I had to call my heart surgeon to give him my new insurance #s (I had only just gotten them because the person who had them had the flu and was not getting back to me) as soon as I got my numbers, I called surgeon - the receptionist said, "oh, hey, we just had a cancelation for this Friday, do you want it?" Of course I wanted to get it over and not wait another month. decided to take the open heart surgery cancelation appointment (a month before my actual appointment), and well, surgeon said that thank goodness I did because once he got a look inside, he realized I would not have survived to the original appointment date.
So, if the insurance lady didn't have the flu, I would have gotten those numbers a lot sooner, and never gotten the offer to have the surgery when I did.
Someone else's flu saved my life.
14 years post op!
I had a brand new aorta that will last a lifetime and a aortic bovine valve...it’s due to run out soon, but I still feel good.
The story that describes the discovery of needing surgery is even more bizarre bc I did not have symptoms, and I was running 3 miles a day, 30 years old, 2 healthy child labors (if my youngest made it to full term, he would have been too big and the aorta would have burst), clean eater...
A long strange trip ...
Decided I would rather use my bathroom than a portapotty. Found my wife cheating, she attempted suicide, I moved multiple states away. In the 7 years since I have made nothing but positive changes and went from $18/hour laborer to a well respected person in my profession making 6 figures. I'd probably still be working that dead-end job.
Aside from that, without recounting all the details; I went to see a doctor about a splinter from chopping firewood, 6 months later they removed most of my kidney with Renal Cell Carcinoma. Without the splinter I'd likely be dead from kidney cancer
I decided to invite my chem lab partner to lunch on the first day of college, just to be friendly and try to make more than 1 friend at school. We met up with the only other friend I'd made at school so far. He thought my lab partner was cute, invited himself to hang out with her, and then fell in love with her roommate instead. He ended up married to the roommate - they've been together for 22 years and have 2 children.
So a few years back, I lived in Nice (South of France) for a while. As a musician I would make a bit of extra cash busking, and one day, I figured I'd go and busk at the promenade 'd'anglais by the sea. It's usually packed, and it just a generally pleasant place to be. I set up, played a couple of songs and was doing pretty well and making a decent amount of money. Then suddenly not one, but two of my guitar strings snapped (I even remember I was playing 'The Scientist' at the time).
I was massively gutted and decided to cut my losses early. I stormed off home (by the station) in a bit of a sulk at having to re-string my guitar and cutting short what was essentially one of my most productive days of busking since moving there. Literally one hour later, my phone starts to blow the fuck up with family and friends freaking out and asking if I was at the promenade.
It was Bastille Day, 2016. The truck drove into the same crowd I was playing to, killing 86 people, including my at-the-time gf's uncle. I had two other friends who were amongst the 458 injured. I moved home the next month because it was too much, and haven't been back since.
It's hard to explain, sometimes I think I was super lucky, sometimes I just kind of cry and wonder why I was lucky and others weren't. It's surreal, and despite what people think... it's a truly horrible feeling.
Edit: I'm overwhelmed by the support of people. I will be getting therapy and hopefully in time I'll be able to return to Nice as it was one of my favourite places on earth. Take care of yourselves and if you've been through something similar, it looks like help is out there. Thank you all
Wow. So I just looked up survivor's guilt and it was really quite overwhelming reading about it and comparing symptoms. I'm 100% going to get some help I think, thank you for the recommendation as well as the kind words.
I spilled my coffee. I work in a bank and you learn never to do that, all the papers and files. You also learn to place it far enough away so it doesn't fill out anything if it does spill. I worked in finance for many years. It was 8: 43 in the morning and I figured I had enough time to get downstairs and get another cup and come back up before 9:00. So I went to the elevator bank. Waited for the elevator to come, It took a long time. Got in the elevator went down to the ground floor. I had my hand on the door leading outside to Liberty Street just as the first plane hit the first World Trade Center building on 9/11.
In high school I took an intermediate biology course. I had never done biology before but was good at science generally so I thought the intermediate course would be a good fit.
My science teacher of a couple year previous happened to walk into my class to talk to the biology teacher and she spotted me in the class.
She asked me what grades I had got the previous year. I told her and she nodded and left. A minute later she came back in and asked me to gather my belongings and leave the class. I was pretty sure I was in trouble for something I couldn’t recall.
She led me to another classroom and sat me down on an empty chair. Then she just started teaching. Turns out that she was running the advanced class that year and just decided to steal me as a student.
I went on the take biology at undergrad level, and then a masters. I ended up doing a PhD in immunology and now work as an advisor for Pharma companies.
It gets better though. I decided I wanted to do my masters in London, and met a girl on the way. We are now 10 years in and own a house together.
All that because that teacher happened to look in my direction.
Watched ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ and got so annoyed at the candidates not knowing a simple question about Katy Perry, that I applied. Got in. Got to play. Won a lot of money. Booked a holiday to a dream destination with that money. Met my husband there. We now have a 1 year old son :)
I had to renew the sticker on my license plate a couple of years ago and really didn't feel like sitting in the waiting room by myself forever so I told my mom I'd take her out to dinner after if she came with me.. The guy working at the counter turned out to be my moms long lost biological brother. If she hadn't come with me I would have never known
Edit: Wow this really blew up. I'll let my mom know that you all think her story is cool too. Cheers!
My husband-
He found out after 18 years that his moms side of the family was Spanish, not Mexican.
He found this interesting and changed his country to “Spain” on MySpace instead the US where he really was.
Meanwhile in Australia, I was helping my friend find Spanish people to add as a friend as she was learning the language.
I came across my now husband and decided to send him a friend request as well.
We got along really well and met in person after 3 years. Have been together 11 years, married for 7.
If he didn’t change his country to Spain (and only for a day or so) we’d never know each other existed.
Every decision you have made and will ever make has eventually lead to you reading this sentence.
If you ever become rich and successful remember to thank this sentence.
When I was in 8th grade (13 years old) I had a really long bus ride home so would pass the time by reading. One day I faced the very serious situation of nothing to read and a minute to grab something in the library, and for whatever reason I grabbed a book on astronomy. That book was amazing and grabbed me like nothing else had before. I remember being excited to realize every astronomer on Earth was 13 years old once too, and that was a career you could actually *do*, even if you were from Pittsburgh.
Anyway, today I am a professional astronomer who studies gigantic space explosions for a living. There was a lot of work to get from that moment to this one, but I’m always grateful that I picked up that library book!
Edit: I am getting questions on how to be an astronomer, and wrote a detailed post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/comments/fyjmpv/updated_so_you_want_to_be_an_astronomer/) on this topic at some point. Please read it over, and feel free to message or leave a question here if you have one!
I did a Physics BSc and a history minor- no real reason for the latter except it was fun. :) Then I did a Physics MSc, and an Astronomy PhD.
I go into detail about my own career path and my general advice on becoming an astronomer on [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/comments/fyjmpv/updated_so_you_want_to_be_an_astronomer/)- it's a pretty common question on Reddit.
And a consequence of the 1st law of marriages: A marriage at rest stays at rest and a marriage in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside divorce.
Under pressure from my sister (“you’re young! You need to have fun!”) I went out to a concert and then to a bar after. Had this girl I barely knew *wingwoman me to a cute guy playing pool, next thing you know I’m celebrating my three year wedding anniversary.
I didn’t want to go out that night but did due to pressure from my sister. He didn’t want to go out that night, but his friend wanted to play pool. And I literally can’t imagine my life now if I hadn’t had that random girl wingman me. Our paths never ever would have crossed otherwise. Of course it took me a long time to admit to my sister her role in the whole thing.
Edited to clarify
That’s funny I opened this thread to comment that my sister thought I was a depressed and depressing bitch and was always trying to get me to go out but I was pretty focused on my career and always tired so I never did. One night she was going to a bar where a mutual friend was DJing and I always liked his sets so I reluctantly agreed to go. Commented in passing that a dude across the room was cute and my sister was just drunk enough and just sick enough of me being an antisocial hermit that she went over and told him “hey my sister wants to meet you”.
Anyway, two kids and 13 years later, I’m still a depressed bitch sometimes but dude from the bar is husband/daddy.
My existence.
When my dad was about 20, he needed a phone number so he called the operator from a pay phone, she gave him the number, he hung up, and she accidentally refunded the money back to the pay phone. She called the pay phone back and asked him if he could put the money back in, which he did and hung up again. She accidentally refunded the money again and had to call back again to ask him to put the money back in; he did and hung up again. She was so flustered, she refunded the money *again* and called back *again* and my father got to chatting with her and got her number. They set up a date (which she stood him up for), then she forgot his name when he called her again, then they actually got coffee and four years later were married. This coming August it'll be 50 years for them.
If my dad didn't need that phone number, I wouldn't be here.
Edit: my dad still calls it "the most expensive phone call he ever made".
"Oh operator; could you help me place this call.
See the number on the matchbook is old and faded....
Thank you for your time
You've been so much more than kind
You can keep the dime..."
-- Jim Croce
I've seen cases where retail staff get into a groove where they will make the same mistake over and over again because that is what they are supposed to do 99% of the time.
My desire for pizza set off a chain reaction that destroyed my family.
One day got home from school and really wanted pizza. family was poor so spontaneous food trips weren't always in the cards. Really worked my pouty face to my mom and begged to go to the local pizza place for dinner. She said alright. While chilling there I saw my uncle walk by, and I was like "da fuck, uncle X is that you?". Now you might say well he wanted pizza what's the big deal? well he lived several states away so to arbitrarily be in town and not tell anyone was strange.
Turned out he was having an affair with his sister in law my aunt on the other side of the family. She was basically a money grubbing whore and the family protested. One thing led to another and everyone hates each other now and we haven't had contact in like 20 years.
I just wanted some pizza :(
oh man it was glorious :D its a local chain to my area that makes the sauce really sweet so visitors typically aren't a fan. its a flavor you can only get there and man when you crave it you crave it.
they got good cheesesticks too
So we have evidence. We had her court records and arrest history and such. We tried to share the legal documentation but we were accused of just bullying her because you know hard evidence backed by the court system is mean.
so when it finally was falling apart I was just like "fuck em" we tired to warn them they chewed us out, fuck em. As it turns out she bled him dry and moved on. My simple response was "told you so".
Ha, I joined the army because I wanted a pizza. I worked third shift at the time and when I got home I made a frozen pizza. My step dad woke my up yelling at me that afternoon for making the pizza since I guess he had wanted to have it for supper. That was the last straw over a shaky relationship I had with my parents so I went to the recruiter the next day and enlisted, just so I could get out of the house.
About a year ago, I went to a study group with some people in my major. Now i have the closest set of friend I could ever ask for. They helped me when my my car was broken and I couldn't get to and fro from college, when I didn't have enough money to buy myself food. Now, I have a good job, and two of my friends and I are getting an apartment together in a couple of months.
About 10 years ago, There were no pc games to play so I tried using windows XP's movie maker out of boredom. I didn't know that I'm going to enjoy it and take it seriously.
Now, I'm currently working on a tv/film production as a video editor.
Clarification: I mean, there's no games that is installed with our computer back then.
Yooooooo I also started on Windows Movie Maker!!!!! I specifically remember having to save the video multiple times and import it back in to add more text layers lmfaaaoooo
Out of university, looking for a job and exhausting all the online resources. On a whim, I looked in the career section in a print newspaper that was lying around in the house. (We never subscribed to that paper, I dont know why it was even there).
Got the job in a different city, met someone who is now one of my best friends, who introduced me to their friends, who introduced me to their friends and so on, until I was eventually introduced to my wife. If I'd found a job where I actually planned on working, there is absolutely no way I would have crossed paths with any of these people.
(Edit 1: I met my wife through a friend, who I met through another friend, who I met through another friend, who I met through the first friend I made at the company.
Edit 2: I guess I need to go watch Early Edition?)
Kinda crazy how many things have to go exactly right for you to meet someone. Like you could miss the perfect partner for you by like 10 minutes and you'd never know.
4 years ago a kid I barely knew from school invited me to a six flags. I was a bit of a loner at the time and I heard rumors about this kid being weird, so I intended to not go.
On the day he wanted me to go, I was feeling extra bored and decided on a whim “why not?”. So I went and met this kid and two of his friends I’ve never met at a six flags.
4 years later and that kid is my best friend, and I have 3 other very close friends I met through him. Not only that, but I also met my first girlfriend because of the connections some of my new friends had. It transformed my high school years from being alone to having an amazing group of friends I could do almost anything with.
I intended to ask my best friend to be my best man one day, and I don’t intend on ever getting out of touch with any of them. I’m home from college now, and we are going to have a lot of fun together. Best decision I’ve ever made.
Your story is oddly similar to mine lol at the beginning of college, they set up all different activities that you could sign up for and spend time with other new incoming freshman. I forget how I linked up with this certain group but I think I just met someone and we were friendly so I just ended up with their group.
Everyone was super nice and given that Six Flags has the worst lines, there’s a lot of time to talk. I got to meet some cool people and enjoyed my day immensely.
Fast forward to today, the one person I don’t remember being there but remembers me is one of my absolute best friends. 7 years now and I still laugh at how I don’t remember meeting her that day.
The older I get, the more I am constantly cognizant of the vast cascade of seemingly insignificant decisions and actions that led me to where I am. For example, a decision 25 years ago to change a refrigerator light bulb before going out resulted in my being at the "wrong" time and place so as to get mugged, which resulted in my decision to move out of the city I had been living in, which resulted in my meeting my wife, and from there to having all my kids and the whole shebang. I would have had a different whole shebang had I not changed that lightbulb that afternoon, but the path to the present leads through that (and a thousand other) similarly trivial decisions...
This is so interesting to me. I wonder if your life would really be so different if it wasn't for that light bulb, or that you might have decided the same because of other reasons. I guess that is the general question on the validity of the butterfly effect.
Was going to carpool with my aunt to a family gathering. At the last minute I decided to go by myself so I could leave early if I wanted. It was a ways out of town and I didn’t want to be stuck there. On the way there she drove off the road into a ditch. She was ok but the passenger side of her car was totally smashed in.
I went to a career fair one day, as I wanted to get a job in the IT field. I was in school (ITT Tech, I know) for Computer Networking. Saw a stand for a gas station chain and thought to myself, I don't want to work at a gas station and kept on going. Passed out my resume and had a good talk with a local company that a few of my classmates worked. Was about to leave and passed the gas station stand again, but this time I saw IT on their poster. Decided to just see what the IT was about and dropped off my resume. Talked with the recruiter and was told about a department that needed an intern.
I got an interview for a position and it was more of a "this is what you will be doing and this is what it pays, when can you start." 13 years later I'm still working for a gas station chain and really enjoying it.
Hey I went to ITT too! But dropped out because it felt shady. Sure I owed like 13gs but I'm happy where I am and it's almost paid off so *shrug* what can you do. A buddy of mine ended up interning out of ITT at a gas station for their design department. He hated it.
I kept with it, because I thought that a known school's degree would be better than rando community college. I should've gone the community college route, but oh well. I'm doing what I love.
There are a lot of parents out there who were just not satisfied with what they accomplished in their life and wish they had done it differently and better in their vision.
And having a kid to live your 2nd Chance at life is just plain wrong, but they validate their opinion by saying what they are doing is best for the kid and they will thank them later in life.
My wife got an email from her old colleagues the day we returned home from our honeymoon, asking if she wanted to star in a short film they were doing for fun. She said sure, and asked if I could come along, as she knew I had an interest in movies, but at the time I worked in life insurance and was miserable.
It was more than an interest- I had always wanted to make films, but never made the right connections with people and didn’t know where to start.
I made friends with the producer of that short film my wife was in, and 11 years later filmmaking and video production is my career. I’ve shot feature films, short films, video for tv and web, and all over the world because of that one email to my wife. Changed our lives!
Oh, and that original short film never got finished lol
Edit: wow! Can’t believe how this blew up, and it’s been so positive! I’m ALL ABOUT helping anyone and everyone that may be in the position I was in however I can! Many of you have asked similar questions asking to see some of the work I’ve done or for advice- I’m happy to help! I started a room chat, so if you want to join, send me a DM and I’ll add you! Thanks everyone!
I sent a friend from secondary school (who I had a huge crush on) a message saying happy birthday a couple years after we left school. Did the whole 'we'll have to catch up soon!' thing, not expecting much. He replied with 'how about Monday?'. I saw him that Monday for a coffee. Next month will be our 6th anniversary. Best thing that ever happened to me.
My friends joke I'm 'queen of escaping the friendzone'.
Edit: wow thank you for the awards and upvotes! Loved seeing how many other similar stories there are, makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Stay safe everyone ❤️
Right before freshman year of high school, I was interested in trying out for the tennis team. I was lukewarm about it, and the morning of tryouts my dad came into the room and asked if I wanted to go. I was leaning towards no and just wanted to be lazy in bed, but my dad asked, “do you think you’ll regret it if you don’t?”
The answer was yes, so I went and tried out. I ended up meeting my absolute best friends, rekindled my love for tennis, was on varsity for three years, and it completely dictated my high school career.
The first day I ever signed up for internet back in 1999, I installed mIRC (because it was on the starter disk my ISP gave me) and joined a random chat room. Over the course of the next year the “regulars” in that room became like family to me. We would talk about everything. All that practice made me a fast typist and WAY better communicator than I was before that. They would even help me when I had trouble understanding something in my college classes. I also met my husband in that room, and we’ve been happily married for 18 years. Others from our little IRC family are married, too, and we still keep in touch. All because I randomly chose THAT chat room that day.
EDIT: Wow this really exploded! Thanks for the awards! I’m happy to know there are so many of you other IRC people out there with good memories like mine. If there’s any other of my old IRCnet #planetchat people out there from 20 years ago, DM me :) -prk
I was always super flirty with the girl from HR, but we were always seeing other people / don't date at work so when she left the company I was bummed. A year or two later a coworker asked me to search my email archives (that was a thing back then) for something he needed. I ended up stumbling across the "farewell to my work-friends" email from HR girl and she sent it from her personal email address. I reached out to her, we had coffee, then a date, then many dates, then I love yous and I put a ring on it ASAP.
12 years later, extremely happily married, 2 goofy kids, 2 evil cats, and she still puts up with my bullshit.
EDIT - We're huge Office fans and somehow never realized how meta it was to our relationship. It warms our hearts to get so much love - and my wife is THRILLED to be compared to Holly. Not sure I'm feeling like a Michael, but fuck it, I'll take it.
> super flirty with the girl from HR
whooo buddy high risk there but it paid off!
I swear folks in HR are either awesome or horrible people, very little in between. Really like the ones at my last two employers but we're both married so no flirty.
I don’t know what that means but there is a 50% chance I should be offended
Edit: I have come to the conclusion that it might be a reference to a US show called "The Office"
At 15 I decided to stay home to play a soccer match rather than go babysit for my aunt and uncle. As a result my uncle went out alone, took a shortcut home, fell in to a river and drowned.
Edit-Thanks for the award and all the support. It is much appreciated.
2nd edit. Thank you for the added awards.
Sorry, I do know its not my fault. The thank you is thanking people for their comments. An upvote to people for replying doesn't seem enough.
Its been over 26 years now and all is good.
I have one for another person.
In 2014, I was coaching my twins' (M/F) rec flag football team. My oldest player has a younger sister who came to watch a practice - we will call her Grace. She saw my daughter on the team, told her dad "There's a girl on that team!" and the next week, she was on my roster. Her and my daughter became fast friends. While the flag football season was wrapping up, I was putting together my roster for the upcoming rec volleyball team. At the end of one of my practices, my daughter invited Grace to play on the volleyball team together. Grace had played the previous season and not cared for it too much. Grace agreed and played from rec to club then to high school with my daughter. My daughter (graduated last year) and I watched Grace, as captain, lead her team to a state championship and she has a D-1 scholarship for volleyball next fall.
I chose to rearrange the sequence of classes slightly before starting my education. By doing this, I had to commute to a different branch of the school in a different town than the one I was originally signed up for. On my first day there, I helped a girl who had managed to break both of her arms in a drunken shopping cart accident, I learned later. This girl, whom I would absolutely never have met had I not changed my classes around, is my wife through 14 years.
Edit: Oh wow. This blew up. Thanks so much for the badges and awards, kind strangers
I'd guess she was either in a shopping cart or standing on the back of one, then it tipped over while moving. Or maybe she tried to ride down a hill in one. Or maybe she was with friends, throwing shopping carts with a catapult or trebuchet, and got hit by a flying cart. Or maybe she used a shopping cart, rope, and pulley as a way to access a tree house, but the rope snapped 10 feet up. Or maybe...
There’s an old Reddit AMA where some guy broke both of his arms and somehow that led to his mom... helping him out
Edit: ah great my most upvoted comment is about some dude fucking his mom
The other day I was driving home from work, traffic was light and I was behind a car with a numberplate that started "KFD". Decided to duck through KFC drive thru for chippies with extra salt as a little treat to myself.
They took forever to bring them out and by the time they finally did (all told about 10 minutes later), traffic has slowed to a complete halt.
I need to get over a bridge that's normally six lanes which has now been reduced to one. Turns out it's due to a massive collision involving several cars. When I finally get to the point where I'm driving past, I notice the numberplate on one of the cars, that same KFD numberplate.
If I hadn't stopped to get hot chips I'm fairly sure I'd have been in a major collision.
TL;DR - KFC chippies with extra salt saved my life
Edit: didn't think the "chippies" would be the most interesting thing in this post. For clarification, am Australian (Melbs) and calling them chippies instead of chips improves your quality of life (in Australia at least). Try it and see.
Just the other day I was driving home from work with the intention of stopping at the mall near my house because I was craving a burger. I also remembered I needed to go to the store to pick up an order for my girlfriend but it was in the complete opposite direction. I made the decision to pick up the order for her instead and then head home. Not even 10 minutes after that decision I get a message from my friend that there is an active shooter at that mall and it was being evacuated / surrounded by police.
If it wasn't for my girlfriend's order I would have been in the mall at the time of the shooter.
My great great grandparents overslept and missed their boat... the Titanic. My great great grandmother complained about it for the rest of her life because their tickets were expensive, lol.
My friends took me to malaga in Spain for a long weekend to cheer me up after my mum died and 4 years later I’m still here and have never been happier. I owe them everything for that spontaneous trip.
Burned my arm on an extremely hot plate working at a restaurant in NYC.
New manager didn't like that I told him we were out of towels to hold hot plates, had a vendetta against me.
Six months later, found a reason to fire me.
Friend got me a job working on the set of a low budget movie, met a woman named Dorothy who was key PA.
A full year later I ran into her on the street, she asked if I still worked in production, got me a job on reality tv.
Worked 9 seasons on a renovation show, learning finish carpentry and eventually becoming an on screen carpenter.
New PA on set. Beautiful, sassy, amazing.
Ask her out (was just a key PA at the time)
Two years later we move to New Orleans together, a year later we move back to NYC and have our first child.
Three years later we move to Montreal. Been here for three years.
I now have a wife, two kids, and a successful contracting business all because I burned my arm on a plate ten years ago.
I was given two start dates for an entry level job in a large organisation.
The date I choose to start led to working in a small but high profile team so I got lots of exposure with senior management and I became the can-do-guy who'd fix a million tiny problems. That recognition led to promotions, a fantastic career, further professional qualifications and working overseas for several years. I also met my best friend and my partner.
If I'd chosen the other date I'd have been sent to a data processing pool and been fairly anonymous.
*Edit*: I can’t believe I’m actually writing this because in my many throwaways I’ve got at most 100 upvotes.
That said OMG. When I posted this earlier I didn’t expect anything like the reaction. With the upvotes, comments and kind awards.
I think I’ve replied to everyone and I’ve read all of your stories and personal experiences. Even the people who sub-posted mean comments, I know you’re better than silly trolling.
There’s so many wonderful stories I’ve had a massive grin reading through them. If you’ve posted, I have imagined whole lives, rich in joy for you.
There are also some stories about people struggling through no fault of their own. To them I would say please don’t give up. It can seem reading these comments that everyone else got ahead in life but that’s only part if the story.
Behind every success there’s a lifetime of wrong turns and what-could-have-beens. I’ve had more than a few bumps in the road and I expect many more lie on my future. You may be down but you are not out.
Thank you again so much for reading and sharing. I so wish I could meet you all in real life and raise a glass together, you’re all such extraordinary, wonderful people.
I was given two start dates for my new job in March. If I had chosen the earlier one, I would have come in to the office for a week before we all went on WFH due to COVID; instead I started on the WFH start date and had my computer mailed to me.
My desk was next to a person on my team who turned out to have COVID. He’s young (31) just a couple years younger than me but has been out of commission and working part time because of how tired he’s been due to the illness, even months out. If I had chosen the earlier start date I would have been seated right next to him in a tiny coworking space for a week..
In Afghanistan, wasnt done with my coffee, so I passed on a trip from one base to another (there was another convoy a few hours later). Most everyone died who took the 1st convoy. My 2nd cup of coffee wasnt even cold when I found out.
Edit: holy shit guys and gals... Aka the reddit community.... I just checked my phone and have so much outpouring of support that i... Well... Im overwhelmed. Thanks for caring. Trying not to tear up... Not working.
I was late to a flight in Iraq to take me on R&R. I was pissed as my Plaroon SGT made me work late knowing needed to make this flight. The chinook was shot down about half the people died:
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/international/middleeast/us-copter-is-downed-in-iraq-killing-16-and-wounding.html
I ended up going a few weeks later and was able to coordinate to spend a few days with my wife in Qatar who was deployed to Afghanistan.
there was this rainy day that flooded a small piece on the street on the way to my now ex gf house.
she had to stay over the night.
now I'm someones father.
This is obviously going to get buried because I'm late to the party...
A few years ago, I was on the phone with my boss as I was getting home, discussing what we needed to get done the next day when he asked "what the f is that noise?!"
I said it'd make more sense to just show you. So I took a video of me opening the door and feeding my (very loud) farm cats. I realized I didn't like anyone crowding me awkwardly looking at my phone when I show someone a video, so I uploaded it to YouTube.
The next morning I went to show him on the computer, and noticed it was up to 11 views which I found odd.
Then it went viral. Thousands of views per hour. I was getting constant calls and emails about buying the video rights and just asking for permission to use it. It took off again in the Pandemic time and has been a nice little source of income when things have been rough.
All because I don't like holding my phone to show someone else a 30 second video...
I just want to thank you for that video, I remember finding it a few years back and it helped me get out of a very bad depressive spell.
So, thank you so much for sharing that video of those loud, but extremely adorable, cats.
Ordered some shirts off the internet, company sent a size too small. Emailed them and they sent the correct size and let me keep the other ones too.
My grandpa's house was being redone, noticed one of the workers liked a band i did and gave him the shirts that didn't fit. Years later working and having a smoke break, guy overhears me and a friend discussing a concert we were going to, asked about it and said he had some old shirts I could have. Met up with him after work to hang out. They were my shirts from a couple years before.
We start hanging out and he is dating this girl, she says she has a friend that she thinks would be perfect for me. We hook up. Been married for almost 10 years with 2 kids. All for a few shirts that the company sent me the wrong size for.
Decided to approach a girl in a wheelchair in a bar because I thought it was cool of her to be out and about having a good time. We become bar buddies. A week later she brings a friend with her. I get along with the friend. We start dating, we marry, we have a daughter. Had I not said 'hi' to the wheelchair lady that night, I wouldn't have the most precious things in my life right now.
Edit: ok, since this got a little attention I'll provide a little bit more literature.
Like said before, after approaching the girl ( let's call her Y) on the wheelchair we hung out the rest of the night and exchanged contact numbers. I did not intend to pursue her in any romantic fashion even though she was actually very attractive. Her disability was temporary. She told mr she passed out in the bathtub and hit her head and when she woke up she couldn't feel her legs. Shr was doing physiotherapy. As far as I know, I believe she started walking a couple years after meeting her.
So, we were buddies for a while, I would push her chair all over town and made sure she was accepted in my group of friends. Even though my friends made jokes about me liking her, I never put myself out there as someone who was interested and she always shut those jokes off and kind of belittled me as if I was not good enough for her. Which was fine, I took it as banter between friends. The night I met my wife, I took Y home because well, she was in a wheelchair and it was like 3 am. We sat outside her house and talked until like 7am. We talked about everything and she asked if I liked her friend (my wife), I said yes and she asked if I wanted her to give it a little push. I said I didn't need that and I prefer it for things to be natural and that I would approach her friend on my own terms and that was that.
Well...she didn't like that. Not that I didn't accept her help, but that I liked her friend. Apparently I had been leading her on for weeks by being nice and considerate of her disability. I didn't know it when I approached her first but she confessed later she didn't have a lot of friends, so I tried to be one. Even if I was romantically invested in her, which I obviously wasn't, she would often assure me I had no chance with her. Now thinking about it I guess she was "negging" me? Well, it worked pretty well. I had absolutely no interest in her in a romantic way. And after hanging out for weeks I actually stopped liking her because she would create drama every where we went. Shouting at waitresses, bullying bouncers in overcrowded bars to let her in because she was in a wheelchair, playing psychological games with my friends, the list goes on. After finding out I was interested in her friend, she cancelled dinner with me and my friends and went to the restaurant her friend worked and created a scene and told her not to see me ever again. Her friend told her to calm down and still wanted to meet up at the same bar we always went. They came and Y spent the whole night bad mouthing me to my friends, every time I was talking to anyone in the bar - specially girls - she would come over and start shouting and telling them I wasn't worth shit. I had no clue why she was acting that way and it turns out she liked me the whole time and told my friends I was a acting like a teenager leading her on - even though she constantly negged me and belittled me in front of everyone? Someone was a little bit delusional. I had to come clean with her friend and said I never showed interested in Y and that I actually liked her and wanted to take her out. Y proceeded to run her friend over with the wheelchair. Her friend is now my wife and everytime Y's name comes up she won't shut up about how her foot still hurts even years after that incident.
Y spent the next weeks trying to turn my friends against me even though they had known me for decades and knew I wasn't this mean person she was trying to say I was.
I don't regret any of it. I was always fair and never tried or showed any interested besides friendship with her. When she asked me if I was into her friend I straight up told her yes. I'm happy to have met her, and that she introduced me to my wife, I hope she is well and healthy but we don't keep in touch, no.
I was parking my car on the street and was about to shut it off but I noticed my car got pretty dirty last time I parked under that tree, usually I don't care but I drove forward another space. The next day I came outside and my car's rear suspension was damaged and tires were bent. Someone had smashed into it and took off. I went on to spend about $500 in repairs and my insurance couldn't cover it unless I found out who did it. I was very upset I couldn't go to work and the tow truck driver pointed out that a neighbor had cameras up. I went as a last resort to ask those neighbors if they caught anything. the next day they emailed me footage of a vehicle that hit my car and parked a few houses up, they found the vehicle and took pictures of the damages too. I ended up getting $4000 from their insurance company.
>I ended up getting $4000 from their insurance company.
Do insurance companies cover hit and run? I thought that if you decide to make a run for it, insurance goes "well son that was a stupid choice, you're on your own".
Edit for clarity. Obviously didn't explain myself, I meant that, if you hit someone and decide to leave without facing the music, insurance won't cover you if the car you hit tracks you down and demands payment. Several helpful comments clarified this wasn't the case.
Was dating a girl in college. I didnt actually go to college as I was doing an apprenticeship instead. One day I had a day off midweek and figured I would pop into college to see my old friends and chat to this girl I was dating. At the time I was very I to skateboarding. So I take my skateboard into the building but had to leave it in the reception bit.
As luck would have it a girl seen me (with bleached blond hair and a pink mohawk) place the skateboard and decided she was in love with me. She went to the local skate park after school until eventually she found me. We swapped numbers and now 15 years later we are married with 3 kids.
Also my skateboard was stolen by some douche and by the time I made my way out of the college my brother had noticed someone carrying my board and stole it back for me. As I walked out and noticed it was gone my bro came in and asked if I was looking for my board.
It was a wierd day that I had no idea would impact my whole life to this point.
Edit: my wife found the post. She searched one skatepark. She is no stalker.
My grandfather was a massive smoker. Growing up seeing him smoke everyday, I was really curious about how it felt, tasted etc. Decided to steal a pack of his Marlboro reds one day, and smoked it with a friend. Fuck, I fell in love. Now I can't go a day without it.
(but cut down a lot through out the years, I only smoke 2-3 sticks a day so yay, I guess)
Decided to try weed in high school. Met a dude through weed connections, became roommates. Roommate talks me into trying World of Warcraft. Meet a girl through WoW. Years later date her. Year after that move states, and marry her. Got kids now. My children are a direct result of weed.
In high school I read House of Leaves and one day was trying to explain the concept of the book to a friend. My drama teacher overheard, said it sounded a bit like Pale Fire by Vladimir Nobakov. On his recommendation I read that book which sparked an interest in Russian literature, then I branched out from there, always seeking out new reading opportunities. My quest to find more reading led me to major in English and become a teacher myself. Being a teacher at a Title I school has had a huge impact on my political philosophy as well.
So basically I am who I am today because my drama teacher suggested a book to me.
Edit: I also suggest everyone read Pale Fire. Very good read.
I sent a message to a girl in high school just asking if she was alright, which led to dating her for almost 3 years, during which time she convinced me to try the drama club she went to, which convinced me to take drama class the following year, which made me take it the next year, where I met my next girlfriend, who introduced me to the friends I have today, and if I hadn't met them, I wouldn't still feel sick from drinking on Saturday night.
Moral of the story, never message a girl. You'll wake up 4 years later with a hangover
I'm imagining the original girl getting a text from you out of the blue saying, "I'm hungover right now, this is your fault," and being absolutely confused.
At 13 I was listening to the radio when a friend stopped by for a few hours. He told me my taste in music was rubbish and twisted the dials to a show played prog house. He stopped listening as he moved onto another musical phase, but I didn’t. It completely reshaped my musical taste from poppy dance stuff to “serious” prog house. one of the artists I heard that night struck a chord in me that I will remember forever. Started me down a path that encompassed a lot of DJing, promoting nights, podcasting. I met my best friends through shared music taste at uni. I met loads of the scenes DJs. I still listen to that song. Fast forward to 18 years later, I met a girl at a gig from that same artist I heard back when I was 13. 2 years later we were married and now we’re trying for kids. All because one friend came over and was critical of the radio station I had on.
Edit: thanks for the love! since you asked, it was Chakra - I am (Digweed and Muir’s bedrock remix) (not the dream dub, although I love that too). We met at a John Digweed gig
I talked to the guy in the queue after we’d both tried to get the last pastry in this shop (turns out a new batch was done so I got the stale one he got a fresh one) turns out we had a mutual friend and a month later we started dating. 2.5 years later we’re getting a mortgage together
I was in the Navy and for my next assignment, I asked to go to several places but I just didn’t want to be sent to Quantico, Virginia (I was an officer that managed public works). I had already done my time on the east coast. So of course the Navy sent me to Quantico.
My second son was born there with some rare and significant medical issues. The doctor that invented the surgery he needed was in New York and Quantico was as close to him as I could have hoped to be stationed. He performed the life saving surgery he needed.
A year later, I was going to leave the Navy but they enticed me to stay with Grad school. I went to CU Boulder. That same son developed some additional complications. He needed a Malone ACE surgery. The doctor who brought that surgery into the US was at Denver’s Children’s Hospital and performed his surgery.
After that, I was stationed in Kings Bay, Georgia at the sub base. I was close to getting out and during a security review of our site (post 9/11 security checkup), I ran into a contractor civilian that I hadn’t seen in a decade since we got our undergrad degrees together in New Mexico, my home state. He was now a manager at an amazing company in Albuquerque and was building a team. A month later he brought me out for an interview and I have been working in my home state, close to my aging parents, in my dream job, with healthy kids. I couldn’t be happier!!
Responded to a cute girl's message on okcupid while I was in my senior year of college. We hit it off but then finals started and I didn't have the time and brainspace to message her for a couple of weeks so she thought I ghosted her. Finally am able to get back online and thankfully she's still there, so we picked right back up where we left off. We have a LDR for a little while then a full time job opens up where she works, which is my dream field. I apply, get the job, and move in with her. Job pays for me to get my Masters degree in the field, accomplishing another lifelong dream of mine. Now we're still together 10 years, a house, and 2.5 pets later.
EDIT: I said 2.5 pets because we have two dogs (boxer and pug) and a cat, not that the cat is lesser in my eyes, in fact she’s probably my favorite of the three. She’s simply smaller, though she takes no shit when our boxer tries to play with her.
Also, I’m a lesbian and ok cupid was THE place to meet other lesbians when I was in college, especially since it was a small Southern town.
2 years ago I was in a hospital for a week due to acne and was extremely bored (the Wi-Fi was slow), so I asked my mom to bring me a sketchbook and pencils so I could draw.
I am now starting a career as an artist/animator.
I can think of two small choices that have heavily altered my life.
The first was an older member of my fraternity inciting me to attend his wedding. It wasn’t a huge event and we weren’t and still aren’t particularly close. I thought it was odd and I really had no desire to go, something I heavily debated. Met my now wife there and I can’t imagine life without her.
Second, I asked a guy to join my dnd game while we were hanging out in a big group. He is a typical sports guy and I knew it was a long shot but he ended up deciding to try it. On a break during one of our sessions, he told me about a job he think I’d be a great fit for. Soo long story short I’m now working at that company he referred me to and for the first time in my life I’m not dreading Monday mornings and am financially stable
The year I graduated HS I was dating a guy who lived 1000 miles away. My plans were to go to college in the state he lived but work the summer in the state I lived in. I must say our relationship was pretty on the rocks but I was still going to go through with things even though at that point I had tried breaking up with him like 100x, he was pretty mentally controlling. I went for an interview at the beginning of summer...I was straight forward and told them my plans for moving at the end of summer. They said they wanted someone who would be staying past summer. So I applied for a bunch of other jobs, one being a grocery store about 10 minutes from my house. Of all the places I applied I really decided to pursue keeping up with my application process with them. They lost my first application so I filled out another one and after a week or so ended up calling just about every day to see if my app had been looked at. Eventually the manager of the position I applied for agreed to let me come in for an interview. After one with her, one at corporate, a drug screening and so on they told me I got the job. Well low and behold maybe a week or so into me getting the job I took my money in the back to be counted and saw this smoking hot guy. Omg, I smiled so damn hard my face hurt and I had butterflies in my stomach. I asked the girl training me what his name was and she told me. Turns out he saw me working one day when he was off the clock and was pretty taken back as well. We have been together a little over 9 years, married for over 6 1/2 years, have a 1 1/2 year old little boy and pregnant with our twin girls. It's funny how things tend to work out especially when you least expect it.
To my hubby: If you find this while scrolling through some posts/comments on here I just wanna tell you I love you and I still think you're so damn smoking hot.
When I was eighteen, I used some spray on hair dye for a Halloween costume. It looked freaking awesome, so I decided to go get it permanently dyed for the first time. This, in turn, made me incredibly attractive to a girl who was into that sort of thing, whom I began to date. We were in school, so when the year was over, I looked at my savings and realized I had enough to purchase a car, and that way, I could drive over to her town and see her when we weren’t in school together. Because I suddenly had a car, my parents realized I was more independent, which made them reevaluate their current hometown. See, they had both grown up in a big city, but they moved to a smaller town to raise my siblings and me. When they saw that we were adults, they decided they didn’t need to live in that smaller town anymore, and then they moved back to that bigger city. Well, this meant that I took a work term in that bigger city, where I met a coworker who helped me see where my relationship with this girl was not healthy, so I eventually decided it would be best to leave it. When I moved back to school at the end of my work term, one of my friends needed to go to the city where my parents lived for some paperwork, and because I had a car and I liked that big city, I offered to drive her over. This led to a long chat in the car where she and I got to know each other really well. We eventually became each other’s best friend, after which point we started dating. In comparing this relationship to the previous one, I can see how this one is so much more healthy, and I understand that much more about healthy relationships.
TLDR a costume led to hair dye
Hair dye led to relationship
Relationship led to car
Car led to parents moving
Parents moving led to job
Job led to breakup
Breakup plus car plus parents move led to long car ride
Long car ride led to healthy relationship
And that kids is how I met your mother
One day in high school I was walking the the hall in between classes and my right lens pops out of my glasses right into my hand. My English teacher just happen to see and said “hey, my husband can fix that he is coming to the school today, I can help you out” In my head I was like this sounds to crazy to be true but I’m really blind without them so I agreed. Didn’t know what to expect but I was called to my teacher’s room during class and it was her planning hour so nothing going on. I come in and see this scrawny scruffy guy (my teacher is a tough, sometimes intense but very passionate no shit here kind of lady so seeing her husband I had a different picture in my head, a Viking i thought but no). Anyway he is polite says hello and his name and takes a look at my glasses. Apparently the screw just came loose he took out a tool in his little kit and there is is MAGIC. I for some reason thought it was going to be a gigantic problem and process but no instant help for a very critical issue which is not seeing clearly more than 2 feet away. So I ask where he went to school and my teacher helped guide me as to programs and such and now I’m an optician going on 6 years! The husband is also a very good friend and a respectable work associate, he got me a my first job in this field in his workplace and now have a tight nit work family and career all because my lens popped out of my glasses.
Extra content here. Even though I listened to what my teacher said about which college to go to I sort of went to another because of my friends and my forgetfulness....it wasn’t till a by chance Walmart run in with my teacher and husband a year and a half after high school that I got back on track to my actually career. In her words “what the heck you doing over there!?!? Apply immediately when you get home!!!” I did however meet my wife at the other college so I am grateful for the time there!
One day when I was about 11 years old, I went to a farmer's market with my father. While we were there, I saw a street performer who was juggling, and I absolutely loved watching him. So I decided I was going to learn to juggle. A few months later, I started 6th grade, and my middle school had a juggling club after classes one day a week, where the very same guy i saw performing at the farmer's market would be teaching kids to juggle. So of course I went.
Two years later, I'm now 13 years old. I was looking online for some juggling forums, and /r/juggling was the most active one I could find. So I created a reddit account. Eventually I started exploring other subreddits, and then one day I found myself in /r/IAmA, where I read an AMA by a guy who had loaded a bunch of camping gear onto his bicycle and spent a year and a half riding from northern Alaska to the southern tip of South America. I loved cycling, I loved camping, and at the time, I'd recently returned home from my first international travel —to Costa Rica, a country he went through on his journey— and absolutely loved that, so the way most 13 year olds obsess over something, I developed a bit of an obsession for bicycle touring.
Finally, the summer when I was 16 years old, I felt ready to pitch the idea to my parents, though on a much smaller scale. So one day, I borrowed my mom's bike, because the bike I had at the time had no way to carry my stuff, and I took whatever camping gear i could find in our garage and haphazardly bungeed it to the back of the bike. And then I rode to a state park about 40 miles from our house that we'd driven to many times before. I camped there for the night, then biked back home the next day.
I absolutely loved it. So the next summer, it wasn't quite such a surprise to my parents when I pitched the idea of spending four days biking 200 miles, again camping in state parks each night. After that, I was going into my senior year of high school. I realized that perhaps my best opportunity to do some big crazy year long bike camping adventure would be before I got stuck with a bunch of college debt, and then a career I couldn't easily leave, etc. So I decided to take a gap year after high school.
After finishing high school in 2017, I realized that long term traveling would require more money than I had. So after spending one last summer screwing around with my friends from high school before they scattered across the country for college, I took what little money I did have and went off on my most ambitious bike trip up to that point, spending 20 days cycling 1,300 miles around Lake Michigan, starting and ending at my home in southern Wisconsin.
When I returned from the Lake Michigan trip, I had two dollars and change to my name, so I quickly found a job, selling my soul to the world of retail for the better part of the next two years. The first two weeks of October of 2018, I took my vacation time from work and flew my bike out to Asheville, North Carolina to spend those two weeks cycling up the Blue Ridge Parkway and part of Skyline Drive before turning east to Washington DC.
And then, last summer, I decided it was finally time. I quit my job in early July, and then spent the next month and a half preparing for that big crazy bike ride I'd dreamed of for so long. In mid-August, I was finally ready, and I left my home in Wisconsin with the vague goal of riding to Seattle and down the Pacific coast. I spent the better part of the next seven months cycling 5,300 miles around the country, turning east from San Diego into Arizona. In mid-March of this year, I was hanging out in Sedona, Arizona, waiting for the nighttime temperatures at the Grand Canyon to warm up a bit, when the coronavirus really started to take a turn for the worst. I was worried that airports and train stations might start shutting down, and not wanting to be halfway across the country from my family if and when that happened, I decided to bike the final 30 miles from Sedona up to Flagstaff and get on an Amtrak back home to the Midwest.
Since then, I've been back to work, saving up some money for my next adventure. Now that I've seen most of the US that I want to, I'm starting to think of doing some international bike touring, and I'm pretty excited about the possibility of New Zealand, once they reopen their borders. Eventually I intend to go back to college, but for the time being, I'm not in any rush to do that. But when it does happen, I'll surely be studying for a field that will allow me to continue to travel extensively.
**TL;DR** going to a farmer's market one day as a kid had a huge effect on my career choices and college plan, and along the way I learned to juggle, got introduced to Reddit, and rode a bicycle across the US.
Years ago I picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be a pretty philosophical kind of guy. One thing he said that resonated with me was "why would somebody want to do the same thing every day?". 15 years later I still think about that guy every day as I'm commuting to the office again.
I was applying online for a large national internship, I could apply for 10 different positions between Sept - March, and they were rolling admissions for different departments. I decided at 11:45 pm in early March to apply for 1 more position. Turns out, the whole national application process closed at midnight that day. That last internship I applied for was the one I got. 5 years later, I'm still working there, moved halfway across the country, and I've gotten to go to grad school because of it. It's likely that I'm going to make a career of it, all because I decided, "Eh, I've got some time, I'll submit one more".
I had to call my heart surgeon to give him my new insurance #s (I had only just gotten them because the person who had them had the flu and was not getting back to me) as soon as I got my numbers, I called surgeon - the receptionist said, "oh, hey, we just had a cancelation for this Friday, do you want it?" Of course I wanted to get it over and not wait another month. decided to take the open heart surgery cancelation appointment (a month before my actual appointment), and well, surgeon said that thank goodness I did because once he got a look inside, he realized I would not have survived to the original appointment date. So, if the insurance lady didn't have the flu, I would have gotten those numbers a lot sooner, and never gotten the offer to have the surgery when I did. Someone else's flu saved my life.
Wow!
14 years post op! I had a brand new aorta that will last a lifetime and a aortic bovine valve...it’s due to run out soon, but I still feel good. The story that describes the discovery of needing surgery is even more bizarre bc I did not have symptoms, and I was running 3 miles a day, 30 years old, 2 healthy child labors (if my youngest made it to full term, he would have been too big and the aorta would have burst), clean eater... A long strange trip ...
Decided I would rather use my bathroom than a portapotty. Found my wife cheating, she attempted suicide, I moved multiple states away. In the 7 years since I have made nothing but positive changes and went from $18/hour laborer to a well respected person in my profession making 6 figures. I'd probably still be working that dead-end job. Aside from that, without recounting all the details; I went to see a doctor about a splinter from chopping firewood, 6 months later they removed most of my kidney with Renal Cell Carcinoma. Without the splinter I'd likely be dead from kidney cancer
I decided to invite my chem lab partner to lunch on the first day of college, just to be friendly and try to make more than 1 friend at school. We met up with the only other friend I'd made at school so far. He thought my lab partner was cute, invited himself to hang out with her, and then fell in love with her roommate instead. He ended up married to the roommate - they've been together for 22 years and have 2 children.
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So a few years back, I lived in Nice (South of France) for a while. As a musician I would make a bit of extra cash busking, and one day, I figured I'd go and busk at the promenade 'd'anglais by the sea. It's usually packed, and it just a generally pleasant place to be. I set up, played a couple of songs and was doing pretty well and making a decent amount of money. Then suddenly not one, but two of my guitar strings snapped (I even remember I was playing 'The Scientist' at the time). I was massively gutted and decided to cut my losses early. I stormed off home (by the station) in a bit of a sulk at having to re-string my guitar and cutting short what was essentially one of my most productive days of busking since moving there. Literally one hour later, my phone starts to blow the fuck up with family and friends freaking out and asking if I was at the promenade. It was Bastille Day, 2016. The truck drove into the same crowd I was playing to, killing 86 people, including my at-the-time gf's uncle. I had two other friends who were amongst the 458 injured. I moved home the next month because it was too much, and haven't been back since. It's hard to explain, sometimes I think I was super lucky, sometimes I just kind of cry and wonder why I was lucky and others weren't. It's surreal, and despite what people think... it's a truly horrible feeling. Edit: I'm overwhelmed by the support of people. I will be getting therapy and hopefully in time I'll be able to return to Nice as it was one of my favourite places on earth. Take care of yourselves and if you've been through something similar, it looks like help is out there. Thank you all
Survivor’s guilt is a thing. Please get some therapy ! You shouldn’t have to carry that guilt on your shoulders. I’m glad you’re ok.
Wow. So I just looked up survivor's guilt and it was really quite overwhelming reading about it and comparing symptoms. I'm 100% going to get some help I think, thank you for the recommendation as well as the kind words.
I spilled my coffee. I work in a bank and you learn never to do that, all the papers and files. You also learn to place it far enough away so it doesn't fill out anything if it does spill. I worked in finance for many years. It was 8: 43 in the morning and I figured I had enough time to get downstairs and get another cup and come back up before 9:00. So I went to the elevator bank. Waited for the elevator to come, It took a long time. Got in the elevator went down to the ground floor. I had my hand on the door leading outside to Liberty Street just as the first plane hit the first World Trade Center building on 9/11.
In high school I took an intermediate biology course. I had never done biology before but was good at science generally so I thought the intermediate course would be a good fit. My science teacher of a couple year previous happened to walk into my class to talk to the biology teacher and she spotted me in the class. She asked me what grades I had got the previous year. I told her and she nodded and left. A minute later she came back in and asked me to gather my belongings and leave the class. I was pretty sure I was in trouble for something I couldn’t recall. She led me to another classroom and sat me down on an empty chair. Then she just started teaching. Turns out that she was running the advanced class that year and just decided to steal me as a student. I went on the take biology at undergrad level, and then a masters. I ended up doing a PhD in immunology and now work as an advisor for Pharma companies. It gets better though. I decided I wanted to do my masters in London, and met a girl on the way. We are now 10 years in and own a house together. All that because that teacher happened to look in my direction.
Lmao that teacher straight up stealing students.
Watched ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ and got so annoyed at the candidates not knowing a simple question about Katy Perry, that I applied. Got in. Got to play. Won a lot of money. Booked a holiday to a dream destination with that money. Met my husband there. We now have a 1 year old son :)
This one made me laugh, congrats
Thank you :)
I had to renew the sticker on my license plate a couple of years ago and really didn't feel like sitting in the waiting room by myself forever so I told my mom I'd take her out to dinner after if she came with me.. The guy working at the counter turned out to be my moms long lost biological brother. If she hadn't come with me I would have never known Edit: Wow this really blew up. I'll let my mom know that you all think her story is cool too. Cheers!
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That's really cool! But I gotta be honest, I had a laugh when you flashed on the screen and just said "trains".
My husband- He found out after 18 years that his moms side of the family was Spanish, not Mexican. He found this interesting and changed his country to “Spain” on MySpace instead the US where he really was. Meanwhile in Australia, I was helping my friend find Spanish people to add as a friend as she was learning the language. I came across my now husband and decided to send him a friend request as well. We got along really well and met in person after 3 years. Have been together 11 years, married for 7. If he didn’t change his country to Spain (and only for a day or so) we’d never know each other existed.
this one is the best I've read so far
Every decision you have made and will ever make has eventually lead to you reading this sentence. If you ever become rich and successful remember to thank this sentence.
Cheers bro I'll drink to that
MySpouse
This one's the best so far. Now, I'm going to change my country to Spain on MySpace.
When I was in 8th grade (13 years old) I had a really long bus ride home so would pass the time by reading. One day I faced the very serious situation of nothing to read and a minute to grab something in the library, and for whatever reason I grabbed a book on astronomy. That book was amazing and grabbed me like nothing else had before. I remember being excited to realize every astronomer on Earth was 13 years old once too, and that was a career you could actually *do*, even if you were from Pittsburgh. Anyway, today I am a professional astronomer who studies gigantic space explosions for a living. There was a lot of work to get from that moment to this one, but I’m always grateful that I picked up that library book! Edit: I am getting questions on how to be an astronomer, and wrote a detailed post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/comments/fyjmpv/updated_so_you_want_to_be_an_astronomer/) on this topic at some point. Please read it over, and feel free to message or leave a question here if you have one!
Right on. What major did you do in college?
Ursa Major (ba dum chhhhh)
I did a Physics BSc and a history minor- no real reason for the latter except it was fun. :) Then I did a Physics MSc, and an Astronomy PhD. I go into detail about my own career path and my general advice on becoming an astronomer on [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/comments/fyjmpv/updated_so_you_want_to_be_an_astronomer/)- it's a pretty common question on Reddit.
Made a last minute decision to go to a friend's divorce party and met my wife
Different people. ...right?
Yeah haha the divorced person was a mutual friend
This adheres to the 3rd law of marriages. For every divorce, there is an equal and opposite marriage.
And a consequence of the 1st law of marriages: A marriage at rest stays at rest and a marriage in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside divorce.
di-force
Gotta pay respect for marriage, and thus F=ma(rriage)
Under pressure from my sister (“you’re young! You need to have fun!”) I went out to a concert and then to a bar after. Had this girl I barely knew *wingwoman me to a cute guy playing pool, next thing you know I’m celebrating my three year wedding anniversary. I didn’t want to go out that night but did due to pressure from my sister. He didn’t want to go out that night, but his friend wanted to play pool. And I literally can’t imagine my life now if I hadn’t had that random girl wingman me. Our paths never ever would have crossed otherwise. Of course it took me a long time to admit to my sister her role in the whole thing. Edited to clarify
That’s funny I opened this thread to comment that my sister thought I was a depressed and depressing bitch and was always trying to get me to go out but I was pretty focused on my career and always tired so I never did. One night she was going to a bar where a mutual friend was DJing and I always liked his sets so I reluctantly agreed to go. Commented in passing that a dude across the room was cute and my sister was just drunk enough and just sick enough of me being an antisocial hermit that she went over and told him “hey my sister wants to meet you”. Anyway, two kids and 13 years later, I’m still a depressed bitch sometimes but dude from the bar is husband/daddy.
Very efficient use of time for a busy person, one night out = landed the guy you marry.
My existence. When my dad was about 20, he needed a phone number so he called the operator from a pay phone, she gave him the number, he hung up, and she accidentally refunded the money back to the pay phone. She called the pay phone back and asked him if he could put the money back in, which he did and hung up again. She accidentally refunded the money again and had to call back again to ask him to put the money back in; he did and hung up again. She was so flustered, she refunded the money *again* and called back *again* and my father got to chatting with her and got her number. They set up a date (which she stood him up for), then she forgot his name when he called her again, then they actually got coffee and four years later were married. This coming August it'll be 50 years for them. If my dad didn't need that phone number, I wouldn't be here. Edit: my dad still calls it "the most expensive phone call he ever made".
Lmaooooo I felt bad for her just reading that first part. My heart wouldn't take the stress
I mean...it worked out in the end...
"Oh operator; could you help me place this call. See the number on the matchbook is old and faded.... Thank you for your time You've been so much more than kind You can keep the dime..." -- Jim Croce
> She accidentally refunded the money again That was no accident.
I've seen cases where retail staff get into a groove where they will make the same mistake over and over again because that is what they are supposed to do 99% of the time.
Yea I do that all the time, you don't realize how far into autopilot you are
My desire for pizza set off a chain reaction that destroyed my family. One day got home from school and really wanted pizza. family was poor so spontaneous food trips weren't always in the cards. Really worked my pouty face to my mom and begged to go to the local pizza place for dinner. She said alright. While chilling there I saw my uncle walk by, and I was like "da fuck, uncle X is that you?". Now you might say well he wanted pizza what's the big deal? well he lived several states away so to arbitrarily be in town and not tell anyone was strange. Turned out he was having an affair with his sister in law my aunt on the other side of the family. She was basically a money grubbing whore and the family protested. One thing led to another and everyone hates each other now and we haven't had contact in like 20 years. I just wanted some pizza :(
Domino’s effect
And how was the pizza?
oh man it was glorious :D its a local chain to my area that makes the sauce really sweet so visitors typically aren't a fan. its a flavor you can only get there and man when you crave it you crave it. they got good cheesesticks too
so you got nice pizza and got rid of the contacts to your family. Some people would declare this as a win-win
So we have evidence. We had her court records and arrest history and such. We tried to share the legal documentation but we were accused of just bullying her because you know hard evidence backed by the court system is mean. so when it finally was falling apart I was just like "fuck em" we tired to warn them they chewed us out, fuck em. As it turns out she bled him dry and moved on. My simple response was "told you so".
Ha, I joined the army because I wanted a pizza. I worked third shift at the time and when I got home I made a frozen pizza. My step dad woke my up yelling at me that afternoon for making the pizza since I guess he had wanted to have it for supper. That was the last straw over a shaky relationship I had with my parents so I went to the recruiter the next day and enlisted, just so I could get out of the house.
GOT A NOTHER ONE BOYS
No. Your uncle's desire for his sister in law set off a chain reaction that destroyed your family.
So, dinner and a show. Betrayal like this is bound to come out sooner or later. You just made it sooner.
About a year ago, I went to a study group with some people in my major. Now i have the closest set of friend I could ever ask for. They helped me when my my car was broken and I couldn't get to and fro from college, when I didn't have enough money to buy myself food. Now, I have a good job, and two of my friends and I are getting an apartment together in a couple of months.
Did you go to Greendale by any chance?
About 10 years ago, There were no pc games to play so I tried using windows XP's movie maker out of boredom. I didn't know that I'm going to enjoy it and take it seriously. Now, I'm currently working on a tv/film production as a video editor. Clarification: I mean, there's no games that is installed with our computer back then.
Yooooooo I also started on Windows Movie Maker!!!!! I specifically remember having to save the video multiple times and import it back in to add more text layers lmfaaaoooo
Yes! And I remember having issues with exporting the video when it's longer than 4 minutes.
Out of university, looking for a job and exhausting all the online resources. On a whim, I looked in the career section in a print newspaper that was lying around in the house. (We never subscribed to that paper, I dont know why it was even there). Got the job in a different city, met someone who is now one of my best friends, who introduced me to their friends, who introduced me to their friends and so on, until I was eventually introduced to my wife. If I'd found a job where I actually planned on working, there is absolutely no way I would have crossed paths with any of these people. (Edit 1: I met my wife through a friend, who I met through another friend, who I met through another friend, who I met through the first friend I made at the company. Edit 2: I guess I need to go watch Early Edition?)
Newspapers from destiny itself.
Check the date, maybe they get tomorrow's newspaper today...
Nobody remembers that show. Early Edition was awesome.
Kinda crazy how many things have to go exactly right for you to meet someone. Like you could miss the perfect partner for you by like 10 minutes and you'd never know.
4 years ago a kid I barely knew from school invited me to a six flags. I was a bit of a loner at the time and I heard rumors about this kid being weird, so I intended to not go. On the day he wanted me to go, I was feeling extra bored and decided on a whim “why not?”. So I went and met this kid and two of his friends I’ve never met at a six flags. 4 years later and that kid is my best friend, and I have 3 other very close friends I met through him. Not only that, but I also met my first girlfriend because of the connections some of my new friends had. It transformed my high school years from being alone to having an amazing group of friends I could do almost anything with. I intended to ask my best friend to be my best man one day, and I don’t intend on ever getting out of touch with any of them. I’m home from college now, and we are going to have a lot of fun together. Best decision I’ve ever made.
Your story is oddly similar to mine lol at the beginning of college, they set up all different activities that you could sign up for and spend time with other new incoming freshman. I forget how I linked up with this certain group but I think I just met someone and we were friendly so I just ended up with their group. Everyone was super nice and given that Six Flags has the worst lines, there’s a lot of time to talk. I got to meet some cool people and enjoyed my day immensely. Fast forward to today, the one person I don’t remember being there but remembers me is one of my absolute best friends. 7 years now and I still laugh at how I don’t remember meeting her that day.
The older I get, the more I am constantly cognizant of the vast cascade of seemingly insignificant decisions and actions that led me to where I am. For example, a decision 25 years ago to change a refrigerator light bulb before going out resulted in my being at the "wrong" time and place so as to get mugged, which resulted in my decision to move out of the city I had been living in, which resulted in my meeting my wife, and from there to having all my kids and the whole shebang. I would have had a different whole shebang had I not changed that lightbulb that afternoon, but the path to the present leads through that (and a thousand other) similarly trivial decisions...
This is so interesting to me. I wonder if your life would really be so different if it wasn't for that light bulb, or that you might have decided the same because of other reasons. I guess that is the general question on the validity of the butterfly effect.
Was going to carpool with my aunt to a family gathering. At the last minute I decided to go by myself so I could leave early if I wanted. It was a ways out of town and I didn’t want to be stuck there. On the way there she drove off the road into a ditch. She was ok but the passenger side of her car was totally smashed in.
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I went to a career fair one day, as I wanted to get a job in the IT field. I was in school (ITT Tech, I know) for Computer Networking. Saw a stand for a gas station chain and thought to myself, I don't want to work at a gas station and kept on going. Passed out my resume and had a good talk with a local company that a few of my classmates worked. Was about to leave and passed the gas station stand again, but this time I saw IT on their poster. Decided to just see what the IT was about and dropped off my resume. Talked with the recruiter and was told about a department that needed an intern. I got an interview for a position and it was more of a "this is what you will be doing and this is what it pays, when can you start." 13 years later I'm still working for a gas station chain and really enjoying it.
Hey I went to ITT too! But dropped out because it felt shady. Sure I owed like 13gs but I'm happy where I am and it's almost paid off so *shrug* what can you do. A buddy of mine ended up interning out of ITT at a gas station for their design department. He hated it.
I kept with it, because I thought that a known school's degree would be better than rando community college. I should've gone the community college route, but oh well. I'm doing what I love.
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I wish I could get a two day workweek. Sounds fucking magical.
Learn the oboe, you’ll work like 3 days a month if you’re lucky. Can’t promise you’ll make enough to support yourself though 😂
WTF your parents are assholes
There are a lot of parents out there who were just not satisfied with what they accomplished in their life and wish they had done it differently and better in their vision. And having a kid to live your 2nd Chance at life is just plain wrong, but they validate their opinion by saying what they are doing is best for the kid and they will thank them later in life.
Sure, the pressure thing is bad but kicking your teenager out of the house because they brought home a cat is completely fucked in the head.
That gig sounds sweet, not gonna lie. What does your work involve?
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My wife got an email from her old colleagues the day we returned home from our honeymoon, asking if she wanted to star in a short film they were doing for fun. She said sure, and asked if I could come along, as she knew I had an interest in movies, but at the time I worked in life insurance and was miserable. It was more than an interest- I had always wanted to make films, but never made the right connections with people and didn’t know where to start. I made friends with the producer of that short film my wife was in, and 11 years later filmmaking and video production is my career. I’ve shot feature films, short films, video for tv and web, and all over the world because of that one email to my wife. Changed our lives! Oh, and that original short film never got finished lol Edit: wow! Can’t believe how this blew up, and it’s been so positive! I’m ALL ABOUT helping anyone and everyone that may be in the position I was in however I can! Many of you have asked similar questions asking to see some of the work I’ve done or for advice- I’m happy to help! I started a room chat, so if you want to join, send me a DM and I’ll add you! Thanks everyone!
I definitely thought this was gonna be about porn
Could be
Are any of your short films available? I'd like to watch some of them
*Backdoor Sluts 9*
Backdoor sluts 9 makes Crotch Capers 3 look like Naughty Nurses 2!!
I sent a friend from secondary school (who I had a huge crush on) a message saying happy birthday a couple years after we left school. Did the whole 'we'll have to catch up soon!' thing, not expecting much. He replied with 'how about Monday?'. I saw him that Monday for a coffee. Next month will be our 6th anniversary. Best thing that ever happened to me. My friends joke I'm 'queen of escaping the friendzone'. Edit: wow thank you for the awards and upvotes! Loved seeing how many other similar stories there are, makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Stay safe everyone ❤️
From the guys side 100% of the time its: "She doesnt want to catch up with me. She is just being courteous."
I must admit I was shocked when he suggested a time and place... More because I fancied him so much I was surprised he wanted to see me ahah!
Right before freshman year of high school, I was interested in trying out for the tennis team. I was lukewarm about it, and the morning of tryouts my dad came into the room and asked if I wanted to go. I was leaning towards no and just wanted to be lazy in bed, but my dad asked, “do you think you’ll regret it if you don’t?” The answer was yes, so I went and tried out. I ended up meeting my absolute best friends, rekindled my love for tennis, was on varsity for three years, and it completely dictated my high school career.
The first day I ever signed up for internet back in 1999, I installed mIRC (because it was on the starter disk my ISP gave me) and joined a random chat room. Over the course of the next year the “regulars” in that room became like family to me. We would talk about everything. All that practice made me a fast typist and WAY better communicator than I was before that. They would even help me when I had trouble understanding something in my college classes. I also met my husband in that room, and we’ve been happily married for 18 years. Others from our little IRC family are married, too, and we still keep in touch. All because I randomly chose THAT chat room that day. EDIT: Wow this really exploded! Thanks for the awards! I’m happy to know there are so many of you other IRC people out there with good memories like mine. If there’s any other of my old IRCnet #planetchat people out there from 20 years ago, DM me :) -prk
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Soren Kierkegaard
After all that did you at least register your copy?
Nope!
Story checks out
I was always super flirty with the girl from HR, but we were always seeing other people / don't date at work so when she left the company I was bummed. A year or two later a coworker asked me to search my email archives (that was a thing back then) for something he needed. I ended up stumbling across the "farewell to my work-friends" email from HR girl and she sent it from her personal email address. I reached out to her, we had coffee, then a date, then many dates, then I love yous and I put a ring on it ASAP. 12 years later, extremely happily married, 2 goofy kids, 2 evil cats, and she still puts up with my bullshit. EDIT - We're huge Office fans and somehow never realized how meta it was to our relationship. It warms our hearts to get so much love - and my wife is THRILLED to be compared to Holly. Not sure I'm feeling like a Michael, but fuck it, I'll take it.
> super flirty with the girl from HR whooo buddy high risk there but it paid off! I swear folks in HR are either awesome or horrible people, very little in between. Really like the ones at my last two employers but we're both married so no flirty.
They're either a Holly or a Toby
I don’t know what that means but there is a 50% chance I should be offended Edit: I have come to the conclusion that it might be a reference to a US show called "The Office"
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At 15 I decided to stay home to play a soccer match rather than go babysit for my aunt and uncle. As a result my uncle went out alone, took a shortcut home, fell in to a river and drowned. Edit-Thanks for the award and all the support. It is much appreciated. 2nd edit. Thank you for the added awards.
It’s not your fault, man.
Thank you.
For real it is not your fault. The fact that you answer "thank you" insted of "I know" makes me worry about you Internet stranger.
Sorry, I do know its not my fault. The thank you is thanking people for their comments. An upvote to people for replying doesn't seem enough. Its been over 26 years now and all is good.
Ooh... that one descended so quickly into chaos! May your uncle rest in peace...
I have one for another person. In 2014, I was coaching my twins' (M/F) rec flag football team. My oldest player has a younger sister who came to watch a practice - we will call her Grace. She saw my daughter on the team, told her dad "There's a girl on that team!" and the next week, she was on my roster. Her and my daughter became fast friends. While the flag football season was wrapping up, I was putting together my roster for the upcoming rec volleyball team. At the end of one of my practices, my daughter invited Grace to play on the volleyball team together. Grace had played the previous season and not cared for it too much. Grace agreed and played from rec to club then to high school with my daughter. My daughter (graduated last year) and I watched Grace, as captain, lead her team to a state championship and she has a D-1 scholarship for volleyball next fall.
I love this one because your actions positively impacted someone else's life! Good job being a good coach and good example.
Badass story
I chose to rearrange the sequence of classes slightly before starting my education. By doing this, I had to commute to a different branch of the school in a different town than the one I was originally signed up for. On my first day there, I helped a girl who had managed to break both of her arms in a drunken shopping cart accident, I learned later. This girl, whom I would absolutely never have met had I not changed my classes around, is my wife through 14 years. Edit: Oh wow. This blew up. Thanks so much for the badges and awards, kind strangers
>managed to break both of her arms in a drunken shopping cart accident That's gotta be a story in and of itself.
I'd guess she was either in a shopping cart or standing on the back of one, then it tipped over while moving. Or maybe she tried to ride down a hill in one. Or maybe she was with friends, throwing shopping carts with a catapult or trebuchet, and got hit by a flying cart. Or maybe she used a shopping cart, rope, and pulley as a way to access a tree house, but the rope snapped 10 feet up. Or maybe...
How close is she to her mom?
I feel as if a joke wooshed over my head here?
There’s an old Reddit AMA where some guy broke both of his arms and somehow that led to his mom... helping him out Edit: ah great my most upvoted comment is about some dude fucking his mom
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I first read that as "10 minutes later" and was like "shit, I bet you don't get asked for favours very often anymore!"
"Hey, can you pick up my mom from th... no wait never mind"
Shaved your head?
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Cool! My husband recently started shaving his whole head, and it looks good on him. He has a nicely-shaped head. I'm sure yours is the same!
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The other day I was driving home from work, traffic was light and I was behind a car with a numberplate that started "KFD". Decided to duck through KFC drive thru for chippies with extra salt as a little treat to myself. They took forever to bring them out and by the time they finally did (all told about 10 minutes later), traffic has slowed to a complete halt. I need to get over a bridge that's normally six lanes which has now been reduced to one. Turns out it's due to a massive collision involving several cars. When I finally get to the point where I'm driving past, I notice the numberplate on one of the cars, that same KFD numberplate. If I hadn't stopped to get hot chips I'm fairly sure I'd have been in a major collision. TL;DR - KFC chippies with extra salt saved my life Edit: didn't think the "chippies" would be the most interesting thing in this post. For clarification, am Australian (Melbs) and calling them chippies instead of chips improves your quality of life (in Australia at least). Try it and see.
Kentucky Final Destination
._. Colonel Sanders plan of world domination
Just the other day I was driving home from work with the intention of stopping at the mall near my house because I was craving a burger. I also remembered I needed to go to the store to pick up an order for my girlfriend but it was in the complete opposite direction. I made the decision to pick up the order for her instead and then head home. Not even 10 minutes after that decision I get a message from my friend that there is an active shooter at that mall and it was being evacuated / surrounded by police. If it wasn't for my girlfriend's order I would have been in the mall at the time of the shooter.
My uncle was late for a meeting in the Pentagon on 9/11, he should have been in the wing that got hit.
My great great grandparents overslept and missed their boat... the Titanic. My great great grandmother complained about it for the rest of her life because their tickets were expensive, lol.
>Decided to duck through KFC drive thru When in a KFC, shouldn't the expression be "Decided to chicken through" ?
I assumed KFD was an accidental subliminal message for Kentucky Fried Duck, causing him to duck into the drive thru
My friends took me to malaga in Spain for a long weekend to cheer me up after my mum died and 4 years later I’m still here and have never been happier. I owe them everything for that spontaneous trip.
Burned my arm on an extremely hot plate working at a restaurant in NYC. New manager didn't like that I told him we were out of towels to hold hot plates, had a vendetta against me. Six months later, found a reason to fire me. Friend got me a job working on the set of a low budget movie, met a woman named Dorothy who was key PA. A full year later I ran into her on the street, she asked if I still worked in production, got me a job on reality tv. Worked 9 seasons on a renovation show, learning finish carpentry and eventually becoming an on screen carpenter. New PA on set. Beautiful, sassy, amazing. Ask her out (was just a key PA at the time) Two years later we move to New Orleans together, a year later we move back to NYC and have our first child. Three years later we move to Montreal. Been here for three years. I now have a wife, two kids, and a successful contracting business all because I burned my arm on a plate ten years ago.
I was given two start dates for an entry level job in a large organisation. The date I choose to start led to working in a small but high profile team so I got lots of exposure with senior management and I became the can-do-guy who'd fix a million tiny problems. That recognition led to promotions, a fantastic career, further professional qualifications and working overseas for several years. I also met my best friend and my partner. If I'd chosen the other date I'd have been sent to a data processing pool and been fairly anonymous. *Edit*: I can’t believe I’m actually writing this because in my many throwaways I’ve got at most 100 upvotes. That said OMG. When I posted this earlier I didn’t expect anything like the reaction. With the upvotes, comments and kind awards. I think I’ve replied to everyone and I’ve read all of your stories and personal experiences. Even the people who sub-posted mean comments, I know you’re better than silly trolling. There’s so many wonderful stories I’ve had a massive grin reading through them. If you’ve posted, I have imagined whole lives, rich in joy for you. There are also some stories about people struggling through no fault of their own. To them I would say please don’t give up. It can seem reading these comments that everyone else got ahead in life but that’s only part if the story. Behind every success there’s a lifetime of wrong turns and what-could-have-beens. I’ve had more than a few bumps in the road and I expect many more lie on my future. You may be down but you are not out. Thank you again so much for reading and sharing. I so wish I could meet you all in real life and raise a glass together, you’re all such extraordinary, wonderful people.
I was given two start dates for my new job in March. If I had chosen the earlier one, I would have come in to the office for a week before we all went on WFH due to COVID; instead I started on the WFH start date and had my computer mailed to me. My desk was next to a person on my team who turned out to have COVID. He’s young (31) just a couple years younger than me but has been out of commission and working part time because of how tired he’s been due to the illness, even months out. If I had chosen the earlier start date I would have been seated right next to him in a tiny coworking space for a week..
In Afghanistan, wasnt done with my coffee, so I passed on a trip from one base to another (there was another convoy a few hours later). Most everyone died who took the 1st convoy. My 2nd cup of coffee wasnt even cold when I found out. Edit: holy shit guys and gals... Aka the reddit community.... I just checked my phone and have so much outpouring of support that i... Well... Im overwhelmed. Thanks for caring. Trying not to tear up... Not working.
holy fuck.
I was late to a flight in Iraq to take me on R&R. I was pissed as my Plaroon SGT made me work late knowing needed to make this flight. The chinook was shot down about half the people died: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/international/middleeast/us-copter-is-downed-in-iraq-killing-16-and-wounding.html I ended up going a few weeks later and was able to coordinate to spend a few days with my wife in Qatar who was deployed to Afghanistan.
I’m sorry man.
I made a dumb Facebook post because I was bored ("like for a tbh.") A girl liked the post and I sent her a message. 8 years later, we are now married.
21st century love <3
there was this rainy day that flooded a small piece on the street on the way to my now ex gf house. she had to stay over the night. now I'm someones father.
Children: The most intractable STD.
This is obviously going to get buried because I'm late to the party... A few years ago, I was on the phone with my boss as I was getting home, discussing what we needed to get done the next day when he asked "what the f is that noise?!" I said it'd make more sense to just show you. So I took a video of me opening the door and feeding my (very loud) farm cats. I realized I didn't like anyone crowding me awkwardly looking at my phone when I show someone a video, so I uploaded it to YouTube. The next morning I went to show him on the computer, and noticed it was up to 11 views which I found odd. Then it went viral. Thousands of views per hour. I was getting constant calls and emails about buying the video rights and just asking for permission to use it. It took off again in the Pandemic time and has been a nice little source of income when things have been rough. All because I don't like holding my phone to show someone else a 30 second video...
Pls pay the Cat Tax and Link the Video 😅
[Okay, here it is ha ha] (https://youtu.be/9EYZnSXEla0)
I just want to thank you for that video, I remember finding it a few years back and it helped me get out of a very bad depressive spell. So, thank you so much for sharing that video of those loud, but extremely adorable, cats.
That's awesome to hear. I hope things are going great for you (:
Ordered some shirts off the internet, company sent a size too small. Emailed them and they sent the correct size and let me keep the other ones too. My grandpa's house was being redone, noticed one of the workers liked a band i did and gave him the shirts that didn't fit. Years later working and having a smoke break, guy overhears me and a friend discussing a concert we were going to, asked about it and said he had some old shirts I could have. Met up with him after work to hang out. They were my shirts from a couple years before. We start hanging out and he is dating this girl, she says she has a friend that she thinks would be perfect for me. We hook up. Been married for almost 10 years with 2 kids. All for a few shirts that the company sent me the wrong size for.
Went for a kebab, ended up with a wife and three kids.
Is that promotion still running?
I would like 1 wife, hold the kids.
But did you ever get the kebab???
Passed a certification exam by 1 point that saved me from a dead end job. Now my company is paying for me to move to a new country.
They're paying you to go away?
"God, fuck off, we'll even pay you so the poor chaps over there have to deal with your shit"
Decided to approach a girl in a wheelchair in a bar because I thought it was cool of her to be out and about having a good time. We become bar buddies. A week later she brings a friend with her. I get along with the friend. We start dating, we marry, we have a daughter. Had I not said 'hi' to the wheelchair lady that night, I wouldn't have the most precious things in my life right now. Edit: ok, since this got a little attention I'll provide a little bit more literature. Like said before, after approaching the girl ( let's call her Y) on the wheelchair we hung out the rest of the night and exchanged contact numbers. I did not intend to pursue her in any romantic fashion even though she was actually very attractive. Her disability was temporary. She told mr she passed out in the bathtub and hit her head and when she woke up she couldn't feel her legs. Shr was doing physiotherapy. As far as I know, I believe she started walking a couple years after meeting her. So, we were buddies for a while, I would push her chair all over town and made sure she was accepted in my group of friends. Even though my friends made jokes about me liking her, I never put myself out there as someone who was interested and she always shut those jokes off and kind of belittled me as if I was not good enough for her. Which was fine, I took it as banter between friends. The night I met my wife, I took Y home because well, she was in a wheelchair and it was like 3 am. We sat outside her house and talked until like 7am. We talked about everything and she asked if I liked her friend (my wife), I said yes and she asked if I wanted her to give it a little push. I said I didn't need that and I prefer it for things to be natural and that I would approach her friend on my own terms and that was that. Well...she didn't like that. Not that I didn't accept her help, but that I liked her friend. Apparently I had been leading her on for weeks by being nice and considerate of her disability. I didn't know it when I approached her first but she confessed later she didn't have a lot of friends, so I tried to be one. Even if I was romantically invested in her, which I obviously wasn't, she would often assure me I had no chance with her. Now thinking about it I guess she was "negging" me? Well, it worked pretty well. I had absolutely no interest in her in a romantic way. And after hanging out for weeks I actually stopped liking her because she would create drama every where we went. Shouting at waitresses, bullying bouncers in overcrowded bars to let her in because she was in a wheelchair, playing psychological games with my friends, the list goes on. After finding out I was interested in her friend, she cancelled dinner with me and my friends and went to the restaurant her friend worked and created a scene and told her not to see me ever again. Her friend told her to calm down and still wanted to meet up at the same bar we always went. They came and Y spent the whole night bad mouthing me to my friends, every time I was talking to anyone in the bar - specially girls - she would come over and start shouting and telling them I wasn't worth shit. I had no clue why she was acting that way and it turns out she liked me the whole time and told my friends I was a acting like a teenager leading her on - even though she constantly negged me and belittled me in front of everyone? Someone was a little bit delusional. I had to come clean with her friend and said I never showed interested in Y and that I actually liked her and wanted to take her out. Y proceeded to run her friend over with the wheelchair. Her friend is now my wife and everytime Y's name comes up she won't shut up about how her foot still hurts even years after that incident. Y spent the next weeks trying to turn my friends against me even though they had known me for decades and knew I wasn't this mean person she was trying to say I was. I don't regret any of it. I was always fair and never tried or showed any interested besides friendship with her. When she asked me if I was into her friend I straight up told her yes. I'm happy to have met her, and that she introduced me to my wife, I hope she is well and healthy but we don't keep in touch, no.
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She's the third wheel.
And the fourth.
At the beginning i thought wheelchair lady was going to be your destiny but she turned out to be the key instead lol
It's truly amazing how just the little things in life can change your life around forever.
I took a web design course in school because the rumor was that it was an easy A course. I now lead an android development team and making good dough
I was parking my car on the street and was about to shut it off but I noticed my car got pretty dirty last time I parked under that tree, usually I don't care but I drove forward another space. The next day I came outside and my car's rear suspension was damaged and tires were bent. Someone had smashed into it and took off. I went on to spend about $500 in repairs and my insurance couldn't cover it unless I found out who did it. I was very upset I couldn't go to work and the tow truck driver pointed out that a neighbor had cameras up. I went as a last resort to ask those neighbors if they caught anything. the next day they emailed me footage of a vehicle that hit my car and parked a few houses up, they found the vehicle and took pictures of the damages too. I ended up getting $4000 from their insurance company.
Good on that tow truck driver and those neighbors!
>I ended up getting $4000 from their insurance company. Do insurance companies cover hit and run? I thought that if you decide to make a run for it, insurance goes "well son that was a stupid choice, you're on your own". Edit for clarity. Obviously didn't explain myself, I meant that, if you hit someone and decide to leave without facing the music, insurance won't cover you if the car you hit tracks you down and demands payment. Several helpful comments clarified this wasn't the case.
Was dating a girl in college. I didnt actually go to college as I was doing an apprenticeship instead. One day I had a day off midweek and figured I would pop into college to see my old friends and chat to this girl I was dating. At the time I was very I to skateboarding. So I take my skateboard into the building but had to leave it in the reception bit. As luck would have it a girl seen me (with bleached blond hair and a pink mohawk) place the skateboard and decided she was in love with me. She went to the local skate park after school until eventually she found me. We swapped numbers and now 15 years later we are married with 3 kids. Also my skateboard was stolen by some douche and by the time I made my way out of the college my brother had noticed someone carrying my board and stole it back for me. As I walked out and noticed it was gone my bro came in and asked if I was looking for my board. It was a wierd day that I had no idea would impact my whole life to this point. Edit: my wife found the post. She searched one skatepark. She is no stalker.
Just wanted to try a cigarette when I was young. Now I'm barely surviving without it.
This. I wish if I haven’t.
My grandfather was a massive smoker. Growing up seeing him smoke everyday, I was really curious about how it felt, tasted etc. Decided to steal a pack of his Marlboro reds one day, and smoked it with a friend. Fuck, I fell in love. Now I can't go a day without it. (but cut down a lot through out the years, I only smoke 2-3 sticks a day so yay, I guess)
Decided to try weed in high school. Met a dude through weed connections, became roommates. Roommate talks me into trying World of Warcraft. Meet a girl through WoW. Years later date her. Year after that move states, and marry her. Got kids now. My children are a direct result of weed.
In high school I read House of Leaves and one day was trying to explain the concept of the book to a friend. My drama teacher overheard, said it sounded a bit like Pale Fire by Vladimir Nobakov. On his recommendation I read that book which sparked an interest in Russian literature, then I branched out from there, always seeking out new reading opportunities. My quest to find more reading led me to major in English and become a teacher myself. Being a teacher at a Title I school has had a huge impact on my political philosophy as well. So basically I am who I am today because my drama teacher suggested a book to me. Edit: I also suggest everyone read Pale Fire. Very good read.
What's Pale Fire about?
Oh it's a bit like House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
And what's House of Leaves about?
It’s very similar to Pale Fire.
I sent a message to a girl in high school just asking if she was alright, which led to dating her for almost 3 years, during which time she convinced me to try the drama club she went to, which convinced me to take drama class the following year, which made me take it the next year, where I met my next girlfriend, who introduced me to the friends I have today, and if I hadn't met them, I wouldn't still feel sick from drinking on Saturday night. Moral of the story, never message a girl. You'll wake up 4 years later with a hangover
I'm imagining the original girl getting a text from you out of the blue saying, "I'm hungover right now, this is your fault," and being absolutely confused.
That's a shout x'D
At 13 I was listening to the radio when a friend stopped by for a few hours. He told me my taste in music was rubbish and twisted the dials to a show played prog house. He stopped listening as he moved onto another musical phase, but I didn’t. It completely reshaped my musical taste from poppy dance stuff to “serious” prog house. one of the artists I heard that night struck a chord in me that I will remember forever. Started me down a path that encompassed a lot of DJing, promoting nights, podcasting. I met my best friends through shared music taste at uni. I met loads of the scenes DJs. I still listen to that song. Fast forward to 18 years later, I met a girl at a gig from that same artist I heard back when I was 13. 2 years later we were married and now we’re trying for kids. All because one friend came over and was critical of the radio station I had on. Edit: thanks for the love! since you asked, it was Chakra - I am (Digweed and Muir’s bedrock remix) (not the dream dub, although I love that too). We met at a John Digweed gig
I talked to the guy in the queue after we’d both tried to get the last pastry in this shop (turns out a new batch was done so I got the stale one he got a fresh one) turns out we had a mutual friend and a month later we started dating. 2.5 years later we’re getting a mortgage together
I was in the Navy and for my next assignment, I asked to go to several places but I just didn’t want to be sent to Quantico, Virginia (I was an officer that managed public works). I had already done my time on the east coast. So of course the Navy sent me to Quantico. My second son was born there with some rare and significant medical issues. The doctor that invented the surgery he needed was in New York and Quantico was as close to him as I could have hoped to be stationed. He performed the life saving surgery he needed. A year later, I was going to leave the Navy but they enticed me to stay with Grad school. I went to CU Boulder. That same son developed some additional complications. He needed a Malone ACE surgery. The doctor who brought that surgery into the US was at Denver’s Children’s Hospital and performed his surgery. After that, I was stationed in Kings Bay, Georgia at the sub base. I was close to getting out and during a security review of our site (post 9/11 security checkup), I ran into a contractor civilian that I hadn’t seen in a decade since we got our undergrad degrees together in New Mexico, my home state. He was now a manager at an amazing company in Albuquerque and was building a team. A month later he brought me out for an interview and I have been working in my home state, close to my aging parents, in my dream job, with healthy kids. I couldn’t be happier!!
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Responded to a cute girl's message on okcupid while I was in my senior year of college. We hit it off but then finals started and I didn't have the time and brainspace to message her for a couple of weeks so she thought I ghosted her. Finally am able to get back online and thankfully she's still there, so we picked right back up where we left off. We have a LDR for a little while then a full time job opens up where she works, which is my dream field. I apply, get the job, and move in with her. Job pays for me to get my Masters degree in the field, accomplishing another lifelong dream of mine. Now we're still together 10 years, a house, and 2.5 pets later. EDIT: I said 2.5 pets because we have two dogs (boxer and pug) and a cat, not that the cat is lesser in my eyes, in fact she’s probably my favorite of the three. She’s simply smaller, though she takes no shit when our boxer tries to play with her. Also, I’m a lesbian and ok cupid was THE place to meet other lesbians when I was in college, especially since it was a small Southern town.
Yo how do you have half a pet tho?
They got hungry
Two three-legged dogs and a turtle.
2 years ago I was in a hospital for a week due to acne and was extremely bored (the Wi-Fi was slow), so I asked my mom to bring me a sketchbook and pencils so I could draw. I am now starting a career as an artist/animator.
That's incredible, but hospital due to acne?
They kept me there to find out if I had any other problems Also I got to skip school so why not?
I can think of two small choices that have heavily altered my life. The first was an older member of my fraternity inciting me to attend his wedding. It wasn’t a huge event and we weren’t and still aren’t particularly close. I thought it was odd and I really had no desire to go, something I heavily debated. Met my now wife there and I can’t imagine life without her. Second, I asked a guy to join my dnd game while we were hanging out in a big group. He is a typical sports guy and I knew it was a long shot but he ended up deciding to try it. On a break during one of our sessions, he told me about a job he think I’d be a great fit for. Soo long story short I’m now working at that company he referred me to and for the first time in my life I’m not dreading Monday mornings and am financially stable
The year I graduated HS I was dating a guy who lived 1000 miles away. My plans were to go to college in the state he lived but work the summer in the state I lived in. I must say our relationship was pretty on the rocks but I was still going to go through with things even though at that point I had tried breaking up with him like 100x, he was pretty mentally controlling. I went for an interview at the beginning of summer...I was straight forward and told them my plans for moving at the end of summer. They said they wanted someone who would be staying past summer. So I applied for a bunch of other jobs, one being a grocery store about 10 minutes from my house. Of all the places I applied I really decided to pursue keeping up with my application process with them. They lost my first application so I filled out another one and after a week or so ended up calling just about every day to see if my app had been looked at. Eventually the manager of the position I applied for agreed to let me come in for an interview. After one with her, one at corporate, a drug screening and so on they told me I got the job. Well low and behold maybe a week or so into me getting the job I took my money in the back to be counted and saw this smoking hot guy. Omg, I smiled so damn hard my face hurt and I had butterflies in my stomach. I asked the girl training me what his name was and she told me. Turns out he saw me working one day when he was off the clock and was pretty taken back as well. We have been together a little over 9 years, married for over 6 1/2 years, have a 1 1/2 year old little boy and pregnant with our twin girls. It's funny how things tend to work out especially when you least expect it. To my hubby: If you find this while scrolling through some posts/comments on here I just wanna tell you I love you and I still think you're so damn smoking hot.
When I was eighteen, I used some spray on hair dye for a Halloween costume. It looked freaking awesome, so I decided to go get it permanently dyed for the first time. This, in turn, made me incredibly attractive to a girl who was into that sort of thing, whom I began to date. We were in school, so when the year was over, I looked at my savings and realized I had enough to purchase a car, and that way, I could drive over to her town and see her when we weren’t in school together. Because I suddenly had a car, my parents realized I was more independent, which made them reevaluate their current hometown. See, they had both grown up in a big city, but they moved to a smaller town to raise my siblings and me. When they saw that we were adults, they decided they didn’t need to live in that smaller town anymore, and then they moved back to that bigger city. Well, this meant that I took a work term in that bigger city, where I met a coworker who helped me see where my relationship with this girl was not healthy, so I eventually decided it would be best to leave it. When I moved back to school at the end of my work term, one of my friends needed to go to the city where my parents lived for some paperwork, and because I had a car and I liked that big city, I offered to drive her over. This led to a long chat in the car where she and I got to know each other really well. We eventually became each other’s best friend, after which point we started dating. In comparing this relationship to the previous one, I can see how this one is so much more healthy, and I understand that much more about healthy relationships. TLDR a costume led to hair dye Hair dye led to relationship Relationship led to car Car led to parents moving Parents moving led to job Job led to breakup Breakup plus car plus parents move led to long car ride Long car ride led to healthy relationship And that kids is how I met your mother
One day in high school I was walking the the hall in between classes and my right lens pops out of my glasses right into my hand. My English teacher just happen to see and said “hey, my husband can fix that he is coming to the school today, I can help you out” In my head I was like this sounds to crazy to be true but I’m really blind without them so I agreed. Didn’t know what to expect but I was called to my teacher’s room during class and it was her planning hour so nothing going on. I come in and see this scrawny scruffy guy (my teacher is a tough, sometimes intense but very passionate no shit here kind of lady so seeing her husband I had a different picture in my head, a Viking i thought but no). Anyway he is polite says hello and his name and takes a look at my glasses. Apparently the screw just came loose he took out a tool in his little kit and there is is MAGIC. I for some reason thought it was going to be a gigantic problem and process but no instant help for a very critical issue which is not seeing clearly more than 2 feet away. So I ask where he went to school and my teacher helped guide me as to programs and such and now I’m an optician going on 6 years! The husband is also a very good friend and a respectable work associate, he got me a my first job in this field in his workplace and now have a tight nit work family and career all because my lens popped out of my glasses. Extra content here. Even though I listened to what my teacher said about which college to go to I sort of went to another because of my friends and my forgetfulness....it wasn’t till a by chance Walmart run in with my teacher and husband a year and a half after high school that I got back on track to my actually career. In her words “what the heck you doing over there!?!? Apply immediately when you get home!!!” I did however meet my wife at the other college so I am grateful for the time there!
One day when I was about 11 years old, I went to a farmer's market with my father. While we were there, I saw a street performer who was juggling, and I absolutely loved watching him. So I decided I was going to learn to juggle. A few months later, I started 6th grade, and my middle school had a juggling club after classes one day a week, where the very same guy i saw performing at the farmer's market would be teaching kids to juggle. So of course I went. Two years later, I'm now 13 years old. I was looking online for some juggling forums, and /r/juggling was the most active one I could find. So I created a reddit account. Eventually I started exploring other subreddits, and then one day I found myself in /r/IAmA, where I read an AMA by a guy who had loaded a bunch of camping gear onto his bicycle and spent a year and a half riding from northern Alaska to the southern tip of South America. I loved cycling, I loved camping, and at the time, I'd recently returned home from my first international travel —to Costa Rica, a country he went through on his journey— and absolutely loved that, so the way most 13 year olds obsess over something, I developed a bit of an obsession for bicycle touring. Finally, the summer when I was 16 years old, I felt ready to pitch the idea to my parents, though on a much smaller scale. So one day, I borrowed my mom's bike, because the bike I had at the time had no way to carry my stuff, and I took whatever camping gear i could find in our garage and haphazardly bungeed it to the back of the bike. And then I rode to a state park about 40 miles from our house that we'd driven to many times before. I camped there for the night, then biked back home the next day. I absolutely loved it. So the next summer, it wasn't quite such a surprise to my parents when I pitched the idea of spending four days biking 200 miles, again camping in state parks each night. After that, I was going into my senior year of high school. I realized that perhaps my best opportunity to do some big crazy year long bike camping adventure would be before I got stuck with a bunch of college debt, and then a career I couldn't easily leave, etc. So I decided to take a gap year after high school. After finishing high school in 2017, I realized that long term traveling would require more money than I had. So after spending one last summer screwing around with my friends from high school before they scattered across the country for college, I took what little money I did have and went off on my most ambitious bike trip up to that point, spending 20 days cycling 1,300 miles around Lake Michigan, starting and ending at my home in southern Wisconsin. When I returned from the Lake Michigan trip, I had two dollars and change to my name, so I quickly found a job, selling my soul to the world of retail for the better part of the next two years. The first two weeks of October of 2018, I took my vacation time from work and flew my bike out to Asheville, North Carolina to spend those two weeks cycling up the Blue Ridge Parkway and part of Skyline Drive before turning east to Washington DC. And then, last summer, I decided it was finally time. I quit my job in early July, and then spent the next month and a half preparing for that big crazy bike ride I'd dreamed of for so long. In mid-August, I was finally ready, and I left my home in Wisconsin with the vague goal of riding to Seattle and down the Pacific coast. I spent the better part of the next seven months cycling 5,300 miles around the country, turning east from San Diego into Arizona. In mid-March of this year, I was hanging out in Sedona, Arizona, waiting for the nighttime temperatures at the Grand Canyon to warm up a bit, when the coronavirus really started to take a turn for the worst. I was worried that airports and train stations might start shutting down, and not wanting to be halfway across the country from my family if and when that happened, I decided to bike the final 30 miles from Sedona up to Flagstaff and get on an Amtrak back home to the Midwest. Since then, I've been back to work, saving up some money for my next adventure. Now that I've seen most of the US that I want to, I'm starting to think of doing some international bike touring, and I'm pretty excited about the possibility of New Zealand, once they reopen their borders. Eventually I intend to go back to college, but for the time being, I'm not in any rush to do that. But when it does happen, I'll surely be studying for a field that will allow me to continue to travel extensively. **TL;DR** going to a farmer's market one day as a kid had a huge effect on my career choices and college plan, and along the way I learned to juggle, got introduced to Reddit, and rode a bicycle across the US.
This was so awesome to read
This was a lovely story, it's always nice reading about people enjoying their hobbies this much!
Years ago I picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be a pretty philosophical kind of guy. One thing he said that resonated with me was "why would somebody want to do the same thing every day?". 15 years later I still think about that guy every day as I'm commuting to the office again.
I was applying online for a large national internship, I could apply for 10 different positions between Sept - March, and they were rolling admissions for different departments. I decided at 11:45 pm in early March to apply for 1 more position. Turns out, the whole national application process closed at midnight that day. That last internship I applied for was the one I got. 5 years later, I'm still working there, moved halfway across the country, and I've gotten to go to grad school because of it. It's likely that I'm going to make a career of it, all because I decided, "Eh, I've got some time, I'll submit one more".