Guilt can haunt you for years. For these Redditors, it's undeniable the pain that they still carry from their past actions. From robbing a relative to making fun of a classmate who recently lost her father, their stories are filled with remorse and regret. Although one cannot erase the past, acknowledging that what they did was hurtful is the first step to healing.
1. Haunting Image
There was this really strange, creepy, girl in my gym class who was really tubby and short. One day, as I was joking with my friends about how she was shaped like a bowling ball, I suddenly heard someone say, "Hi, Evan". I turned around, and my stomach hit the floor: The creepy girl was standing there right behind me.
There are a lot of things you can regret doing in life but when your words or actions inflict undeserved pain (I was bullied in school but was able to dish out some very deserved pain here and there) on another person, the look on their face will haunt you until the end of your days.
2. Searing Guilt
There was an incredibly crazy old lady who was a total shrew to all the neighborhood kids. But no one deserves what I did to her. One winter, it snowed spectacularly (this was in Chicago) and the snow plows had just put up two huge piles of snow outside my apartment. So I begged my mom to let me go outside and play with some friends. I was 10 at the time and even though she had her fears and it was getting dark, she still allowed me to go out but only if I went with my older brother (who was 11).
I ran outside and joined my friends who were already playing in the snow. One group was playing behind one pile of snow and my group played behind the second pile. Suddenly, we hear the old neighborhood lady coming by with her dog. We knew she was going to yell at us so we hid down against the snow. My friend handed me a piece of ice and dared me to throw it—just to scare her. I was tentatively realizing that I could actually hit her since I couldn't actually see her. As soon as it left my hand I regretted it, but it was too late. I heard a drop, then saw her lying on the ground—passed out. I instantly thought "Did I kill her?"
It felt like an eternity as we all sat there pooping our pants, too scared to see if she was okay. Then, we heard a yell and it was the old lady. She got up and screamed, "Who threw that?! I'm calling the 9-1-1"! She sounded disoriented and carried on walking down the street yelling and thinking that the culprit had gone down the road.
About a week passed and I had forgotten all about the whole incident. But years later, I learned the disturbing truth: She old lady passed not too long later—from a concussion due to some fall. She was pretty old and crazy and didn't really have anyone so people thought that she had just fallen on the ice from the snowstorm. But I knew it had been me that whacked her. I think about that day all the time and feel incredibly guilty for it.
3. Crushing Comment
One of my earliest memories is when I said to my parents, "I love Mommy more than Daddy".
I think I was trying to express that I felt closer to my mom as she was the one who stayed home to take care of me while my father worked.
My mom quickly told me that that wasn't a nice thing to say. But she didn't need to. I could tell by the crushed look on his face. I sometimes wonder if he remembers that day like I do. I want to tell him it isn't true.
4. Going Down
I was once on an elevator, and for fun, I pressed every button. Suddenly, the most innocent, nicest-looking old man stepped in. His voice calmly ushered, "Going down"? And before he finished that phrase, I ran out with horrible embarrassment. Guilt. So much guilt.
5. Not Good Enough
A girl asked me out to the senior prom. I declined. It must've taken her a lot of guts to muster up the courage to ask me out. I wish I could say sorry and that I was a fool for not accepting.
My excuse? I wanted to play video games that night, and didn't want to miss out on Final Fantasy 11 online! I didn't think I was good enough for dating.
6. The Last Christmas
I haven't spoken to my father in seven years. When my parents got divorced, my mom convinced me that he was an evil person and that if I loved her, I would have to hate him. So I made it extremely hard on him. It was her fault, but I feel terrible for what I did.
I told him that I hated him whenever he met me, which was once every two weeks. I told him that I wished my step-dad could adopt me so that my real father would just leave my life forever.
On Christmas day, seven years ago, he called to say hi, and I shoved it in his face. He was silent for a while and then said, "Abe can have you. Give the phone to your mom". (Abe was my step-dad). That was the last time I heard from him. I feel awful about it.
7. Wicked Spell
In high school, I was extremely jealous of another student who would flirt with my boyfriend. So I thought I'd use Wiccan magic and cast a spell on her to wish that she'd go away and leave me and my boyfriend alone. I couldn't have known what was going to happen.
She passed a few weeks later of heart failure. I regret that dang spell. I don't believe the spell did anything but I felt awful for wishing her ill. It makes me feel like a jerk to this day.
8. Hocus Pocus Fiasco
There was a girl who I first met in middle school who was taken away to foster care. When she returned, she came to my high school but made no friends. Everyone who knew her before shunned her. I felt bad for her, so I befriended her and managed to get her back on good terms with her old friends.
During this time, I had a one-sided crush on this older guy in the school. He obviously liked someone else but I made it clear that I was available for him. Then this girl betrayed me. She stole my guy, then started milking attention from the guys around her and making rumors about me and all our friends.
Finally one day, a small surviving group of us were at a friend's house just discussing how she had destroyed our circle of friends. Two of the girls just happened to be the Wiccan girls she talked smack to. They suggested that we try a few spells to "bind her". We did two spells: A string with knots tied to keep her away from us, and another was filling a bottle of booze with "potion" to remove her power.
Somehow one of the girls managed to give this "potion" to her at a party and a few days later convinced her to drink it. It was just booze, water, and other sweet things mixed in, but nothing harmful.
Now this is where it gets weird. After taking the potion, she disappeared. After a few days, we noticed that she hadn't been to school. We asked her friends about her but nobody knew where she had gone. We even worked up the courage to go to her house and ask for her but just got "She's not here anymore" and had the door slam in our faces.
Most of the girls (who didn't know what we did) just said that if she ever came back, she'd get beat up for how she treated everyone.
This scared my friends and I to stop using Wicca altogether. We don't know if using it on her had anything to do with her disappearance, but the guilt was enough to make us stop using "magic" for petty things, just in case it was real.
9. The Power Of Words
There was a boy in my seventh-grade Spanish class who always got picked on because of his attitude, the way he dressed—all stupid and petty stuff.
One day, I thought he was being annoying, so I turned to him and said in the rudest voice ever, "Nobody likes you". The look on his face was like a punch in the gut.
It's been a couple years since then but I still think about it and wonder what compelled me to act like that when I know how much words can hurt. Not my proudest moment.
10. Last Gift
I once had a pen pal I made through a website where you would send things to a child with a terminal illness. The child sent me a reply to one of the letters I had sent. I wrote out a detailed response complete with gifts and a homemade card, but forgot to send it.
When I found it six months later and logged back on to the website, I learned that the child had passed on. I will never stop feeling guilty that I may have caused a dying child to be sadder for wondering why their pen pal never responded to them. I am a terrible person.
11. What A Jerk
When I was in second or fourth grade, I bullied a kid and broke his glasses.
I consider myself a computer nerd and was never a large or physically intimidating person. I was just a total jerk to that kid for no good reason. I never even got in trouble for it. It bothers me every time I think about it.
12. Liar, Liar
I once whipped a rock right into the side of a passing car right in front of my house in plain sight. I then ran into my house through the front door and hid under the bed in the spare bedroom. Once my parents found me, I denied doing it.
13. Bump In The Night
I was 22 at the time and working in NYC. One night after partying and drinking, I was passed out with some other buddies in the back seat of a Jeep. All I remember was suddenly being startled and woken up as we hit what seemed like a big bump on the road. When I looked back, my blood ran cold. I could just about make out what looked like the silhouette of a homeless man that had been sleeping on the steaming pothole in the middle of the street.
To this day, I still don't know 100% if it was a person or just my guilty conscience. But it still haunts me and it sucks.
14. Regrettable Moment
When I was 15, my mom lost her life in an accident. The morning before the accident, we were Christmas shopping, and I was a huge brat to her (in the way 15-year-olds often are). She dropped me at home and went to run one more errand. I never saw her conscious or spoke to her again.
15. Family Secret
A little over three years ago, I took $20 from my mom's purse. At the time, I was a raging bulimic and needed money for my fix (food). As far as I know, she didn't notice because she had a lot of cash in her wallet.
About six months after the incident, I went into treatment and I have been doing great for a really long time. But I still feel guilty about stealing from my mom. Yes, I had a mental illness but I still knew that what I was doing was wrong, yet didn't even care.
I've been considering returning the money and writing my mom a note fessing up to the situation and telling her how sorry I am. But at this point, she's so proud of me and how well I'm doing that I don't know if it would just hurt her more to know that I went that far. My parents did a LOT for me to help and I did a lot of stupid things during that time—to my whole family, but that is one they still don't know about.
16. Awesome Lady
I used to work at a petting zoo with an older woman who I became friends with. I was 15 and she was in her late 40s. We'd sometimes go horseback riding together.
One day, my aunt invited me to go see Disney on Ice with her and my cousins. I told my friend that I wouldn't be able to work that night. She said that wouldn't be a problem so I called my parents to come pick me up. Once they got there, my friend gave me the stuffed horse I had been eyeing. She told me to have a good time and as I walked out she said, "Goodbye".
Ordinarily, we would just say, "See you later," or just plain "Bye". So I thought it was odd that acted so strange.
After the show, my aunt dropped me off at home. As I walked through the door, I found my mom sitting on the couch crying. I immediately felt worried and shaky.
It turns out that while I was out at the show, my friend had taken her own life. I found a few days later that she was bipolar, had financial and family issues, and had also attempted this kind of thing before.
I know it's not my fault and that there's nothing I could have done but I keep wondering that had I stayed to work, maybe she wouldn't have tried that night and I could have had more time to learn from an awesome lady.
17. Cruelest Comment
The first time I saw my dad in eight years, he took my sibling and I to Paris. I remember getting into a really stupid argument about something very petty like what we were going to eat. Anyway, being the little jerk that I was, I used the, "You don't really know me", card.
I said this to a person who moved to a country just to take care of his parents, and was literally alone except for the two weeks a year he got to see us. I'll never live that moment down.
18. Painful Goodbye
A few years back, my grandfather was suffering from cancer. Every year or so, it got really bad and his doctors would tell him that it wouldn't be long. Amazingly, he always seemed to make an inexplicable recovery and be back on his feet again, surprising even his doctors. However, a little over a year ago, the cancer returned and it got really bad. It was extremely difficult for him to move about and he was in a lot of pain, and was essentially on his last legs. Everyone knew, it was obvious that this was going to be it.
Unfortunately, I didn't live near my grandfather, maybe a few hours away by train. Sometimes I'd visit him with my parents and my sisters. Everyone would take their own initiative to visit but not me. I just kept postponing, under the guise that I'd do it later. It was difficult for me to see my granddad like that. Every time we did speak, in person or on the phone, it was uncomfortable. He was in a lot of pain and was bothered a lot by dying, which I couldn't relate to.
He passed on before I got to visit him. It was probably several months since we last spoke. I still regret that to this day. Looking back, it was just an awful thing to have done and I wish I could redo it.
19. Waiting For Bad Karma
Recently, I was on the subway going downtown and the train was PACKED. I couldn't even turn my head in any direction without bumping into someone else's elbow or backpack.
When it got to my stop, a woman next to me asked, "Can I transfer to the 2 Line train here"? After thinking for a moment, I told her, "Yes, it does stop here across the platform"!
"It does"?! she said excitedly. "S'cuse me! S'cuse me"!
She pushed and shoved and contorted her way around the giant crowd off the train, and incidentally made a nice path for me as well. I headed towards the exit.
Halfway back to my place, I realized what I'd done. There was no 2 Line train transfer there. There was no 2 Line train for a long, long time. She had gotten off that extremely crowded train during rush hour on my word that she could catch her connecting train. I've always felt so guilty and I am still waiting for the bad karma to kick me back in my place.
20. Devastating Grief
My brother's girlfriend took her own life and I never called or talked to him about it. Then about six months afterward, he called me. What he told me broke my heart. He said that I was the one person he really wanted to talk to, and he kept waiting for me to call him. But I never did.
We had a fight a few years earlier and didn't talk for a couple years. He reached out to me then as well. I really wanted nothing to do with him.
He took his own life about six years ago, on the third anniversary of her passing. I do wonder if my inaction had anything to do with my brother's decision to end his life. Maybe I could have helped him through his grief.
21. A Deadly Christmas
My dog was fatally struck by a truck on New Year's Day. Several days later, my parents got a hamster for me. I was 8 years old at the time. I named him Hamtaro.
The following Christmas, we went to Mexico for vacation. We were gone for over a week. Before leaving, I filled up Hamtaro's water bottle and left lots of food in his food cage for him. This food contraption had a little slider that sat between his cage and the food compartment. I suppose the purpose of it is to prevent the hamster from getting into the food bucket while you're refilling the food. Before leaving that morning, I fed Hamtaro and said goodbye to him.
When we got back, I found Hamtaro lying lifeless in the middle of his cage. His food was untouched. Then I made a disturbing realization: I didn't reflip the slider for his food compartment once I filled his food. He wasn't able to get to his food. He suffered. He saw his food but couldn't quite reach it, and slowly starved. That messed me up for a long time.
22. A Thousand Sorries
When I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, a friend of my mom's was babysitting me. She was a heavyset woman but since being on Weight Watchers, she had gained confidence for having lost 20 lbs.
When it came time to put me to bed, I called her a fatty. Even though I was young and stupid, I immediately regretted it and could tell it hurt her. Although my mom and her are no longer in contact, I still feel awful and wished I had apologized.
23. Tight Squeeze
When I was 13, my dad lost his job. My mom didn't work at the time. We had to move out of our house and into a cheaper place. We had never been super well off, but we'd also never been completely broke like we were at this time either.
We had to move out quickly, even before we had found a new place to live. So I ended up staying with a friend of mine while my parents stayed with a friend of theirs, and my brother stayed with one of his friends.
When my parents finally found a place, my dad and I went to spend the first night in our new home. It was super "tiny", probably about 800 square feet. Knowing that the four of us were going to have to live in this tiny space, I cried—like the entitled, spoiled little ingrate that I was. It was cruddy, and I still feel bad about it.
24. Christmas Ruined
When I was fourteen, I wanted nothing more than to get Ocarina of Time for Christmas. Since it had just come out, it was the year's impossible-to-find holiday item.
I told my parents I wanted the game for Christmas and nothing else. I was also willing to wait until April or so to get it. I didn't even ask for other presents. In retrospect, I was a darn good sport about it...until my parents told me that they had already finished their Christmas shopping a week early.
Around that time, I noticed a weird, oblong-shaped, medium-sized gift that was wrapped under the tree for me. It was about the size of a couple shoeboxes but I couldn't quite make out what it could've been. I tried to get hints from my parents but got absolutely nothing. So I took matters into my own hands.
After wracking my brain trying to figure out what could possibly take the place of the one thing I really wanted, I took a razor blade to the tape and stealthily unwrapped the package. Inside was a plain brown shipping box. I opened it up to see the familiar gold packaging of one copy of Ocarina of Time.
I sealed it back up kind of dumbfounded and feeling like garbage for ruining the surprise. I would later find out that my parents and family had an extended network for calling stores daily to try to find the game for me. Their hard work paid off so that I could have my Christmas morning moment—and I ruined it.
To this day, I refuse to ask for anything too specific regarding gifts and I go out of my way so that I never ruin any other surprises for myself again. I've never told my parents about it either. Every time someone asks if I want to guess what they got me, I still feel guilty.
25. Mommy Dearest
I was a slacker in high school. I got near-perfect on all my test scores, but I wasn't motivated at all. I felt like I was too smart to be bothered by school. Anyway, I won something called the National Merit Scholarship for those who were in the top .1 of SAT scores or something along those lines.
Anyway, I hated awards. My mom was so proud of me but I shrugged it off. My school held an award night where people were handed cum laude ribbons and stuff. I felt bitter about the whole thing and I didn't want to be around all those motivated kids. I told my mom they wouldn't mention me—that I wasn't important enough, so we didn't go. As it turns out, they had a special ceremony for me and I wasn't there. The NMS is a big deal, apparently. But there was just an empty stage.
I told my mom and she broke down crying. I hugged her and she sobbed into my shoulder and said, "I just want a chance to be proud of you".
I realized then how much my too-cool-for-school attitude was hurting her. She wanted a baby boy who she could go to ceremonies for, and be happy about his college acceptance letter, and play sports. Instead, she got a kid who acted like an adult by the time he was 10; who stayed in and read philosophy instead of playing sports, and who didn't care about the little things that make a mother happy. I never needed her, and I realized then how cruel that was. It was the first time I ever made my mom cry, and I felt terrible.
26. Remorseful Ending
My cat was 19 years old and his kidneys had finally given out. I was 16 and had this cat my entire life. He was like a brother to me.
One afternoon, my mother asked me to come with her to the vet to visit him. Being the stubborn teen that I was, I preferred to stay home to play video games instead.
The next couple of days I found out that my mother had to put him down and had the remaining ashes stored in a box. I wept for days, and had refused to go to school for about a week.
27. Pangs Of Guilt
I ran over one of my neighbor's cats. It happened late one night. I didn't see it until the last possible second. Then I heard that sickening "double-thud" noise. I still feel pangs of guilt whenever I pass the owner's house.
28. Last Song
I'll never forget the last time I went to visit my grandparents, just before my grandpa passed.
My grandfather and I were close and it was his fondest wish that I learned to play the guitar. He even gave me the guitar he saved up to buy when he was 14. He used to pluck away at his guitar at the kitchen table and loved it when my cousin and I would gather around and hear him play or sing along.
This time, my grandpa was sitting at the table, plucking away as usual. My cousin and I were in the living room watching TV. I was about 12 at the time. I remember looking back at him and watching him play thinking that I should really go listen to him and sing along, but I wanted to keep watching TV. So I didn't bother getting up. I never heard him play again. I still can't play the guitar. It haunts me.
29. Sad Celebration
When I was 17 (I'm now 43), I worked in a restaurant as a hostess. One Friday night, this kid who I recognized from school came in. He was alone but asked for a table for six. Apparently, it was his birthday and he was expecting some other people to join him.
The place got crazy busy, which was typical for a Friday night. Occasionally, I ran by only to see him still sitting there alone at the big table with a bunch of menus. At some point, this kid's mother called and told me that her son may be in the restaurant, expecting some people but apparently, they were not coming. She sounded so sad, like her heart was breaking for her kid who was cruelly pranked.
I was so darn busy that I forgot to tell him. I'm not sure how much longer he sat there and waited. By the time I remembered, he was gone and I felt like the biggest piece of garbage on the planet. I've actually thought about posting this story for a really long time and it still haunts me.
30. Not The Smartest Comment
I told this one girl in my class that the only reason she got into the 'gifted program' at our school was because her mom did her homework. She cried. I apologized years later. I still feel awful about it.
31. Missed Opportunities
When I was a kid, I had a crush on this girl named Elizabeth. I only saw her for one week every year, which compounded the situation and made it even more unbearable. I was thinking about her all the time—I still do.
When I was 13, I had a few opportunities to tell her how I felt, but never had the courage to do so. After that week, I never saw her again. I lost contact with her, and now I regret having missed that opportunity. I feel guilty whenever I think of her, that somehow still longing for her after four years is wrong. I had my chance, and I missed it, and I don't think the guilt will go away until I actually get to talk to her again.
32. Second Chances
Whenever a Star Wars movie came out, my dad and I would always go see it together in the theater. It was our thing. But when Episode 3 came out, I ditched my dad and went to see it with a bunch of friends instead.
I felt guilty ever since that day, especially since my dad has still yet to see it. Hopefully when Disney's version comes out, I'll have the chance to go with my dad again.
33. Beautiful Fur Baby
I once found a beautiful dog named Al. He was a red Welsh something or other with red fur. He had a collar but no contact information. I gave him food and petted him, then sent him on his way. I convinced myself that he had a home and he would know the way back. I'll regret that decision forever.
The next day, I found him bleeding in a gutter. He was hit by a car and someone (probably the driver) dragged him to that spot. Al had just enough energy to wag his tail at me before he passed on. I buried him, but couldn't help but think it was all my fault.
A few days later, I found an ad looking for a lost dog who had a red coat, responding to the name Al.
34. Dining Guilt
I was visiting Chicago for a weekend with a friend and decided to have a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant before our flight back to Texas. We had such a great time with good food and half a dozen margaritas each.
After dinner, he got up and headed to the counter to pay. When he came back, I went to the restroom and returned to the table and asked if he was ready to go. As we left, the waitress and counter staff all smiled and waved us goodbye. We took the train to the airport and eventually settled into our seats on the plane.
Midway through the flight, I turned to him and thanked him for buying dinner. His face turned white. He didn't buy dinner. He had only got up to go to the counter at the restaurant to ask for a toothpick. He equally assumed I paid when he was away.
I could have called and offered a credit card over the phone but we didn't. It still bothers me now.
35. Dirty Play
When I was about 12 or so, I loved playing with my stuffed animals. I had a ton of them. I would make up stories for them and imagine a lot of different scenarios. Each stuffed animal had a backstory and each play session was like an "episode" in the story.
It was all pretty tame—but here's where it gets dark. I would use my dog as the villain by attacking him with the stuffed animals. He would fight back at the animals so I sort of assumed he was playing along. But the way he snarled and bit the animals showed that he really didn't understand. He would end up trying to run away and hide in a corner but I would follow him so I could "defeat the enemy".
After this, he would get mad and snap at my parents at times and they didn't understand why. The dog was mine, given to me for my birthday, but after this, he stopped wanting to be with me. I started dragging him to my room so we could "play".
I realize now that I abused my dog. He passed on a few months ago.
36. The Wrong Move
Twenty years ago, I was at a middle school dance having a fairly good time when a girl I sort of knew asked if I wanted to dance with her. I declined. I didn't feel like dancing. It had nothing to do with her personally, I just didn't feel like dancing at that moment.
Later that night while trying to fall asleep, it dawned on me how she must have taken my rejection. I didn't say, "No, thanks" because of her looks or anything. It also occurred to me how much courage it took her to ask someone she hardly knew to dance. I certainly wouldn't have had the balls to ask her to dance at that age. It still haunts me because firstly, I should have said yes and secondly, the following week at school, I never had enough courage to explain why I had turned her down. Sorry Libby.
37. Evil Helper
In 6th grade, my teacher made me the class helper for the week. She allowed me to enter grades on the computer. I changed all of the grades of a kid I disliked from Cs to Ds and from Ds to Fs. He was held back the next year.
38. Ungrateful Student
When I was in middle school, I hated my math teacher, "John". He told a few friends and I that he was allergic to cinnamon. Two days later, I went to buy some cinnamon Tic Tacs and offered him some in class. He took them, thinking they were the spicy ones. He ended up being absent for a week. He was also the same teacher whom I spat in his coffee, who I called gay, and played techno music in his class.
Fast forward two and "John" becomes my cross-country coach. He bought me food every day, bought me an iPod, and got me in the best shape of my life. He left the school a year later because he thought the school was going downhill.
To this day, I still feel bad for having tormented him. Sorry, Mr. Paterson!
39. Drama Queen
There was a girl I knew in high school who was always full of drama. Every day she was crying over one thing or another. Most of the time, it was drama over boys or friends, and other stuff like her health, family troubles, and her grades. I genuinely felt bad for her and tried to console her through some of it, but I found it exhausting to spend so much effort listening and cheering her up when she didn't actually reciprocate as a friend for me at all. We still hung out despite all of her drama.
One day at lunch, she'd been crying and her mom came to pick her up from the cafeteria—her mom doted over her a lot, buying things for her and letting her stay home when she didn't feel like going to school. I said something to a friend like, "Oh, Sandra's been crying again. I wonder what it is this time". That's when I learned the dark truth. She had JUST lost her dad in a car crash.
I just felt horrible. I still do whenever I think about it.
40. Spastic Idiot
I was in church when the priest asked for the "Children of the Parish" to come forward to sing a song. My mother, the ambitious Filipino woman that she is, ushered me to go up there to sing my little heart out. I figured that it couldn't be that bad and it was probably just a song that is sung in church all the time. No. "Children of the Parish" is the name of the freaking choir from the school next door.
So I'm standing up there twiddling my thumbs like a spastic idiot for what felt like an eternity before I slowly realized, what the heck is going on? To top things off, I tried to make an inconspicuous run for it but ended up tripping over the flipping drum kit.
41. Shattered Innocence
When I was 10, a friend and I were horsing around Pier 1 Imports while my mom was shopping. We knocked over a display. We shattered a vase and broke a few other things, but there wasn't anyone around to catch us. So we quickly slunk away to stay close to my mom. For years, whenever we drove past a Pier 1 store, I would get this overwhelming feeling of guilt.
42. What A Cheater
I cheated at Field Day in grade three. They marked our shot put throws with safety cones and we were to stand behind them. When no one was looking, I shuffled my safety cone with my feet just ahead of the next closest girl named Gay. I moved myself from third place to second. Gay didn't have a lot going for her as it was. I still feel bad about it.
43. Diamonds Aren't A Girl's Best Friend
When I was 10 years old, I once took a wedding ring from a distant relative whose first husband had passed. When she remarried, she didn't wear it anymore.
The ring was sparkling and was just sitting in a little porcelain dish. I remember that I really wanted to wear that huge diamond ring. The next thing I knew, I WAS wearing it.
Fast forward two weeks, and I managed to make myself SICK with guilt—nightmares, upset stomach, you name it.
Finally, I called my great-aunt and tearfully admitted that I took her ring. I apologized over and over. She came by to pick it up the next afternoon and told my mother she had let me wear it but forgot to ask for it back. That made me feel so much worse. I've never really taken anything again.
44. Ultimate Laziness
When I was young, I was the laziest kid you could ever possibly meet.
One day, I was taking a nap in my grandma's bed and realized that I really had to pee. Being the lazy git that I was, I didn't want to get up and walk to the bathroom. I thought to myself, "This is probably the last time you can do this and not be ashamed of it".
So, guess what?
I peed in my grandma's bed and didn't even bat an eyelash. Whenever I think about it, I want to rip my bladder out.
45. Brush With Fire
I was about 6 or 7 years old and going door-to-door singing carols with a large group. We were all holding candles since it was dark out. It was a smallish town with lots of dry bushes and fields all around. It wasn't the wisest idea to give a child a lit candle.
Somehow, I strayed a bit from the group and started playing with some sticks. I lit them on fire and then left. I thought I had put them out and rejoined the group. About 45 minutes later, we came back to the scene of the carnage. Lo and behold, the field was on fire! All the adults rushed to put it out. No one ever found out that it was me and luckily no one got hurt.
46. Deadly Blast
In middle school, I was in the Model Rocketry Club. During the school assembly, we got to launch our rockets. One of the rockets we launched had a chamber for a "payload", and a classmate put a frog into it. When the rocket was recovered, I was there. The frog somehow didn't survive. I'm not sure what caused it. The assistant principal announced to the crowd that it was fine, and everybody clapped.
I had nightmares about those cold, staring eyes for weeks. It happened 40 years ago and I still remember it.
47. Missing You
My mother and I had a falling out. We didn't speak for about two years. One day, about four months ago, my brother called me and asked if I could take our mother to the hospital, because she was off of her meds and wasn't doing very well. I refused, stating that the only time she communicated with me was when she needed something.
My mother went into a seizure two days later. She didn't make it. I think about her every single day, and I hate myself for not having helped her at the time she really needed me. I really miss my mom.
48. Playing With Fire
When I was 8 or so, I played RuneScape—a lot. My friend told me about a website where if you filled in the ads, you would get a RuneScape membership.
I immediately began filling the ads out but soon discovered that without a credit card number, I'd only get the minimal amount of stuff. So, I went and found my mom's credit card and entered her number into as many websites as I could find to get the RuneScape membership. I didn't think it made a difference and thought I was getting free membership and all was good. I was so wrong.
It didn't take long before my mom freaked out because she had a ton of debt on her credit card. We also started getting a bunch of random junk coming to our house like hair products and telephones, etc. Because of this and other things, we could not make the deposit for the house we were hoping to move into and were kicked out.
We're still staying in the apartment that we moved to after getting kicked out, I still haven't confessed to my mom about what happened. She thinks it was a key logger that got her credit card number.
49. That Tastes Funny
It was Christmas 1991. My single mom bought me a cat as my present that year—my first pet. I was 10 years old.
We were having Christmas at our house and my mom was running around the kitchen cooking dinner and trying to put on a really beautiful memorable meal. I opened a can of wet cat food over the sink and drained it (mistakenly) into the pot of potatoes that were waiting to be mashed. I was terrified to let my mom down, so everyone had cat food juice in their potatoes. I still think about it and feel awful that I did that.
50. Do You Speak English?
I was working at a homeless shelter/food pantry at a nearby church, handing out cans of soup that had been donated. We get a lot of people who don't speak much English but I always do my best to help them.
As I'm handing out the cans, a small Asian woman approached me and asked, "Meelk"? I later figured out that she was asking for milk, but at the time, I wasn't thinking straight. She pointed to a box of potato leek soup and once again asked, "Meelk"? Not knowing what the heck she was saying, I simply nodded and said, "Yes—meelk". She looked at me, and grabbed the box of soup, thinking it was milk.
I later realized this woman probably didn't have much in life and walked away with something completely different than what she had wanted. I still feel bad for the stupid mistake I made.
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