pretty much paper white. This was all back when my sister and I were in high school many years ago.
It was Christmas, so he and some family friends were invited over and everything was going great until it the time came for opening gifts. My mum, who thinks she’s hilarious, decided to give my sister (who was still a virgin at the time) a deck of cards filled with “positions to try.” Remember, this was also in front of our close family friends, not just the boyfriend himself.
She was already mortified by that alone, but the worst was still yet to come. Her boyfriend opens up his gift and it has a little card in it, along with a box of glow in the dark condoms. Mum: “Do you like the present? It’s so that she can find you in the dark!” Everyone: ...Laughs nervously, while secretly wondering what on earth just happened...
49. It Was Clearly Past Your Bedtime
After an insanely boring prom, my girlfriend (who is now my wife) and I sneak off to a backwoods riverside park under a bridge and go at it like normal hormone filled teenagers. After a couple of rounds of that, we leave so I can take her back home. On the drive back to my house I am just exhausted.
I end up falling asleep going about 60 mph. Luckily its 3 am and I'm on a empty road that is at the base of an airport runway. I am driving my moms SUV and I drift off the road, down into the drainage ditch, up the steep embankment towards the fence for the runway. The Durango turns just before hitting the fence and screams back down to the drainage ditch and launches airborne flying across the road.
This brings me back to consciousness with like 50,000 volts straight to the heart, so I slam the brakes and the SUV comes to a stop. I get out to assess the damage and somehow there isn't a scratch on the vehicle. I look around and realize I split the difference between a telephone pole and a steel light pole by inches. Then I turned around and my heart nearly stopped.
I had flown across the street and screeched to a halt just inches away from plowing into a row of brand new corvettes. By some miracle they left the gate open and I managed to stop right before doing my best impression of a monster truck. I drive home with the biggest adrenaline rush I have ever experienced in my life, stop to say thanks to the Virgin Mary statue out front of the house and whatever guardian angel had my back that night, and crash out still in my suit. Crazy night.
50. It’s a Long Way From Point A to Point B
This is a story about two of my friends, who we’ll just call Friend A and Friend B. Friend A is a relatively big guy; not big as in fat, but rather big as in athletic and strong. Friend B is the stereotypical quiet, nerdy, and awkward type. We all run and bike together, and we try to drink together every couple of weeks or so.
Unfortunately, Friend A tends to be a serious jerk when he gets drunk. He sort of gets funnier and funnier as he goes along until he reaches his peak, and then he just abruptly nosedives into being a complete jerk. Like really, just a huge jerk. So we were having one of those nights, and Friend A had had a few too many to drink. He started out in sort of a bro frame of mind, where he lightly takes some shots at you as the punchline of a joke and shoves you around playfully.
Now, Friend B didn't grow up around bro-ish types of kids, so he didn't understand that the reaction Friend A was looking for was for him to hit him or shove him back. So, Friend B just kind of slouches down and shies away. Naturally, this causes Friend A to double down on what he had been doing; but still with basically no reaction from Friend B.
Eventually, Friend A is just shoving Friend B against a wall and starts screaming "Come on, man! Just hit me already! HIT ME!!!" In response to this, Friend B went absolutely berserk. He let out an indescribable roar and quickly turned into a whirlwind of bent-wrist punches and slaps. Friend A just kind of stood in place without reacting at all while Friend B went to town on him.
It looked like an angry, screaming wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man versus a boulder. After about a minute, Friend B slowed down and eventually stopped. Friend A just smiled and said "Ayyyy! There ya go!" I thought it was a kind of touching moment to witness. The two of them seemed to definitely have been bonding over this.
I also thought that maybe my quiet Friend B might have learned a little something from the experience about how to relate to different types of people—which could only be a good thing for him, right? Nope. He did not enjoy or understand this incident at all, and he still holds a bit of a grudge about it to this day.
51. Bad Dads 2
My dad, influenced at least in part by the movie Bad Boys II, decided to mess with my boyfriend on my first date by acting like a tough guy. He filled a whiskey bottle with tea and, when he answered the door, he started chugging down the whole thing while scanning my boyfriend up and down. He then tried to break the bottle over his own head. The date was canceled due to the ensuing hospital trip, and I became known as the girl with the totally insane father. "Don't concuss yourself this time, Dad!" became the running joke in my house once I was able to get a date again.
52. Only Love Will Set Him Free
I babysat a little boy who had severe emotional problems. One time, he ran away while I was upstairs playing with his sister. He ran away to the park down the block, climbed a tree, and refused to come down because "no one loved him.” I was young and didn't think about calling the police or anything. I just sat at the bottom of the tree and literally talked him down.
I convinced him that I loved him and wanted him to come home. His siblings also helped me by saying they loved him also. It was so scary.
53. Sweets or No Relief
I was babysitting an eight-year-old who got pissed because I wouldn't let her eat a ton of candy at midnight when she was supposed to be in bed...so she sat on the kitchen floor and urinated.
54. Fake Prop Gun
Reminds me when my school went into lockdown because a student was caught on camera carrying a shotgun. SWAT came in a few hours later and found the student hiding with everyone else, unaware that he was the reason for the lockdown. His shotgun was a photography tripod. We’re a school that specializes in media, known for our animation, photography, and film programs.
55. Nailed It
I was young, and my mom and step-dad took us to McDonald's. Somehow, a nail or something got stuck in the tire and caused a flat. I'm not sure if it happened in the lot or not, but they were convinced it did. They went to talk to the manager. I don't remember exactly what their demands were, but they didn't get them. So they literally went into the street waving people away, saying that they were closed, all because they were mad.
It just seemed like a ridiculously excessive thing to do.
56. Showing Up Empty Handed
I can name lots and lots of things that my parents did to embarrass me as a kid. I was ALWAYS sent to school with no school supplies, no Valentine’s Day cards, no snacks when it was my day to bring snacks for everyone, no birthday cupcakes for the class, no notes saying that I saw the doctor before school started when I came late (for which I was often punished by my teachers, despite not having been the one responsible—as if I could just drive myself to the store at five years old and pick these things up myself!).
57. The Naked Truth
When I was in high school, I babysat an 8-year-old boy and his 5-year-old little sister. As soon as their parents left the house, they thought it was hilarious to get buck naked and jump on the couch, no matter how much I begged them to stop and get dressed. I never told the parents because I didn't know how to bring it up.
58. Too Little to Sit
I had to babysit my brother when I was six years old and barely being able to take care of myself, let alone an infant. I came up pretty poor and my mom struggled to make ends meet. One day, she had an interview and had to leave us (me and my brother who was fou) alone for six hours or so while she left to go to a job interview. Not to mention we were living out of a small motel room.
Anyway, I could handle my brother, so that wasn't too bad, but about 30 minutes later this lady who lived next door to us knocked on the door calling for help. Since I knew her and saw she was in trouble, I opened up the door. She then convinced me to babysit her 3-month-old infant while she did god knows what and darn, I was six, what was I going to say.
The worst part was her leaving me nothing but some half-eaten Chinese food to feed the kid for the day. Hours later, my mom returned home and cursed me out for opening the door and taking the baby, though she knew that I was only trying to be nice. The lady returned late that night, and my mom went crazy on her.
I never found out what happened to them, being that my mom got the job and we moved to an apartment soon after, but I hope that child ended up okay. I still think about it to this day.
59. Hush Candy
In grade school, my teacher had me and two other students stay back during recess so another teacher could come in, drag our desks into the hall, tip them over and rifle through everything. I was so confused as to why this was happening and why that teacher was so maniacal. In the end, we got to put our desks back and my teacher told me that someone stole the other teacher’s candy bars earlier that morning and they thought it was us because she put her bag down in the hall next to us when we were waiting to go to our first class.
Lo and behold, that teacher found her candy bars and “rewarded” each of us with one candy bar. To write this and think back on it, it’s so weird and a bit scarring.
60. Choosing Her Words Wisely
There was a girl who went the entirety of middle school never speaking a single word to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. One day, the class was being rowdy while the teacher was out of the room. All of a sudden, in the raspiest, deepest voice you could ever imagine, this girl just stood up and yelled “SHUT UP!” at the top of her lungs.
We all shut up immediately.
61. Delivery by Airmail
My friend was the quiet kid in my school. In our high school drafting class, back when drafting was done on paper, there was another kid harassing him from across the room. After a while, my friend took his t-square (about two feet long, made of wood, and with sharp edges) and whipped it across the room, hitting his harasser square on the side of the head.
The resulting head wound required several stitches.
62. The Dirty Laundry
I had my first boyfriend in middle school and brought him home one time. At one point, my mom made him bring me my clean laundry—and by that I mean a single pair of pink High School Musical underwear. I cried from embarrassment, but he was actually pretty cool about it and comforted me.
63. Without Even Breaking a Sweat
I believe I was in third grade when this happened. I had two of best friends over at my house for a sleepover, and we were doing something in the living room when it was time for dinner. My dad thought it would be funny to take me into the dining room by picking me up at the feet and carrying me upside down. The only problem was that I was wearing loose sweatpants, and when he lifted me he was grabbing more pant than ankle.
I was in the air for less than a few seconds before I fell out of my pants and landed on the floor bottomless and dazed. And when I say bottomless, I mean out of the sweats, and boxers, and all. I immediately ran away, Porky Pig style, to go and cry in private. My dad came in to try and apologize, but he couldn't stop laughing. At the time, it was the most embarrassed I had ever been. In retrospect, it was hilarious.
64. Still as the Oceans
My sister went to New York for a field trip and the hotel told them not to drink the water. They found out a woman had drowned herself in the water tank. But apparently, it was okay for them to bathe in it?? My sister said the kids were washing themselves and going, "Omg, this is dead woman water!!!!"
65. Thank Goodness for Paul Blart
My dad got escorted out of a mall by security and banned from the entire mall for making a sales assistant cry after shouting at her for about 30 minutes because they wouldn't fix my water-damaged phone. He's a jerk who thinks rules and policies don't apply to him, and that being aggressive and demanding will get him what he wants. I cut off contact with him a few years ago.
66. Don’t Skirt Around the Real Issue Here...
My mum once pulled up my skirt, causing me to involuntarily flash a room full of people, at a family Christmas dinner. I was absolutely mortified. She wanted to check for any potential self-harm scars on my thighs, apparently. I've never physically harmed myself before in my entire life. I was 18 years old at the time, and thankfully I was wearing underwear so it was not as bad as it could have been. Nevertheless, she should not be allowed to consume alcohol ever again…
67. Doggone Anxiety Attack
I was babysitting two kids for the first time. They'd both gone to bed, and I was hanging out on the couch, reading a book. The house was pretty much silent, except for the buzz of the fridge and stuff like that. At the end of the couch is a door that, at this point, I didn't know where it led to, but I presumed it leads outside.
So, I'm sitting there, when all of a sudden, I hear footsteps and heavy breathing right at this door. I immediately freeze, staring at it, wondering if I was nodding off. Nope. Breathing continues. It sounds like a guy with a cold. I can't even move I'm so scared. I hear the footsteps move away, and I try to get up without making a noise.
Of course, the couch creaks and I hear the footsteps run straight back up to the door, the breathing louder and heavier this time. I go straight into the kids' room and call their parents. I'm shaking and nearly in tears. Needless to say, they think it's pretty funny that they forgot to tell me that the door leads to a small room, and their elderly dog was sleeping in there and must have woken up.
It didn't sound like dog steps because it had something wrong with its legs, and ran in these weird little leaps.
68. Mother of All Bystanders
Parents divorced when I was very young. Dealt with abusive stepdad week-on, week-off basis. I fought back a few times when I started getting older, but he was easily 300lbs. At 15, I decided it was his last time. He tackled me and went to get on top and strangle me (his thing for some reason). I hit him, busted his nose. He fell off me.
I got up and broke a dining room chair over his back, threw him down the stairs and left. Never went back to my mom’s house after that night. Screw her, she let it happen. She knew about it. My dad took them to court several times before this event. "Wasn’t enough evidence."
69. The Spanish Inquisition
Spanish teacher gave me zeroes on a bunch of homework that I knew I'd done and turned in like everyone else. My father refused to believe me and punished me in accordance with the rules about my "bad grade." I swore to him that I had turned in the work, so the next morning he went with me to the teacher's "office hours" or whatever you want to call it.
She showed up 30 minutes after the posted start time, so he was already mad because he was missing work. She unlocks the door and proceeds to tell my father that I'm a bad student, didn't do my work, and was disruptive in class. I shove past her into the room, go to her desk, and pull the four missing papers from her "turn it in tray."
My father watches all this, looks at my teacher (who has turned bright red), and tells me to go to class without breaking eye contact with her. She started failing all of my assignments from that point forward until my dad complained to the principal, superintendent, and school board. She retired the next year.
70. The Best Secrets Go Belly-Up
I had to have been pretty little. Five years old tops, probably younger. My dad was at work and my mom was in the kitchen or something. I was supposed to be playing in my room. And I was for a while, but then I decided I would sneak into my parents’ room and jump on their bed. Because jumping on beds is fun and they would never know.
So, I successfully snuck in there, climbed on the bed, was about to jump and have a grand time until I see what’s on their dresser, straight across from me: my goldfish bowl with my clearly dead goldfish floating in it. Cue screaming and crying. The goldfish bowl was normally in the living room, I’m not sure why I didn’t notice it was missing that day.
I wasn’t in the living room much, probably by design. Apparently, when my parents woke up that morning, the goldfish was dead. Knowing I’d be upset, they decided to wait to tell me until my dad was home from work. But they couldn’t leave the dead goldfish where I could see it. They also couldn’t get rid of it because I would probably want to bury it.
So, they put it somewhere I wouldn’t see it. Unless I snuck in their room to jump on the bed. I’d say that plan failed.
71. Still Intact
After a few minutes of arguing with a teacher over homework that wasn’t done, things settled down and everyone went back to their spot until the student proceeded to throw his math book at one of the windows and a whole chunk of glass just fell out, but it didn’t shatter or anything. No one was expecting it and it made the loudest noise.
72. This Time, Mom Is Grounded
When I was a young child on a long-distance flight, my mother let me and my brother sleep on the floor. For safety reasons, the flight attendants told my mother that we were not allowed to sleep on the floor. She started to argue with the flight attendants, who then turned to the pilots. The pilots threatened to turn the plane around unless we got up from the floor.
It didn't even matter. My mother just continued to argue. The pilots then announced that they were about to turn around because of my mother, so all the passengers got pissed at her and basically had a mutiny. Eventually, she caved in when she had all passengers and flight crew on a Boeing 747 against her…
73. Lost My Appetite
I went to a private school during my middle school years. I missed a few days due to illness and when I returned all of my friends explained that I was lucky because while I was gone, our psychotic Bible class decided to show an anti-abortion video from the early 90s. Later that day, I was told to bring my lunch to her room.
Unfortunately, our teacher decided that it was so important for me to see the video that she was going to have me watch the video with her as I ate. It was basically 15 minutes of close-ups of bloody pieces of fetuses being removed and examined. It was incredibly awkward watching such disturbing things while sitting next to my teacher as she munched on a salad. The video had no impact on my opinion of the morality of abortion.
It also didn’t help that our lunch for the day was taco meat.
74. Just a Fly on the Wall
One time, in class, there was a fly in the room that was clearly getting on everyone’s nerves. Out of nowhere, the quiet kid threw his pencil straight up in the air and literally SKEWERED the fly in mid-flight. The pencil then got stuck in the ceiling, with parts of the now deceased fly’s carcass still hanging off of it. It was one of those really weak plaster tile ceilings, so the force of the throw was more than enough to get the pencil lodged pretty solidly into it.
This was the coolest thing I had ever seen, hands down. I wish I could go back in time and record it.
Shutterstock
75. A Familiar Face
A girl showed up at my house one afternoon and gave me a T-shirt with my picture on it. Yes, my picture. Guess she just happened to have an extra lying around!
76. Somewhere That’s Green
I was about 8 or 9 and my parents were going to be out of town, so they had me and my siblings stay with a family from our church. Once we got to the house (which was really nice BTW), they had one rule: you can play wherever you want, but the basement is off limits. Me being the little jerk that I was, snuck down there the first chance I got and was supremely disappointed to only find rows and rows of plants growing under lights.
Wikimedia Commons, Plantlady223
77. That’s What I Call Clean Eating
Back in middle school, we had this really strange gym teacher, about 6'2” tall and ripped. My friend and I were going to take a dump and thought that the locker room toilets would be clean, since no one used them throughout the day. When we walked in, to our left was one big shower room and there was our gym teacher showering while eating spaghetti out of a Tupperware container.
Thank God he was wearing swim trunks, but he turned around and said you guys aren't supposed to be here, so we left.
78. Everyone Has a Breaking Point
Back in eighth grade, we had this really cool and chill US History teacher. He never raised his voice and he was pretty laid back about class and work. He taught in a storytelling kind of manner, and I don't remember ever annotating any document in his class. Well, we had that one kid. In this story, I'm gonna call him "Jim."
Jim was always late to class and never turned stuff in. He was that one really cringey kid that everyone either hated or pitied. My teacher never got really fed up with him, but would always show his distaste for him in his facial expressions. My teacher normally would pull him aside to talk to him about his tardiness or missing assignments. Jim would say he would be earlier/do the assignments, but he of course never did.
One day, Jim walks in late again. My teacher is about to start teaching when he turns and sees Jim walking in. Well, this time, my teacher wasn't so happy about it. It was the middle of the school year, and my teacher must have gotten so fed up with Jim at that point. My teacher yells Jim's name at the top of his lungs.
He normally had a booming voice, but when he yelled it amplified a hundred times over. The ground literally shook when he yelled, and I'm sure they could hear him from downstairs at the other end of the school—our school wasn't that small either. For the rest of the class period—about 30 minutes—it was literally dead silent. Everyone was still kind of shocked from it.
79. A Growing Boy
My mother made it a point of conversation to let all ten moms in her social group know that I was "becoming a man," and each of these calls went on for about an hour and a half because apparently puberty is just that stimulating a conversation for everyone in the neighborhood to take part in.
These phone calls often ended up with a lot of "Such a little man!" comments from these members of the neighborhood. A couple of dads even pulled me aside here and there to congratulate me and let me know that "no one needed to know" anything about my personal physical growth if I didn’t want them to. Yeah right, as if I had something to do with whether people would hear about it or not!
Ugh...
80. Give Her an Inch and She’ll Take a Foot
To preface this, I have to inform you that my mom has always had a way with words, so to speak—as in she doesn't always know what a word means, but still goes on using it anyway. She also mispronounces things quite frequently, sometimes even in pretty comical ways. So I have this crazy, psychotic hatred of feet and have had it as a part of my life for as far back as I can remember. I am not really sure why, but any time that feet are brought up around me, my mom never fails to openly tell whoever she is talking with to change the subject because I have “a foot fetish.”
We have tried many times to explain to her what that actually means, yet she does not seem to get it and continues repeating this ridiculous claim to people that we know. I am now 35 years old, and this thing has been going on for at least 25 years. It is kind of mortifying, to say the least. My two little brothers find it hilarious, and thus I am known among many in my family as "The Foot Lover."
81. Sick of Caring
I used to babysit for a family who had a child with cancer. The siblings, being very young, at points could not understand the urgency of certain situations. Once we were at the community pool and I received a phone call saying that we needed to leave immediately to see the sick child in the hospital (which is obviously worrisome).
Several of the kids refused to get out of the pool. Even when I pointed out that we needed to go see their sister (which usually they get very excited about) they started freaking out. When I finally got down to one kid who would not listen, he glued himself to the ground, screaming that she should just die already so he could continue swimming.
The other siblings frantically tried to get him off the ground, and people were now staring. Being a community pool, everyone knew the family and knew there wasn't much I could do. He was just so hurt. It was a scene. It was heartbreaking to say the least. The kids were not very well-behaved, but there is so much love for this little girl in the family.
It takes such a toll on them to deal with her illness.
82. Take It Down a Peg
In second grade at the end of school one day, a few of us were up getting our backpacks on earlier than the end of day announcement and my teacher—Ms. Grayson from HM Pearson—decides to pull on the back of mine and another kids backpack handle in an attempt to aggressively get us back to our seats, but instead, we tumbled to the ground on our backs.
We both went to the principal after that but nothing ever happened to her.
83. Dethroned
One time, the dorky short pudgy kid at my school was being bullied by the really popular class jock. The dork lost it, rushed the jock, pulled his shirt over his head, and began beating him pretty good right in the stomach—hockey style. The jock actually transferred schools the next year. I’m not sure if it was because of this or what, but he suddenly wasn't so popular anymore after that incident.
84. Snowstorm
I had jokingly called a girl "my special little snowflake" while mildly flirting with her. She had never heard of the label "snowflake" before. The next day, she shows up with a new tattoo of a snowflake and shows it to me.
85. Relocating
Ugh. I knew a mentally ill girl who had a crush on me for a while and did various stalkerish things as a result—including showing up at my work, changing her phone number four times to trick me into answering, and running away from home by hopping on a bus to a city six hours away, then texting me at 3 in the morning that she had changed her mind and needed me to come pick her up and take her home.
At no point did I ever indicate any interest in her whatsoever—on the contrary, I repeatedly told her that we would never be together. Nevertheless, it was all just in one ear and out the other.
86. Santa Is Stuffing Someone Else’s Stocking This Year
I once walked into my dad's van while he was hooking up with a woman who was not my mom. My dad had a drinking problem. Mom took me and my brother to go looking for him because he was supposed to be buying Christmas presents. We found his van at a bar. Mom sent me to look inside the van to see if there were presents in there.
I looked into the back and saw my dad's bare bottom as he was plowing some chick. He turned over his shoulder, looked right at me, and said in the evilest voice, "Get out." This was 20+ years ago now and I still get emotional thinking about it. I still remember the entire thing so clearly.
87. Brother From Another Mother
The other day I was looking for my old passport when I found a few of my Dad's old visitor's passports. Now, my Dad is older than most (he's 70, while I’m a teen), so imagine my surprise when, listed under "children" in the passport, there's the name of a kid born in the 1970s. The best part is that the name isn't on his other passports from later on, so I guess I accidentally found out I have a (dead?) half-brother.
88. Beautifully Gross
We had a kid in elementary school that could puke almost on demand, so one day he decided he wanted to throw up a rainbow. He ate an entire giant-sized bag of Skittles and we spun him around on the metal carousel thing until we saw his expression change. We all ran for cover, and a few seconds later, he did a glorious technicolor yawn that got that "ride" closed down for about a week.
89. Not All Things Should Be Crispy
My dad and uncle tried frying a turkey, very drunkenly. Then they forgot about it. The oil went up in flames and so did the side of my uncle's house.
90. Lost in the Sauce of Dramatics
During a theater trip to Bergen, most of my classmates got hammered, one of them so much that she threw up all over the floor and seats in front of her (and this was a proper, old, fancy theatre). On her way out—nearly passed out drunk—she also threw up in the hall and in two flowerpots. Turned out she had taken some stomach meds, forgotten about them, and then went ballistic on a vodka bottle.
Afterward, we made her a t-shirt with a photo of her drunk at the theatre.
91. An Estimate is Good Enough for a Roll Call
Went to a new school camp which featured a night walk. We got sent out with no map onto a very poorly marked trail. A large gap opened up and one teacher wound up with ~55 of the students panicking around her while the three other adults had about 15 students with them. Eventually, we made it back to camp with the right number of kids. Not sure if they were all the same ones though...
92. When You Gotta Go
No longer a student but when I was a freshman in high school there was this guy I knew since middle school who would always get into trouble. Well, one day he told our math teacher that he needed to go to the restroom. Already familiar with his behavior and using the restroom excuse to ditch class, she refused to let him go.
He insisted that he had to go but she refused yet again. Minutes passed and he told the teacher that if she didn’t let him use the restroom that he was going to pee in the trash can. Trying to call his bluff she told him go for it in the trash can. Some of the students didn’t think he’d do it and egged him on to do it.
He got up from his desk and approached the trash can, which was at the corner right next to the classroom door. He was in the corner for a minute. Then he actually peed in the trash can. The teacher just sat there as it happened nonchalant like. I can’t remember if he left the class after he pulled it off since it was years ago. But yeah, it cracks me up thinking about that moment.
A bonus I should add about the guy. My best friend knew him as well and they were even good friends. He once told me that during our sophomore year the guy got expelled for breaking the door window of the security office. They chased him and caught up to him at a nearby mall.
93. Some Time Apart Is Healthy
I struggled with an enormous amount of guilt for “leaving my siblings behind” for many years. Truth was, they had other family to rely on and everything turned out a-ok for them...at least in regards to dealing with our mother. Some other sad stuff happened, unrelated. After I left, our mother became a slightly better human being to my siblings and never abused them the way she did me.
Other than that, I wouldn’t change a damn thing. It was the BEST decision I’ve made to this day. I’d still go through every single struggle of leaving home at 15.
94. Nobody’s Home
I was babysitting my little sister while my grandparents were out of town (we lived with our grandparents) when we hear my grandparents’ bedroom door open. I grabbed the only weapon I had, a mini Yankees baseball bat, and was just sitting with my sister quietly in my room. We heard someone walk down the hall to the kitchen when I called my uncle to come check on us.
This whole time, I wasn't completely convinced that what I was hearing was real, so ten minutes later he arrives and comes in through our front gate (we had a large outdoor courtyard). He comes and searches the house. We go into our grandparents’ bedroom. Their sliding glass door to the courtyard was open, and the chair in front of it was pushed forward, propping up the blinds.
So, someone had clearly entered the house, but my uncle searched the house, and no one was there. We assumed whoever it was had probably left when he heard someone come, so my uncle left. After that, my sister and I were in the kitchen eating some food when the doorknob to the garage door starts rattling, first softly then harder (the knob was broken and is almost impossible to use).
I grabbed my sister, ran out the front gate, got in my car and left. I have never been so scared in my life.
95. I Feel Like Biology Was Probably Not Her Top Subject Back in High School...
When I was like six I went to my dad’s small town 30-year reunion. His ex-fiancé (not my mom) was dressed in her prom dress. And kept talking to me saying she should have been my mommy. Even then I knew that was weird. Keep your crazy in, lady.
96. You Can't Unread That Note
Students were passing notes in class. This is 8th grade in the US. After about a month they become comfortable and it started to interfere with class, so it got to point where the teacher confiscated one of their notes. The students panicked. And really panicked. He said they apologized and told him to just throw it away.
He said he'll decide later and kept it. He did read it. And a group about eight students—half boys and half girls—would rotate partners for hooking up...but only doing certain things...only because they wanted to keep their virginity. This is their idea. He ended up having a conference with the parents one on one and it was a rough rest of the year.
97. Karma Has No Substitute
Back when I was in high school, I got stalked by a substitute teacher. His eyes lit up when he first saw me. He became the substitute teacher in all of my classes whenever teachers were out, which oddly enough started happening quite frequently. Somehow, he learned my schedule and started to meet me outside of my classroom.
He would show up at lacrosse practice and hide behind trees. He would show up at home and away games. He knew my birthday. I had independent study classes and once he found me in my French class. I was sitting in a window sill in a third-floor classroom and he asked me out on a date. He inched closer waiting for my answer, so I said yes, fearing being pushed out of the window. I started telling my friends, who started to witness his strange behavior.
Finally, on my birthday (a Friday), it was raining, and I was pulling out of my parking spot to take my friend home. Dude appears out of nowhere. Walks around my car twice and knocks on the window and states, "You're a brat. You're nothing but a rich, spoiled brat. You don't even deserve this car." My friend whose name is Van told me then and there that on Monday morning, he would tell the principal if I didn't.
I was terrified. I knew I would have been blamed. My parents were going to think it was my fault. All weekend, I was terrified. Finally, Monday morning comes, and I'm shaken. Over the loudspeaker, as the day's events were being announced, a voice mentioned that the substitute teacher would not be back, as he had a heart attack in church and died right there the day before.
98. Blood Isn’t Everything
My story isn't that uncommon. I have young parents, they were 18 & 19 when I was born. They got married because they got pregnant and got divorced because they got pregnant and married. They just weren't ready and way too young. It sucked. Eventually, my dad left the picture altogether, and my mom remarried. She dated this guy since I was 5 or 6, really young.
They got married when I was 9. He raised me. He's my "true" dad. This seems to be rather common among people my age (23, almost 24). Then my mom and stepdad got divorced when I was 18. It was awful. Much worse on me than my biological parents' divorce. I was so young when they got divorced (2 years old) and then I gained another "dad" pretty soon afterward—my stepdad.
When my mom told me that they were getting divorced, I was terrified. I'm an only child, I live in a relatively small town, and this all happened at the beginning of my senior year in high school. I didn't know who would move out and where I would end up. They would fight all the time. For some reason, they'd wait until I went to bed and then start screaming at each other. I remember one night I heard something like this:
Stepdad: "Get your stuff and leave."
Mom: "But where am I supposed to go? What about my daughter?"
Stepdad: "I don't give a DARN where you go, but OUR daughter is staying right here at home. With me."
At first, I was a little pissed that he thought he could make that decision for me, but after I thought about it for a bit, I realized the gravity of that sentence. It was the first time I had heard him refer to me as his daughter. I still call him by his first name. Old habits die hard, I guess. And really...the main cause of tension between them was money related.
He knew that and knew he'd be able to provide for me better than her. My mom is the most irresponsible person I’ve ever met when it comes to money. She got my first car repossessed (I was "paying" for it. As in, I'd give her the money and assume she was making the payments. Nope. Pocketing that stuff. She also wrote thousands of dollars’ worth of hot checks to my place of employment, using my employee discount and my checks!
I was a minor, so she legally had to be on my bank account. I barely got away with keeping my job. There’s more, but that's a different story for a different time. Long story short: my mom and I didn't have the best relationship anyway. Months later, my mom was making plans to move in with my grandma in the neighboring "city" and was going to uproot me and transfer me to a new bigger school.
During Christmas break of my senior year...ugh. I told her that I wanted to stay with my now ex-stepdad. She didn't know I had heard what he said that one night. She couldn't believe I was choosing him over her. Also, when I was 19, I still didn't have a car and my boyfriend at the time was driving me around everywhere...and his grandma had an old 1991 Cadillac DeVille she wanted to sell.
So, my ex-step-dad gave me $2,000 cash and told me to go pick it up. He just gave it to me. No questions asked, no expectation of payback. I still live with him rent-free, as long as I keep a job and stay in school and pay my own bills: new car payment (the Cadillac was awesome but just not cut out for driving all over the place in super-hot summers and a few pretty brutal winters.)
Car insurance, cell phone, etc. I think this has helped me be more responsible with money (definitely something I wouldn't have learned with my mom) Anything I want I have to pay for myself, but I don't have to pay for a roof over my head or a bed to sleep in or a shower to use. All because a man who had no legal or genetic responsibility to me took me in anyway, and fought to keep me when my mom left.
I get to experience his generosity every day, and I'm grateful for having him in my life every day. My ex-stepdad is the greatest man alive. Be jealous.
99. From Playdate to Child Abduction
It was a very long time ago—back in 1973. I know that it was summer, I was six, and we were living on Monica Lane in Madison, Wisconsin. Thing is, I sort of recalled it but never put two-and-two together until a few months ago when I was talking to my mom who went into great detail.
I was a very gregarious child; outgoing, extroverted, friends with anyone. It was at the time a middle-class neighborhood, and three houses down from ours, on the same side of the street, was a huge park. My mom was a nurse and my dad was a salesman, but mom worked 2nd shift at Merriter, while my dad worked days. I rarely had a babysitter, only if they went out for dinner or a movie. But they did go out often and there were always older kids in the neighborhood to babysit.
One sitter who I really liked lived a few blocks or so away, and down the street a little bit. Vicky had babysat a few times before that and it was pretty uneventful. She'd play games with me, and do my hair, play dress-up, pretty basic stuff. So anyhow, one day I had gone with friends down to the park. I remember there was a ball field at the time, and a sandlot next to the field. My friends wanted to play on the monkey bars, but I wanted to play in the sand. I looked at the sandbox and my babysitter Vicky was standing there. I told my friends I was going down to the sandbox and ran off.
We played in the sand, building a castle, and then she asked me if I wanted to go get something cold to drink. It was stifling hot, and I, of course, said yes. So she takes my hand and we start walking to her place. She starts telling me about her puppies and asking if I want to play with them. Of course, I get giddy and now can't wait to get to her house. This was where my memory had stopped and after my mom told me what happened, the rest of it flooded back.
My mother just happened to be talking to my sister and I about some of the places we lived, and we got to Monica Lane. I told her I remembered the park and how big it seemed, and she asks me if I remember being kidnapped. I immediately thought she was kidding and then the look on her face told me otherwise. She said it was around five in the afternoon and one of my friends had come to the door to ask me to come back outside, sure that I had gotten bored and walked back home. When my mom checked the house, she realized I wasn't there and (seven months pregnant with my sister) sprints to the park, screaming my name.
After asking several kids if they'd seen me with no clue, she went to the ball field and asked the older boys if they'd seen me. One of the boys (she guessed around 14) said that he'd seen a younger woman playing with a girl that fit my description in the sand and walk off in a general direction and that was all he knew.
My mom ran across the street to one of the houses and asked to use their phone and called the police. By the time the police got there, my dad had come home and some of the neighbors were trying to help my mom. So there's this search party out looking for me, screaming my name and knocking on doors. The police had gone back to the park to ask the boys if they knew who had been with me and if they knew who she was.
Between the boys and the neighbors, they had deduced who it was that had led me off, but I have no idea how, honestly. The police and the entourage go to her home (she lived with her parents but they weren't home) and knock on the door. She came to the door and told them she hadn't seen me, and that she'd been home all day.
The police asked to come in and for some reason, she said okay. They went through the house and went to the basement and found me. That's what my mom knew and then I remembered. It was literally like a flood gate had opened and I started crying. At six, you sort of trust everyone, and she'd been in our home. I never got a bad feeling from her and my parents didn't, either. But when we walked into her house I remember that cold, holy feeling washing over me and getting very worried. I remember starting to cry and saying I wanted to go home, over and over.
She takes me into her kitchen and gets me a glass of water and a tissue. I hear dogs barking, and next to the kitchen is an open stairway that goes down and where the barking was coming from. She starts trying to cajole me into going downstairs—telling me there's all sorts of toys and games. I reluctantly agree, and she grabs my hand to head down the stairs. The dogs are going nuttier and I start screaming.
At this point, Vicky is getting bizarre. She's screaming at me to "SHUT UP!! IF YOU DONT SHUT UP I WILL THROW YOU IN THE CAGE WITH THE DOGS AND THEY WILL EAT YOU!! SHUT UP!!" Dragging me down the stairs and still screaming. I was scared out of my mind. I remember crying so hard I was hyperventilating, and I am screaming so hard I'm not making sounds. Vicky then flips a switch and starts being syrupy sweet, trying to calm me down. She tells me that she was just playing a game and tells me she wants to play hide and seek.
She must have been relatively skilled at calming me down because the next thing I know, I hear knocking on the door upstairs and I wasn't crying. The houses were all the same sort of tract houses that Sears used to sell, not huge but not small, but you could hear everything at any spot in the house. I keep hearing the knocking and she tells me that it's her friends. They're coming to play hide and seek!!! She convinced me to let her put a piece of masking tape over my mouth, so I wouldn't make a sound, and lifted me into this big wooden box next to the kennel. She put a big pile of blankets over me and told me to be really quiet, so they didn't find me.
The whole time the dogs were going crazy but when she calmed me down, they calmed down, too. They still looked incredibly mean, but they were no longer frothing at the mouth, and only slightly growling. Until the knocking started. I remember scrunching in there, confused. Still scared and convinced that the dogs were going to get out and eat me. I was crying again and hyperventilating. I remember taking the tape off my mouth because I couldn't breathe, but remembered I needed to be quiet because I was afraid of what she'd do if I screamed.
I laid in that smelly box next to a big bag of dog food, sweating to hell, tears rolling down my face. I sort of pushed the blankets to the side but only enough so that I could pull them back over me when someone came. I recall thinking about my dad and wondering if he'd come find me. All of a sudden, I hear what sounds like adults yelling my name. They come down the stairs and the dogs are going crazy again. Over and over men are yelling my name and then I hear a man say, "If you don't shut those dogs up I will!!"
I was in a large storage box (like a carpenter’s toolbox type of thing) with tape hanging off my mouth when they opened the lid. I remember a very nice man asking me my name and if I was okay. I don't remember answering him in anything other than screams and tears and grabbing his neck so hard my dad had to practically pry me off of him.
I remember my parents taking me to the hospital to be checked out and that's all I really remember. Mom said that Vicky was found guilty of attempted kidnapping, and last she knew was in prison but couldn't remember when the last time was she had heard anything. We moved from the area shortly thereafter, and I haven't been back since.
I do know that mom said that her parents were odd but that they didn't know them. She had met Vicky from neighbors that had used her as a babysitter and had never heard of anything bad and that I always seemed happy with her. She lived in the general neighborhood, but it would have been two blocks over and one block down. Mom said they never picked her up, she always walked over. When they'd get home, they'd drive her home but never noticed anything out of the ordinary.
Mom and dad had only met her parents when they came to the door to ask for forgiveness; that Vicky hadn't meant to do anything bad, and was a good girl. Mom said my dad picked up her dad by the shirt and told him that if they ever came on our property again, he'd kill them. I remember her name and sort of what she looked like, but would have no idea if she walked up to me who she is.
100. Thanks for Sticking Around
At first, I thought I’d found my dad's will. I was on his computer while he was at work and ended up finding a strangely titled word document. At first, it didn't seem like a big deal. It contained a note to each of his kids. It wasn't until I got to the last one, my youngest brother, that I realized it wasn't just a will. The start of that line read something along the lines of "If anything is going to make me change my mind now, it's writing this part.”
That’s when I realized I had found my dad's suicide note. I was about 14 or 15 at the time, and I had no idea how to go about talking to him about it. I decided to just keep it to myself. He started buying us gifts and stuff, and I would get really scared and I still just kept it to myself. I remember one day, on the weekend, I woke up in my bed to a loud bang coming from my dad's room.
I laid there in bed for probably half an hour frozen. Once I worked up the strength I went to his room and opened the door. He wasn't in the bedroom. I was so confused until I saw that the bedroom window was open. What had happened is that there was a gust and the wind had slammed the door shut, but my paranoid brain had heard a gunshot.
After that, I was laughing hysterically, and I don't have much memory of the day past that. Shortly after this incident, my dad returned most of the gifts he bought us kids and I slowly started to believe that he had changed his mind. I never confronted him about it until last year, about 14 years or so later. I had never fully accepted that he was okay now.
I called him distraught about a separate matter, and he started talking to me about depression. He told me on his own about he had considered taking his life, and went into detail about it, and all I could do was cry and tell him "I know." We talked a lot longer after that and we were finally able to put it all to rest.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
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