Step into a world where reality blurs with the extraordinary, where the line between truth and fiction becomes tantalizingly thin. In these extraordinary stories, we dive into the unbelievable but true anecdotes that have left people shaking their heads in disbelief. They are so bizarre and peculiar that they stretch the limits of credulity. Brace yourself as we embark on a journey through the unexplainable, the absurd, and the astonishing.
1. Up-And-Coming Bands Are The Best
I was 21, studying in London, and happened to notice Megadeth was playing that night, so I grabbed the tube and headed to Camden to find tickets. On the way there, while riding the train, I noticed a girl wearing a Megadeth hoodie so I approached her to ask if she knew whether tickets would be available at the venue. She said the show was sold out. A guy overheard this conversation, confirmed there were no more tickets, and asked me if I wanted to go, to which I enthusiastically replied yes...I had no idea who I was talking to.
He said, "We're opening for them. Here if you buy our CD for £10 I'll get you on the list". It was a Diamond Head tour member—he said he was their guitarist but I'm not sure I believe that. Because and at this point, Diamond Head wasn't a band I followed. Long story short, this is how I ended up seeing an awesome show with Diamond Head opening for Megadeth that night and having a long conversation with Dave Mustaine at the after-party.
2. My Dad’s Cooler Than Yours
Not me, but my dad lived a wild and unbelievable life. He was a world-wandering vagabond who joined the Navy at 16 by giving his older brother's information.
Back in the 1960s, my dad was in a plane crash, a small plane, and went down in the desert near Mexico. They didn't know what to do. So they split up, two people went in one direction, one went in another, and my dad went his own way. They thought one of them would run into help that way.
My dad ended up somewhere in Mexico and never went back. He just like, hung around, and traveled all over Central and South America.
After almost a year, he decided it was time to go back home. But he ran out of cash or had no cash. So he sold his watch for a motorcycle. He used that to get to Mexico.
Then, he sold/traded that motorcycle for a car. My dad was a mechanic. He could make any POS with an engine run for a bit, at least. Then drove north toward the US.
He had no documentation. So he sold the car and walked through a ravine/ditch back into the US.
When he made it to his brother's place through a combination of walking and hitchhiking, his brother and one of the guys from the plane crash were sitting on the porch.
They thought my dad was gone. My dad thought the other guy was gone. They hung out and played cards.
Years later, before I was born, my dad told my mom he was going to get the watch back.
He drove from Chicago to Mexico. He took a bus to someplace in Chiapas, found the guy he sold the watch to, bought it back, and then drove back to Chicago.
I have the watch.
We have pictures of my dad as a young man living it up in Mexico, India, West. Germany, the UK, the Philippines, Hawaii, and all over the US. There were postcards he wrote to his brother and so on. Those are from places that don't even exist anymore.
My dad passed on when I was 16 years old.
3. Celebrity Pokemon Go
My daughter was besties with a girl in kindergarten and invited her to her birthday party being held at her uncle's house. My wife at the time and her mom were friends, she said don’t bring anything at all, even presents, just come to the uncle's place. I pull up and immediately realize this is not a normal birthday party, as there were security checking IDs to get in. Turns out this girl's great-uncle is Danny Trejo! So I have a picture in my office of my daughter and her bestie sitting on Machete's shoulders.
I gotta say, he’s the nicest celebrity I ever met. He spent most of his time playing with the kids but even though my wife and I were pretty much the only non-family members there, he went out of his way to make us feel welcome.
Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , Wikimedia Commons
4. Missing The Opportunity Of A Lifetime
My grandfather named Burger King's "Whopper". He was friends with several of the founders of Burger King and they used to get together and hang out and play cards. They were chatting one night and trying to come up with the name for one of Burger King's upcoming burgers and my grandfather suggested the name "The Whopper". It was probably one of many suggestions and nothing came of it—or so he thought.
He was offered a position at the company but turned it down and decided to open up a Burger Castle restaurant instead. Not too long after, Burger King announced their new burger and it was named the Whopper.
My family could be heirs to a Burger King fortune, but my grandfather was always stubborn and wanted to do his own thing.
5. Maybe You Should Have Some Trust Issues Buddy
I got into a car accident at university—a guy hit me and then I spun and hit another car. The guy in the car I hit found me on Facebook and we met for coffee a few days later, around 8 pm. He asked if I wanted to see the horses he worked with to cheer me up. So I got in his car and we started driving out of the city.
Halfway in the middle of nowhere, I realized I hadn’t told anyone that I was meeting this guy and he could very well be preparing to do something troubling and dump me in the woods. My phone was broken in the crash and I hadn’t gotten a new one yet since I was waiting for the insurance payout.
But he didn’t and I got to play with the horses, plus the kitties and puppies that lived in the horse barn.
6. Scene From An Action Movie
I was held at gunpoint one time. I didn't have any jokes I could think of.
I was 18 or 19 when it happened. At that age, you think you're invincible and that you'll handle it like Clint Eastwood. That's not how I reacted when it happened.
I worked at a convenience store. This happened at the cash register. There are bills to the left of the $20s and when you pull those out it activates the camera. When that camera clicked, to me it sounded like a loud boom. I thought he heard that for sure. I guess not
I knew I wasn't going to go back to the office or cooler. He was going to have to end me where someone could see.
I got to one knee at the register. He was cussing me out telling me to lie face down.
I don't know why, but I wasn't going to get bossed around like that. I looked at him and said, "Do what you gotta do".
He left.
The next customer that came in, I told them about the incident. They waited with me until the officers came. I had to call the manager.
7. I’m Not Exaggerating, I Swear
I got “dengue fever” from a mosquito bite.
And wound up with renal failure causing complications.
When I got sent back to America for treatment, the doctors kept coming in with interns because I was a novel case study and not something commonly seen where I’m from. But it is more common in countries where dengue is a huge issue.
When I tell people my life almost ended from a mosquito bite they think I’m exaggerating, but I'm not. I was in congestive heart failure as well as kidney failure and gained 60-70 pounds in a week from my kidneys shutting down and a lack of health care due to a communication/language barrier.
It was an insane time.
8. World Turned Upside Down
I once found myself in a situation where I was in some kind of twisted situation when a woman paid me $50 after I wouldn't sleep with her.
I was driving for Lyft and picked up a woman at a bar, drove her to her house, and before she got out of the car, she asked if I wanted to sleep with her. I told her I appreciated the offer but I was in a serious relationship and didn't want to cheat on my girlfriend. She looked a little disappointed, but her next move was a total curveball—she stuck her hand down the front of her pants, pulled out a $50 bill, and handed it to me. Then she got out of the car and went to her house without another word. She still gave me five stars.
9. Not A G.O.A.T Experience
I was hiking in the Alps with my girlfriend on a very narrow and steep path with a cliff to one side. A wild goat appeared out of nowhere and started pushing us around. We were scared that this goat was going to push one of us over the cliff and we would die. Several times I had to grab its horns and wrestle with it so it wouldn't shove me over the cliff. We spent almost a whole hour trying to deal with the goat but eventually managed to turn back around and come down the mountain.
It just sounds so ridiculous that we were scared for our lives because of a goat that we decided to just tell it as a funny story like "Oh and we saw this cute goat haha" and move on.
10. Case Solved
I was in college and was at a bar with my friends. I went to get a drink at a bar but it was packed so I had to find a spot and I ended up being away from my friends. I was already a little tipsy so I started chatting to the guy next to me while I waited to be served.
He was a bit older than me but not like ancient so I just had a friendly conversation. Anyway, he ends up asking me if I can get him some pills. He said he had back problems and wanted something to ease the pain. I was like “Yeah sure”, I know a guy I will see if he can get you some and I went to the bathroom to text him. But when I was in the bathroom I had a change of heart and I thought more about it and decided I wasn't gonna help him. I was thinking about how some substances have ruined some of my friends’ lives so I wasn't gonna be a part of it.
I went back to the guy who was still waiting and I said “You know what? Pills are bad and will lead to bad things. I have too many friends that have had their lives ruined on those and I am not gonna help you out. Good luck.”
I went to turn to leave but before I could he pulled out his wallet and flashed a badge and then said “Good decision”.
I was shocked and relieved and all the emotions all at once. I was so happy I didn't give my buddy away or anything else. I was so glad.
Anyway, he then asked me not to say anything to anyone and said he normally never reveals that he's undercover but could tell that in my heart I’d had some friends who used and wanted to let me know he wasn't gonna go down that path.
I've told my friends about it later but nobody has ever believed me….
I can still see the badge in my head right now. It had little dots on the ends of the star.
11. We Used All Our Luck There
As a teenager, I went on a camping trip in my mother's Kombi with her, a family friend, and two of my brothers.
We were in the mountains, staying in a firewatcher's cabin with a tower, and from up there I saw something odd. We got the radio to work, and turned out bushfires had suddenly hit, all around us.
There was only one road out, it led down, and halfway down the Kombi conked out. We tried everything and could not get the thing started again. By this time we could smell the fires, it was getting bad...
At that moment, another car, the first one we'd seen in a couple of days, came spluttering around the curve and stopped. A couple got out... they were freaking out because they had run out of petrol.
Well. We had petrol, in a couple of jerry cans, and the guy turned out to be ... a Volkswagon mechanic. I kid you not.
He got our Kombi started, we gave him fuel, and we all hightailed it out of there in a convoy. Just got out in time, that whole region was burnt out.
True story.
12. How?
I don't even know if this one is completely true but it's still scary for me to think back on because it can't be explained in a way that makes sense.
I woke up in my bed, facing my door, and there was a tall man a bit above my father's height—but much thinner—with his hand on my door handle staring straight at me. It was semi-dark in the room and he was wearing all black, so I couldn't make out any of his features at all but I never saw that guy in my life. Not once. He just stood there, staring at me, not moving—and I braced myself for the worst.
I had a sort of memory block where I can't remember what happened after, but I woke up a couple of hours later and my door was still open. No man, but the door was still open. For context, I always sleep with the door shut and nobody in my household would be awake at that time, nor would they come into my room. In addition to the fact his height/body type was nowhere near anyone I knew, let alone someone that could be in my house.
I could assume it was sleep paralysis or a really weird dream, plus there was nothing on the house cameras and our dogs would have been losing their minds barking if there was someone. But the fact that the door was open? No way I could reasonably explain that.
13. Were We Hallucinating?
Back in college, a friend of mine and I were living in a house in St Pete. Used to walk a couple of blocks to a little hole-in-the-wall store. On the way, there was a house that had a very tidy yard, and these bushes that were trimmed in spirals and other geometric shapes that had been put into planters.
One day we're on the way to the store, and see this little old lady in the yard looking distraught over the bushes. She waved to us and asked us to help her move them as she just didn't like how they were sitting, they were getting far too much sun.
We moved them to where she asked, she thanked us and invited us to sit on the porch with her for a glass of tea. We declined, said we were on the way to the store but would be happy to help her again if she needed it, and pointed out our house about a block away.
A week or two later, go by and a guy is moving the planters back to where they were. We ask if we can help, that the lady that lived there now had asked us to move them recently.
The guy looks at us puzzled and said no one had lived in the house in a few months. He was the owner coming back down to stay for the summer with his family. Described the lady to him, and he said that was his mother who passed on about ten years before. In the house. He even showed us her picture, no doubt it was the same lady.
After thinking back on things, she never touched any of the planters or anything else. Just supervised. Never saw her before or after that.
We talk about it occasionally to each other but that's about it.
14. It’s Raining Cash
I went to watch a recreational soccer game with my cousin. We somehow ended up at the wrong field location and where we parked could see the field was empty. As we laughed and tried to figure out where we made the mistake, the middle of the field looked like money blowing in the wind. I’m not certain why that was the first assumption I made but it looked like nothing else. We got out of the car and ran towards the field and as I came upon what we saw it was money, $20s. About $180 worth of semi-crisp $20’s were found. It was like an Easter egg hunt cause we found them all over the field. We walked around the field twice, I made out with $100 and she with $80. To this day it makes zero sense. There was no wallet found, there were no other cars parked where we were. There weren’t any buildings around or houses. We took it as a blessing and went about our business a little richer than we arrived.
Roman Samborskyi, Shutterstock
15. That Was My Cool Moment
So, I was stationed in the South when I was in the Air Force. I never really hung out with the other Airmen—I was friendly enough with them, but every single night they'd play drinking games, and it was just very obnoxious. But, I'm sociable and got along reasonably well with almost everyone.
So cut to one night when they pushed me to go out with them to a local bar. I eventually caved and went with them. I don't drink so we're at a bar, and I’m the one who feels responsible for getting everyone home at the end of the night. It's midnight-ish, and I know we've got stuff to do the next day, so I'm trying to wrangle a bunch of dumb kids into trucks and cars and hoping no one is gonna crash.
I'm going to the door with Airman X, and then they say “Wait, Airman Y is still back there!” so I go get them, and by the time I get them back, Airman X has wandered off of course.
So finally, I manage to get everyone except for 1 person... We'll call him Jimmy. Jimmy was... man, he was such a problematic Airman. Not a bad kid, just... no maturity. Anyways he's finally found some girl who'll put up with him for the night, and he's dancing/talking with her, cuddled up, and does not wanna go back. He's super tipsy and isn't making much sense.
He's saying he wants to play one last game of darts with her, because sure why not. I am just absolutely not having it. I shake my head, yank the darts out of his hand, and with a frustrated "No, Jimmy". I toss a dart and nail that bullseye. I slam the other darts on the table and push him in front of me, saying “We're going”.'
On my way out I pass this girl who saw it, and she looks me in the eye with sort of that comely “Wow, nice throw” look, and says “Wow, nice throw”. That's how I knew it was that kind of look.
I've got a few moments like that through the years—just kind of odd and sound great.
16. We’re Shaking!
In 2015 my sister was moving from Seattle back to Georgia. I was in between jobs so I offered to split the drive with her. We had no time constraints so we took a pretty scenic route through some places I had never been to.
We had left the southern entrance of Yellowstone the afternoon of the second day and stopped a few more times and ate and whatnot, so by the time we got back going and were in the middle of nowhere Wyoming it was around 2:00 am and I was driving while my sister slept.
I’ve always loved the stars and space and Wyoming had so little light pollution I could see more stars than I’d ever seen while driving. It was so cool to me that I decided to pull over, roll the window down and turn the car off and just take it in for a few minutes. I had been staring into space for maybe two minutes when I snapped back to reality with a jolt. I started to feel the car rock back and forth. It was like someone was on either side at the back pushing. It started gently but kept getting more and more loud and scary.
After a few seconds, it woke my sister up and she looked at me at about the same time I looked over at her and she said “What are you doing?” I was so confused I told the woman who had just been asleep “I thought that was you?”
At this point the shaking was so scary I was literally in shock. I got out of my shock and turned the key on and immediately floored it. As soon as I started moving the shaking stopped and everything went back to normal. I can still remember that feeling of pure fear. I didn’t so much as look in my rearview mirror so for at least two hours. I was so scared.
Since then we’ve both pretty much stopped telling the story because people either don’t believe us or tell us it was an earthquake which I’ve looked into and it was not. I have no explanation for why this happened on the flat shoulder of the highway, but the fear made me feel like I didn’t want to find out. I want it to be aliens but who knows?
17. Superstars Are Humans Too
I got to meet my idol when I was 18.
I grew up in a very sports-oriented home, in particular American football. I started playing flag as a lad and played in college. I grew up around Cleveland, and the Browns left when I was very young.
When I got old enough to understand professional football, I found myself very frustrated with the Browns that came back. Eventually, I started watching Baltimore, because they had my favorite player of all time, Ray Lewis, on their team. I hated the Ravens for what they represented, but respected them, and frankly loved watching them play. Plus they had my favorite player.
During the Superbowl in Detroit, between the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers, I ended up getting an invite to a VIP party in Detroit the night before the game. One of my uncle’s high school friends he kept in contact with ended up being an agent for various sports figures, at the time most notably Chad “Ocho Cinco,” Johnson. He got my uncle four tickets to this party and was going to try to get us tickets to the game if he could—this fell through sadly.
There were several NFL players at this party. I met Kelly Holcomb, a retired safety whose name is eluding me, and a few others, but Ray Lewis was there. I swear to God, the man was as broad as he was tall. The type of shoulders you’d expect to see on Atlas.
I fanboyed for a moment as we were passing each other in the dining area, and he invited me to his table. He and I sat and talked football for probably 20 minutes. What struck me was it was a genuine conversation. He listened to me, responded with more than just a “Yes” or “No” and it seemingly never occurred to him that he was talking to some no-name white boy from middle America. He was this larger-than-life character, and I was talking shop with him like I had anything beneficial to contribute to the conversation.
That was the day that I truly became a Ravens fan.
18. UFO
My family was driving back from six flags, this was probably the early 2000s, I was a kid at the time. We were stuck in traffic and it became a standstill. Most of my siblings and I fell asleep in the car. Suddenly my mom gasped and says “Look!” My dad told us to wake up. We wearily wake up.
The sun was begging to set, and in the sky, highlighted by the sun... were what I can only describe as strange lines of clouds going vertical in the sky. They were lit up in the sky.
One after the next. There was no plane. Because as we'd watch them form they didn't always form from point A to point B. Some of them formed like an infected cut might and just formed into place. There were about a dozen or more of them. They weren't all in a row. They were like forming all over the sky. Some simultaneously. And they were very big.
People began to get out of their cars. Mind you, this is before cell phones had cameras, so everyone was taking out their Polaroids and taking pictures. As a kid, I thought, “What's the big deal?” It's probably just a bunch of plane trails' until a woman walked over to my mom and said “My god if that isn't proof of aliens I don't know what is”. I remember my dad asking someone else, "You see it too right?" And a man is like, "Oh yes, that's not normal".
We watched it for a time. Unlike jet trails, they didn't lose shape and spread apart. And they weren't Undulatus clouds because they were randomly forming in the sky, and not in rows, nor were they as long stretching as those kinds of clouds. So it was like a bunch of lines bleeding in the sky. None of them crossed over each other. It was strange for sure.
Eventually, we got bored of it. We wanted to go home, like other people and got back into the car and drove home, watching it as we drove too. We did see them slowly fade as we drove.
My family did take a photo of it, we talked about it for weeks afterward. But I would have no idea where that photo is now. I suppose as a kid I wasn't so impressed because, in my mind, anything related to aliens or the supernatural was far more exciting, but looking back, it was bizarre. I wonder if there's any recording of the phenomenon online. I lived in Massachusetts and I do know that many people were taking photos. It occurred somewhere between my home state and the nearest six flags.
I don't usually tell this story because so many alien stories sound made up or fake, so I figure why bother. Also, like my kid-self, it's kind of not that impressive that I figure not many would care.
19. Boats, Boats, Boats
I never took away the keys to my dad's car for a joy ride, which is pretty much a teenage rite of passage, at least where I live. But I did take his boat out, with a couple of friends.
To be fair, I had gained my boat captain's license recently but I was quite inexperienced for the size of the boat and it was my first time captaining alone on that particular one.
We sailed to a nearby island, a popular spot for local yachts. As luck would have it, it was incredibly crowded that day and several other boat owners came out to watch me lay down the anchor chain because frankly, it did look worrying, a young girl dropping anchor in the middle of several expensive boats with no adults in sight. But I pulled it off and didn't graze anyone.
We spent the day going from bay to bay and we got intoxicated, as my friends slept it off, unfortunately, I got a little too much. I remember jumping in the water, hoping it would wake me up it didn’t. The sun started to get low in the sky, so we needed to head back urgently, in a western direction.
So I was sailing into head-on waves because I was in a hurry, and the setting sun was directly in my eyes so I couldn't see anything. So my friend, who was also intoxicated, stood outside the cabin to yell if there was anything in our path. Which was stupid as he didn't know about the signs or what to watch out for. We almost hit some other boat too, which is extremely stupid as we should have seen it a hundred meters away and we were sailing at about seven knots which is kind of fast for the boat but still plenty of time to change course, like solid five minutes to swerve. But I couldn't see and he was laughing.
Anyway, after the most nerve-wracking trip back, my dad called and was like "Where are you?" Then he told me not to take the boat to the marina, but to bring it to the rickety pier near our house. Which requires more skill. He kept asking "Can you do it?" And I kept answering yes because I didn’t want him to realize I was high. Dumb logic.
By some miracle and with my dad helping from the pier, I managed to dock too. And as I was expecting my dad to be furious, he was like "Great job! Look at you pulling it off by yourself! Where did you guys go? What did you do? So proud of you!" My parents were gonna spend the night in the boat so I didn't have a ride and I just walked in a daze for the whole half-hour trek up the hillside to our house and finally come to my senses when I reached home.
I never learned to drive a car until I was 30 years old. And I remember a conversation with my dad where he yelled at me "I keep leaving the car keys lying all over the place, hoping you'd take them for a ride. What sort of teenager never even shows any interest?" So I guess this was the key-taking moment that my dad didn't expect, but was willing to accept. He did carefully hide the keys to the boat from then on though. Not that I would ever try that again, it was the worst, most stressful experience.
Anyway, this is how I took away my dad’s boat for a day, barely brought it back, and got away with it.
20. Bigfoot Is Real
I found a Bigfoot print about 10 days into being lost in the forests of western Washington state. I was lost with my ex too so I wasn’t the only one who saw it, but it’s not a story I tell often.
At the time, I thought, “A sign of people! Maybe we made it off whatever game trail we got lost on and made it to THE trail!”
Then I made a shocking realization— three of my feet would fit in just one of the “human” footprints we found, I wear a size 11.5 and my foot looked like a baby’s next to this print…
When my ex and I finally made our way out, we stumbled across a Native American man playing beautiful guitar tunes. Without saying anything about our story, this gentleman told me he was practicing so he could go serenade the forest in order to not be kidnapped by Bigfoot.
21. Pretty Girl Falls In Love With The Nerdy Boy
This happened around April 2022. I was going through a rough time so I wasn’t in the mood to meet new people. One of my friends had a birthday coming up, so he invited me to go. I went there expecting a small group of about 15 people. I got there and no joke, about 100 people were there.
Not knowing anyone, I mostly sat at the side just minding my business. So my friend—birthday celebrant—decided to introduce me to some people he thought I would click with. Then I finally met this girl—let’s call her Anna. She was part of the student council so she was quite famous among our peers. She was also very beautiful so many people try to hit on her, but she has a reputation of rejecting pretty much everyone who comes up to her. I’m not ugly by any means but I’m also not very attractive. Also, I’m quite shy and nerdy. So very early on I realized I wasn’t gonna stand a chance with her so I thought I should just be funny and make her laugh instead because I wouldn’t lose anything.
She ended up sitting beside me the entire dinner party and was just trying to make conversation with me.
The party goes on and the hosts decided to make us play a game of truth or dare. To cut a long story short, they dared her to kiss me. It was just meant to be a joke so everyone found it hilarious. I looked at Anna and said, “You don’t have to do this. Don’t take it too seriously. It was just a joke”. She replied with “No, no it’s okay, I don’t mind”. So she ended up kissing me in front of everyone.
The party kind of went silent for like ten seconds as everyone was shocked.
Anyway, I had to leave the party much earlier than everyone because my parents had to pick me up. Before I went she grabbed my hand slightly and asked me if she’d be able to talk to me again. I thought this was just her intoxicated self talking so I didn’t think much of it and just gave her my Facebook account and went home.
She ended up messaging me and told me “Thank you for making my night”. My cool side replied with just “Cool”.
We ended up dating for a couple of months and I asked her why she kept talking to me that night. She said, “I appreciated the fact that you wanted to get to know me as a person and wasn’t trying to immediately hit on me. Plus you just match my wavelength and I love your sense of humor”.
We eventually had to break up as my mental health was taking a tremendous toll on myself and I didn’t want it to affect her. She still messages me sometimes to ask me if I’m okay.
22. Snake Whisperer
I have a few but a vivid memory from my childhood is going to a swamp with my cousins when we were young—I would come up to the river bank and look out for frogs, lizards, etc.
One day I went to the river bank and pretended I was Harry Potter and started making noises as if I was speaking the snake language like in the books/movie. I was like six or seven at this time.
To my surprise, three snakes stuck their heads out of the water and looked at me and swayed from side to side constantly as if hypnotized while I was making these made-up gibberish sounds… to this day me, and my cousins reminisce about this as it only happened once. Most people look at me in disbelief when I tell this story.
23. Almost Had Dinner With A Celebrity
I used to work at a pet store in Los Angeles. It was about a mile or two south of Beverly Hills. Because of the location, we would occasionally get a celebrity in the store, but not too many because it wasn’t in the heart of Beverly Hills. Anyway, one of the other employees told me that one of our more frequent customers was Fabio. He would buy fish fairly often, and for those who interacted with him, they said he was a very nice guy.
One night, somebody says that Fabio’s in the store, so I walk around and try and get a look without getting too close. I also went outside of the parking lot and noticed what was his car. It was a sports car, and it looked fantastic. He gets his fish, checks out, and leaves. We’re talking about it and other things for about ten minutes after he leaves, and all of a sudden he comes back, and he tells us that his car died in the middle of the street and wondered if any of us had jumper cables. I did.
So I went to my car, which, at the time was a little Chevy Cobalt, and drove somewhat around the block to where his car was. There was a Walgreens across the street, and that’s where his car was, in the right lane, but still in the street and causing traffic problems. The Chevy Cobalt has a battery in the back for jumping cars, so I had to drive backward out of the Walgreens parking lot so I was directly behind his car. With Fabio, me, and my coworker there, we hook up the jumper cables and successfully jumped Fabio’s car. He was very very thankful for the jump, and then he left, and that was it.
Several days later, I’m at work, and Fabio comes back, wanting to thank me and the coworker for helping him out. My coworker wasn’t there; it was just me there at the time. So he gives me his phone number and says that he’d like to take us out to dinner as a thank you. I kid you not, I ended up losing that phone number, and I never ended up finding it, so I missed out on my opportunity to have dinner with Fabio.
I did get a picture with him though.
24. European Dream
This is a long story, sort of coming of age one.
In 1981, when I was 16, a friend whose mother lived in Monaco in the South of France invited me and another boy whom I didn't know to come and visit during the summer holidays.
We bought two return tickets, a ferry crossing from England to France, and then a train across France to Monaco. On the ferry, we met some girls who were going camping in Avignon. We missed our connection in Paris and had to get a hotel room for the night. The next day, we caught the train across France, which took about 24 hours.
When we got to Monaco, we ended up getting lost and walked for hours before finding our friend's mother's house. No mobile phones back then. When we arrived, we were met with quite the surprise—apparently, our friend wasn't there and his mother wasn't expecting us! She said he was still at his father's house in London and would be back the next day. We were told in no uncertain terms that we could stay one night but then we would have to go! We were fed and then slept as we had been up for over a day and a half.
The next day our friend arrived but could not persuade his mother to let us stay. Turns out he had not expected us to accept his invitation and had not mentioned it. So, with no other choice, we went to sleep that night on the beach in the tent my traveling companion had with him.
The next morning, I got up early and went to explore the area myself for a few hours. When I got back, my companion and his tent had gone. I went to find my friend at his mother's, but he did not know where the other guy had gone.
Anyway, undeterred, I decided to stay and spent the next week sleeping on the beach with nothing but my clothes and rucksack. I was fine until 4 am. When it got really cold, I had to sit in a phone box to try and warm up and wait for the cafes to open to get some breakfast. I then spent the days hanging around the beach and spending some time now and then with my friend until he had an accident on his motorbike, went over the handlebars, and skinned his hands almost down to the bone. So now he is in hospital, and I am a 16-year-old sleeping on the beach with a small amount of money all on my own.
A little while later, I met three older boys, 18 or 19 years old. They were staying in a cheap hotel and offered to let me use their shower and stay for the night. I could not stay longer for fear of getting caught by the hotel staff but one of the boys lent me a sleeping bag and I went back to sleeping on the beach, hanging out with my new friends, and using their shower to clean up. As far as food, I think I was mostly living on rotisserie chicken as one of those kept me going all day and was quite cheap.
Then, one day, I met a girl. She was beautiful, and she thought I was nice too. So, the first true romance of my young life started. She could speak very little English, and I could speak less French, but let's just say we managed to communicate!
After a few days, when she realized my situation, she offered for me to stay at her parent's apartment. I stayed there with her for about two weeks but never met her parents.
So, let's just say life was good. But by this point, I had been away for about five weeks and was running out of money. I had had no contact with my parents, who were blissfully thinking I was staying with my friend and his parents. So I called them and said I would be coming home within the week.
I had made quite a lot of new friends besides the three guys at the hotel and my new girlfriend. There was an open-air concert/festival a few days later by the coast, so it was decided that we would all go together to the festival and I would leave the next day.
What a night! And the next morning I got up, said my goodbyes and left for the train station...I missed my train for that day. And so I returned, stayed another day, had another party, said goodbye all over again, and then left again to travel on my own back across France to the UK.
When I got to London, I phoned my Dad who said he would pick me up from the station.
I wish I could have seen myself as my Dad saw me when he collected me. I was tanned and tired, and I smelt bad, but I had grown and was full of my story. My Dad's reaction to what I told him surprised me because I thought I might be in trouble, but I could see the pride on his face as I recounted my adventures.
And it turned out that I actually got lucky—the boy I had traveled with who left me high and dry to go and follow the girls we met on the ferry had arrived at Avignon only to have his tent stolen the next day. He never found the girls and travelled home only having been in France for less than a week.
My six weeks in France have always stayed with me as do all the people I met. But those were the days before social media, and I never saw any of them again. I did write to the girl but as she didn't speak good English after a couple of letters we lost touch.
I still have one picture of her and think about her occasionally and remember my summer of 1981 in the South of France when I didn't have a care in the world and life was good!
25. Did We Just Become An Acapella Group?
I do tell this story from time to time, but it still sounds made up, even to myself.
One night some friends of mine were visiting from out of state for a week and wanted to come over and hang out, and listen to records.
So they come to my place and we have to run to the store. We decide to go to this one store that has a bar next door to it.
While we were shopping, my friends run into this girl they know but I didn’t know. And it’s apparent to us that she’s not feeling well. Turns out it was her 21st birthday and her friends had taken her out to the bar next door, but apparently, they had abandoned her.
So my friends and I offered to give her a ride home because she was clearly in no condition to drive and probably wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to call any taxis.
We pay for our stuff and start walking back to my friend’s car. We had to walk a couple of blocks because it was a busy night in town so parking was far.
Anyway, this girl is stumbling around and groaning because she was so intoxicated and my friends kept asking her, “Annie, are you ok? Are you ok? Are you ok, Annie?”
And we could not figure out why that sounded so familiar at the time but later that night we realized we’d “Smooth Criminal’d” ourselves.
26. Grey Poupon
I was a kid when the Grey Poupon commercials were a thing. For those of you too young to remember this, they featured a fancy man in a Bentley or limo pulling up next to another limousine and a man rolling down his window and saying in a posh accent "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?"
My friends and I thought this was a laugh riot and would often roll the windows down and ask people at red lights from the back seat. Most of the time people didn't roll the window down, or if they did, they'd just laugh at us being silly kids.
One day my dad took my best friend and me to a concert a couple of hours from where we live. While sitting at a red light, a Cadillac pulled up next to us. We gestured wildly from the back seat for them to roll the window down, and they did. We proceeded to yell "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?"
The guy in the car presented us with a jar of Grey Poupon mustard! Literally held it out the window. We began laughing like crazy, my dad was laughing too. It was the greatest thing to ever happen to an eight-year-old.
27. I Want Your Baby
One time a woman planned to take away my child.
I met this photographer at a military base my husband was stationed at. She did a few shoots with us, and we became friends. I babysat for her kids a few times. I ended up getting pregnant and she was happy for me. Some crazy drama happened and I didn’t want to be aligned with all of it anymore. I distanced myself from her after that. A few months later she calls me sobbing because she wanted a baby too, but her husband at the time refused to have another child. She got pregnant on purpose and ended up losing the baby. I was super sad for her, but obviously couldn’t do anything to help. At this point, I was about seven months pregnant and she was moving within the next month or so after a divorce. I saw her posting on some Facebook pages asking for some formula, and diapers, and baby girl clothes. I reached out to say congratulations, and she said thanks and left it at that. We weren’t close anymore so that wasn’t a big surprise. She reached out a few weeks later saying she needed to meet my baby before she moved and I told her that wouldn’t be possible because I wasn’t due yet. She said I needed to talk my doctor into inducing early and told me a few suggestions to convince him to induce at eight-and-a-half months pregnant. I told her that wasn’t happening and I got like five or six phone calls in a row. A few days later I got a message from an acquaintance telling me that this photographer was telling people she was adopting my baby before she moved away. The photographer then told a bunch of our common acquaintances that we “backed out” of the adoption last minute and how devastated she was. It was crazy and I don’t even tell people because it sounds like a lifetime movie.
28. Russians Know How To Party
I went to the casino one night with a friend who had a Russian client that he always told me was wealthy. My friend had decided to bring his client to our meet up and he was gambling way more than I would be comfortable. When my money finished, he handed me some of his chips totaling around $150 so I could keep playing. I’d hardly even spoken to the guy apart from a hello.
A few more rounds later he suggests we go to another club and I agree. I’d been a few times before but was only able to afford one dance and then had to leave so I wouldn’t be pestered by women I couldn’t afford to entertain.
But the night only got more interesting from there—as we arrive at the club our Russian friend is greeted by the front of the house who promptly shouts back to warn other staff of his arrival. We’re all welcomed in and taken downstairs to a VIP area and 15 girls come in to join us. They’re all giving dances and I’m not having to pay a thing. I’m asked what I prefer to have at which point a bottle with some mixer and glasses is brought in by another girl—I later found a menu that showed this bottle costing $300.
A couple hours later and multiple dances between me, my friend, and our new friend we decided to call it a night. As I walked up to the exit a black Mercedes is waiting for me asking me where I want to go home to. I’m driven home without handing over any money.
I never saw the Russian person again but my friend and I still talk about that night and it’s our secret.
29. I Can Show You My Scar
My story is that some guy damaged me in the orbital bone, hands, stomach, right rib cage, and mouth. I was 16 at night in the winter. I ended up rolling into a ditch and then crawling when he just randomly stopped without saying a word. I ended up crawling and then trying to stand and kept falling, tore my cartilage but kept going. I ended up blocks away in the ground finally able to scream. The whole time blood was pouring out of my mouth as the top half of my lip was literally dangling out and my nose had been completely broken so I was trying to hold everything together. Finally screamed and I guess I scared someone as they called the officers. I hear a car pull up and stop so I just started making noise as loud as I could. Guess an officer finally saw me as all I heard was a confused “Oh” followed by an “Oh darn”. He ended up holding me on my side so I didn't choke, I'm assuming and waited with me til authorities showed up. The whole time, he was trying to keep me calm so I wouldn't go into shock.
When I woke up after surgery four days later, the doctor spoke to me. I got real lucky he said as they could save everything and did. There are scars but with my beard here growing around the mouth you can't tell until you lean in, the most noticeable ones are the hands. The orbital bone even looks fine despite being shattered essentially.
They found the guy and he served time which was good and bad. Good to get him off the streets but bad as him being behind bars isn't going to help. He was known to have schizophrenia beforehand so they should've done a mental health facility long term.
I told my wife years later after meeting her and she didn't believe me. Dad had to tell her it was true. I moved from that city to come back home four years after it happened so for the last ten years, I've told a few people but no one believes me or downplays it so I just don't tell anyone anymore. It even feels surreal to me.
30. Knock Knock!
I was 19, I organized with a buddy of mine to play Xbox on the weekend at his place. The plans weren't very concrete and we didn't speak the whole week leading up to the day.
When the day came, I sent him a message asking if we were still on but no reply. He only lived about a 20-minute walk up the road from me so I decided to just go to his place to see and if he wasn't there no big deal, I got out of the house for a bit and wouldn't have been very far from home.
I get to his place and knock on the door and his older sister, who is wearing a bathrobe, answers the door.
I say "Hey! Is (my friend’s name) here? We planned to play Xbox today".
She replies "No, but I am" and then opens up her robe revealing that she isn't wearing a shirt.
Being the 19-year-old teenager I was, I leaped at that opportunity... we did the deed but I felt pretty bad afterward. She asked me if I wanted to have a shower with her and stick around for the day but awkwardly decided to go home instead.
And that's why no one believes me.
31. A Wholesome Moment
I grew up in a small town in the South, my parents bought a house there when I was in first grade. When I was 12, we took a trip out west, including a visit to Hoover Dam. As our tour group is going in, another is coming out, and who do we run into: the woman who sold us the house on her elderly parent's behalf. Across the country. She recognizes my parents, asks them how the house is doing for us, etc.
Well, time passes and after I went off to college, my parents sold the house in 2015 so they could move closer to family. A few years ago, I get a message from someone on Facebook: this girl who was a couple of years younger than me. We always went to the same schools, so we were more acquaintances than friends. We even did some extracurriculars together in my last year of high school. Well, she told me that she and her high school sweetheart got married, bought a house, and were remodeling the laundry room when she found the note that I wrote under the counter when my parents installed it. We were never close enough friends for her to visit my house, but now it's her house. She's told me that the shed I used as my playhouse still stands in the backyard and her kids will use it when they're old enough, and now they're raising their daughter in my childhood bedroom.
32. What If?
I almost won the lottery—16 Million €. About 20 years ago, me and my dad filled out a lottery ticket with our lucky numbers. We gave it to my mum, so she could hand it in. In the evening we checked the numbers—and we couldn't believe it. They were ours. Every single number... We couldn't believe it and were overjoyed, so we waited for my mum to surprise her. When she came home, we asked her about the lottery ticket... When she said, “Oh I didn't have time, I'll hand it in next time”. Well, that's it, that's my “not made-up story”. Even my mum denies it to this day, she says my dad and I made it up but we sadly did not.
33. Marketing By A Four-Year-Old
In the UK we have “Walkers” crisps, also known as potato chips in the US. You call that brand Lays.
When I was four, it would have been 1992 or 1993, I was on holiday with family in Cornwall. At the complex we were staying there was family entertainment and a fancy dress competition was on one evening.
I convinced my dad to buy me a fake England football kit from the local market, I wanted to go as Gary Lineker.
It was self-catering, so we also went to get some food from the supermarket, and in the crisps aisle, I said to my dad I wanted “Salt and Lineker” flavor. He thought it would be exactly the joke that would win me the contest.
Later that night, I go on stage for the contest when called and they announce that judging the contest was the CEO of Walkers Crisps. I am standing on stage with a big multipack bag of crisps and everyone in the audience is laughing at me because they have no idea why I had this prop. The presenter gets to me, I drop my joke and the place erupts. I win the competition.
The next year “Salt and Lineker” crisps were Walker’s big campaign, followed by other football stars name themed flavors in the years that followed. Gary Lineker has been doing their adverts ever since.
34. Saving Lives Since Ten Years Old
I saved my friend once when I was like ten years old.
We just got off the school bus and walked towards the school. I stopped to tie my shoes or something so I was a few steps behind him when we were crossing the street. I just stepped in when I saw a car going like 80km/h going towards him and he did not see it. I could have stepped back and been safe but I ran towards him and tackled him. I felt the bumper of that car hitting my shoes but I was okay and my friend was too. That person in the car did not stop to apologize. I don't think he hit the brakes at all.
It was more than ten years ago and he is still my friend. No one knows about this. Just me, him, and his brother. We decided to never tell anyone because his mother would kill him if she heard about it.
It's not some super crazy story but no one would believe me because no matter how you say the story I always look like a "superhero".
35. Jungle Book
A family friend was raised by a monkey.
Not my story, but my “auntie” was one of the nineish children in her family growing up in the 60s and 70s Algeria. The Kabyle region has monkeys, and her family had one as a pet. When her younger brother was born, the female monkey took on a motherly role. When the baby was hungry, she would carry him to his mom and point to her chest. She would rock him to sleep, play with him, groom him, and feed him solids later on. She wouldn't allow anyone else to touch him.
I've seen pictures of the monkey with the baby at various points of his infancy and childhood. Unfortunately, the monkey either ran away or got lost when he was older.
36. Rock’n Roll Baby
I have half siblings all over the US, and the reason why is quite mind-blowing. My dad is a fairly well-known musician from the '80s. Whenever I tell people they don’t believe me and think that I am lying, so I just stopped telling people. I’m half black and I usually just tell people I don’t know my dad, but the truth is we’ve hung out many times in my life, though he wasn’t ever present. Partying was more important to him. At one point my mom and some of the other mothers of his kids went after him for child support, so he went on vacation to Belize and then just stayed there until the last of us turned 18.
LightField Studios, Shutterstock
37. Carbon Monoxide Nightmare
My whole family nearly died of carbon monoxide poisoning when I was 18. I was still living at home and my parents were having work done on the house. It was the middle of winter and they'd done something with the boiler/flue. That morning, we woke up all feeling kind of weird. I was hungover, to be honest and didn't think too much of it. As the day wore on, we were all feeling worse and worse, just lying on the sofas, very lethargic. My dad had a lightbulb moment, turned off the boiler immediately and he and my mum went out to get a carbon monoxide tester. They were gone maybe for about 15 minutes. When they got back, I was close to being passed out and my lips were turning blue. They put the tester thing up, green meant everything was fine; yellow meant yeah there's some carbon monoxide around here guys, not good; and black meant get out you're all going to die. It went black within seconds. We opened every window in the house and sat outside in the garden for a while. I called out of work that night, and they did not believe me at all, which I get because it sounds crazy.
38. Who’s There?
One time, my brother called his phone to find it. He came downstairs and grabbed his phone from his jacket pocket not two feet away from me. He then yelled at me for hiding his phone from him because when he called his phone, he said a young girl picked up and kept saying "Hello?" over and over again.
I swear on my life I didn't pick up his phone, or even know that it was in his coat beside me. I also know that nobody touched the phone. It sounds so unbelievable and so easy to fake that almost everybody thinks I'm lying. I keep telling myself the lines got crossed somehow and he accidentally got connected to another line. I don’t know.
39. Still Not Slick Enough
When I was in middle school, I skipped the last week of school to go visit my sister 500 miles away. While there, we decided to go to a water park. At the water park, I started seeing familiar people, until finally I ran into a friend from school.
Turns out, they had a field trip to do a band thing, and the water park was a bonus for them. So I skipped school, went 500 miles away, and got caught, in person, by like 40 people.
40. I Didn’t Even Have To Pay For A Safari Ticket
During the Christmas of 2021, I came down with a really bad case of COVID-19. I'm young and live alone, so although I was fairly certain I would survive, it was extremely harrowing and lonely.
Fast forward a couple of days, it's December 28 and I'm sitting at home alone. Although asymptomatic, I'm quarantining still. It's about 10 am or 11 am, I'm playing some Skyrim, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a deer standing on the lawn. On the left side of the lawn, this gorgeous deer is standing in the snow, and near the back center, there's a magnificent buck. Anyway, the buck slowly makes his way toward the other deer.
I'm sure everyone here can probably guess what happens next. The deer begin mating aggressively.
So here I am, looking out the window as two deer are doing it. It's not one of those things where I can say I really sat there and dedicatedly watched, but it was interesting in a super weird kind of way, like one of those "Hh, so that’s how that happens" kind of way.
41. Mirage Or Not?
I was on vacation with my family in Costa Rica and we met the natives in the jungle and slept there for a few days. The village was only a half-hour boat ride across a river. One day they took us through their village and to a spring in the forest, where we could cool off in the heat. It also went up a hill and I was too exhausted from the heat and waited alone on the way until the others came back. When I was alone, about 20 American women jogged past me, who also greeted me in a friendly way. I thought it was probably a trip from a cheerleading group or something. In any case, no one believed me, everyone thought I had hallucinated. Not so improbable, because Costa Rica is overrun by American tourists, but to meet a horde of pretty young women in the middle of the jungle when nobody happened to be there. I finally gave up and never talked about it again.
42. I Snapped
I broke a friends arm once in an arm wrestling match.
Nothing to do with exceptional size or strength on my end, but everything to do with extremely unexceptional form on his part.
On the brink of defeat, he rotated his entire torso perpendicular to our hand lock and cranked with everything he had.
The break sounded like a shot, and he ended up with a nasty spiral fracture that took a while to heal.
We laugh now of course but the locals who know the place may be wondering why the table has been gone for 10+ years.
Everyonephoto Studio, Shutterstock
43. Sorry, I’m Late
Zac Efron and Dennis Quaid made me late for work because they were filming a scene for an independent movie in my small town, and the production crew blocked the only entrance to my downtown apartment with equipment. So, I couldn't get out of my apartment. I had to use the fire escape to get out of my apartment to just get to my job.
44. My First Day On Earth Was Chaotic
This is my birth story. My mom swears that we were in two separate ambulances that broke down and some lady put us in the back of her van to get us to the hospital. But the craziest part happened in the hotel—the elevator broke down, so I was born in the elevator. I just realized while typing this that I don't believe it either, it's just the story I've always been told. Oh also, I had placenta previa, my throat collapsed, and she was hemorrhaging and her life almost ended because we had different RH blood... Oh wow, I just realized my mom is crazy…
45. Can You Introduce Me To Mr. President?
I met Barack Obama's father's side of the family in Kisumu, Kenya when I traveled there at 19 years old back in 2010. I met a local boy who showed me around and we ended up in a village where they lived. They offered me lunch and showed me around and only at dinner time mentioned they were related to the president of the US. I was a huge Obama fan growing up and it took me a while to realize what they were talking about but then I just burst into tears. I hold this memory very close to my heart but hardly ever talk about it to anyone because people tend to not believe it.
Center for American Progress Action Fund from Washington, DC, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
46. We Have A Cat, Sort Of
When I met my wife, who is from Argentina, she told me her parents had a small puma. I thought, whatever, it's just talk until we went there and every day I would cuddle with the puma. They purr like cats. every day I woke up and would walk up to her and call her name and she would reply. This was before modern mobile phones, Facebook, and WhatsApp. I had made a home video but never found it and should have a foto. When she grew up they released her in the wild!
47. A Not-So-Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
I lived in a second-floor apartment where a kind of tough guy lived in the basement. One night I was awakened by a loud knocking on the outside door downstairs. I noticed red flashing lights as I went down. A cop flashed his badge and said they were looking for an escaped convict from a local prison and showed me a photo of one of the scariest dudes I've ever seen. After explaining that I knew nothing I went back to bed. A few weeks later I saw my downstairs neighbor and brought up the thing. He said, "Yeah, that was my buddy. He was hiding in my ceiling and they never found him". That's when I knew I wanted to find a new neighborhood.
48. Santa Is Real Kids
I used to tell this story to my sons every Christmas and they are certain it's all made up, but I remember it well.
It was Christmas Eve, and I had just locked the store I had a part-time job cleaning the place after it closed. I turned to my left and this large man with wild long hair shouted "Hey!" I'm 6'4" so when I say this guy was large, he was huge in every dimension.
He continues by saying he's been looking for me and has my present. I'm honestly thinking this is going to be a fight I might lose. I'm mentally and physically preparing to fight when suddenly, he holds out something shiny. It was totally unexpected.
It's a hand-carved and painted Nutcracker looking like it's a 4" tall replica from the Nutcracker storybook/ballet. It has an eyelet on top and some string through the eyelet. He holds it out with a huge smile on his face. I picked it from his palm with shaking hands.
"I know you need that" is all he says as he turns around. Then I walked around the store to the back lot and got in my pickup. That's where I'm living. I'm estranged from my family and this is my only gift, just this little Nutcracker. I settle down as best I could in those truck seats, pulling a blanket up and just stare at that nutcracker in my rearview mirror as I fall asleep. It's one of my most cherished possessions to this day and every year I'd tell my sons I met the real Santa and give them the story while hanging it on the tree even to the many groans when they became teenagers.
49. Highway To…
I picked up a hitchhiker back when I was in high school. He was heading about 30 minutes North—not too far off from where I lived—so I offered to take him. He gave me directions on a bunch of crazy backroads and when we got to his "destination", he told me to pull into this small driveway. It was just a barn. I said, "This is it?" He said yes, and asked me if I wanted to come inside. I was a little nervous, but way more curious. So I agreed.
It was the weirdest thing... there was a house inside the barn. By that, I mean an actual house... with shingles and siding and all... someone had built a house, then built a barn around it. Made no sense. A two-story house with a metal spiral staircase on the outside. Dude said his therapist was letting him stay there for the time being.
He had some good stuff and played the banjo. I never saw him again.
50. Maybe They Still Wanted To Party
In college, I was at a house party that was raided by the officers. When it became clear what was happening, most kids just leaped through an open window and ran. We were on the ground floor so no big deal, just get out and run. They can't catch all of us. But I was very out of shape, and I knew I would be the one caught if I ran, so I had to get creative—I stayed in the house and hid under a pile of clothes in a nearby closet. The officers came in, searched the room, glanced through the closet, and moved on. Some that ran were picked up later, others in the house that couldn't escape too, but not me! I stayed under those clothes for more than an hour just listening to it all play out. A lot of sobbing. Citations were handed out.
Eventually, I came out from under the clothes and spooked the host who was alone in the living room tripping about the whole experience. I was like, "Hey that was crazy, I’m going to head out". He was in shock.
Now, all that sounds like something from a college movie about the antics of a fat kid, but there's more. In the 20 seconds that I was chatting with the host, he gets a call on his cellphone. It was someone else in the house still, hidden, asking if it was safe to bail. Sure enough, there was another fat kid hidden under some towels in a cupboard in the bathroom.