stories

We shouldn't be happy when bad things happen, but the whole world would be lying if it never admitted that some satisfaction comes with being right. That "I told you so" momentis sweet and it is strong. The feeling of righteous indignation is nice, even when it comes from your brother in law electrocuting himself while installing a lightbulb improperly.

In most places it's a crime to spit in someone's food, and food industry people will admit that it's more rare than you'd think. What's more common is people doing EXACTLY what the customer asks for, like making the food too spicy, overcooking it or giving them about 500% too much mayo. It shouldn't be a surprise that it's a pretty dumb idea to be a ding dong to the person cutting your slice of cake. You never know if the employee you're talking to is someone who just doesn't give a heck.

The universe is shifty and unpredictable, and it's impossible to know when an unforeseen danger will be thrown right at you. But sometimes our spidey senses light up, allowing us to make either fast or seemingly precognitive decisions that help us dodge massive bullets. Sometimes a crazy close call is up to chance, but other times people feel a gut instinct keeping them safe.

It's a not-unheard-of occurrence in relationships: "either the dog goes or I go." People who set this kind of ultimatum often have a very uninformed view on how much people like their pets. If the cat has been around for 10 years and you've been around for 3 months, don't expect an outcome in your favor. That said, pets aren't always stoic beacons of morality. For example here's Prancer, the irredeemable dog and these pets who shamelessly wrecked stuff.

They say ignorance is bliss, and that's mostly true until reality smashes into your face faster than you can say "I'd rather not." We live in a world of secrets, and the unsettling irony is that the most unassuming, trustworthy people are also the ones who are just the best at keeping them. You hope those secrets are wholesome, but lets be honest that's usually not the case. For things you might rather not want to see, here are some strange and cursed images of internet weirdness.

When you get a few hundred to a thousand developing adults into one building and try to get them to follow rules for 7 hours a day, you are setting up a recipe for weirdness. Some kids wanted attention. Other kids (most of us) were trying not to be cringeworthy and failed. Other kids (also most of us) were just bored. We all remember a day at school, trying to get through some drab math exercises when another kid would lean over and say "dude, did you hear about what Jeremy did?" And what an interesting time we'd all have recounting Jeremy's shenanigans. It's not just the kids, sometimes teachers say weird and wild junk too.

There are absolutely tons of good reasons to call 911, but there are way more totally stupid reasons to call them. A suspicious person lurking around? Sure. Someone's dog looked at you weird? Maybe not. Sometimes people panic when they're scared and frustrated, and 911 dispatch gets to hear a story about a tree someone dislikes. For some other crime-adjacent shenanigans, here are things people later discovered were illegal.

Nothing stirs up emotions quite like a solid prank. Maybe not "filling someone's car with bees" or "seducing your boss's wife" level pranking, but something like giving someone a jelly donut filled with mustard. People pull off some sinister pranks, and they're great to hear about, even if just to get ideas. We can't guarantee that anyone will trust you after doing crap like this, but it is kind of awesome.

For a whole lot of people, sex ed was more of a fear factory than a sober discussion of scientific facts, and it's really weird how much unverified information and questionable analogies people are prepared to hare in order to get kids to do what they want. Yeah, a lot of awkward sex questions get asked in sex ed, but at least they sometimes get answered.

There are some real dumb idiots out there. We all like to think that just cause we have cars and planes and indoor plumbing that the standards for your average person's grasp on reality is vastly better than say, a dirt-farming medieval peasant. But then you talk to someone for 5 minutes and realize that they don't believe in air. What's worse is the dumb things people say with mystifying confidence.

Tech support has to field some of the least tech-savvy people on the planet, like it's literally their job to help people who can't figure this stuff out. Technology is hard to grasp, but that's becoming less of an excuse when computers have been pretty ubiquitous in homes and offices for going on 30 years now. This difficulty leads to some absolutely absurd moments like people not realizing they're deleting all their files or Karens who try to bluff their way through the system. Sometimes the systems themselves are absurd, like this IT guy who learned a machine was stuck on "explode."

Contrary to the belief that pets just sit there and mope all day, many animals have rich inner lives filled with jealousy and rage. There's dogs out there herding lawn roombas and cats out there being eloquent, melodramatic divas. There's cats Lion Kinging other cats off balconies and jealous horses up to no good. Animals are just as petty and vicious as the rest of us.

There are a few types of creepy stories. Some are like a quizzical moment that people have a hard time explaining, like a weird coincidence or some kind of paranormal junk. Then there's the other kind of creepy, the kind where you wake up at 3 in the morning, look out your window and there's just a dude standing in the middle of the road staring at your house. Yikes.

It used to be that pizza delivery drivers bore the brunt of the weirdness, but now that people can have basically anything brought to their door, it widens the scope of strange and intriguing situations strangers can have with each other. 20 pizzas to an elks lodge? Makes sense. 20 bunches of bananas to a hotel room at 3 in the morning? Well, hopefully they tip well as an apology for what you're about to see.

Choosing who you're gonna spend the rest of your life with is a pretty big deal. The various photographers, DJs and specialty bakers of the wedding industry have seen a whole lot, and sometimes it's pretty clear right off the bat that something is amiss. Being at an ill-advised wedding is awkward at best, and full of moments that make it clear the wedding was a bad idea.