“Well THAT Backfired”: Cringeworthy Moments
What's that old saying about the best-laid plans? Sometimes you have the noblest intentions for something, only to watch it completely blow up in your face. These Redditors have channeled their regret and frustration and found the strength to share those cringeworthy moments when something totally backfired on them—and some of them are truly unbelievable.
1. Brit in Disguise
I am a pizza delivery driver and I get bored a lot. Sometimes when I'm doing deliveries I like to play this game with myself where I talk in a British accent. So I go up to this house and this super hot girl answers the door. I start talking in my best British accent and she freaks out and starts making conversation. My stomach drops. Turns out she's British, too, and she asks me where in England I’m from.
The only place I knew in England was London, but I got caught off guard by her question and panicked, so I said Camelot. She looked at me very weird and told me I wasn't British. When I told her about my "game" she looked disgusted. But that wasn't the worst part. The entire time, she had my tip in her hand; but when she gave it to me, she pulled out a couple of bucks.
2. The Worst Regret
I was in an extremely weird and once-in-a-lifetime kind of car accident where I was supposed to be not at fault. I really don't want to go into detail, but another car hit me going twice the speed limit, sending us both rolling down into a ditch.
I got out through the windshield since it was shattered and was able to cut the airbag.
The other car was in much worse shape and was on fire. I ran up to see if the driver was okay, and my blood ran cold. She was falling in and out of consciousness. Her car was upside down and the roof was caved in pressing her into the seat.
The seatbelt was tight around her and her airbag wasn't deflating. I struggled with the door and was able to get her out as the fire spread onto her.
I remember passing out a little after I was able to put out the fire on her legs. I woke up in the ambulance with a broken leg and a concussion. The EMTs said I was only able to save her because of all the adrenaline coursing through my system. The authorities that wrote the report found her at fault and said I was a hero, but no good deed goes unpunished.
She had first degree burns on her legs and face and had super cheap insurance.
She ended up suing me and dragging me into a four-year legal process that not only cost my insurance thousands but had me spending money on legal fees and lost wages from constantly having to go to court.
It was finally settled because somehow all she needed was to prove I was at least 1% at fault and my insurance folded.
She was awarded my full liability ($200,000.00) plus $25,000 that I'm on the hook for personally. I was barely able to get my totaled car paid off and whatever was left in my pocket for a new car had to go directly to her.
It's been six years since the accident and I still owe about $12,000 but I’m trying to avoid paying that.
The last time I talked to my attorney after she was awarded damages he said something that I’ll always think back on and wish I could have changed my actions.
He said if he was in my shoes and knew the outcome he would have left her in there to burn.
3. A Warm, Wet Lesson
When I was a kid I took swimming lessons. One day after lessons were done and we went to the locker rooms to change there were some clothes sitting on top of one of the sinks.
Me, wanting to show off, decided to push the clothes into the sink and turned on the faucet and soaked the clothes completely. We all had a great laugh.
So I got to my locker to get my clothes and made a horrifying realization. My clothes weren’t in my locker. And then realized that the balled-up pile I clothes I failed to recognize that was now soaking in the sink were actually my clothes. I sat in my wet swimsuit until the locker room was empty and until my dad finally came in and I lied and said someone soaked my clothes.
He went up to the counter and grumped at the workers until they gave him some clothing from the lost and found bin.
They included ugly sweats that were so big they went above my head, and I embarrassingly walked through the center and parking lot humiliated by my own actions. I’ve never told my parents who really soaked the clothes.
But it was an excellent lesson for me to learn not to be a jerk and to know exactly what it feels like to be bullied, as I 100% took the brunt of my childhood jerkiness.
4. A Gift Gone Wrong
I was on a charity project in Ghana. There was a kid who I had become very fond of, so I gave her a toy that she had really liked. But that's where it all took a dark turn. I then noticed her very bruised back the next day at school, and she wouldn’t tell me why she was so badly hurt. I soon figured it out, though. Her mom brought the toy back that afternoon and apologized for her daughter "stealing" it.
She promised that the little girl would think again before stealing in future. I tried to explain, but the mother didn’t believe me. She thought I was just covering for the little girl, who was about six.
