Some days we just can’t get anything right. Whether it's pouring orange juice into our cereal, or saying “You too!” after our server tells us to enjoy our food, the only thing to do is cringe. The important thing is to laugh, and bury our embarrassment and shame deep down where it belongs. The only real comfort we have is knowing that there are countless others making mistakes around the world.
So let’s boost our self-esteem and amuse ourselves with the brain farts of these poor souls who messed up in the best way.
1. Clearly Unattached
I have a really bad habit of typing an email and including, “please see attached” before actually adding the attachment. I’ve sent a lot of emails like this, usually noticing right away, and re-sending. I was emailing a resume once, and said, “please see attached resume” and of course didn’t send it. They told me as much in their next email.
I responded with something like, “Sorry for the inconvenience, I should have looked more carefully before sending that email. Please see attached resume.” I didn’t attach the resume. I didn’t get the job.
2. Double Double
I picked up coffee before I remembered that I was on my way to meet someone for coffee. Not sure how that happens, maybe I’m too good at spending money subconsciously...
3. A Lovely Teacher
A teacher whose name I don't even know at my son's daycare said, "Bye, love you too," after I told my son, "Love you buddy, have a good day," on my way out. I'm pretty sure she had a morning full of cringe.
4. Uno, Dos... Oops
In college I was applying for a co-op internship at some big corporate company. Of course, like all applicants, I wanted to make myself sound as appealing as possible. I decided to change “Familiar with basic Spanish” to “Proficient Spanish Speaker” on my resume. The job didn’t have anything to do with speaking Spanish as far as I knew, so I figured it was a harmless fudge and they’d never find out the extent of my Spanish knowledge was the three years I’d taken in high school.
Well, I get to the interview. Everything starts out seemingly going well. Until she says, “Oh, you speak Spanish! That’s great!” She said, “We’ve been hoping to find someone to help in our South American division. Let me grab my colleague.” Before I could respond she leaves the room and quickly returns with a woman who is clearly of Latin descent. The original interviewer says to her “This is him; he says he speaks Spanish well.” I’m sweating at this point.
The Latina lady looks at me and immediately starts going off in full-speed Spanish. I could tell she was asking me questions, but have almost no idea what she’s saying. I tried desperately to remember anything left in my brain from high school, but think I just stammered, “Si” a bunch of times while smiling and nodding like an idiot. Eventually, I just said, “Sorry I’m a little rusty, it’s been a while.” She just gave me an annoyed look and left the room.
Needless to say, the rest of the interview was pretty awkward.
A decade later and that remains the only job interview in my life that I didn’t get an offer from.
Valuable LPT learned that day: Don’t put anything on your resume you’re not prepared to potentially get called out on.
5. Like a Fine Wine
I got halfway through a Clif Bar before I realized it expired in 2018. My stomach is making interesting noises.
6. Float Like a Butterfly...
Found a beehive in the wall of my house. I thought it was a good idea to try a DIY extermination. Big. Mistake. Sprayed bee killer into the hole. They attacked... I screamed and fell over a folding table by the couch. Luckily, only stung three times. Once on my neck and twice in my arm. I learned it’s not a good idea to spray bee killer inside the house because they only have one way to go.
7. What We do for Our Children
I had to take my son to the pediatrician in my pajamas because I forgot about the appointment. Luckily my phone reminded me and I wound up late, but I made it. He peed through his clothes and I didn't have any spare. Woo!
8. The Silence of the Salsa
Instead of flicking it in reverse, I drove my forklift forward into an unsuspecting palette of Mild El Paso Salsa. With all the glass and chunks of tomato, a small section of the warehouse now looks like a low budget horror scene.
9. Went to Pump, Got Deflated
It was a rough day at the gym. I did incline bench and gambled on doing an extra rep, didn't get it and had to put the bar down towards my crotch and roll it down my thighs, and then put it on the floor. The next set the same thing happened, much to the amusement of the other guys in the gym. After that I did some dips, and I bent over to get something in my gym bag.
When I straightened up again, I hit my head on the handles so hard that I was legit bamboozled for like 30 seconds.
10. Doesn’t Matter, Saw Birds
I was out of town in Pittsburgh and we were supposed to leave today at 8:40 am (when our bus left). I let myself be talked into not going an hour early, and lost track of time a little. When I went to call the Uber, because of rush hour and the distance to drive, we would arrive after the bus left. Safe to say we missed it. So, I had to pay $60 to change it to a later time.
Not only that but I had to call off work so there goes a full day’s pay. Wasn't all that bad though, we went to the national aviary (another $80 down the hole) and saw some cool birds. But I'm still pretty salty, mostly at myself.
11. Shred the Evidence
I pulled what I thought was my expired credit card out of my pocket, and ran it through the shredder at work. It wasn’t my credit card. It was my government ID card, which I also need to log onto my work computer.
12. Oh, Honey
Told my husband he has been drinking too much and he’s starting to look like Winnie the Pooh. I am in a ton of trouble. I apologized genuinely and profusely but he doesn’t seem to be defrosting.
13. Third Time’s the Charm
I’m a stay at home mom, and I made three cups of coffee this morning. I did not drink them, I only know I made three because I have three half-drunk cups of coffee on my bedside table. I kept making a cup, setting it down, forgetting I had made a cup, making another cup, and repeating.
14. Crossed Wires
I was BBQing, not paying attention. Had a glove on my right hand that's oven safe. Someone handed me a beer and proceeded to talk to me. I took the drink with my right (gloved) hand. I then opened the BBQ and grabbed the top grill with my left (unprotected) hand to adjust it, pulled it halfway out before the heat registered.
Once it did the realization was pretty instant.
The blisters were bad for over a week.
15. Scrambled, Sunny-Side Up, Or Explosive?
Just this morning I heard a weird pop in the kitchen. Had a moment of total confusion, and then remembered that I had started hard boiling some eggs more than 45 mins ago. The pop was a hard-boiled egg exploding. Nailed it.
16. Don Mama
I was coming home at four in the morning even though I have a 7:00 AM class and the lights in the living room are on. I walk in and see my mom sitting at the sofa like a mafia boss. Busted.
17. Lost and Found
I was at a holiday party at a friend’s house I had never been to, in a swanky neighborhood I was unfamiliar with. There were completely illegible house numbers plastered somewhere illogical. I parked on the street and had to walk through those newer construction townhomes with ridiculously long staircases and two-inch tall house numbers.
Heard a party going on and thought, "Welp, this has to be them, who else would be having a party with this many people over?" I Waltz right in, say hi to the dog, start chatting with various people, grab a drink and start thinking, “Hmm. I should recognize at least three people here. I wonder where they are?” Then it hit me. I was not at the right house.
The hosts were super cool about it, knew my friends and pointed me in the direction of their actual house. Met up with my friends and regaled them with this story of confusion. It was wildly embarrassing, but swiftly forgotten after a few drinks.
18. Hey Tough Guy...
Was at a bar, chatting with some friends. My girlfriend was across the room sitting with some other friends. Some tipsy dude showed up and started getting handsy with her. I jumped up, pushed him away and yelled "back off." When he turned around, I realized the terrifying truth. He was like twice my size and not in the fat way, in the tall and muscular way.
I mean I did the right thing, but if the bartender hadn't leapt over the bar and jumped in between us immediately that guy would have wiped the freaking floor with me. The moment the dude turned around I thought "Geez, this is gonna hurt."
19. The No Pants Dance
I invited this guy over to my place for dinner after we'd been casually seeing each other for three weeks or so. Things were going pretty well - we were chatting, getting along like a house on fire, and he was helping me cook dinner—when I started to feel extremely intestinally unwell. I've always been kind of a private pooper, and I could tell that this one wasn't going to be fun, so I asked him if he'd pop down to the shop at the end of the road to grab a bottle of vino for dinner.
He agreed, and toddled off down the street, and as soon as he was gone, I raced to the bathroom and relieved myself with something roughly akin to the force of a... well, you can use your imagination. I took a minute to catch my breath, reached over to the toilet roll holder, and came back empty. Well, darn. No matter. I had a full nine-pack of toilet paper in the back room - I didn't have space to keep it in my tiny bathroom; it was a very small apartment, so I usually just grabbed a roll or two - and he'd only just gone.
I had plenty of time. Cut to me, thirty seconds later, pants around my ankles and my poop-caked bunghole shimmying my way down the central hallway of my flat when I hear a still, small voice from behind me.
"Erm... what are you doing?"
Turns out he'd managed to get to the shop and back in record time, and was sitting on my couch in my living room with a perfect, perfect view of my little fecal burlesque. I was framed in the doorway like an unholy Renaissance painting. It was as though I was presenting myself to him in the worst possible, “You like?” come-on in the history of dating.
It's very difficult to have a civilized dinner after that.
20. Forgetting Something, Soldier?
Going on a long hike while in the Marines. Realized I messed up when I saw my First Sergeant with two rifles, and me just recognizing I don't know where mine is.
Copious amounts of yelling were had. Since I didn’t want to carry my rifle, my command figured I didn’t have to carry any of my other gear either. I had to divvy up my pack among my squad mates and I rode in the truck the whole way back, “so I didn’t hurt my precious feet” (or something like that). My fellow Marines sorted me out real quick. I felt like the ultimate moron. Being stuck on duty in my service uniform for the next 24 hours yelling my general orders didn’t help.
21. Giving a New Meaning to Wet Dreams
Not really one singular moment, but it happens from time to time that I wake up in the middle of the night. My brain doesn't quite realize that it's not yet time to get up, so I autopilot into the shower. It’s always quite the "aw no not again" moment once I wake up properly in the shower
22. Liquid Courage
I was at work when my crush (and supervisor, yep great situation) calls me into the office and asks me why I called her the night before. My heart sank. I got wildly hammerered that night and honestly could not remember a thing. She also informed me that several minutes into the conversation/monologue she handed the phone over to her mother. I still pulled a blank, in fact I was so convinced that nothing happened I was sure she was winding me up. If anything like that had happened after all why was she still even talking to me let alone letting me continue to work with her. She insisted that I called and I refused to believe her.
It was not until late January when I received my detailed mobile phone bill that showed a 48-minute phone call to her number late on December 31 that I finally had to believe her. The difficult part was facing her mother after my boss and I became an item. We are now very happily married but even now my MIL still cracks jokes about me over that phone call. My wife however is very happy.
23. Save Some Cringe for the Rest of Us
A female friend of mine – to whom I was admittedly attracted – had been expressing her reservations about an upcoming vacation with her family. Though it wasn't being overtly presented as such, the trip was meant as a way of re-solidifying her parents' marriage, which had been a touch rocky at the time. They would all be driving from San Francisco to a small town in Northern California, where they'd stay at a bed-and-breakfast inn for a weekend before continuing northward for some unknown destination.
In keeping with the alleged purpose of this so-called vacation, two rooms had been booked at the inn in question. To her dismay, though, my friend discovered that her mother would be occupying one room, her father would have the other, and that she and her sister would each have to bunk with one of their parents. This was worthy of lament on its own, but it was made unforgivably worse by the verbal diarrhea that I offered in an attempt at providing comfort:
"Aw, it won't be so bad!" I told my friend. "Your father will probably enjoy sleeping with you."
A moment passed before I realized what I had said. Then, with a feeling of growing horror, I tried to explain myself. Yeah, things only got worse from there. "Wait, I didn't mean it like that!" I hurriedly said. "I mean, like, he's probably sick of sleeping with your mom. No, wait, I mean... I just mean that he wants to spend some quality time with his daughter." If I had stopped there, I might have been able to salvage the situation, but as it happened, I decided that the best course of action would be to keep talking. "I can't say that I blame him, really. I'd love to sleep with you."
She and I don't talk much these days.
24. Nodding Off-Road
Woke up in a small ditch on the side of a road. I hadn't slept and was making a long trip by myself, thinking it was fine. I ended up nodding off at the wheel and woke up in a small ditch my car had gotten into. Luckily, it was a small highway that was empty so there wasn't anyone near me when I fell asleep. My car was also okay, as was I, but this whole thing could have ended very badly.
People please avoid driving when you're really tired. It's so dangerous, on par with driving intoxicated in my opinion.
25. Someone’s Ears are Burning
Texted my friend to complain about someone.
Sent the text to the person I complained about instead.
It was awkward.
26. Leaking Havoc
Work at a dubbing studio. Took a pic of a Voltron episode. Turns out it was unreleased worldwide and they caught me. When I got into work and someone says "You got a Reddit account?" My heart sank. I didn't leak or spoil anything but it was a big deal and could've lost a major player in the dubbing arena (DreamWorks)... I still get anxiety when I think about it.
27. Manual Labor
I clogged the toilet at my boyfriend's house. I was dog sick with a stomach bug and he was at work. The plunger was no help at all and there was no way a plumber could get there before he got home. I was in an absolute panic. There was no way I was letting him see what I did in that toilet. It was the stuff of nightmares. I would have to move and change my name out of embarrassment had he borne witness to what my body produced in that bathroom.
I had no choice: it was this or nothing. I had to unclog it manually. It was not pretty. I will never speak aloud of the things I did that day to keep my boyfriend from seeing my poop.
28. No Kids Allowed
My place of work has a 21 and over policy after nine pm, and a group of people walked in and I immediately assumed they walked in with their child because I couldn’t see her over the counter. So I said, “hey guys I’m sorry but we’re 21 and over right now.” Turns out she had dwarfism. Oh my lord. I tried to save myself by apologizing and telling them they all looked young despite obviously referring to her earlier. MORTIFIED.
29. Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Driving hard in the mountains, near the mid-point of my turn in, there was a rock about the size of a smaller medicine ball. Got it passed my front tires but it hit my rear right. Blew the tire. Mountain on one side, cliff on the other. Got the car into the ditch on the mountain side, blew the front right tire. No cell reception, no idea where the next town is. Done did messed up. Everything was ok but the tires at least.
30. Good Luck Explaining This One
Connected my phone to the car Bluetooth to play music during a road trip with four of my friends. For whatever reason, as soon as the Bluetooth connected, it immediately played the last video viewed on my phone. This was not good. It was an adult video. Yup, still haven't been allowed to live that one down.
31. Freshly Squeezed
My parents buy those cheap from concentrate jugs of orange juice, the ones that come in the same jugs as milk. I had a very interesting cup of tea today.
32. One Giant Leap
I wanted to cross a small bush fence. Instead of going through the open part of the bush, I decided to stretch my legs to cross. When my first leg made contact with the floor, I slipped on some water, and my out-stretched leg violently turns and my kneecap dislocates from its place. And now I'm an idiot falling in what feels like slow motion, with a dislocated kneecap in my stretched leg, a bush in between my legs, and another leg still on the other side.
33. A Long Way Down
I was on a Free Climb that was beyond my ability. I was only bouldering but I got up a wall about 30 feet and ran out of holds. There was nowhere to go but down. I was stuck and starting to get fatigue shakes. I ended up sliding about eight feet down and caught a ledge. If I missed, I would have landed in a rock pile. I would have been broken or worse.
34. Nice Save
One time I went to send my buddy a picture of this girl I matched with on a dating app. Derp no. I accidentally sent it to her instead. Talk about freaking panic mode. Felt like the biggest creepy tool ever. My saving grace was that the picture wasn’t just of her, and had some of her friends in it. So, when she texted “why did you send me this?” I responded with “Who is the girl to your left? She looks super familiar. What’s her name?” even though I had never seen her in my life. My buddy still rips me to this day about it.
35. This Thing is Waterproof, Right?
Turned on the bathtub only to realize the water was set to the showerhead aimed at my mother’s Mac book. Entire thing got sprayed down for a solid 10 seconds at full blast, remarkably it still worked after and she doesn't know it happened.
36. As if it Couldn’t Get Any Worse
I locked my keys in my car, then called a tow truck and gave him the wrong address (I’m an evacuee staying at an Airbnb). If you don’t think I’m winning at life, it gets worse: I then crushed my hand in a door, which in turn crushed my wedding ring which had to be cut off by a jeweller.
37. The Mail Never Stops
I’m a mail carrier. When a house doesn’t have mail, you have an inherent urge to deliver mail to them. If they have a mail slot, you then realize you delivered their neighbor’s mail to them as soon as it drops through the slot and you can’t pull it back out.
38. A Clean Misunderstanding
A couple was looking for a new apartment and the next-door neighboring apartment had a 6:00 PM open house. They were looking for the manager's office, and I directed them to the apartment across from mine, not knowing that was the apartment complex's laundry room. It was the apartment building adjacent to mine that had the open house. I was going to apologize to the couple who thanked me, after telling them where the wrong apartment was. But I couldn't find them and they probably didn't want a doofus as a neighbor. Still thinking about it.
39. When Trees Attack
I was cutting down a tree in the backyard. Not a huge one. It had about an eight-inch trunk and was about 20 feet high. It looked like it was leaning the right way and I notched it so that it would fall into the big open space in the yard. But when the cut got deep enough, the tree began to lurch toward the fence instead.
I thought I could maybe give it a little push to nudge it in the right direction, but the harder I pushed, the more it leaned the wrong way. Eventually, I was the only thing keeping the tree from crashing down, but I couldn't let go without it crashing down on me. It eventually did crash down on me, knocking me out. I was able to crawl out from under it eventually and treat my wounds.
I left it to the next day to retrieve the tree from the neighbor's yard and fix the fence.
40. Chemical Combat
I was doing laundry and noticed our washer had a bit of funky smell to it, so I looked up some home remedies online that involved baking soda and vinegar. While I was standing at the washer I thought, "A cup of bleach wouldn't hurt." As soon as I threw it in and started the washer, my brain went "HEY! YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T JUST BE MIXING CHEMICALS ALL WILLY NILLY!" So I pulled out my phone and googled “vinegar + bleach.” I almost cried when I read the result.
“Vinegar + bleach = Toxic Chlorine Gas”
I proceeded to panic and scream for everyone to get the heck out of the house.
Be careful with chemicals people.
41. This isn’t the BBQ You’re Looking for
I invited a friend over for a BBQ. He didn’t know anyone and has never been to my house but seemed really eager to go. So, I was a little irritated that he was almost two hours late. I was just about to text him when I happened to look over my neighbor’s fence. My jaw hit the floor. The neighbor was also having a BBQ. It was like it happened in slow motion. I saw my friend in the neighbor’s yard chatting up some old lady. Our eyes locked. I saw the realization literally hit his face.
I still laugh about it. I swear the guy turned white!
42. Little Troublemaker
I'm a high school teacher, and this one student in my class is notorious for being a little troublemaker, to the point that no one in the class thinks he's funny. I had my back turned and was trying to help a student when the delinquent asks to use the restroom. Problem is, he already went 30 minutes ago near the beginning of class, and passing period is about five minutes away, so I said “no” and to wait until passing period.
He then repeats: "Mr. can I use the restroom, Mr. can I use the restroom." Over and over again, this kid is 16 years old...not a little kid, bigger than me in fact. The other students are telling him to shut up, and he keeps going.
Finally, I turn around and snap at him, "Shut up you little jerk!" He had his phone out and was recording me the whole time.
"Ha! I'm sending this to my mom!"
I messed up.
Then I get an email from his mom later in the day, "He is a little jerk, isn't he? My apologies."
Sources: Reddit,
