When I was in my early teens I was left home alone for the first time. I had a big family and had literally never been alone. I had always shared a bedroom with at least one sibling and usually two or more. My entire family had gone across country for a week and I was left behind because I had summer school due to missing half the school year. I think it was on the first night that while checking that all doors and windows were locked and lights out that I head an unfamiliar voice say my name from a room that I had already checked. I was so scared that I slept in the family room with the lights on and the biggest knife I could find under my pillow. I still don't know if I actually heard it or if it was my paranoid imagination.

When I was a teenager, someone broke into my home - while I was there. My little sister noticed the noises first. We locked ourselves in our parents bedroom until the police got there. They found out the person, who had a large footprint, had gotten into a downstairs window. I didn't totally freak out until after the police left. Of course my parents sped home.

I grew up overseas in Turkey and Japan. In Turkey, we lived in a small fishing village called Sinop. It was on a harbor of the Black Sea. This takes place on New Years Eve 1991. We were expecting a blizzard to come in on New Years Day. Therefore, the ships had come in and anchored to ride out the storm the day/night before.

My parents had gone up to the base (Army/Navy base) to celebrate the new year coming in. I was only 15, so I stayed home with the dog and cats. Keep in mind, the storm hadn't started yet.

I was sitting in the living room that faced the harbor, waiting to ring in the new year with my cat. I was watching a movie and eating my snacks as the time ticked down. All was quiet, except for the occasional snow flurries that were drifting.

A few minutes before midnight, the animals started acting weird. The dog just kept barking at this one corner and the cats were all stalking around with poof tails. I didn't see anything to freak them out, so I just ignored them.

Until midnight hit.

As soon as it ticked 12:00AM, all the ships in the harbor started blowing their horns to ring in the new year. As soon as that started, the horrendous wind came out of NOWHERE! It actually blew all the windows and balcony door open! Swept through the entire! The cats freaked, the dog lost its s**t and I was officially freaked out!

Soon as it turned 12:01, it stopped. Everything just went completely quiet. Not a sound and the animals just went on about their business.

Needless to say, I immediately called my parents and made them come home!

During Co Vid lockdown... 9 pm ...doorbell rings. I'm not expecting anyone ... I approach the front door and ...I turn on the outside light and look through the spy hole in the door ... nothing in view. I put the chain on the door and slowly open the door. There is a paper bag on the ground and no one in sight. I grabbed the bag and scurried back inside. Two burgers and two bags of fries in bag.
I'm Vegan.

I once accidentally replied “Love you” at the end of a work call with my boss.. but she laughed and said love you too haha.

During a wake, i accidentally said congratulations instead of condolences. i felt ashamed because my friend with me then can't hold his laughter which made it worst.

I was tormented during high school by a kid named Steve. He was always picking on me and teasing me and making fun of me for being gay (I’m not, but this was 2005-9, when it was a common insult and you didn’t want to be the “gay kid” in a rural NH town). It stopped after I stood up to him in my senior year.

I came back to my hometown from college for Memorial Day, and went to a cookout at my uncles house. While there, I was talking with my cousins and a few other people I didn’t know. It came up that he’d died in a car wreck a few weeks or months before, and I confess, I took that news with a smile. I also said something under my breath to the effect of “good riddance”.

Well, one of the people attending this particular cookout, who was sitting next to me and overheard me, was his mom. She did NOT take that with a smile, but hey her son was an a*****e to me every day for 3.5 years, I’m not going to lie about it. Plus, I’d never met her before, so how could I know who she was? Yeah d**k move to say it out loud, but I still agree with the feeling. F**k Steve.

After my grandmother's funeral I went back to work and my boss nervously asked how she was.

I shrugged, "Still dead". Everybody tittered awkwardly and Marvin apologized profusely. Was cool, just gallows humor.

My coworkers and I worked by windows and could see it snowing and had been talking about the cold weather. My boss received a phone call that his aunt passed away.

I gave my condolences and then said, “she’s in a better place now. Somewhere warm.”

I meant a nice beach, but I basically said his auntie is in Hell.

I walked into my office, and a lady from HR was sitting in my chair. I said, “Well, looks like I’m going to have to sit in your lap” and then she says, “Come on over. Giddy up!” My face turned bright red. She left, I sat down, we never spoke of it again.

In a customers house repairing his dishwasher:
Cx: I don't even use the dishwasher much since I lost my wife
Me: Have you gone out to look for her? Sorry sorry sorry.

F**k me... I'm an idiot. It just slipped.

I went for a bike ride in my neighborhood at about 12 at night a month ago. It was pitch black other than streetlights every 5 or 6 houses.

I was kinda just zoning out, enjoying the fresh air, when something moved out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to look, and I immediately assumed it was some kind of monster (I had just finished a horror movie), so I let out an extremely loud, bloodcurdling scream in the middle of the night in a silent suburban neighborhood. The thing, which turned out to be a blond soccer mom, screamed back at me, with pretty good reason.

I zipped past her on my bike, yelling "oh my god I'm so sorry!" over and over again until I got off the street..

I haven't gone on a nighttime bike ride since then.

As a low ranking team lead in a staff meeting, a senior manager started yelling and shouting at me.

We had been disagreeing about a point of fact for 1/2 hour.

I heard myself tell him to go outside if he wanted to keep shouting.

The room went silent. Real silent...

I played the scene back in my head. What I really said:

"If you want to shout at me, step outside!"

He shut up. No one blinked. I pondered for a very long moment. Realized that nothing said was an overt threat. So I sat back down.

He never shouted at me again. No one did.

After lunch break, someone else brought up my data, proving I was right. No, he didn't apologize.

It was a very good day. lol.

I was in a finance-related meeting with my director and CEO. I suddenly had one of those sneezes that come out of nowhere with no warning.

Didn't have time to cover my mouth, and to make matters worse I shot out a loogie (ball of mucus/phlegm) right onto my CEO's boob.

I wanted to die, but my CEO, cool as a cucumber took a tissue and gave it to me, while grabbing another and wiping my loogie off. She smiled at me and said "You don't raise two kids without becoming desensitised to that stuff". And continued like nothing happened.

My director on the other hand started tearing up and his temple vein was bulging. I could tell he was trying so goddamn hard not to burst out laughing.

At my first big job interview, I was insanely nervous. The interviewer asked, "How do you handle stress?"

And I suddenly let out a loud fart.

Go down the entire anti vax big pharma bad rabbit hole. Threw away the free bowl cancer screening kit our government sends out every two years once you turn 50.

Now, she is undergoing chemo for bowel cancer. (Fixed major typo).

Computer tech here, traveling for work, I checked into the hotel. My room is on the first floor. I get in the elevator and press 1. Nothing happened. I press it again a few times. The other guy in the elevator says "Hey buddy, you're already on the first floor."

"Oh... Yeah."

I was really burned out.

I once had the great pleasure of getting to ask our very experienced master electrician who had decades in powering giant events but one day couldn't get his computer to boot:.

"Uh, Mike? Are you sure it's plugged in?"(it was not).

My psych once asked me what caused my PTSD

As I was telling him, I started crying and shaking.

"Damn I didn't think the question would make you cry" he responded.

THREE PHDS AND YOU DON'T THINK REMEMBERING THE CAUSE OF THEIR PTSD WILL MAKE SOMEONE CRY???

My grandmother infamously tried to make an ice cream cake back when those were a new thing in the early 80s. She put ice cream on the cake batter…and put it in the oven.

My grandfather said it was tasty though.

My eye doctor walked into the wall once during an exam. My EYE DOCTOR 👀.

I knew a many of people completely ruin their future by storming the capitol. Totally smart people. I talked to one recently after avoiding contact with him and he told me about his life since then. He cannot get a job at all no matter what the job is he cannot get it. He recorded it all on his phone so of course the FBI found him pretty easily. Took his phone. But the weirdest thing: he no longer owns a phone. He has like this nokia looking government provided phone that does absolutely nothing but call and text. Of course all messages sent and received are monitored. I literally don’t know how he’s supposed to advance in life like I don’t know if he will ever find a job.

My Dad is super smart. Like... He's a member of MENSA smart, has several patents he wrote when he was in his early 20's, once asked a flight attendant a bunch of weird questions about the plane we were on so he could do some crazy math equations FOR FUN. You get the picture.

But his smarts were no match for little toddler me crying because my toy pony stopped making noise after I brought into the bathtub. Dad panicked, figured he could dry it out.... In the microwave. He did not seem to make the connection that in order to make those noises it had to have electronic (aka METAL) parta inside it. So pony goes in the microwave and a few seconds later it basically explodes into flames. We were both in shock for a few minutes. Surprisingly I stopped crying because it was so unexpected and then Dad taught me about how metal doesn't go in the microwave.