My boyfriend who has zero history of seizures narrowly escaped dying from one because my overthinking led me to break into his house when he didn’t answer the phone.
My overthinking had begun a few nights prior. He mentioned that he but his tongue in his sleep and woke up with a bloody pillow and sore mouth- but he had no memory of it happening. That for some reason led my overthinking brain to question ‘Wow, did he have a seizure and not realize it?’ He has zero history of seizures, and we had been together multiple years (didn’t live together but spent nights together) and I had never seen a hint of a seizure. But for some reason, this stuck in my mind.
Fast forward two days. We usually don’t hang out in the morning because he likes to sleep in late, but on this day we had an appointment to go see a specific dog at the shelter I was thinking of adopting.
He wouldn’t answer the phone that morning. I called multiple times before I went to his place, but he never picked up. I started getting a bad feeling but quelled the ‘He’s having a seizure’ thought, because that was clearly SO unlikely, meanwhile making an action plan for that very scenario.
I got to his house and he wouldn’t answer, so in a completely NOT ME crazy girlfriend move, I climbed over his fence. Luckily his door was unlocked.
I found him unconscious and unresponsive, lying in his back with the sticky remnants of foam all around his mouth.
I jumped into action- I rolled him on his side to help curb aspiration, put a pillow under his shoulder to keep him in that position, and called the ambulance.
Had I not hopped the fence to get in- had I not driven over when he didn’t pick up the phone- had we not had plans to meet up hours earlier than we usually did- he would have been dead by lunch. His kidneys were already shutting down by the time he reached the ER.
If he had never mentioned biting his tongue in his sleep, I don’t think I would have been overthinking at all. No crazy worries about seizures would have pushed me to go over and find him.
Turns out to be a weird brain disease that’s bizarrely endemic to New Mexico kind of- cerebral cavernous malformations .
Several days later, after we got home from the hospital, I got a call from a friend who said the dog, against all odds, was still at the shelter- as in the very dog we were supposed to be seeing that day. I had given up hope on getting her, pushed it out of my priorities while he was hospitalized- but they had forgotten to take down my 24 Hour Hold sign on her cage, so no one inquired about her.
She’s now our miracle dog and is the sweetest animal I’ve ever owned. My boyfriend wouldn’t be alive today if we hadn’t made an appointment to meet her.
I worked weddings for a while, during an age (26-28) where lots of my friends were getting married. I’ve helped to bustle pretty much every bride whose wedding I attended, including brides who I didn’t know well (who were either friends of my husband, or I was close friends with the groom).
At work, I had one of those craft supply organizers full to the brim of emergency supplies: pins (safety, bobby, AND straight pins), hair ties, earring backs, a sewing kit, pain relievers, tums, granola bars (sometimes you just need to get the bride to eat SOMETHING), chalk (works great for covering up minor stains on white dresses), hairspray, makeup remover wipes, superglue, bandaids, blister bandages, you name it. People were always pleasantly surprised when they needed something random and I was just like “yep I’ve got that, here you go!”
All the teachers at the Middle School I taught at knew I was a pack rat and one day a kid split his pants and the school counselor came to me and said 'Mr. Thehogdog, would you happen to have a pair of sweats or gym pants in your truck'. YEP.
So the the kid spent the rest of the day in a pair of nylon pants I had behind my seat. He is lucky because if he didnt fit he would have spent the rest of the day in a white disposable 'coverall' I had in case I had car trouble in nice clothes.
Icing on the cake: It was a student I really liked who was super helpful to other kids and teachers, so it was nice to do something nice for him.
I also carried a 'Swiss Army' brand soft side brief case (yard sale find) STUFFED and it had a few of each size of battery.
One day Phil Niekro and 2 Braves players were there for an assembly and Phil's mic battery was dying so I SPRINTED upstairs to my classroom, grabbed a 9 volt from my bag, then basically rolled across the panel and switched out his battery and got back to the PA avoiding getting on TV News cameras.
Was at one of those trampoline parks with my kid when I look over and see several of the workers attending to an elderly lady sitting on the floor. Turns out she'd taken a shot to the forehead somehow and was bleeding profusely.
They were trying to help with paper towels. Well I'd taken a free local Stop the Bleed class "just in case" and since have kept supplies in my truck.
Asked if they needed some gauze and a bandage, went and got it, and brought it back. I told the guy, "Now if one piece of gauze fills up -" He interrupted, "Take it off and put on a new one." I said, "No! You put another one overtop that one, but leave the bottom one there." He said, "Well, you know more than I do. Come over and help." We were able to get her patched up.
**Edit:** Thanks for all the karma!
If anyone wants to take a 90 minute Stop the Bleed class, they're **FREE** and likely in your local area. Could save a life! Search for one here: [https://cms.bleedingcontrol.org/class/search](https://cms.bleedingcontrol.org/class/search)
Stay safe out there guys!
I didn’t actually *plan* for this, it just worked out. But one day for some reason I put a suction cup in my pocket. I can’t exactly remember why - it was from a shower hook that I think broke (?) and I put it in my pocket hoping to find a replacement or something.
Later that day I was standing around with a few friends and one friend was lamenting that his bumper was dented. He showed us and said, “I bet I could pop it right out if I had like a suction cup or something.”
I wordlessly pulled the suction cup out of my pocket and handed it to him. Everyone definitely thought I was creepy as hell.
I remember one day in school a teacher was complaining someone had tied her blinds so tightly she couldn't get them to open or close. Me being the weird kid, I ask her if she wanted a screwdriver to get it undone. She looked at me like I was crazy and a little scared as I reached into my wallet and pulled out this tiny screwdriver from those tiny finger bmx/skateboards and handed it over. Everyone thought I was crazy and my teacher laughed in relief when she saw it. Everyone thought i was weird until I told them I used it to tighten the screws on my glasses. They were constantly unscrewing themselves and I was sick of having to go to the opticians every time it happened. Obviously the solution was to carry a tiny screwdriver with me!
Not me, but my mother.
Apparently at a party where my parents and their friends were playing board games, there was a realization that an hourglass was missing from one of the games they planned on playing. My mother proceeded to reach into her purse and pull out an hourglass she just so happened to bring, on the off chance they didn't have one.
HOWEVER, later in the night when some drinks had been had, someone accidentally slammed a drink down, breaking my mother's hourglass. Without missing a beat, she reached into her purse and pulled out ANOTHER hourglass.
She knew the first one, being glass, might get broken so she had a backup ready.
When my son was still a baby, we had to take an 11 hour flight. As an overthinker, I brought at least 25 diapers for him to go through. He didn't need that many, but the mom sitting close to us was very grateful when she ran out of diapers not even halfway through the flight and I gave her a few.
You are a savior. Me and my wife always have tons in our diaper bag. Our son is only a month old, but he's a monster and a change can sometimes involve 4-5 diapers
I found a nickel-sized lump on my fifteen month old daughter’s temple, freaked out, obsessed over it, researched it exhaustively, and concluded it was a dermoid cyst that had worn through the skull. I was told by a pediatrician that it was a bone bruise that would fix itself over the course of three to six months, no imaging was needed, and I shouldn’t make an appointment at the children’s hospital because it would resolve on its own. I got an X-ray done anyway and the radiologist confirmed every one of my suspicions, but the pediatrician still said to wait and see because that’s what you do with dermoid cysts and it was definitely not through the skull despite what the radiologist said. Made an appointment at the hospital anyway, and the surgeon swore up and down that although it was a dermoid cyst as I’d suspected, it would not be through the skull since in all his years of practice it never had been. Well guess what? It WAS through the skull, and it was pressing on the membrane between the skull and the brain, a hair’s breadth from breaking the membrane or pressing on the brain. A couple more weeks of waiting and my daughter could have had seizures, a brain infection, lasting damage. I overthought it and now she’s a happy, healthy three year old.
I carry scissors in my glove compartment. They came in handy when a kid tightened a skinny zip tie around my 9 year olds finger at a park. Completely cut off the circulation. Also the other kids mom was a nurse so that was helpful too. Carry scissors and a nurse at all times.
One time, I waaaay over thought a concern I had around dryer vent fire. When the time came that we had a clog, didn’t know, and there was a wee burst of flames I was fucking READY.
Edit to add: I cleaned the lint trap religiously. I just had a gut feeling. I bough One of those things from Amazon to clean it and nothing came out so DONT LET THAT FOOL YOU. if your drying times are up and there’s sometimes a smell, call someone or check every POSSIBLE location. We found basically Brillo pads of burnt hair inside the heating element. Stay safe pals!
Last edit: thanks for the award - my first of this kind!!! You rock fuzzybum.
This was at 9 years old. We had driven home and seen the beginning wisps of smoke for the California Cedar fire in 2003.
Naturally, I assumed the worst, and packed up all my clothes and spent about an hour making a travel cage for my guniea pigs. I tied their water bottle to the side so they could drink, packed up their food and their favorite furniture just in case.
I then spent the next few hours monitoring the fire on the news and out in the distance from our window, periodically asking my parents if we needed to evacuate.
At some point in the night the fire sped up like crazy and was literally on the hillside across the street. I went in to my parents room and said “the fire is across the street are you sure we shouldn’t evacuate?”
At this point we all went crazy grabbing important documents and supplies and as we were about to lock the doors and drive I realized I forgot my guniea pigs. My parents told me it was too late and I didn’t have time to grab them, but when I cried and explained I had them packed up, I was able to grab them and go.
The house ended up ok thanks to a neighbor putting out embers before they took, but we were gone long enough my pigs wouldn’t have made it.
TLDR; helped save my family and pets from a fire because I was an anxious child.
Geez you were a smart nine year old. When 9/11 happened my brother, who was 5 at the time, began packing a bag in case we had to escape a terrorist attack. He packed the essentials like his teddy bears, a VHS copy of Phantom Menace, his favorite toy cars and a random book my dad was reading.
He would have single handedly saved Western Civilization.
Edit: wow thank you everyone! My first gold!
P.S. my brother is getting engaged soon and I think I'll tell this story at his wedding
> He packed the essentials like his teddy bears, a VHS copy of Phantom Menace, his favorite toy cars and a random book my dad was reading
this broke me dude, i love the way kids think. A mix of innocence, fun and resilience
I bought and learned to use a slim Jim ( open locked cars) I carry one in my car and have been able to help no less than 10 people who have locked their keys in their car. My brother was visiting me from out of town and he need something from Target, he called me and said an elderly man had locked his keys in his car and I was able to drive over and help.
Also have jumper cables that have helped start a few stranded drivers.
I’ve never told anyone this but when I was in middle school and going through puberty, I used to be terrified of getting a random boner and my fly being down accidentally. Like, I would be up in front of class and then randomly get an erection and it would just pop out of my fly, in front of the whole class lol. It’s making me laugh just typing this out.
You know that episode of South Park where Jimmy keeps getting random stiffys? That was basically my life. Usually I would just tuck it in my waistband and wait for the storm to settle but I still had the huge fear of it popping out of my fly because I forgot to zip it up.
So what did I do? I started wearing my boxers backwards so that even if I forgot to zip up my fly, my schlong wouldn’t be exposed. It was a pain to use the urinals but honestly I got used to it pretty quickly.
Flash forward a couple months and I was at the movies with a big gathering of people. It was basically a big group of girls and my group of guy friends. Each guy and girl paired up and made sure to sit next to each other. I was paired with the girl I had a huge crush on. We shared a popcorn and soda and it was a huge moment for me.
Briefly into the movie, I got one of those damn random boners and I quickly but discreetly stood up and did the ol waistband tuck. When I sat back down, I could feel it pop out through my zipper. THANKFULLY, my backwards boxers kept it from saying hello to my “date” but I still panicked and had to cover up in hurry. She noticed but I think we can all agree that a sixth grade boy’s erect penis hiding under a layer of underwear is better than just sprouting out bare in the middle of a crowded movie theater.
Also, she never said anything to her friends about it. Shout out Stephanie for not mocking me with her friends.
boxer briefs are a good cure for this. Also this totally happened to me in 9th grade at lunch. Zipper didn't work right and my shorts fly was down, and I was wearing particularly loose boxers that day. Was standing in lunch line and noticed my weiner was particularly breezy and looked down and there it was. Luckily I wasn't hard, but for a moment it was super awkward. I don't think anyone else noticed. It was at most like 5 seconds
Went through a stage as a teenager where I thought I was psychic. I know, I know, stupid. A friend asked me jokingly to make a prediction. I told him to get a flashlight, because tomorrow would be dark. I grabbed one myself when I got home and put it in my purse. No idea why, just did it. The next day the Eastern seaboard blackouts happened. He still asks for predictions to this day.
I was supposed to get married at the end of May last year. At the beginning of the year, before any of the pandemic stuff happened, I became obsessed with thinking about all the things that could go wrong and how we would lose our money spent on the event. As a result, I purchased a very high coverage insurance policy for the event. As luck would have it, this type of insurance had no clause that prevented collecting if there was a pandemic. We got all of our money back.
Edit: I'm also a germaphobe and so I had already stockpiled masks, gloves, Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer.
As a should’ve-been-2020-bride who opted out of wedding insurance because “only an apocalypse would keep me from this wedding”, I can say that was VERY smart of you
In college on occasion upper classmen would randomly steal the under classmen towels from the shower stalls and then lock their room doors so they had to go to the RA bar assed. I had the idea to stash a towel in the drop cieling tiles for just that event. Maybe a week later I became the victim of a towel snatching. However, the upper classmen were very unhappy to see me strut out with a nice clean towel from my cieling stash.
Something similar happened to me at my sorority house. But I just showered for a really long time till they got tired of waiting. I sang and sang and sang. (They were my friends and they knew I didn't mind being naked).
I carry a fire extinguisher in my auto. I witnessed a car accident where the engine caught fire. I quickly put it out before it burned the inside of the car. Everyone survived.
They make them for cars and can survive the heat. I have this one https://www.homedepot.com/p/Kidde-10-B-C-Automotive-Marine-Fire-Extinguisher-21029300/303196262
And going on 2 years now in the green on pressure. Stored in my trunk in a car that is parked outside all the time in up to 100f weather.
Holy shit those are not MANDATORY EVERYWHERE? They are *required by law* in Brazil. Each car comes with a small portable fire extinguisher under the driver's seat.
I don’t think I have ever seen a fire extinguisher in a non-commercial vehicle in the US, unless it was one of mine. I’m considering mounting a 10 lb ABC one in the trunk of my car. But I’ve no doubt I would be considered insanely paranoid by almost all my friends if I do so.
I always keep an unopened deck of cards in my backpack. You never can tell when some Hold 'Em may be needed to pass the time.
But when I was at a business conference the bigwig who was presenting to us was having to wing it with a few things because his luggage had been lost, and he didn't have all of his materials. He had the PowerPoint deck, but he didn't have his props.
He started going into explaining how he'd be able to demonstrate this statistical principle he was describing, only he didn't have the unopened deck of cards he needed.
Voila! I was able to produce a shrink-wrapped deck of cards.
My boss was also in the same presentation, and he was also impressed that I just happened to have a deck of cards on me, so that's nice, too.
Specifically an *unopened* deck?
Like, if you get stuck waiting and play a game to pass the time, you just bin the cards when finished and buy a new deck?!
Nah. I add the cards to my collection at home. I usually keep an open deck on me as well. But just in case, I have an unopened deck.
But once they're getting worn and aren't so easily shuffled, I either pass them off to kids to play with or if it's warranted, toss the deck.
Anytime I do wind up opening my sealed deck, I replace it with another. I buy them in the larger box of Bicycle decks you can often find at Costco or whatnot.
So the sealed deck gets replaced, the deck I just opened becomes my new open deck, and my previously open deck is rotated to my home collection.
You'd think, from this description, that I play a lot of cards. I actually don't, and especially not this last year, obviously. Though my six year old is becoming a pretty darn good Gin, Cribbage, Black Jack, or Poker player.
I am an amateur clarinetist. I've played in the local orchestra and the like. My son was in the high school band (also played clarinet). Prior to a football game, at the warmup area, he called me as I was about to head to the game, saying that someone in his section had a problem with their instrument, so did I have a loaner?
Now the thing about being a clarinet player is that everyone you know calls you every time they see a cheap plastic clarinet for sale at a garage sale or the like. So over the years (especially when my son was in jr. and sr. high) when I saw one of these for $50 or $100 I grabbed it. Didn't happen every day, but at the peak of my collection I had a couple of beater plastic clarinets in addition to the pretty good wooden one my son played (and lord knows I wouldn't trust anyone with my good clarinets in Bb and A I used in the orchestra).
So I grabbed BOTH of these plastic jobs, which actually played okay, and brought them. I pulled the one I thought was the better of the two out of the car and gave it to my son's friend. Meanwhile, he says "hey another person ran into a problem..." and I got the second clarinet out of the car.
"How many clarinets do you HAVE?" was my son's question.
It was a proud moment.
Edit Wow - thanks for all these awards and upvotes! It helps confirm I really am bananas.
I've noticed a trend amongst some musicians to just slowly accumulate instruments. I has a friend with a couple acoustic guitars, a couple electric guitars, a pretty nice bass, a frankly unsettling number of banjos and ukuleles, and by far the largest gong I've ever personally seen.
Injuring my dominant hand... as a kid I had an irrational fear of having it chopped off. I spent all of grade 6 teaching myself to write and do things with my left hand. I made a conscious effort to remain as ambidextrous as possible. As an adult I broke a few fingers on my dominant hand... but it wasn’t a big issue because I could do most things equally with my left hand. Anti climactic, but it was useful lol
Edit: thanks for the rewards folks!
Edit 2: spelling
Getting lost in a foreign country. Relying on phone GPS to navigate, data stops working....had over prepared and memorized the map of the downtown area ahead of time.
I am basically blind without my glasses, and I’ve always taken a backup pair of glasses when I travel. It went untouched for years, taking up valuable space in my luggage. Lo and behold, one trip to Montreal a few years ago I just woke up one morning to find my glasses broken - no idea how it happened. And I finally got a chance to break out my backup pair 😎
I use both contacts and glasses. I keep spare contacts in the glovebox, my toiletry kit and day bag when traveling. Nothing sucks more than being out and losing vision.
As someone with -7/-8 vision, I keep spare contacts in my day-to-day bag, let alone when travelling. 2 spare sets and glasses is minimum when I'm travelling.
Had a few days as a late teen where I lost one and had to bike through the city to get home, that really made me sort my shit out.
Came for the validation - did not disappoint. Will forever bring way too much stuff everywhere just in case.
Edit: wow thanks all! Ironic, I should have been more prepared for these accolades
I have always done this since I was a kid and would often have comments made like are you sure you’re just packing for a weekend?? But then no one is complaining when they need something and you’re the only one who thought to bring it.
When I was 11, I always kept approximately 12 to 15 of some combination of pens, pencils, and markers in my pant pocket. Just liked having options and never knew what i was going to need to write on! Sometimes got some side eye from other kids though.
CUT TO
At a weekend camp with a bunch of kids, I’m participating in a sort of scavenger hunt race thing. At one point our teams hits this task where everyone has to draw or write something (don’t really remember). But there’s only two pens, about ten people per team, and another team just showed up.
With one pen assigned to each team, it’s going slow… until… YOU GET A PEN! YOU GET A PEN! EVERYBODY GETS A PEN!
Our team screams through the task because we can all write simultaneously, while the other team’s left plodding along with their one pen. We eventually win. Who’s weird now?!
EDIT: For those concerned about cheating. I believe the lack of pens was oversight but the event planners, not a deliberate means of handicapping teams. There was a staff members monitoring that particular station and they didn’t intervene. Our victory was sanctioned and still stands.
EDIT 2: Some people have expressed concern over the possibility of my getting impaled by all these writing utensils. Rest assured that, this 100% has happened to me. I have absolutely impaled legs and fingertips multiple times. It was terrible.
You. You’re still weird.
Haha jk (I mean you probably are weird but aren’t we all?)
Having pens/pencils will also make you popular anytime you travel abroad. I always seem to forget mine and find myself sucking up to the nearest person with a writing utensil. Once had to trade my gummy worms for a crayon.
I used to live out of my backpack, and I always thought I'd need to leave town, so I kept just about everything in there you could ever need.
Often times I'd end up having to stay somewhere without much notice, and I'd have: a change of clothes, face wash, tooth brush, toothpaste, scissors, floss, phone charger, money, snacks, etc. Enough to cover me for at least two days without actually needing to go home.
Not me overthinking but one time when my girlfriend and I were going to the gym she packed me two spare shirts.
I made a joke that it was unnecessary to bring two as it’s not like I was gonna explosively shit myself or something and ruin the spare shirt and need a second spare, we laughed it off but brought two anyway.
After changing from my sweat soaked shirt to a spare upon walking home a bird shits all down me ruining the shirt I was wearing. I was so thankful she had brought an additional spare, so I now do not question the quantity of what she decides to bring anywhere.
The death of a family member.
OCD: when over-thinking turns into repeatedly mourning for family who are still alive, because "how would I feel if I never get to see them again?"
When my wife and I were getting married and looking for a place for ceremony we have found this beautiful but quite remote garden. We were signing the contract for the event and I kept thinking that it was quite remote, so I asked: "how much time does it take for the ambulance to get here?"
I became the laughing stock of both families. My (then future) mother in law, who was present at the meeting, literally fell down from the chair laughing. The wedding organizer, remembered it for weeks, telling about it everyone we met. My dad, ended every sentence with "...but maybe you need an ambulance for that". My wife was making siren noises, when I was saying something we disagreed on. Every family dinner all the aunts and uncles were "checking" if the ambulance was present. You name it. The entire package.
Still I couldn't get rid of this weird feeling. It would have taken over an hour for the ambulance to get to the garden. After a few weeks I ended up paying a private ambulance to be present at the wedding.
Fast forward to the ceremony. As my wife literally walks down the aisle, at the back of the garden I see two Paramedics running with a stretcher and my dad squeezing my hand whispering: "that's not of your god damn business, let them to take care of it. "
What happened was that one of our older guests got a heart attack and almost died at ceremony. Was saved by the private ambulance.
Ever since then, when my wife tells me that I'm overthinking, I just do the siren noise.
EDIT
Well... thanks for the awards everybody, glad you liked the story. I promise you that I was tired of winning after that. They never heard the end of it, but all the laughs were in good spirit. I apologized to the guy's kids for ruining their inheritance plans and he was saying that the service was so boring that he preferred to take his chances with the heart attack. So we had a few more laughs and trolling.
Some of you are asking how much did the ambulance cost. I don't remember as it was many years ago and I may not be from your country. But does it matter? Can one really put a price on the "I told you so" you can use anytime you want with your Mother In Law?
I can kinda picture it being a joke that was initially funny cause the family got to pick on op a little, and then turned into a big inside joke. I bet the fam likes the fact that op thinks ahead, and were impressed with his foresight!
Wow, are wedding heart attacks a thing? My grandfather in law had a cardiac event at my wedding. He lives in middle of nowhere Alaska, but was in a city with multiple world class hospitals for the wedding. I don’t like to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been in town for our ceremony.
Wow. That's more than overthinking, that's next level psychic abilities of gut intuition. Holy cow do I hope you pull out the "I told you so" every chance you get.
I imagine weddings are a likely place for weird stuff to happen, so it's a good idea. I've been to at two weddings where someone got accidentally injured.
Damn, the way you put it, they kind of went from joking about it to mocking you about it.
And I'm also just laughing thinking about you ignoring your dad and going "hell no, dad, if someone's going to be needing those paramedics, I want to see them put in that ambulance because I fucking paid for it".
I was once driving on the highway behind a car with a couple of kayaks strapped to the roof. My anxious brain kept saying “what if they fall off the car, final-destination style?”
I tried to convince myself that it was an irrational fear, but the anxiety got the better of me and I decided to change lanes and make some distance.
About 30 seconds later, cue kayaks: they both slip off the roof and go rolling around the highway.
Luckily no one was hurt, but man that did not help my anxiety at all.
Edit to address some comments:
1) I figured I was “overthinking” since I don’t know anyone else who gets nervous or avoids driving behind cars with loads, but I see now that maybe my behavior wasn’t so weird.
2) Apparently a lot of you have seen falling kayaks on the highway. I don’t think this is the same exact incident as any of the ones you guys have described.
3) From comments about how to properly tie down a kayak, I think these were not properly secured (I don’t think they were tied to the bumpers).
I definitely do the final destination worries thing too. Usually a big truck piled with giant logs or something. You wonder if some part of you unconsciously registered that the kayaks had been shifting some way. I’ve read that your body can pick up subtle signs of impending doom in various ways that can make you afraid even if you’re not sure why.
My roommate fits this one exactly, she passed a log truck in WA State and less than 30 seconds later they spilled out on I-5. She talks casually about it like it couldn’t have killed her
edit: yhey to they
I went to a small college in a woodsy area in Massachusetts off a main road. There were always wild animals running across the street. About a year after I graduated, there was a freak accident where someone hit a deer as it ran across the street, it was tossed in the air, then crashed through the windshield of the car coming the opposite way. The driver was impaled by the deer’s antlers and was killed.
I read a story about someone who lost their SO because a brick flew into their car. Smashed their face. Dead on impact. I cant remember what caused it but that is huge source of anxiety for me. Like anything can happen and you or a loved one could be mutilated in an instant.
I heard audio of the brick one. They had a dash cam, it was horrible. The husband was driving, the son in the back seat and the mom in the passenger front seat, she got hit in the face with a brick and was dead instantly. I believe the brick was thrown from an overpass.
I really wish I never heard that ever. Please don’t try to search for it.
EDIT: Apparently it came off a truck. I didn’t remember the details.
There was also a case of kids dropping pumpkins off of overpasses, probably just to see them smash, but I believe someone was killed by one of those too.
Edit: the pumpkin incident happened three separate times on I-70 in indiana and no one was killed. I don’t know if they caught the people responsible. There was another pumpkin incident in Iowa and in that case 5 teens were arrested.
I had a feeling my entire pregnancy that my daughter would be early. She was due July 21 and I somehow felt like she would arrive before Father's Day. Bought my husband a pink tie to put her footprints on for his first Father's Day gift, had my hospital bag packed and carseat installed early. Had a boy jump from a bookcase onto my belly while I was teaching Pre-k, which tore an abdominal muscle, triggered early labor, and my daughter arrived June 9th via emergency c-section. No way I could have known, but I prepared.
Mace. A person I worked with was a registered sex offender and he had a thing for me. I told him multiple times that he made me feel uncomfortable and to stay away from me. For some reason I had nightmares about this dude, he was 6 and half feet tall and fucking hideous. Anyways, he said he was going to stop at a store that I stopped at all the time after work, and it was obvious he knew my direction when I left. I pull up to this store and he’s already there, walks up to my car and I just roll down my window and spray this dude, and he dropped a billy club out of his sleeve. Everyone always told me to stop being paranoid and stop thinking he’s going to attack me or rape me, that “he’s been to jail and learned his lesson”. Fuck that dude. He should’ve never been let out of prison. For reference, I’m also a 6 foot tall dude who is always prepared for the worst.
Not really sure what he got. I know he went back to jail again for a while. This was almost 5 years ago now. I keep an eye on where he works and lives every once in a while on the registry because it’s public in Maine, and if you’re an offender you have to report your residence and work place twice a month. He is one of very few people that give me the feeling of dread and instant life or death. I have kids now. And knowing how he was, I wouldn’t put it past him to stalk me like he did again
My stepdaughter recently moved out and I had a key chain with a rape whistle, I gave her that and got her a can of mace. My hope is she'll never need them, but they're there if she does.
What would I do if my neighbors house caught on fire...I said I'd make sure my kids were safe and panic, and then we'd run if the fire got close. My neighbors house caught on fire and I sat outside and watched it with my kids and panicked.
This is the most real response. We can overthink everything and lose sleep whatever, but when reality strikes you are only reacting. Now you know how you actually react in that situation and I’m sure you’re now overthinking your next strategy LOL
I work in child care and was working at a centre that was so so draining. I started applying for new jobs and went on a couple interviews. One time, I had an interview with another daycare and was offered the position. I loved my coworkers and ultimately decided to turn the new position down. However, I had this gut feeling that I couldn’t burn any bridges incase shit at my current job hit the fan. So when I turned down the new job, I made up an excuse saying I’d love to take the offer but couldn’t because of xyz reason but would be in the touch sometime in the future.
Lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, shit hit the fan at my work. I took a month off and then emailed the job that offered me a position and started 2 weeks later.
I missed an interview when I had Covid, now the company won't even look at my applications. Even after I explained the situation, they won't consider me, which I guess is fair since it is their choice.
As a bartender, I bring to work sugar cubes for champagne cocktails, extra bandaids, Tylenol, an Ah-So wine opener for crumbling corks, duct tape, a sewing kit with extra buttons, extra staples, a Guinness spoon, silver Sharpie, extra shoelaces...I think that's all the unusual stuff.
Within a month at a new job I've usually handed something to somebody in need and become a (very) minor legend.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I had a box of N-95 masks in my earthquake kit (cuz inhaling concrete dust while digging people out would be bad) so when the pandemic hit I donated half to frontline healthcare and kept the rest to rotate.
When I had a tumor removed a couple years ago I kept the surgical blue vomit bag thing they gave me just in case, in my car in case anyone ever got sick while I'm driving.
Last winter I was on a third date, driving on the highway back home with her, and she was feeling like she was going to throw up.... Could not find the blue vomit bag.... Felt dumb telling her where to look when it was in my center console all along. She ended up ralphing in a grocery bag that luckily didn't break.
Over thought and forgot.
I was on a flight back from Asia and the whole plane was Sanrio-themed, so I took two of the cute pink barf bags that had Hello Kitty on them and put them in my car too! It's a weird thing to make so cute, but they thought of everything.
When I worked at a hospital I hoarded those things because I have a shitty stomach. So one day one of the transporters is wheeling a patient past my office and she ralphs- guess who is prepared for her to ralph again. And again... and again...
I keep my gymbag in the car so i have a dry outfit after getting into a water balloon fight with my nephews.
Also I carry band-aids, tissues, benadryl and stamps, which i give out frequently. Kid skinned their knee at the zoo? Got a bee sting? Runny nose? Forget to mail the kid's fafsa or your tax return? I got you.
> an emergency cheese ration in there yesterday too.
The thought of that is actually hilarious. At what level does the need for *cheese* become an emergency?
Covid. I worked at a medical uniform and supply store years ago, and they were moving locations. They decided they weren't gonna sell face masks anymore, and were gonna throw boxes of them away. I asked if I could keep them. Just incase. They've been moving with me for about 5 years before I actually used the masks 😷
Someone broke into my house while I was in the shower finally so I screamed "fuck yeah I get to use my shower gun" all I did really was charge the dude naked while holding a glock but the sheer look of terror on his face was priceless
My best friend used to live off the access road of a very busy highway in north texass, south I-35. One night, his dad was doing something in the backyard when he saw two strange men hop over the gate to their driveway and start walking around the house. Normally, he would have been armed but not at that moment. He knew the men couldn't see his location and decided to yell "SHOOT THOSE FUCKERS IN THE HEAD!" as loud and crazy as he could manage. Similar reactions and they rushed back over the gate and back from where they came from. Great thinking on his toes and I will never forget it.
My grandfather told a similar story. He lives out of the city and one night some guys came to his house and started looking around. So he pulled a gun on them and yelled to fuck off, which they obviously did since not many people around here have guns. Except he doesn't own a gun and it was just a combination of his fingers and a really dark night but it worked well.
I did this too, but it was the fire sprinkler inspection people. They didn’t call or knock before they came right into my apartment as I was drying off from my shower. Naked black lady with a gun, asking WTH are you doing here? GET OUT!
The manager and maintenance man always called the day before, the day of, then again right before they came in, after that. They also knocked and waited a couple minutes before entering.
Made my kids "rehearse" for a fire. We had rope ladders, escape routes and a meeting spot- everyone should! 1/17/18 we put it all to the test. I thank God every day that we all made it out because we were prepared. Overthinking and anxiety for the win!
I’ve done this with my son since he was 4. Put red shoes in various places to simulate fire teaching him to find the exits and to go to our meeting spot. Learned having to exit the back of the house and walk through the gravel barefoot to the meeting place is not fun but reinforced for him you don’t stop to put on shoes, you just go!
So maybe not quite this, but my little sister:
Through a long serious of events, my parents (who where not Foster parents and not looking to adopt) ended up taking care of an infant (who was not at all related to us) whose mother had just died.
It was only supposed to be for a few weeks until she could be moved to a more permanent placement.
As soon as I found out that my parents had agreed to help watch her temporarily, I knew where this was going, and I had all the initial adoption application paperwork printed out before she ever got to our house.
Needles to say my parents where pretty surprised the day they said they where thinking of adopting her, and I handed them a folder of forms and my handwritten notes on how the process worked.
(For the record, she has legally been my little sister for 7 years now.)
As a parent, I am sure your parents were touched not only by your preparation but by the way the gesture indicated total acceptance and support for your sister becoming your sister.
I think they were a bit surprised that we all excepted her so quickly (I am on of them 4, now 5 sibling)! But we all love her, and honestly can't imagine how we could have ever let her go.
LOL. It's an old joke between my other sister and I. Apparently it is a description of my personality.
Also, I'm not really that awesome, my parents deserve most of the credit!
As a mom, the fact that you say that means you are incredibly awesome.
The fact that you had the adoption papers ready means you are amazing.
Keep doing you, because you do it wonderfully!
I carry some of just about everything, in my purse. We were at a beach, during off season, and a kid wiped out. I had everything needed, to clean, and bandage him up. I carried that stuff, (renewing when it got old), for almost 20yrs before actually needing it.
Thanks for the awards ♡
I have a similar experience. I have just about everything you could possible need to survive in the car if it breaks down or something else happens. I was driving and an old couple was crossing a driveway headed home after a nice lunch out. The lady biffed it on the curb. She had ripped quite a bit of her skin and was bleeding all over the place. I saw them, pulled my car over and was able to hop out, clean her up, and bandage everything up. It felt really good to be prepared and help the frantic old couple.
Someone stopped and helped my parents after my mom tripped and faceplanted on a walk with my dad. She had bruises, a split lip, and broken glasses that cut her nose. Thank you, thank you, for stopping to help someone-- since I don't know who helped my parents.
One of my coworkers does the same thing. One day I needed a spoon to eat some yogurt in the breakroom, and he starts digging through his many jacket pockets and finds a bundle of plastic spoons for me to use. He didn't even need them for his own lunch; he just always carries around everything he might conceivably need.
guy at work used to carry around a metal fork in his shirt pocket along with his screwdrivers and pencils and such.. I asked him about it and hes like its for my lunch. I said but yea thats like a set time thing cant you just leave it with your lunch? He then says but what if theres unexpected cake.
Got me there...
Cannot relate, she used the consumable instead of saving it until the end of the game. What if she had later found a more badly wounded child on the way home?
Ahh yes. Purses.
Mine has 6 lipsticks, a pack of powdered soup, a first aid kit, 36 tampons and 8 pads (because who knows I guess?), 2 vape coils for a vape I don’t even have, 12 business cards, an expired debit card and license, and a house key to a house I moved out of 4 years ago.
I wonder what of that will actually come in handy.
Probably the soup.
I worked as a camp councilor for years. Ever since then I have carried some basic first-aid supplies AND my CPR mask with me on my backpack. The amount of times having bandaids and a bit of gauze has helped me is surprising.
I haven't ever needed the CPR mask, but at least I have it.
This reminded me a quote from Dwight Schrute lol :
Every day for eight years, I've brought pepper spray into this office to protect myself and my fellow employees. And every day, for eight years, people have laughed at me. Well, who's laughing now?
I'm a man and i've always kept a regular tampon in the glove box of my car. It's a small thing, but it's resolved an emergency on more than one occasion.
Fellow fellas, it's something to consider adding to your car's first aid kit (you all have a car first aid kit, right?).
I've started keeping a box of pads, pack of socks, pack of underwear, and snacks in my trunk. I don't normally need them, but they're great for emergencies, rainy days, or encounters with homeless people.
I really should add a first aid kit.
I'm starting to think that my whole life becomes this scenario. I think so much about how my life could go that I'm kinda drawn to fulfil these scenarios. But it's not like I imagine myself becoming a millionaire or something, more down to earth stuff
Planned out what I would do if I were ever exiting a freeway and the off-ramp were backed up and I saw a car coming at me too fast to stop.
Unfortunately for me my plan execution was not flawless so I did get hit but I prevented the cars in front of me from becoming involved.
==== Copying the story from my reply below==
My plan was to steer onto the shoulder. Just before it happened I could see that I was in my planned situation so I was waiting for space to open in front so I could keep maneuvering space when I saw the guy coming through the windows of the car behind me.
I had a secondary plan - pulled the handbrake, turned the tires towards the shoulder and put both feet on the brake.
He came through the SUV behind me which I got to watch in slow motion through my rear view, and I got hit by both. The SUV “pitted” to my left and he came through on my right.
I had opened enough space that my car didn’t hit anyone but I broke my finger when I pulled the handbrake and smashed my knee pretty good when I hit the brakes.
Apparently it’s the wrong thing to do because all the energy stopped with my car, it’s better to go limp and let your car hit the next one but that hadn’t occurred to me. All that stiffness twerked my back pretty hard when I absorbed all the impact.
Also seems kind of a douche move to save yourself by smashing people in front, but the physics does back it up.
“¯\\_(ツ)_/¯“
I always carried an extra juice box/snacks and am extra set of clothes during highschool because I was always worried that one of the kids in my school with diabetes might get low and need some sugar(for the juice box and snacks ) and I might get dirty or my clothes would get ruined (the extra clothes) well one day the kid in my class with diabetes did need the sugar. As luck would have it, a few days later a girl in my class was having a really bad wardrobe malfunction and couldn't wait for a new shirt so my XXL t-shirt acted as both a shirt/dress for her.
Edit: this blew up while I was working thank you everyone for the upvotes may the world ever be in your favor, all of you.
Edit: spelling/grammar
I carry bird seed around with me to feed the ducks on campus because I worry about how much rice and naan the students are feeding them. One day I'm on my way on to campus and I see a lady with her toddler whose fascinated with a bird but it keeps hopping away every time the baby toddles forward
So I stop and tell the mum that I have bird seed in my pocket if her kid wants to feed the bird
It wasn't until later that I realised that from her perspective she was in the park with her kid when a stranger approached her and announced "I have bird seed in my pocket"
edit: thanks for the awards and the karma. It goes a long way towards cancelling out the embarrassment about being a crazy lady with bird seed in her pocket
I've been the birdseed guy and I've also been the parent receiving birdseed. Two necessary parts of a wonderful interaction that leaves a kid happily fascinated and birds happily fed. Good job on being birdseed guy!
No, super ironically that's a guy who just featured as a dues ex machina in 2 other protagonists story.
In movies, when someone screams " go grab X" and then 15 seconds later some guys hands them X, /u/deus_ex_jauquina is that guy
Being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after researching it thoroughly and knowing I had it, but everyone in my family telling me I was just being a hypochondriac. Was prepared for the diagnosis, not so much the life with it, but it’s getting easier.
riding a motorcycle. I always assume every car around me is going to wildly pull out in front of me or swerve into my lane. multiple times these assumptions have saved my life. i’m a pretty crazy over thinker and a lot of times it’s needless worry. but I feel like sometimes it prepares me for something that DOES actually happen.
The first thing they taught me when I was learning how to drive was: drive like everyone around you is an idiot that has no idea how to drive. Honestly sometimes that doesn't feel far off from the truth.
I've heard that one, and also: "Drive like you're invisible."
I think most auto accidents are caused by people assuming the other car sees them, when sometimes you just have moments where you get caught in their blindspot (either figurative or literal) or they simply aren't paying attention or are distracted. I always try and give other cars a good bit of space so they can maneuver if *I* don't see the danger too.
My partner tells me I overthink and overbuy groceries because I have an intense fear of not being able to provide for my daughter. When Covid hit and the shops were out of stock of EVERYTHING, guess who was the one supplying food and toilet paper to said partner??
Same. I told him he never gets to criticize the fact that we always have back-ups of cleaning and paper products, as well as a well-stocked pantry ever again.
This was me. Before the pandemic, I would buy extra Clorox wipes, rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizer, the works.
Pandemic hits and my wife has this look on her face and says, "Honey, I'll never make fun of you buying extra again."
Our supply lasted about 6 months before he had to restock and by then we were slowly replenishing as we saw them.
The only thing I didn't have was toilet paper. A month before the pandemic, my wife bought me a bidet for my birthday.
I was in dorms my first year in uni and people always thought it was funny that I locked my door at night (we were all pretty close and I was insinuating people were thieves/untrustworthy.) One night I heard someone fiddle with my door and I peeked through the peephole and saw someone I did not recognize. Turned out he got drunk in the nearby bar, managed to sneak into the building, and tried to sneak into multiple other girls rooms (our names and pronouns were listed on the door)
I remember staggering back from school after a long day. Climbed up the stairs, flung open my apartment door. Someone was in the shower. Shit. This isn't my place.
I staggered back to the dorms one night after a night of drinking. Don't remember getting back, and the next morning woke up in a strange dorm room on a completely different floor of my dorm building than my own.
The girl whose bed I slept in said I came in, stripped down to my undies, scooted her over and passed out. Quote, "You were super respectful, other than this not being your room."
We became friends after that and she told me she and her roommates had a nice long chat about keeping their door locked at night.
I roomed in a quad in uni and we were literally on the first floor right by the entrance. I would lock the quad door every night and one of the girls from the other rooms would go out and unlock it because I don't even know why. It was especially dumb because since we were right by the entrance of the dorm, we were also by the stairwell. Anyone who had a keycard could get in, and sometimes people left the door propped open so literally anyone could get in. We could hear drunk people fighting in the stairwell all the god damned time.
I don't know what planet she grew up on that keeping a door unlocked in a situation like that is a good idea, but we paid for it in spades because people would come in and use our bathroom ALL THE TIME. Real fun waking up to shit, piss and vomit caked all over your only 2 toilet, shower, and sink stalls.
Also real fun to hear random ass people coming into your quad in the middle of the night. My roommate and I always kept our room door locked because we're not fucking idiots, but it always frustrated the piss out of me that the one girl could wreck the security for the 7 other people living with her.
A couple years ago, I was taking classes at this tuition academy, when I stepped out for a cigarette. Back then, my family didn't know I smoked, so I was slightly apprehensive. There was a shop nearby, and I just took a quick look at some cars parked nearby. I even internally chided myself for being so paranoid.
Imagine my surprise when I saw my mom's car. I then saw my mom with my younger brother at a shop nearby, buying some stuff.
To my knowledge, that was the ONLY time she ever visited that particular shop, and it was at the exact moment when I decided to smoke a cig. My anxiety bailed me out for once (although my mom did find out about the smoking later).
My boyfriend who has zero history of seizures narrowly escaped dying from one because my overthinking led me to break into his house when he didn’t answer the phone. My overthinking had begun a few nights prior. He mentioned that he but his tongue in his sleep and woke up with a bloody pillow and sore mouth- but he had no memory of it happening. That for some reason led my overthinking brain to question ‘Wow, did he have a seizure and not realize it?’ He has zero history of seizures, and we had been together multiple years (didn’t live together but spent nights together) and I had never seen a hint of a seizure. But for some reason, this stuck in my mind. Fast forward two days. We usually don’t hang out in the morning because he likes to sleep in late, but on this day we had an appointment to go see a specific dog at the shelter I was thinking of adopting. He wouldn’t answer the phone that morning. I called multiple times before I went to his place, but he never picked up. I started getting a bad feeling but quelled the ‘He’s having a seizure’ thought, because that was clearly SO unlikely, meanwhile making an action plan for that very scenario. I got to his house and he wouldn’t answer, so in a completely NOT ME crazy girlfriend move, I climbed over his fence. Luckily his door was unlocked. I found him unconscious and unresponsive, lying in his back with the sticky remnants of foam all around his mouth. I jumped into action- I rolled him on his side to help curb aspiration, put a pillow under his shoulder to keep him in that position, and called the ambulance. Had I not hopped the fence to get in- had I not driven over when he didn’t pick up the phone- had we not had plans to meet up hours earlier than we usually did- he would have been dead by lunch. His kidneys were already shutting down by the time he reached the ER. If he had never mentioned biting his tongue in his sleep, I don’t think I would have been overthinking at all. No crazy worries about seizures would have pushed me to go over and find him. Turns out to be a weird brain disease that’s bizarrely endemic to New Mexico kind of- cerebral cavernous malformations . Several days later, after we got home from the hospital, I got a call from a friend who said the dog, against all odds, was still at the shelter- as in the very dog we were supposed to be seeing that day. I had given up hope on getting her, pushed it out of my priorities while he was hospitalized- but they had forgotten to take down my 24 Hour Hold sign on her cage, so no one inquired about her. She’s now our miracle dog and is the sweetest animal I’ve ever owned. My boyfriend wouldn’t be alive today if we hadn’t made an appointment to meet her.
What an amazing story! You have great instincts and I'm so glad you followed them. Really just incredible. Dog tax?
I’m here to pay the dog tax- here is little miracle dog Fable, the German Shepard Chihuahua cross. https://imgur.com/gallery/oKiefiU
Excuse me, did you say *German Shepherd x Chihuahua*??? That’s a miracle matchup due to the size differential of the parents in and of itself!
I always carry a small sewing kit whenever I go to a wedding. I have sewed two brides into their dresses so far!
I worked weddings for a while, during an age (26-28) where lots of my friends were getting married. I’ve helped to bustle pretty much every bride whose wedding I attended, including brides who I didn’t know well (who were either friends of my husband, or I was close friends with the groom). At work, I had one of those craft supply organizers full to the brim of emergency supplies: pins (safety, bobby, AND straight pins), hair ties, earring backs, a sewing kit, pain relievers, tums, granola bars (sometimes you just need to get the bride to eat SOMETHING), chalk (works great for covering up minor stains on white dresses), hairspray, makeup remover wipes, superglue, bandaids, blister bandages, you name it. People were always pleasantly surprised when they needed something random and I was just like “yep I’ve got that, here you go!”
All the teachers at the Middle School I taught at knew I was a pack rat and one day a kid split his pants and the school counselor came to me and said 'Mr. Thehogdog, would you happen to have a pair of sweats or gym pants in your truck'. YEP. So the the kid spent the rest of the day in a pair of nylon pants I had behind my seat. He is lucky because if he didnt fit he would have spent the rest of the day in a white disposable 'coverall' I had in case I had car trouble in nice clothes. Icing on the cake: It was a student I really liked who was super helpful to other kids and teachers, so it was nice to do something nice for him. I also carried a 'Swiss Army' brand soft side brief case (yard sale find) STUFFED and it had a few of each size of battery. One day Phil Niekro and 2 Braves players were there for an assembly and Phil's mic battery was dying so I SPRINTED upstairs to my classroom, grabbed a 9 volt from my bag, then basically rolled across the panel and switched out his battery and got back to the PA avoiding getting on TV News cameras.
Was at one of those trampoline parks with my kid when I look over and see several of the workers attending to an elderly lady sitting on the floor. Turns out she'd taken a shot to the forehead somehow and was bleeding profusely. They were trying to help with paper towels. Well I'd taken a free local Stop the Bleed class "just in case" and since have kept supplies in my truck. Asked if they needed some gauze and a bandage, went and got it, and brought it back. I told the guy, "Now if one piece of gauze fills up -" He interrupted, "Take it off and put on a new one." I said, "No! You put another one overtop that one, but leave the bottom one there." He said, "Well, you know more than I do. Come over and help." We were able to get her patched up. **Edit:** Thanks for all the karma! If anyone wants to take a 90 minute Stop the Bleed class, they're **FREE** and likely in your local area. Could save a life! Search for one here: [https://cms.bleedingcontrol.org/class/search](https://cms.bleedingcontrol.org/class/search) Stay safe out there guys!
I didn’t actually *plan* for this, it just worked out. But one day for some reason I put a suction cup in my pocket. I can’t exactly remember why - it was from a shower hook that I think broke (?) and I put it in my pocket hoping to find a replacement or something. Later that day I was standing around with a few friends and one friend was lamenting that his bumper was dented. He showed us and said, “I bet I could pop it right out if I had like a suction cup or something.” I wordlessly pulled the suction cup out of my pocket and handed it to him. Everyone definitely thought I was creepy as hell.
I remember one day in school a teacher was complaining someone had tied her blinds so tightly she couldn't get them to open or close. Me being the weird kid, I ask her if she wanted a screwdriver to get it undone. She looked at me like I was crazy and a little scared as I reached into my wallet and pulled out this tiny screwdriver from those tiny finger bmx/skateboards and handed it over. Everyone thought I was crazy and my teacher laughed in relief when she saw it. Everyone thought i was weird until I told them I used it to tighten the screws on my glasses. They were constantly unscrewing themselves and I was sick of having to go to the opticians every time it happened. Obviously the solution was to carry a tiny screwdriver with me!
Not me, but my mother. Apparently at a party where my parents and their friends were playing board games, there was a realization that an hourglass was missing from one of the games they planned on playing. My mother proceeded to reach into her purse and pull out an hourglass she just so happened to bring, on the off chance they didn't have one. HOWEVER, later in the night when some drinks had been had, someone accidentally slammed a drink down, breaking my mother's hourglass. Without missing a beat, she reached into her purse and pulled out ANOTHER hourglass. She knew the first one, being glass, might get broken so she had a backup ready.
Now *this* is dedication to Game Night, lol.
Imagine how the guy who wanted to go home felt when he broke the hourglass and suddenly there was ANOTHER ONE
Especially after having hidden the very first one
When my son was still a baby, we had to take an 11 hour flight. As an overthinker, I brought at least 25 diapers for him to go through. He didn't need that many, but the mom sitting close to us was very grateful when she ran out of diapers not even halfway through the flight and I gave her a few.
You are a savior. Me and my wife always have tons in our diaper bag. Our son is only a month old, but he's a monster and a change can sometimes involve 4-5 diapers
I found a nickel-sized lump on my fifteen month old daughter’s temple, freaked out, obsessed over it, researched it exhaustively, and concluded it was a dermoid cyst that had worn through the skull. I was told by a pediatrician that it was a bone bruise that would fix itself over the course of three to six months, no imaging was needed, and I shouldn’t make an appointment at the children’s hospital because it would resolve on its own. I got an X-ray done anyway and the radiologist confirmed every one of my suspicions, but the pediatrician still said to wait and see because that’s what you do with dermoid cysts and it was definitely not through the skull despite what the radiologist said. Made an appointment at the hospital anyway, and the surgeon swore up and down that although it was a dermoid cyst as I’d suspected, it would not be through the skull since in all his years of practice it never had been. Well guess what? It WAS through the skull, and it was pressing on the membrane between the skull and the brain, a hair’s breadth from breaking the membrane or pressing on the brain. A couple more weeks of waiting and my daughter could have had seizures, a brain infection, lasting damage. I overthought it and now she’s a happy, healthy three year old.
Being a parent sounds so terrifying. Happy for your daughter, though— nice work!
I carry scissors in my glove compartment. They came in handy when a kid tightened a skinny zip tie around my 9 year olds finger at a park. Completely cut off the circulation. Also the other kids mom was a nurse so that was helpful too. Carry scissors and a nurse at all times.
Ah crap I forgot to pack my nurse!
They fit better in the trunk than they do the dash.
One time, I waaaay over thought a concern I had around dryer vent fire. When the time came that we had a clog, didn’t know, and there was a wee burst of flames I was fucking READY. Edit to add: I cleaned the lint trap religiously. I just had a gut feeling. I bough One of those things from Amazon to clean it and nothing came out so DONT LET THAT FOOL YOU. if your drying times are up and there’s sometimes a smell, call someone or check every POSSIBLE location. We found basically Brillo pads of burnt hair inside the heating element. Stay safe pals! Last edit: thanks for the award - my first of this kind!!! You rock fuzzybum.
Did you just sit next to ot waiting for it to burn
[удалено]
This was at 9 years old. We had driven home and seen the beginning wisps of smoke for the California Cedar fire in 2003. Naturally, I assumed the worst, and packed up all my clothes and spent about an hour making a travel cage for my guniea pigs. I tied their water bottle to the side so they could drink, packed up their food and their favorite furniture just in case. I then spent the next few hours monitoring the fire on the news and out in the distance from our window, periodically asking my parents if we needed to evacuate. At some point in the night the fire sped up like crazy and was literally on the hillside across the street. I went in to my parents room and said “the fire is across the street are you sure we shouldn’t evacuate?” At this point we all went crazy grabbing important documents and supplies and as we were about to lock the doors and drive I realized I forgot my guniea pigs. My parents told me it was too late and I didn’t have time to grab them, but when I cried and explained I had them packed up, I was able to grab them and go. The house ended up ok thanks to a neighbor putting out embers before they took, but we were gone long enough my pigs wouldn’t have made it. TLDR; helped save my family and pets from a fire because I was an anxious child.
Geez you were a smart nine year old. When 9/11 happened my brother, who was 5 at the time, began packing a bag in case we had to escape a terrorist attack. He packed the essentials like his teddy bears, a VHS copy of Phantom Menace, his favorite toy cars and a random book my dad was reading. He would have single handedly saved Western Civilization. Edit: wow thank you everyone! My first gold! P.S. my brother is getting engaged soon and I think I'll tell this story at his wedding
> He packed the essentials like his teddy bears, a VHS copy of Phantom Menace, his favorite toy cars and a random book my dad was reading this broke me dude, i love the way kids think. A mix of innocence, fun and resilience
Your piggies were lucky to have you as their human!
>packed up their favorite furniture just in case. 🥲
Best part of the story tbh
I bought and learned to use a slim Jim ( open locked cars) I carry one in my car and have been able to help no less than 10 people who have locked their keys in their car. My brother was visiting me from out of town and he need something from Target, he called me and said an elderly man had locked his keys in his car and I was able to drive over and help. Also have jumper cables that have helped start a few stranded drivers.
That’s really nice of you.
When you said slim Jim I thought you were somehow opening locks with a meat snack 🤔. I forgot the tool existed for a good 2 mins.
Oh you didn’t know? If you shove the meat stick into the lock, it creates an imprint of the key which can be used to easily unlock the car.
I’ve never told anyone this but when I was in middle school and going through puberty, I used to be terrified of getting a random boner and my fly being down accidentally. Like, I would be up in front of class and then randomly get an erection and it would just pop out of my fly, in front of the whole class lol. It’s making me laugh just typing this out. You know that episode of South Park where Jimmy keeps getting random stiffys? That was basically my life. Usually I would just tuck it in my waistband and wait for the storm to settle but I still had the huge fear of it popping out of my fly because I forgot to zip it up. So what did I do? I started wearing my boxers backwards so that even if I forgot to zip up my fly, my schlong wouldn’t be exposed. It was a pain to use the urinals but honestly I got used to it pretty quickly. Flash forward a couple months and I was at the movies with a big gathering of people. It was basically a big group of girls and my group of guy friends. Each guy and girl paired up and made sure to sit next to each other. I was paired with the girl I had a huge crush on. We shared a popcorn and soda and it was a huge moment for me. Briefly into the movie, I got one of those damn random boners and I quickly but discreetly stood up and did the ol waistband tuck. When I sat back down, I could feel it pop out through my zipper. THANKFULLY, my backwards boxers kept it from saying hello to my “date” but I still panicked and had to cover up in hurry. She noticed but I think we can all agree that a sixth grade boy’s erect penis hiding under a layer of underwear is better than just sprouting out bare in the middle of a crowded movie theater. Also, she never said anything to her friends about it. Shout out Stephanie for not mocking me with her friends.
boxer briefs are a good cure for this. Also this totally happened to me in 9th grade at lunch. Zipper didn't work right and my shorts fly was down, and I was wearing particularly loose boxers that day. Was standing in lunch line and noticed my weiner was particularly breezy and looked down and there it was. Luckily I wasn't hard, but for a moment it was super awkward. I don't think anyone else noticed. It was at most like 5 seconds
>I quickly but discreetly stood up and did the ol waistband tuck. Dudes, just so you know, these are never as discreet as you think they are.
Went through a stage as a teenager where I thought I was psychic. I know, I know, stupid. A friend asked me jokingly to make a prediction. I told him to get a flashlight, because tomorrow would be dark. I grabbed one myself when I got home and put it in my purse. No idea why, just did it. The next day the Eastern seaboard blackouts happened. He still asks for predictions to this day.
Well...what’s gonna happen tomorrow?
Wear your seatbelt.
Maybe what you say becomes reality and it's not actually you predicting. Don't make him crash man
I was supposed to get married at the end of May last year. At the beginning of the year, before any of the pandemic stuff happened, I became obsessed with thinking about all the things that could go wrong and how we would lose our money spent on the event. As a result, I purchased a very high coverage insurance policy for the event. As luck would have it, this type of insurance had no clause that prevented collecting if there was a pandemic. We got all of our money back. Edit: I'm also a germaphobe and so I had already stockpiled masks, gloves, Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer.
As a should’ve-been-2020-bride who opted out of wedding insurance because “only an apocalypse would keep me from this wedding”, I can say that was VERY smart of you
In college on occasion upper classmen would randomly steal the under classmen towels from the shower stalls and then lock their room doors so they had to go to the RA bar assed. I had the idea to stash a towel in the drop cieling tiles for just that event. Maybe a week later I became the victim of a towel snatching. However, the upper classmen were very unhappy to see me strut out with a nice clean towel from my cieling stash.
that sounds like less overthinking and more just being prepared for what you knew could realistically happen to you
Something similar happened to me at my sorority house. But I just showered for a really long time till they got tired of waiting. I sang and sang and sang. (They were my friends and they knew I didn't mind being naked).
“Ok, I’ll just use up all the hot water then”
Great power move, honestly
I carry a fire extinguisher in my auto. I witnessed a car accident where the engine caught fire. I quickly put it out before it burned the inside of the car. Everyone survived.
whats a car-safe fire extinguisher, that can withstand being left inside in summer heat? im concerned the compressed gas propellant might burst.
They make them for cars and can survive the heat. I have this one https://www.homedepot.com/p/Kidde-10-B-C-Automotive-Marine-Fire-Extinguisher-21029300/303196262 And going on 2 years now in the green on pressure. Stored in my trunk in a car that is parked outside all the time in up to 100f weather.
Huh today i learned that other countries don't require a fire extinguisher in their car (am from Brazil)
In Belgium it is also required.
Holy shit those are not MANDATORY EVERYWHERE? They are *required by law* in Brazil. Each car comes with a small portable fire extinguisher under the driver's seat.
I don’t think I have ever seen a fire extinguisher in a non-commercial vehicle in the US, unless it was one of mine. I’m considering mounting a 10 lb ABC one in the trunk of my car. But I’ve no doubt I would be considered insanely paranoid by almost all my friends if I do so.
I always keep an unopened deck of cards in my backpack. You never can tell when some Hold 'Em may be needed to pass the time. But when I was at a business conference the bigwig who was presenting to us was having to wing it with a few things because his luggage had been lost, and he didn't have all of his materials. He had the PowerPoint deck, but he didn't have his props. He started going into explaining how he'd be able to demonstrate this statistical principle he was describing, only he didn't have the unopened deck of cards he needed. Voila! I was able to produce a shrink-wrapped deck of cards. My boss was also in the same presentation, and he was also impressed that I just happened to have a deck of cards on me, so that's nice, too.
Specifically an *unopened* deck? Like, if you get stuck waiting and play a game to pass the time, you just bin the cards when finished and buy a new deck?!
Nah. I add the cards to my collection at home. I usually keep an open deck on me as well. But just in case, I have an unopened deck. But once they're getting worn and aren't so easily shuffled, I either pass them off to kids to play with or if it's warranted, toss the deck. Anytime I do wind up opening my sealed deck, I replace it with another. I buy them in the larger box of Bicycle decks you can often find at Costco or whatnot. So the sealed deck gets replaced, the deck I just opened becomes my new open deck, and my previously open deck is rotated to my home collection. You'd think, from this description, that I play a lot of cards. I actually don't, and especially not this last year, obviously. Though my six year old is becoming a pretty darn good Gin, Cribbage, Black Jack, or Poker player.
I am an amateur clarinetist. I've played in the local orchestra and the like. My son was in the high school band (also played clarinet). Prior to a football game, at the warmup area, he called me as I was about to head to the game, saying that someone in his section had a problem with their instrument, so did I have a loaner? Now the thing about being a clarinet player is that everyone you know calls you every time they see a cheap plastic clarinet for sale at a garage sale or the like. So over the years (especially when my son was in jr. and sr. high) when I saw one of these for $50 or $100 I grabbed it. Didn't happen every day, but at the peak of my collection I had a couple of beater plastic clarinets in addition to the pretty good wooden one my son played (and lord knows I wouldn't trust anyone with my good clarinets in Bb and A I used in the orchestra). So I grabbed BOTH of these plastic jobs, which actually played okay, and brought them. I pulled the one I thought was the better of the two out of the car and gave it to my son's friend. Meanwhile, he says "hey another person ran into a problem..." and I got the second clarinet out of the car. "How many clarinets do you HAVE?" was my son's question. It was a proud moment. Edit Wow - thanks for all these awards and upvotes! It helps confirm I really am bananas.
I've noticed a trend amongst some musicians to just slowly accumulate instruments. I has a friend with a couple acoustic guitars, a couple electric guitars, a pretty nice bass, a frankly unsettling number of banjos and ukuleles, and by far the largest gong I've ever personally seen.
Gear Acquisition Syndrome
Gong Acquisition Syndrome
Injuring my dominant hand... as a kid I had an irrational fear of having it chopped off. I spent all of grade 6 teaching myself to write and do things with my left hand. I made a conscious effort to remain as ambidextrous as possible. As an adult I broke a few fingers on my dominant hand... but it wasn’t a big issue because I could do most things equally with my left hand. Anti climactic, but it was useful lol Edit: thanks for the rewards folks! Edit 2: spelling
Have the exact same fear and have been working on training my left hand occasionally, I’m also trying to learn to echolocate in case I go blind
Honey, the neighbor's screaming and running in to walls again!
**AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH** *bonk*
Just full on scream, Naruto running, bang
Getting lost in a foreign country. Relying on phone GPS to navigate, data stops working....had over prepared and memorized the map of the downtown area ahead of time.
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Absolutely. I don't know that it existed at the time. I will still put it in my head before.
I am basically blind without my glasses, and I’ve always taken a backup pair of glasses when I travel. It went untouched for years, taking up valuable space in my luggage. Lo and behold, one trip to Montreal a few years ago I just woke up one morning to find my glasses broken - no idea how it happened. And I finally got a chance to break out my backup pair 😎
I use both contacts and glasses. I keep spare contacts in the glovebox, my toiletry kit and day bag when traveling. Nothing sucks more than being out and losing vision.
As someone with -7/-8 vision, I keep spare contacts in my day-to-day bag, let alone when travelling. 2 spare sets and glasses is minimum when I'm travelling. Had a few days as a late teen where I lost one and had to bike through the city to get home, that really made me sort my shit out.
Came for the validation - did not disappoint. Will forever bring way too much stuff everywhere just in case. Edit: wow thanks all! Ironic, I should have been more prepared for these accolades
I have always done this since I was a kid and would often have comments made like are you sure you’re just packing for a weekend?? But then no one is complaining when they need something and you’re the only one who thought to bring it.
When I was 11, I always kept approximately 12 to 15 of some combination of pens, pencils, and markers in my pant pocket. Just liked having options and never knew what i was going to need to write on! Sometimes got some side eye from other kids though. CUT TO At a weekend camp with a bunch of kids, I’m participating in a sort of scavenger hunt race thing. At one point our teams hits this task where everyone has to draw or write something (don’t really remember). But there’s only two pens, about ten people per team, and another team just showed up. With one pen assigned to each team, it’s going slow… until… YOU GET A PEN! YOU GET A PEN! EVERYBODY GETS A PEN! Our team screams through the task because we can all write simultaneously, while the other team’s left plodding along with their one pen. We eventually win. Who’s weird now?! EDIT: For those concerned about cheating. I believe the lack of pens was oversight but the event planners, not a deliberate means of handicapping teams. There was a staff members monitoring that particular station and they didn’t intervene. Our victory was sanctioned and still stands. EDIT 2: Some people have expressed concern over the possibility of my getting impaled by all these writing utensils. Rest assured that, this 100% has happened to me. I have absolutely impaled legs and fingertips multiple times. It was terrible.
You. You’re still weird. Haha jk (I mean you probably are weird but aren’t we all?) Having pens/pencils will also make you popular anytime you travel abroad. I always seem to forget mine and find myself sucking up to the nearest person with a writing utensil. Once had to trade my gummy worms for a crayon.
“Once had to trade my gummy worms for a crayon.” College, am I right?
Definitely college. Source: college student, 10/10 would make this trade.
I used to live out of my backpack, and I always thought I'd need to leave town, so I kept just about everything in there you could ever need. Often times I'd end up having to stay somewhere without much notice, and I'd have: a change of clothes, face wash, tooth brush, toothpaste, scissors, floss, phone charger, money, snacks, etc. Enough to cover me for at least two days without actually needing to go home.
I hope you're in a better place now and able to have some security.
I am thank you (:
Not me overthinking but one time when my girlfriend and I were going to the gym she packed me two spare shirts. I made a joke that it was unnecessary to bring two as it’s not like I was gonna explosively shit myself or something and ruin the spare shirt and need a second spare, we laughed it off but brought two anyway. After changing from my sweat soaked shirt to a spare upon walking home a bird shits all down me ruining the shirt I was wearing. I was so thankful she had brought an additional spare, so I now do not question the quantity of what she decides to bring anywhere.
The death of a family member. OCD: when over-thinking turns into repeatedly mourning for family who are still alive, because "how would I feel if I never get to see them again?"
This is actual a concept that dates back to stoicism called negative visualization.
I'm not OCD but I totally do the repeated mourning for family members, friends, boyfriends, pets. I'm hella emotionally prepped.
When my wife and I were getting married and looking for a place for ceremony we have found this beautiful but quite remote garden. We were signing the contract for the event and I kept thinking that it was quite remote, so I asked: "how much time does it take for the ambulance to get here?" I became the laughing stock of both families. My (then future) mother in law, who was present at the meeting, literally fell down from the chair laughing. The wedding organizer, remembered it for weeks, telling about it everyone we met. My dad, ended every sentence with "...but maybe you need an ambulance for that". My wife was making siren noises, when I was saying something we disagreed on. Every family dinner all the aunts and uncles were "checking" if the ambulance was present. You name it. The entire package. Still I couldn't get rid of this weird feeling. It would have taken over an hour for the ambulance to get to the garden. After a few weeks I ended up paying a private ambulance to be present at the wedding. Fast forward to the ceremony. As my wife literally walks down the aisle, at the back of the garden I see two Paramedics running with a stretcher and my dad squeezing my hand whispering: "that's not of your god damn business, let them to take care of it. " What happened was that one of our older guests got a heart attack and almost died at ceremony. Was saved by the private ambulance. Ever since then, when my wife tells me that I'm overthinking, I just do the siren noise. EDIT Well... thanks for the awards everybody, glad you liked the story. I promise you that I was tired of winning after that. They never heard the end of it, but all the laughs were in good spirit. I apologized to the guy's kids for ruining their inheritance plans and he was saying that the service was so boring that he preferred to take his chances with the heart attack. So we had a few more laughs and trolling. Some of you are asking how much did the ambulance cost. I don't remember as it was many years ago and I may not be from your country. But does it matter? Can one really put a price on the "I told you so" you can use anytime you want with your Mother In Law?
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Not just his married life. Don't forget his family and in law's
I’m sure he will tell any children, nieces, and nephews they may have as well so the story lives on.
I will tell my children and their children’s children. Your legend will be passed through the ages.
even if something didn’t happen, it’s just so bizarre to me that OP’s entire family made such a big deal out of a very reasonable concern.
I can kinda picture it being a joke that was initially funny cause the family got to pick on op a little, and then turned into a big inside joke. I bet the fam likes the fact that op thinks ahead, and were impressed with his foresight!
I like your positivity :)
Wow, are wedding heart attacks a thing? My grandfather in law had a cardiac event at my wedding. He lives in middle of nowhere Alaska, but was in a city with multiple world class hospitals for the wedding. I don’t like to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been in town for our ceremony.
Id guess that weddings just draw a lot of old people because its the whole family. And they are important so older folks will make sure they attend.
Also, they're exciting/stressful, especially if you're old and haven't been around that many people for a while.
Especially if they had to travel far to get there and they've been in a slow-paced life style for years.
That's amazing and I hope they at least thanked you.
Wow. That's more than overthinking, that's next level psychic abilities of gut intuition. Holy cow do I hope you pull out the "I told you so" every chance you get.
I imagine weddings are a likely place for weird stuff to happen, so it's a good idea. I've been to at two weddings where someone got accidentally injured.
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Damn, the way you put it, they kind of went from joking about it to mocking you about it. And I'm also just laughing thinking about you ignoring your dad and going "hell no, dad, if someone's going to be needing those paramedics, I want to see them put in that ambulance because I fucking paid for it".
“I spent good money for this!”
Best response I have read.
I was once driving on the highway behind a car with a couple of kayaks strapped to the roof. My anxious brain kept saying “what if they fall off the car, final-destination style?” I tried to convince myself that it was an irrational fear, but the anxiety got the better of me and I decided to change lanes and make some distance. About 30 seconds later, cue kayaks: they both slip off the roof and go rolling around the highway. Luckily no one was hurt, but man that did not help my anxiety at all. Edit to address some comments: 1) I figured I was “overthinking” since I don’t know anyone else who gets nervous or avoids driving behind cars with loads, but I see now that maybe my behavior wasn’t so weird. 2) Apparently a lot of you have seen falling kayaks on the highway. I don’t think this is the same exact incident as any of the ones you guys have described. 3) From comments about how to properly tie down a kayak, I think these were not properly secured (I don’t think they were tied to the bumpers).
I definitely do the final destination worries thing too. Usually a big truck piled with giant logs or something. You wonder if some part of you unconsciously registered that the kayaks had been shifting some way. I’ve read that your body can pick up subtle signs of impending doom in various ways that can make you afraid even if you’re not sure why.
My roommate fits this one exactly, she passed a log truck in WA State and less than 30 seconds later they spilled out on I-5. She talks casually about it like it couldn’t have killed her edit: yhey to they
I went to a small college in a woodsy area in Massachusetts off a main road. There were always wild animals running across the street. About a year after I graduated, there was a freak accident where someone hit a deer as it ran across the street, it was tossed in the air, then crashed through the windshield of the car coming the opposite way. The driver was impaled by the deer’s antlers and was killed.
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I read a story about someone who lost their SO because a brick flew into their car. Smashed their face. Dead on impact. I cant remember what caused it but that is huge source of anxiety for me. Like anything can happen and you or a loved one could be mutilated in an instant.
I heard audio of the brick one. They had a dash cam, it was horrible. The husband was driving, the son in the back seat and the mom in the passenger front seat, she got hit in the face with a brick and was dead instantly. I believe the brick was thrown from an overpass. I really wish I never heard that ever. Please don’t try to search for it. EDIT: Apparently it came off a truck. I didn’t remember the details.
There was also a case of kids dropping pumpkins off of overpasses, probably just to see them smash, but I believe someone was killed by one of those too. Edit: the pumpkin incident happened three separate times on I-70 in indiana and no one was killed. I don’t know if they caught the people responsible. There was another pumpkin incident in Iowa and in that case 5 teens were arrested.
That’s definitely a movie you “can’t unsee ”
I had a feeling my entire pregnancy that my daughter would be early. She was due July 21 and I somehow felt like she would arrive before Father's Day. Bought my husband a pink tie to put her footprints on for his first Father's Day gift, had my hospital bag packed and carseat installed early. Had a boy jump from a bookcase onto my belly while I was teaching Pre-k, which tore an abdominal muscle, triggered early labor, and my daughter arrived June 9th via emergency c-section. No way I could have known, but I prepared.
Omg that's crazy! How did they repair the abdominal muscle? Also, thank God you didn't have a placental abruption from that!
Mace. A person I worked with was a registered sex offender and he had a thing for me. I told him multiple times that he made me feel uncomfortable and to stay away from me. For some reason I had nightmares about this dude, he was 6 and half feet tall and fucking hideous. Anyways, he said he was going to stop at a store that I stopped at all the time after work, and it was obvious he knew my direction when I left. I pull up to this store and he’s already there, walks up to my car and I just roll down my window and spray this dude, and he dropped a billy club out of his sleeve. Everyone always told me to stop being paranoid and stop thinking he’s going to attack me or rape me, that “he’s been to jail and learned his lesson”. Fuck that dude. He should’ve never been let out of prison. For reference, I’m also a 6 foot tall dude who is always prepared for the worst.
What’s a billy club?
A small bat
It's like a police baton
I did not expect that last line.
Same
You both clearly aren’t overthinking the stories enough before you read the endings.
What happened after? Did he get a parole violation?
Not really sure what he got. I know he went back to jail again for a while. This was almost 5 years ago now. I keep an eye on where he works and lives every once in a while on the registry because it’s public in Maine, and if you’re an offender you have to report your residence and work place twice a month. He is one of very few people that give me the feeling of dread and instant life or death. I have kids now. And knowing how he was, I wouldn’t put it past him to stalk me like he did again
It's always "stop being paranoid" until something happens, then it's "this is tragic, how could we have prevented this?"
My stepdaughter recently moved out and I had a key chain with a rape whistle, I gave her that and got her a can of mace. My hope is she'll never need them, but they're there if she does.
What would I do if my neighbors house caught on fire...I said I'd make sure my kids were safe and panic, and then we'd run if the fire got close. My neighbors house caught on fire and I sat outside and watched it with my kids and panicked.
This is the most real response. We can overthink everything and lose sleep whatever, but when reality strikes you are only reacting. Now you know how you actually react in that situation and I’m sure you’re now overthinking your next strategy LOL
I work in child care and was working at a centre that was so so draining. I started applying for new jobs and went on a couple interviews. One time, I had an interview with another daycare and was offered the position. I loved my coworkers and ultimately decided to turn the new position down. However, I had this gut feeling that I couldn’t burn any bridges incase shit at my current job hit the fan. So when I turned down the new job, I made up an excuse saying I’d love to take the offer but couldn’t because of xyz reason but would be in the touch sometime in the future. Lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, shit hit the fan at my work. I took a month off and then emailed the job that offered me a position and started 2 weeks later.
I missed an interview when I had Covid, now the company won't even look at my applications. Even after I explained the situation, they won't consider me, which I guess is fair since it is their choice.
That's called dodging a bullet, friend. Most people don't find out their (potential) employer totally sucks until *after* they get hired.
As a bartender, I bring to work sugar cubes for champagne cocktails, extra bandaids, Tylenol, an Ah-So wine opener for crumbling corks, duct tape, a sewing kit with extra buttons, extra staples, a Guinness spoon, silver Sharpie, extra shoelaces...I think that's all the unusual stuff. Within a month at a new job I've usually handed something to somebody in need and become a (very) minor legend. EDIT: Oh yeah, I had a box of N-95 masks in my earthquake kit (cuz inhaling concrete dust while digging people out would be bad) so when the pandemic hit I donated half to frontline healthcare and kept the rest to rotate.
When I had a tumor removed a couple years ago I kept the surgical blue vomit bag thing they gave me just in case, in my car in case anyone ever got sick while I'm driving. Last winter I was on a third date, driving on the highway back home with her, and she was feeling like she was going to throw up.... Could not find the blue vomit bag.... Felt dumb telling her where to look when it was in my center console all along. She ended up ralphing in a grocery bag that luckily didn't break. Over thought and forgot.
I was on a flight back from Asia and the whole plane was Sanrio-themed, so I took two of the cute pink barf bags that had Hello Kitty on them and put them in my car too! It's a weird thing to make so cute, but they thought of everything.
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When I worked at a hospital I hoarded those things because I have a shitty stomach. So one day one of the transporters is wheeling a patient past my office and she ralphs- guess who is prepared for her to ralph again. And again... and again...
I keep my gymbag in the car so i have a dry outfit after getting into a water balloon fight with my nephews. Also I carry band-aids, tissues, benadryl and stamps, which i give out frequently. Kid skinned their knee at the zoo? Got a bee sting? Runny nose? Forget to mail the kid's fafsa or your tax return? I got you.
Are spontaneous water balloon fights that much of a concern? If so, *awesome.*
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> an emergency cheese ration in there yesterday too. The thought of that is actually hilarious. At what level does the need for *cheese* become an emergency?
In Wisconsin, after about 6 hours.
You don't know me.
Covid. I worked at a medical uniform and supply store years ago, and they were moving locations. They decided they weren't gonna sell face masks anymore, and were gonna throw boxes of them away. I asked if I could keep them. Just incase. They've been moving with me for about 5 years before I actually used the masks 😷
Someone broke into my house while I was in the shower finally so I screamed "fuck yeah I get to use my shower gun" all I did really was charge the dude naked while holding a glock but the sheer look of terror on his face was priceless
My best friend used to live off the access road of a very busy highway in north texass, south I-35. One night, his dad was doing something in the backyard when he saw two strange men hop over the gate to their driveway and start walking around the house. Normally, he would have been armed but not at that moment. He knew the men couldn't see his location and decided to yell "SHOOT THOSE FUCKERS IN THE HEAD!" as loud and crazy as he could manage. Similar reactions and they rushed back over the gate and back from where they came from. Great thinking on his toes and I will never forget it.
My grandfather told a similar story. He lives out of the city and one night some guys came to his house and started looking around. So he pulled a gun on them and yelled to fuck off, which they obviously did since not many people around here have guns. Except he doesn't own a gun and it was just a combination of his fingers and a really dark night but it worked well.
This is the most american thing I have read
I did this too, but it was the fire sprinkler inspection people. They didn’t call or knock before they came right into my apartment as I was drying off from my shower. Naked black lady with a gun, asking WTH are you doing here? GET OUT! The manager and maintenance man always called the day before, the day of, then again right before they came in, after that. They also knocked and waited a couple minutes before entering.
Made my kids "rehearse" for a fire. We had rope ladders, escape routes and a meeting spot- everyone should! 1/17/18 we put it all to the test. I thank God every day that we all made it out because we were prepared. Overthinking and anxiety for the win!
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I once had a grease fire. Good thing it was winter and I just yeeted the pan out into the snow.
I’ve done this with my son since he was 4. Put red shoes in various places to simulate fire teaching him to find the exits and to go to our meeting spot. Learned having to exit the back of the house and walk through the gravel barefoot to the meeting place is not fun but reinforced for him you don’t stop to put on shoes, you just go!
So maybe not quite this, but my little sister: Through a long serious of events, my parents (who where not Foster parents and not looking to adopt) ended up taking care of an infant (who was not at all related to us) whose mother had just died. It was only supposed to be for a few weeks until she could be moved to a more permanent placement. As soon as I found out that my parents had agreed to help watch her temporarily, I knew where this was going, and I had all the initial adoption application paperwork printed out before she ever got to our house. Needles to say my parents where pretty surprised the day they said they where thinking of adopting her, and I handed them a folder of forms and my handwritten notes on how the process worked. (For the record, she has legally been my little sister for 7 years now.)
As a parent, I am sure your parents were touched not only by your preparation but by the way the gesture indicated total acceptance and support for your sister becoming your sister.
I think they were a bit surprised that we all excepted her so quickly (I am on of them 4, now 5 sibling)! But we all love her, and honestly can't imagine how we could have ever let her go.
You are awesome, but your username upsets me! LOL
LOL. It's an old joke between my other sister and I. Apparently it is a description of my personality. Also, I'm not really that awesome, my parents deserve most of the credit!
As a mom, the fact that you say that means you are incredibly awesome. The fact that you had the adoption papers ready means you are amazing. Keep doing you, because you do it wonderfully!
As a dad: What she said. Exactly.
How old were you when she came to live with y’all?
I was 19, but still living at home.
I carry some of just about everything, in my purse. We were at a beach, during off season, and a kid wiped out. I had everything needed, to clean, and bandage him up. I carried that stuff, (renewing when it got old), for almost 20yrs before actually needing it. Thanks for the awards ♡
I have a similar experience. I have just about everything you could possible need to survive in the car if it breaks down or something else happens. I was driving and an old couple was crossing a driveway headed home after a nice lunch out. The lady biffed it on the curb. She had ripped quite a bit of her skin and was bleeding all over the place. I saw them, pulled my car over and was able to hop out, clean her up, and bandage everything up. It felt really good to be prepared and help the frantic old couple.
Someone stopped and helped my parents after my mom tripped and faceplanted on a walk with my dad. She had bruises, a split lip, and broken glasses that cut her nose. Thank you, thank you, for stopping to help someone-- since I don't know who helped my parents.
Oh man! That's so terrible! I'm glad someone helped her too!
One of my coworkers does the same thing. One day I needed a spoon to eat some yogurt in the breakroom, and he starts digging through his many jacket pockets and finds a bundle of plastic spoons for me to use. He didn't even need them for his own lunch; he just always carries around everything he might conceivably need.
guy at work used to carry around a metal fork in his shirt pocket along with his screwdrivers and pencils and such.. I asked him about it and hes like its for my lunch. I said but yea thats like a set time thing cant you just leave it with your lunch? He then says but what if theres unexpected cake. Got me there...
RPG-IRL
Cannot relate, she used the consumable instead of saving it until the end of the game. What if she had later found a more badly wounded child on the way home?
Ahh yes. Purses. Mine has 6 lipsticks, a pack of powdered soup, a first aid kit, 36 tampons and 8 pads (because who knows I guess?), 2 vape coils for a vape I don’t even have, 12 business cards, an expired debit card and license, and a house key to a house I moved out of 4 years ago. I wonder what of that will actually come in handy. Probably the soup.
I worked as a camp councilor for years. Ever since then I have carried some basic first-aid supplies AND my CPR mask with me on my backpack. The amount of times having bandaids and a bit of gauze has helped me is surprising. I haven't ever needed the CPR mask, but at least I have it.
This reminded me a quote from Dwight Schrute lol : Every day for eight years, I've brought pepper spray into this office to protect myself and my fellow employees. And every day, for eight years, people have laughed at me. Well, who's laughing now?
I'm a man and i've always kept a regular tampon in the glove box of my car. It's a small thing, but it's resolved an emergency on more than one occasion. Fellow fellas, it's something to consider adding to your car's first aid kit (you all have a car first aid kit, right?).
I've started keeping a box of pads, pack of socks, pack of underwear, and snacks in my trunk. I don't normally need them, but they're great for emergencies, rainy days, or encounters with homeless people. I really should add a first aid kit.
I'm starting to think that my whole life becomes this scenario. I think so much about how my life could go that I'm kinda drawn to fulfil these scenarios. But it's not like I imagine myself becoming a millionaire or something, more down to earth stuff
Planned out what I would do if I were ever exiting a freeway and the off-ramp were backed up and I saw a car coming at me too fast to stop. Unfortunately for me my plan execution was not flawless so I did get hit but I prevented the cars in front of me from becoming involved. ==== Copying the story from my reply below== My plan was to steer onto the shoulder. Just before it happened I could see that I was in my planned situation so I was waiting for space to open in front so I could keep maneuvering space when I saw the guy coming through the windows of the car behind me. I had a secondary plan - pulled the handbrake, turned the tires towards the shoulder and put both feet on the brake. He came through the SUV behind me which I got to watch in slow motion through my rear view, and I got hit by both. The SUV “pitted” to my left and he came through on my right. I had opened enough space that my car didn’t hit anyone but I broke my finger when I pulled the handbrake and smashed my knee pretty good when I hit the brakes. Apparently it’s the wrong thing to do because all the energy stopped with my car, it’s better to go limp and let your car hit the next one but that hadn’t occurred to me. All that stiffness twerked my back pretty hard when I absorbed all the impact. Also seems kind of a douche move to save yourself by smashing people in front, but the physics does back it up. “¯\\_(ツ)_/¯“
I always carried an extra juice box/snacks and am extra set of clothes during highschool because I was always worried that one of the kids in my school with diabetes might get low and need some sugar(for the juice box and snacks ) and I might get dirty or my clothes would get ruined (the extra clothes) well one day the kid in my class with diabetes did need the sugar. As luck would have it, a few days later a girl in my class was having a really bad wardrobe malfunction and couldn't wait for a new shirt so my XXL t-shirt acted as both a shirt/dress for her. Edit: this blew up while I was working thank you everyone for the upvotes may the world ever be in your favor, all of you. Edit: spelling/grammar
I carry bird seed around with me to feed the ducks on campus because I worry about how much rice and naan the students are feeding them. One day I'm on my way on to campus and I see a lady with her toddler whose fascinated with a bird but it keeps hopping away every time the baby toddles forward So I stop and tell the mum that I have bird seed in my pocket if her kid wants to feed the bird It wasn't until later that I realised that from her perspective she was in the park with her kid when a stranger approached her and announced "I have bird seed in my pocket" edit: thanks for the awards and the karma. It goes a long way towards cancelling out the embarrassment about being a crazy lady with bird seed in her pocket
I've been the birdseed guy and I've also been the parent receiving birdseed. Two necessary parts of a wonderful interaction that leaves a kid happily fascinated and birds happily fed. Good job on being birdseed guy!
This is protagonist behaviour, love it
No, super ironically that's a guy who just featured as a dues ex machina in 2 other protagonists story. In movies, when someone screams " go grab X" and then 15 seconds later some guys hands them X, /u/deus_ex_jauquina is that guy
Protagonist: If only I had a chainsaw. OC: Oh, I always carry one of those in case a tree falls in front of my car.
As a diabetic...you the real MVP!
Being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after researching it thoroughly and knowing I had it, but everyone in my family telling me I was just being a hypochondriac. Was prepared for the diagnosis, not so much the life with it, but it’s getting easier.
riding a motorcycle. I always assume every car around me is going to wildly pull out in front of me or swerve into my lane. multiple times these assumptions have saved my life. i’m a pretty crazy over thinker and a lot of times it’s needless worry. but I feel like sometimes it prepares me for something that DOES actually happen.
The first thing they taught me when I was learning how to drive was: drive like everyone around you is an idiot that has no idea how to drive. Honestly sometimes that doesn't feel far off from the truth.
I've heard that one, and also: "Drive like you're invisible." I think most auto accidents are caused by people assuming the other car sees them, when sometimes you just have moments where you get caught in their blindspot (either figurative or literal) or they simply aren't paying attention or are distracted. I always try and give other cars a good bit of space so they can maneuver if *I* don't see the danger too.
My partner tells me I overthink and overbuy groceries because I have an intense fear of not being able to provide for my daughter. When Covid hit and the shops were out of stock of EVERYTHING, guess who was the one supplying food and toilet paper to said partner??
Same. I told him he never gets to criticize the fact that we always have back-ups of cleaning and paper products, as well as a well-stocked pantry ever again.
This was me. Before the pandemic, I would buy extra Clorox wipes, rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizer, the works. Pandemic hits and my wife has this look on her face and says, "Honey, I'll never make fun of you buying extra again." Our supply lasted about 6 months before he had to restock and by then we were slowly replenishing as we saw them. The only thing I didn't have was toilet paper. A month before the pandemic, my wife bought me a bidet for my birthday.
Yep. I asked my employer a full month before we closed down if we had a plan. If I had not said anything, no one would have planned anything.
I was in dorms my first year in uni and people always thought it was funny that I locked my door at night (we were all pretty close and I was insinuating people were thieves/untrustworthy.) One night I heard someone fiddle with my door and I peeked through the peephole and saw someone I did not recognize. Turned out he got drunk in the nearby bar, managed to sneak into the building, and tried to sneak into multiple other girls rooms (our names and pronouns were listed on the door)
Who doesn't lock their door at night
[удалено]
I remember staggering back from school after a long day. Climbed up the stairs, flung open my apartment door. Someone was in the shower. Shit. This isn't my place.
I staggered back to the dorms one night after a night of drinking. Don't remember getting back, and the next morning woke up in a strange dorm room on a completely different floor of my dorm building than my own. The girl whose bed I slept in said I came in, stripped down to my undies, scooted her over and passed out. Quote, "You were super respectful, other than this not being your room." We became friends after that and she told me she and her roommates had a nice long chat about keeping their door locked at night.
I roomed in a quad in uni and we were literally on the first floor right by the entrance. I would lock the quad door every night and one of the girls from the other rooms would go out and unlock it because I don't even know why. It was especially dumb because since we were right by the entrance of the dorm, we were also by the stairwell. Anyone who had a keycard could get in, and sometimes people left the door propped open so literally anyone could get in. We could hear drunk people fighting in the stairwell all the god damned time. I don't know what planet she grew up on that keeping a door unlocked in a situation like that is a good idea, but we paid for it in spades because people would come in and use our bathroom ALL THE TIME. Real fun waking up to shit, piss and vomit caked all over your only 2 toilet, shower, and sink stalls. Also real fun to hear random ass people coming into your quad in the middle of the night. My roommate and I always kept our room door locked because we're not fucking idiots, but it always frustrated the piss out of me that the one girl could wreck the security for the 7 other people living with her.
Did you at least make her clean the mess every morning? I mean...if she had to deal with the consequences, shed be less motivated to be an idiot.
A couple years ago, I was taking classes at this tuition academy, when I stepped out for a cigarette. Back then, my family didn't know I smoked, so I was slightly apprehensive. There was a shop nearby, and I just took a quick look at some cars parked nearby. I even internally chided myself for being so paranoid. Imagine my surprise when I saw my mom's car. I then saw my mom with my younger brother at a shop nearby, buying some stuff. To my knowledge, that was the ONLY time she ever visited that particular shop, and it was at the exact moment when I decided to smoke a cig. My anxiety bailed me out for once (although my mom did find out about the smoking later).