Secrets have the power to eat us alive, especially if they're as twisted as these troubling stories. From buried family drama to corporate corruption, these Redditors are here to get their darkest truths off their chests. Sometimes the truth sets us free, but sometimes a secret's consequences can haunt us forever.
1. That Escalated Quickly
Back in high school, I had a huge crush on a girl. There was some heavy chemistry between us, but despite asking her on a date several times, she always said no. We lost touch after graduation. A few years later, I ran into her at a bar. We got to catch up and it was great getting to talk to her again, it felt like no time had passed.
She said her parents were having a few people over at their place and asked if I wanted to go hang out with them for a while. Turns out everyone had left by the time we got there, so it was just us four. After a few drinks, my friend said she was tired and was going to go home. But the night wasn’t over yet. I told her I'd find my own ride and said goodbye. After she left, her dad asked if I wanted to get with her mom while he watched…so I did.
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2. He Put Himself Into His Work
I used to work at a local higher-end pizza place—and believe it or not, this is actually what went down. The owner, who was a fairly hairy dude, would come in and stir the pizza sauce himself every morning with his ARM. He didn’t wear any gloves or anything. He would just use his bare, hairy arm. Sadly, that was just one of the many disgusting secrets that place had.
3. She Removed More Than Just Stains
I worked at a dry cleaner. The lady who ran the place was heavily into voodoo/black magic or something along those lines. I didn’t understand it because I was too scared to quiz her. What the customers didn’t know about the place was that the owner would actively assess the customers at all times in terms of first impressions, perceived health, wellbeing, spiritual makeup, karma, etc.
Anyway, once they had given the clothes over to her for cleaning, she'd show her unsettling true colors: She'd perform incredibly elaborate rituals with the clothing in order to affect the lives of the customer. I would hear extremely unsettling noises coming from the back room and have seen several unrecognizable objects in there.
Once, I heard her just laughing for about 15 minutes. Then at the end of a "session," she came out covered in sweat.
4. Oh Deer
My wife has a beautiful heart. I jokingly call her a Disney princess because any animal that she comes across she has to talk to and greet. She has cried by seeing a dead raccoon on the side of the road before. At the time, I was working day shift and she was working a swing shift. I had a busy day, but I saw she sent me some pictures of a young doe that was eating in our front yard.
She seemed thrilled. I came home—and my blood ran cold. I saw the same deer...dead. On my darn porch. I felt like I started to hear “the first 48” theme playing as I realized I have six hours to get rid of this thing before my wife gets home and her world is shattered. I call my local city authorities thinking they wouldn’t want a dead animal in the middle of town.
Turns out, they couldn’t care less. I called some local raptor shelters to see if they could take a state donation, but it turns out the dead deer business is booming and they didn’t have a need for donations at this time, especially in the next 6 hours. Frustrated, I call my dad to vent and get advice on what to do. His response is only a, “Hold on bud, I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”
I go back inside to take care of the dogs and within the next 15 minutes, I see my dad back his huge truck into my back yard. He has the tailgate down and is knocking on my door with a pair of nitrile gloves on and another pair in hand for me. It was starting to get dark out, but we had that thing loaded up and found a special place to, uh, “dispose” of it.
We made it back with 20 minutes to spare before my wife got home. I haven’t told my wife because I think it would either break her heart, or creep her out at how efficiently my dad can dump a body. Anyway, wifey thinks her deer friend is alive and well, and totally not at the bottom of a ravine.
5. Recycling Was The Key To Their Demise
I worked for a gelato shop that made us dig through the so-called recycling bins to fish out used plastic cups and spoons to wash and give to new customers. Even if the spoons had bite marks from other customers and were coated in chewing gum, we were told to wash them up and only throw them out if they were really unpresentable. We were told to do this because "These things are expensive!"
Furthermore, all the other stuff in the recycling bin got thrown in the dumpster. Customers ATE IT UP and told us regularly how GLAD they were that we were a “green” business who cared about the environment enough to recycle. It didn't take long before I just couldn't keep doing all of that with a clean conscience. I turned the company into the health inspectors, who were absolutely horrified at what was happening.
About two months later, I got laid off, and the business closed its filthy doors forever.
6. A Secret Worth Keeping
When I was around age 12, my dad died in a civil war. After about two years, my mom started a relationship with a dad of a female classmate of mine. She had lost her mom about five years back. Initially, I hated this new life. I hated my stepdad because I felt like he was trying to replace my real dad. But with time things settled down…and me and my step sister fell in love.
It mostly started with mutual emotional support for our similar trauma. Our relationship was never physical, but deeply emotional. This continued to our early 20s, even through our university days. Both of us dated others just to cover things up. There was no realistic way for us to progress our relationship. She even agreed to an arranged marriage.
Meanwhile, I immigrated to a different country. I thought it was over, but I was so wrong. We maintained a long-distance relationship. After five years, she found out that her husband was cheating on her. After a lot of fighting, he divorced her and she is now single. Luckily, she did not have a kid because she was in grad school. Now, she is coming to my country in a few months.
We’re not planning to tell anybody that we’re step-siblings but we do plan to get married. We actively avoid people from our country so that our secret is safe. We really don’t have any idea how to keep it safe forever, but we don’t care either because we can finally be together. For the first time in my life since my dad’s death, I am not depressed.
7. A Story Straight From Hollywood
I went to a friend’s funeral about a month ago. He passed young, in his early 30s, and had a wife and three small kids. We were close in school, but only casually kept touch over the years, so I had only met his wife a few times. I got to the funeral and was surprised how well she seemed to be holding it together, but figured everyone handles grief differently.
I offered my condolences, and then ended up chatting with a few other college friends after the service. My friend’s wife came up to the group to let us know that we are invited to go have a drink with her and a few others if we wanted, as her parents were watching her kids for her. I was going to decline until she told us that she had something shocking to share with us.
Apparently, she needed to let us all know what she had found out over the last week while going through my friend’s things. According to her, the reason she wasn't very upset was because my friend had been leading a double life for the past 13+ years! He had always claimed his dad had owned a trucking company and then sold it leaving him really well off, and we believed him.
Based on his spending habits, this all seemed true. He also had claimed his mom passed while we were in school, and that he was an only child. After he left the college I attended during our sophomore year, he would post pictures of Vanderbilt and claimed he transferred there to finish school. All of this seemed to check out.
To add to all this, he also said he got a master's from a different prestigious school. I had worked with him briefly a few years ago in a professional capacity when his company reached out to possibly work with my company, so based on his role there, all of that totally sounded like it could be true. It turned out none of it was.
His mom and sister attended the funeral—the mom all of us, including his wife, thought had passed when he was in college, and the sister none of us knew existed. She had no idea that he'd told people she wasn’t alive. She thought his son and wife eloped, and with her living out of state, my friend would make excuses as to why his wife didn't visit.
My friend had also told us his sister was his cousin, so we were all shocked by that too. My friend even went so far as to show his wife an obituary for his mom when they were dating. His wife had thought the whole time that his actual mom was his aunt, and that his sister was his cousin. And the lies just kept coming—an entire life unraveling before our very eyes.
The school stuff was also all lies. He apparently transferred to an online school and got a bachelor's, but would send us pictures from Vanderbilt's campus. The trucking company his dad owned was real, but actually went bankrupt and was liquidated. The trust fund he told his wife that he set up for the kids doesn't exist.
To make things worse, he had told his wife that he didn't have student loans, but he actually had $78k in loans. He had maxed out multiple credit cards she didn't know existed. And the cherry on top? He was cheating on her with multiple other women. He was taking them for fancy dinners, to the casino, and even getting hotel rooms for them.
Needless to say, his wife was livid, and she was very happy to find out she wasn't the only one my friend had been lying to all these years. The whole thing seriously felt like a movie. I didn't realize stories like this actually happened in real life. I am still sad my friend passed, but I also realize many of us never met the real him. Now the rest of us are doing what we can to help his wife and his kids.
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8. Spiders Aren’t That Bad After All
When I was about 8, I was sent to a summer camp for a month. My sister, who was 14, also was there. I had never been away from my parents before. I remember the cabins in the woods. Now, I don't know if I had arachnophobia before this experience, but I recall that the toilet stalls had dozens of daddy long leg spiders all over. The way I handled it was…disturbing.
I was so scared, I just held It in for nearly a week. One day, I just couldn't hold it anymore and had to make a run for the toilets. I did this weird crab walk thing to the toilets, trying to hold it in. I made it Into the main area where the sinks are and just couldn't hold it anymore and just quickly, with one hand, pulled down my pants from behind.
I dropped the biggest dump on the tile floor, all while still in motion towards the toilet. Thankfully, no one was in there to see this. When I walked by later, a large group had formed outside. Inside, one of the staff was covering his face with one hand and holding a hose in the other. No one knew who had done it.
9. House Blessing
It wasn’t a secret we kept long, but it does count! My mother is from Thailand, and a convert from Buddhism to Christianity. Despite this, my mother does have a firm belief in ghosts, especially in cases of sudden, violent acts, as that is an everyday belief in Thailand. My dad bought a property of thirty acres for cheap from the state, and about six months in, I visited him there.
Around a campfire, he got this mischievous look and told me the most disturbing story. Apparently, the reason the property was so cheap was that the man who had previously owned it set his house on fire and ended his own life with socks on his hands to try and make it seem like his wife did it. The problem was, his house didn’t quite burn fast enough, and the firemen were able to put it out.
They found the body and immediately pegged it as a suicide. He’d been going through a divorce and was just a few aces short of a full deck of cards. My mother would have had a cash cow. Instead, she’d been living there on and off for six months and there were no spooky hauntings. Eventually, my dad did tell her, and naturally, my mother immediately called a preacher to bless the property.
10. I Couldn’t Pack This One Away
I worked for a self-storage place. They made every customer sign a lease agreement that said they wouldn't be held responsible if the unit was broken into and things were stolen. I found out that we had about seven to eight burglaries a year. The owners would get sued, but they would always get off because they would produce the lease agreement in court, and the judge would dismiss the case.
One day, I came in from vacation to pick up my paycheck—and I made the most disturbing discovery. I found the owner and the manager loading up a truck with the contents from a unit that wasn't theirs. I went around the corner to an area where the fence allowed me to look in without being seen. I saw that they went to another storage space, cut off the lock, and proceeded to load up the truck with a telescope, big screen tv, and some power tools.
I came back the next day and asked one of my co-workers about it. He told me that the owners of the storage facility would sell the stuff they snatched from renters and that the manager and owner did the same thing with another property that they owned as well. I quit and called the authorities to tell them what the owners were doing. Unfortunately, they said that there was nothing they could do unless they were caught in the act.
11. A Box Of Secrets
When I was a kid, I farted into a little box over and over for a full year. It was a tin some Christmas cookies came in with a picture of Santa on it. Every single time I had to pass gas, I lifted the lid, put it in the box, and quickly closed it. Before long, the box was successfully filled to the brim and ready for deployment. When my brother was mean to me, I’d take his sunglasses and put them in the box to marinate overnight.
Then I’d quietly return them. My brother continually complained to my mom about how they smelled and that they’d sold him a bad pair, and wanted new ones.
12. This Place Left Me Flooded With Rage
I worked at a salad place called Doc Green's. The bathroom piping had burst in the wall. At first, it was a slow leak, but then there was literally poo and pee oozing out of the wall into a booth and eventually in the entire back of the house. I brought it up to several people's attention, and no one did ANYTHING. I was appalled.
There was poo flowing on tables and down the wall. The staff and I ended up squeegeeing the flooded wastewater out of the side door, toilet paper, and all. I seemed to be the only one horrified by this. IT WAS A SALAD PLACE. LETTUCE IS EXTREMELY POROUS and can definitely hold moisture full of bacteria. Luckily, the place eventually closed.
13. A Loner's Act
A notorious loner in my class would always have an MSN Messenger chat window up with one of his friends every time he hooked his computer up to the projector. He would act all embarrassed that we saw his conversations with his friend from another town. He moved here from there, so we assumed he really was staying in touch with his old pals. Until one day we found out the truth.
Once when he was in the library on a computer, I spotted him logged on to his "friend's" MSN accounts...and messaging himself. Sometimes he would speak about the things he and his "friends" did, and ever since I caught him messaging himself, I felt really bad for him. He was a very kind, peculiar kid—not one I'd really be interested in being friends with, but I always treated him nicer after that.
14. I Couldn’t Stomp Out Their Unethical Protocols
I used to work for a major office supply chain. One day, I went into the back and found one of the cashiers standing over a pile of stuff—printer cartridges, calculators, etc. She was stomping her little heart out and trying her best to smash all of it. I was like, “WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING!?!?” She said, “Oh, they told me to break this stuff because they can't sell it.”
I marched into my manager's office and asked what they were thinking. Their response FLOORED me: “Well, that stuff has sat in the clearance bin for months. We can't afford to keep it on the floor, so it has to be destroyed.” I asked, “Why can't you donate it to, like, a SCHOOL or something?” Their response was, “Well, if we donate it, we have to write it off as a loss, and it makes our profits look lower. This way, it's written off as damaged property, and it improves our books.”
They did the same with blank CDs. There were hundreds of them in stacks. I figured I could use some of them, so I grabbed a bunch and put them under my jacket. When I came back at the end of my shift, they had taken them back, and another cashier was taking them one by one, scratching them with her keys, and dumping them in the trash. It totally shattered my youthful optimism.
15. Faking It All
A colleague I'd been friendly with for 5+ years faked having cancer. She shaved her head, did her makeup to make her look sick, and even started using a cane. I'd always bring her meals, wear the solidarity ribbon, and offer to cover for her if she wasn't feeling well and needed to go home. Finally, one of the other faculty members informed me it was all a ruse.
They all knew and had stopped feeding into it years ago, but whenever they confronted her about it, she denied it.
16. It Wasn't Me
My friends and I were hanging out in a parking lot at night somewhere in our New England town. I had my family car, a 2006 Nissan Pathfinder. I had recently gotten my license and, of course, in high school, nothing was better than driving around with your friends, blasting music, and hanging out in parking lots.
I had my BB pistol (powered by C02 cartridges) and we were shooting at trees. I turned to shoot the license plate of the Pathfinder in an attempt to look cool—but I messed up BAD: I shot out the back window instead. One of my friends who was in the car started screaming out of fear and confusion. I realized at that moment how much trouble I’d be in with my parents, so I decided to cover it up.
We drive (with a completely shattered back window) to the RiteAid to grab a dustpan and bag. We swept up all the broken glass and drove downtown to a sketchier part of town. I parked the Pathfinder next to this small graveyard and scattered the glass around to stage a break-in. We gathered ourselves and I got out my flip phone to call my parents. Then I put on the greatest performance of my life.
I fake cried and told them that their car was broken into as we were walking around downtown. My dad drove to meet us at the scene. He didn’t suspect a thing and I was so proud of myself for getting away with that one. Years later, the story was brought up and I decided to tell my dad the truth. He laughed and told me he knew we were lying when he got there, specifically because of my best friend's face.
Apparently, she looked suspicious as heck…which is hilarious because she was the actress of our group and very involved in theater. Anyway, it always gives me a good laugh to think about that night and my dad's reaction. He keeps this a secret from my mom (who would not think it’s funny) even to this day.
17. Lying Is Just The Start
I lied my way into a really good job by pretending to have relevant experience. I'm a confident communicator so I've gotten away with some blatant lies in my life. But this is probably the most significant thing that worked out. I honestly did not expect it to, I was just taking a shot. Basically, I had a really vague job title at my last job.
It was very easy to inflate my seniority and responsibilities. This was a remote job where I did NOTHING, I even stopped opening the computer and going to meetings. I learned more detail about the job by speaking to some people who were currently in the position. And took detailed notes so I'd be able to speak the lingo.
Then I thought up all kinds of curveball interview questions and came up with answers. For example, "Tell me about a time you faced a difficult client." I really had nothing to speak to, so I wrote down scenarios I could reference during an interview. I had a list of phony meetings I've attended and relationships with important people I've never met, I figured no one would check.
The interview went well and I got an offer the next day. Believe it or not, I can actually do the job and I feel like I'm helping people for once.
18. Canine Cruelty
I went to visit my best friend after we hadn't seen each other for a while. I asked about her smaller dog, who wasn't at the house anymore. Back story about this dog: he was bought as a puppy and when his owner was going through a divorce, he put the dog in a basement. The only interactions he had with people were negative ones, so over time, he became aggressive toward people.
The original owner was putting him down and my friend decided to rescue and rehab him. She had him for a couple of years, and when I went to see her, he wasn't there anymore. So when I asked what happened, I was horrified at her answer. She apparently had gotten upset that he peed on the carpet, and she decided to drive him to a dirt road by the airport to leave him there.
She laughed when she told me that he ran after the car...you know, in a way where you could tell she expected me to find it funny too. I was livid; shaking. I left and never talked to her again.
19. Something Needed Fixing
If this secret gets out, I’m so dead. I slept with my mom’s friend. She was 32 and I was 20 at the time. She stopped me one day as I was walking by her apartment and asked if I could take a look at her laptop because the Wi-Fi wasn’t working. I said of course and started looking for the cause of it. While I was on her couch with the laptop she comes out of the kitchen with a bottle and two shot glasses.
At that point, I knew the real reason I was there. Needless to say, there was nothing wrong with her Wi-Fi.
20. Different Rules For The Rich
I used to work in the woman's lingerie department for a really big designer clothing company. The company policy stated that they do not do exchanges or returns on underwear. I believed it and lived by it. I would refuse customers’ exchanges or refunds no matter what their excuse was. One day, a customer wanted an exchange and had asked for it right in front of my supervisor and me.
I refused it. Then, my supervisor looked at me with eyes like she was about to gut me like a fish and simply said, "Oh, I'm sorry. She's new here and still doesn't know our way of doing things." She led the customer away, let her pick out other underwear, and took back the other ones. I assumed that maybe the company would throw away the underwear or something.
In less than five minutes, the same pair of underwear that had no tags on it was re-tagged and put back up on display for sale. It turned out that the company only does exchanges and refunds on lingerie from the wealthy, regardless of whether the undies looked worn or the tags had been removed. Ever since then, I started soaking all new lingerie in boiling water, then throwing it into the washing machine and dryer before I even dare put it on.
21. Kids These Days
Back in college, I took a computer class and I was way over my head because I didn’t want to take the class and I’m bad with computers. The way tests worked was that we’d open up a blank test template on the computer we sat at and follow instructions. As I was opening up the copy, I saw a copy that the kid before me saved on the desktop.
I quickly wrote down his name and copied the entire test. When the test came back, I got an A. I reached out to this guy and told him what happened. Turns out, he was doing this with someone else in another period too. I ended up getting a 97% in that class, but learned nothing.
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22. Blame It On The Dog
I worked at Wendy's during my teenage years. I also had a teenager's metabolism, so I would frequently treat myself to numerous giant meals during an evening shift. I was closing one night and to avoid an awkward ride home with my sketchy manager, I decided to walk the full three miles home through the sleepy suburban streets.
Around the halfway point of my early morning walk, the gallons of fast food in my gut transformed itself into gallons of fetid waste wanting very much to leave my body. Since I was in a residential area without a bathroom nearby, I darted down an alley and hopped a fence into a backyard where I unleashed pure evil from my underside.
I noticed that this yard had all the necessary accouterment to indicate a dog or two lived there. My hope is that the owners didn't take their dogs to the vet with the assumption that Fido's behind had exorcised Mephistopheles.
23. I Wasn’t Horsing Around
I worked as an equine assistant at a ranch in Indiana. The stuff that went on at that place made me so depressed to the point where I was crying every night. The ranch mostly had horses, with a few goats here and there. The horses were underfed, overworked, and just miserable. At the time, the owner had around 20 horses ON A HALF-ACRE OF LAND.
By right, one horse needs around three acres for adequate space. There was also little shelter, and the entire "pasture" was a huge mud-lot all summer. The owner had no knowledge of equine nutrition, so she made us change the animal’s diets almost daily. This resulted in two colic cases where the horses could not pass anything for about 48 hours.
I pleaded with her to call the vet, but she refused. We also had two horses with fevers that were still being used on rocky trails at the time in 108-degree heat. The same thing happened with two horses who had hoof abscesses. Most of them hadn’t had their yearly shots in two years, and none of them had their teeth done for five. The only thing she provided for was hoof care.
The worst part was that the owner was praised by many people for her horses and her facility. She also had a boarding facility. She had gotten horses sick, their diets get mixed up ALL the time, and we had a horse almost die from the contaminated feed as a result of a horrible raccoon problem. I ended up calling the local ASPCA, hoping SOMEBODY would go out there and take her horses away from her. She inadvertently found out and threatened to sue me on the matter.
24. Fun Uncle
A few years back, we went on a ski trip. My wife and I were with our friends, and some of them had kids. I'm a first chair, last chair type of person. I'm in line ASAP and I go until I can't go anymore. Well, the group was getting tired, so I said I'd take the kids with me. I took them up the mountain way higher than their parents ever would have. We all got some good speed, but those kids were super good skiers. It was all going smoothly until I made a horrifying realization.
My niece (the youngest of the bunch) got a bit out of control and was headed straight for the trees. I zipped over and caught her just before she hit the tree line. All four of us stopped what we were doing and even though the kids were young, they understood we weren't going to be telling their moms and dads about anything, even though no words were spoken.
Turns out, the earliest memory my niece has of her life is of that day. She doesn't remember the tree part, but her moment with me up high in the hills is the earliest memory she can pinpoint. One of these days, I'll let my brother-in-law and sister-in-law know what happened, but I'll wait for a few more years when the kids stop going up with me.
25. The Bad Conditions Were Bugging Me
I worked in a restaurant that had a roach problem. There were also gnats everywhere. Customers could see them flying around the salads, fruits, and pies we had out, but I guess it didn’t disgust them enough to not come back. More than a few times, customers complained about bugs in their drinks that had ended up there after they fell in our ice machine. But I'll never forget the worst insect debacle...
A live cockroach ended up in someone's salad because it was on their fork as they went to take a bite. Not only that but, whole-cooked slices of turkey and roast beef had been dropped on the floor and served. None of the managers or even employees cared at all.
26. Gospel Of Luke
In fifth grade, at 10 years old, I met two guys, Luke and Peter, with whom I'd become good friends. Fast forward to high school—Luke was dating this girl for most of our senior year. Finally, she broke up with him and several weeks later, Peter started dating her. The day before graduation, Peter got into a physical confrontation with Luke, slamming him to the ground and kicking him in the face hard enough to lift him up.
Luke then attended graduation with concealing makeup and sunglasses. But the truth came out eventually. It turned out that, at some point, Luke got aggressively physical with the girl over a really petty issue. When Peter found out, he confronted Luke and Luke got lippy with him about it. Some relevant background here—Luke grew up with divorced parents and a wealthy father who threw money at him to "make up" for the parental split, basically giving him what he wanted, when he wanted it.
He had a souped-up sports car his senior year that he did street drag racing with. Peter's parents were also split, except his dad severed all ties with him and his mom, and his stepdad was not a good man. Once Peter was old enough and strong enough, he decided he would never put up with that sort of action from anyone, Luke included.
So, his reaction to Luke's actions toward the girl struck a close nerve, especially because it was someone he'd known for so long. He knew Luke before I did. The last I saw of Luke, he was selling vacuum cleaners for "his business." I'm still good friends with Peter, who is now a lawyer and did child advocacy for a number of years.
27. In The Nick Of Time
One day in the seventh grade, my friend slipped a note into my locker. It was signed very fancily, and the handwriting was uncharacteristically impeccable. In homeroom, I took it out of my binder to read it. The friend who gave me the note must have seen me open it because he basically tackled people to get it back. I put it in my binder and refused to give it to him until I read it.
When I got home that afternoon, I finally pulled out the note so I could read it in peace. Apparently, my friend's extreme social awkwardness ran a bit deeper than I thought it had, and he talked about how his lack of other very good friends had pushed him to the breaking point. I texted my friend and told him that we could both be awkward together, and really who needs that many friends? He never replied.
One year later, he texted me out of the blue. He wanted to talk about the note. I had given it back to him the day after I read it and completely forgotten about it in my tumultuous eighth-grade year. Apparently, the note was a very subtle clue that he was going to end it all that night. My text was the only thing that stopped him. He said if I had read it an hour later, he'd be gone.
28. The Ultimate Truth
I was cashing a paycheck with the teller at the bank. She was a friend of my wife and very attractive. Suddenly, everything goes quiet, she’s looking around, says, “I think we just got robbed.” The doors are locked and the authorities show up. I ended up having to stay there for four hours. Eventually, I get questioned by the authorities.
The guy stood directly beside me, almost shoulder to shoulder, when he passed the other teller a note saying he had something dangerous and she had to give him all the money. They asked what I saw. What he looked like, smelled like, anything. I told them I didn’t see a thing. Didn’t even know he was beside me. They looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world.
I lied to them and said it was because I was distracted about my paycheck and worried about it not being enough. The truth was much more scandalous. I was completely distracted by how attractive the teller was. She was wearing a super low-cut shirt and I didn’t see a man rob the bank directly beside me cause I was so distracted by her figure.
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29. A Beautiful Secret
My secret is…incredibly weird. I like having sand in my bed. Not to the extent that I'm buying sand to put in my bed or that it's up near my head or on my pillow. Just down near my feet, just that little bit that falls off your feet when you get back from a day at the beach. I'm pretty sure it stems from my family trips to Outer Banks and Myrtle Beach as a kid.
Those dog days of summer, spending the whole day just running around, swimming, making sandcastles, digging holes, all to come back to the beach house exhausted, and immediately collapse on the bed. I can vividly remember waking up still dressed in yesterday's clothes, with the smell of breakfast wafting in. It was in those small moments I felt happiest, most content. Like everything in the universe was exactly where it should be.
At the time, the sand left under the covers was a neutral detail. But over time I guess it became subconsciously associated with those special moments, caught in the wake of fonder memories, and now here we are.
30. The Owner’s Wife Was Neither Classy Nor Fabulous
I worked for a vet and ran a whole month of raffles, nail cuttings for donations, and pet pictures with Santa for the SPCA. When we added up the last of the money from the month, I put it in the safe. The practice owner's wife deposited the money and bought herself some new Chanel makeup. I couldn't believe it. I quit in disgust.
31. Our Little Secret
When I was 14, we went for a family bike ride. I got to the car first, dropped my bike, got the hide-a-key, and went to move the car as a joke. I wanted to make it look like it had been stolen. But the second I started backing up, I heard an ominous crunch. I'd driven right over my bike. I told my mom, and together we decided to lie to my dad about what really happened.
We told him that it got bent going off a sweet jump. The bike store guy didn't believe it, but he was a family friend and gave us a rental at a discount. 20 years later, we finally told him the truth. Now he has dementia and still thinks it got wrecked off a sweet jump. We don't tell him the truth.
32. Caught In The Act
Back when I was a warehouse manager for a major office supply chain, one of my duties every month was to gather items from our inventory that were selected by corporate. They were to be donated to local charities. All items would be collected, scanned, placed on pallets, and loaded onto trucks to be delivered to the charity distribution center.
After a few months, I started to notice that some of the donation items that should have been shipped out, mysteriously ended up missing or being used in my general manager’s office. I later discovered that on the days that the donation items were collected, my manager would send me out for lunch. He would then revert the scans on whatever donation item he desired and keep it for himself.
One day I returned from lunch early and caught him in the act. Needless to say, he was not able to come up with a good excuse. Instead, he insisted that I take my pick of whatever I wanted from the pallet as well. I was so disgusted that I immediately put in my two weeks notice during the busiest time of the year and filed a complaint with corporate.
33. No One Will Ever Know
When I joined a company fresh out of college. I was given a list of bugs to fix. I fixed most of them, except for this one feature I don’t know how to use. I just deleted the whole feature and submitted it. Got signed off and released. Six months later and after three versions, the project manager asked if the missing feature used to work. I told them I am not sure, must be a bug.
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34. This Place Was A Designer Dud
I work in a designer clothing retail store. The clothes were quite expensive, and the assistants were required to only wear full-priced garments. So the whole team would just pick clothes off the rack wear them all day, including during lunch and bathroom breaks. At the end of the shift, we would replace the tags and put the clothes back on the shelf for the customers to buy at full price. I was grossed out my first day there.
35. Quick Swap
When I was about 12, my Xbox stopped working. At the time, I frequently dog sat for my neighbor who was recently divorced with a younger kid. The kid was pretty awful. He always bragged about getting double presents because he had two families and how his parents were richer than mine. What’s important is that he also had an Xbox.
One day, my Xbox broke. I immediately came up with an ingenious plan. I put it in my backpack and crawled into the neighbor's doggy door when I knew no one was home. I swapped my bricked Xbox for his working one and snuck back out. No one ever knew. His dad bought him a new one right after, according to him. He complained about his lost saves for weeks.
36. We Were On A Break
About three and a half years ago, I thought my then-on-and-off boyfriend of five years and I were going to break up. In that time, I met up with my married ex-boyfriend who I thought was getting divorced (he'd just learned his wife cheated on him) and just so happened to hook up in his car. The ex later admitted that he'd planned it—I naively thought we were just going out for drinks and to chat, well, maybe fool around a bit, but I wasn't planning to hook up with him.
It happened anyway, but I didn't feel as bad as I could because I thought my boyfriend and I would be breaking up soon anyway. Since I thought my on-and-off-again boyfriend and I were breaking up, I told a bunch of people I banged my ex. But then, married ex-boyfriend conveniently decided that secretly screwing me in his car was enough revenge and he didn't need that divorce after all, and soon stopped talking to me again. But that was just the start of the nightmare.
After I realized the ex wasn't leaving wifeypoo after all, I became TERRIFIED that my boyfriend would find out I hooked up with my ex. Suddenly, staying with him became all-important. A couple years later, formerly on-and-off-boyfriend and I got married...Most of the wedding party (both his friends and mine) knew I'd cheated years before, but no one said anything to my husband.
I worry myself sick that he'll find out. Some of my friends have said that it was years ago and that they think my husband wouldn't be that upset if he found out now, but I think the fatal combo of (1) the ex in question (it's a guy I've always been borderline obsessed with), (2) that I kept the secret for so long and (3) that so many people know would throw my husband over the edge. I assume that if he ever finds out, the marriage is over...but I suspect that many people can't keep a secret forever.
Sooner or later, someone's going to say something, it's just a question of when. And the darkest secret of all? In hopes it'll entice my husband into sticking around, I cook him amazing meals and get intimate whenever he wants to (including catering to any kinky whim, no matter how not into it I am). He thinks I'm just a good wife...I'm actually just waiting for him to find out and get ready to dump me.
37. A Bit Of A Mess
When I was a kid, I was once in the car with my mom and I really had to use the bathroom. So, I asked my mom to pull over at the bike shop because I had to get a part for my bike because I knew she wouldn’t have stopped if I told her I needed to use the restroom. I sprinted inside the store and asked where the restroom was.
I had maybe eight seconds left before it was too late. I moved as fast as I could toward the door leading to the back and my salvation. Once I hit the door, eight seconds was up. I could wait no longer. I pulled down my shorts and proceeded to leave a trail until I reached the restroom. Once inside I continued to make a massive mess.
I took off my shoes, left my socks behind, washed my hands, and left. As I exited the bike shop I heard the employees start to yell. I jumped in my mom's car while telling her to start driving. She asked me where to bike part was but I just kept asking her to drive. I never went back.
38. All About Family
I had an affair with my ex-husband’s cousin John, who was also married. I was actually separated at the time, as my ex-husband had moved in with the woman he was cheating on me with. John would check up on me, cut the grass, and fix things around the house for me. One day he kissed me and I didn't stop him. It was the best relationship I ever had, probably because it was a secret.
We saw each other constantly, texted, talked, laughed, and we fell in love. Sadly he would not leave his wife, all for a heartbreaking reason. They’d recently adopted a little girl that was her relative’s kid. John was a good dad and didn't want the little girl to go through more pain.
39. There Was No Dancing Around This One
I used to work at Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire Dance Studios. Most dance instructors are not well qualified and have no formal training. They would begin teaching after a week or two of video training along with what they were taught by another instructor in the studio. Whatever the instructor learned that morning during training, they would teach to their new student that afternoon.
Instructors were basically students who had one more lesson than the people they were teaching and were thus called instructors. Yet, the studios would charge more per hour than most doctors did, regardless of the instructor's experience. It was ridiculous considering the vast majority of them did not have a big name nor the experience to warrant such a high cost for lessons.
Someone could receive a lesson from an instructor who was well known worldwide in the international arena for half the amount. Also, the dance studios believed that your talent was based upon the amount of money that you shelled out every month. The less you would spend, the fewer compliments you would receive, and the less they would care about you.
40. Hot Diggedy Dog
I used to work at a major movie theater chain, and we would recycle the hot dogs. It was pretty nasty. Basically, if the links were on the spinning rack all day and didn't get purchased, they would be thrown into a bucket and re-frozen. We poked a fork hole in one to see how long it would stay in rotation. We were shocked—it was a full seven days!
41. The Worst Human
One of the guys in my platoon got married. He's a jerk, of course, and he did it just so he could be allowed to move off base. I'm pretty sure he hit his wife too. Anyway, the whole platoon had a party there, myself included, for his new place. It was pretty cut and dry until three of the guys came back after disappearing for 20 minutes, the new husband included.
He told his very timid and seemingly lonely wife that her kitten ran off and they couldn't catch him. She was devastated, even though she thought he'd probably come back. Fast forward maybe a month. We were sitting in the battalion and it came up in conversation from one of those three guys how funny it was that the "annoying, worthless cat disappeared."
The husband just openly admitted that they ended the kitten's life before they threw it in a dumpster. There were three people involved, and there was nothing I could do about it. The worst part is that I somehow looked like the jerk when I let some of my rage show; as if I was the messed up one for being outraged. As much as I loved the Corps, it really seemed to attract some messed-up individuals.
I don't know about everywhere, but my experience of the infantry mindset is basically "screw everyone and everything that isn't us."
42. You Pay For The Brand, Not The Quality
When I was young, broke, and just married, my new mother-in-law seemed to enjoy giving me a hard time. She would come to our house and expect to be served fancy drinks with her preferred brand. She brought a bottle the first time and made it clear there should always be a bottle of it waiting for her whenever she stopped by. Yeah, I wasn’t about to give in to her tyranny.
I couldn't afford that stuff, so when it was empty, I refilled the bottle with some bottom-shelf swill. I kept refilling the same bottle for 10 years at least. One day, my wife came into the kitchen and caught me pouring the plastic bottled drink into her mom's fancy bottle. She said, "Are you putting cheap stuff in my mom's bottle?"
I said, "Honey, that bottle hasn't had the real thing in it in years." She rolled her eyes and it remained our little secret.
43. All Things Are Possible
My wife has recently become more spiritual, listening to preachers and getting closer to Christ. And I'm kind of over it. We both grew up heavy in the church but it's never been a focal point of our relationship at all. And honestly, the older I've gotten, the less I care about religion or being the proper Christian, if I want to be one at all.
I'm pretty sure I'm closer to being a deist than a Christian. But if I were to tell my wife this, I'm fairly sure that would end in divorce. We've had it rough already and it's just starting to get better for us, somewhat. But her faith is that important to her, that it'd be a deal-breaker if I said I wasn't Christian. She's always accused me, in jest, of being agnostic, or non-Christian.
I just brush it off as, saying I'm the same I've always been. Which is essentially true. But my life would fall apart like crazy, if I were to make some announcement that, I couldn’t care less about religion and my reasons why. So I'm just going to keep my head down and march on, hoping it doesn't affect the good progress and positive direction of my marriage.
44. A Shameful Secret
I have a guy friend who has a girlfriend that flirts with guys openly in front of him. Once, we all went to a New Year’s Eve party and I kissed her neck which she said she enjoyed so I got a little friendlier with my hands. But that’s not all. We even got to know each other without our clothes, if you know what I mean. I was also dating someone at the time too.
Afterward, she would constantly send me racy photos and I always fantasized about her. She is also best friends with my current girlfriend. Fast forward a couple of years, I’m at their house because my girlfriend and my friend’s girlfriend were roommates. They all went out for a bit and I snuck into her room and smelled her panties and bras.
I’ve never felt more disgusted with myself in my life and I feel extremely gross whenever I think about it. I try to hold myself to a higher standard but sometimes my impulses take over. These impulses have led me to cheat on my girlfriend and I hate myself for it.
45. Now We’re Even
Decades ago, before cameras and electronic security, I had a matter in a small-town court go against me because there was no way the judge was going to believe me against the word of the local authorities. Lunch was called after the decision and as the room cleared out I sat there dejected, broke, and angry as anything.
I noticed a very expensive slide projector in its case sitting on the side. I was into cameras and loved collecting slide film but could only look at them on a viewer. I picked up the briefcase-looking projector and walked out as if it belonged to me. I'm aware it was a very, very stupid thing to do but I was young and irrational with anger.
I was incredibly lucky I got away with it. I had that projector for years and always got a good laugh and smile when I used it.
46. This Was Not Music To My Ears
I did the music for various media around Tokyo, from big corporations to sketchy dirty production basement deals. Once, I witnessed a director, who had a bad reputation, threaten an actress. He told her that if she continued with her gloomy face during the filming, he would take her child away. I even saw him hitting her on her head.
It was all very serious and cold. The look on her face as she quietly agreed with him ate into my very being. Then, I thought how in a few weeks, hundreds of people would get off watching her without actually being aware of the reality of the situation. I felt disgusted even getting paid by the same company.
47. I Wanted To Cut These Puppy Dog Ties
I worked for a popular national pet store chain. We would tell our customers that our puppies came from reputable breeders and not puppy mills, which wasn’t true. We got them from puppy mills. I can't express how many of them came in on the back of large, pitch dark freight trucks, malnourished, scared, and sick. We also adopted cute kittens from the local shelter and charged customers outrageous amounts of money, most of whom just felt bad for the kittens.
48. An Attractive Man
I tell everyone that I don’t know who the father of my son is, but I’m pretty positive about who it is—and there’s a good reason why I can’t tell anyone. It’s been three years since we last met up, but he was married with two kids. I didn’t find this out until after we had started our relationship. He never wore a ring and made himself out to be a single man.
A handful of people were surprised when he walked in with his wife one day at work. Flash forward two years and my friend cheated on her husband with him, not knowing I already had been with him. I told her about our relationship and that he was married with children, and she still continued to sleep with him.
49. Quick Thinking Saves The Day
I was taking an exam in college for electrical engineering. The teacher allowed a letter-sized cheat sheet where you could write whatever you wanted; formulas, questions, quizzes, etc. Prior to that exam, I hadn’t attended the class because I had been scheduled for work, so because I thought it was an open exam, I’d be okay.
Well, I realized while taking the exam that all the questions weren’t matching what I wrote on my cheat sheet. I was panicking because halfway in, I haven’t written anything on my exam paper. I was scrambling on my notes to just find something that’s similar, but there was nothing. Time was up and everyone was turning their paper in.
I snuck out and ran to the library, opened my laptop, and looked at my professor’s online lessons. All the questions were based on this one specific document with little changes in his numbers. I finished filling up my exam, then ran to my professor’s office. It was raining at the time, so I was soaking wet. I knocked and the professor answered.
I told him that I may have forgotten to write my name on my test. My plan was to sneak my test into the pile of test papers. I was pretending to look for my name while my left hand was opening my backpack on the floor trying to grab my test paper. I managed to grab my test paper and snuck it into the pile. I left his office nervously, anxiously, and guilty, but I needed this to pass.
50. I Couldn’t Compute Their Policies
If you came into Geeksquad with a computer under warranty, we were required to at least perform a $70 diagnostic on it before sending it out for repairs. If viruses were detected, that price would go up to $190 for the removal. I have had to remove viruses from a client's laptop and then send the computer off to get the hard drive replaced.
One time, our department was doing poorly in sales, so they brought in a specialist to give us an after-hours training session. His very first sentence shocked me: "If anyone is stupid enough to walk through those doors looking for a repair, they deserve to be charged $189 for it." I hated working there—it was the worst.
51. A Real Femme Fatale
My mom and her best friend lived through WWII In their mid-twenties. Post-war, her best friend got involved in some shady black market activities together with a colonel of the French army. They got caught, the colonel got sent back to France, and she got sent behind bars. My mom wasn’t going to let that slide. She decided to do something about it, but her plan was outrageous.
She ended up seducing a prison guard, letting her best friend escape. The best friend hightailed it out of Germany and went to Australia to marry her Jewish boyfriend, who had left Germany when it was still possible. They remained best friends, and after my father retired, they emigrated to Australia. Didn’t find out until recently.
52. Nothing Sweet About THIS
I worked in an expensive tea house and cafe where we were forced to recycle customers' jams. We would serve a scone with clotted cream and jam. Then, when we cleared the plates, any leftover jam went into the jam bucket by the dish wash. This jam was then used for the jam layer in the $6.70 per slice Victoria sponge cake. The leftover sponge cake was used to make truffles and cake-flavored ice cream.
53. Avoiding Drama
He didn’t keep it for very long, but my dad found out I was having a suspected ectopic pregnancy before my mom. It was three days before Christmas and he came around to drop some gifts off thinking I was at work. Instead, he found my hospital letter and me crying on the sofa. We’re quite close but not really affectionate, so it meant a great deal to me when he comforted me silently whilst I sobbed and sobbed.
He said, "I will tell your mom if you want me to, or I won’t tell her, and if it’s something you want to share with her yourself, then you can tell her when you’re ready." In the end, I asked him to tell her, but how he handled it really meant a lot. My mom's awesome, but she would have smothered me with love and not let me out of her sight, and I just wanted to forget about it.
Anyway, he took me to all my follow-up appointments, and on December 23rd, we found out that the baby was in fact growing exactly where she was meant to be. She’s four now.
54. This Is What Google Maps Is For
I helped my entire class cheat in our eighth-grade history class. The teacher made us memorize every county in our state and where they were. We were tested on them weekly until we had them all memorized and we had a big test covering all of them at the end. I made a map with every county on it and each county had a small number in it.
The numbers matched a separate ledger with the answers. Both sheets of paper were extremely small and would fit in the palm of your hand and were easy to hide. I made copies and sold them.
55. Teenage Rebellion
While in high school, I had a job filling up trucks with fuel at a construction company. Things were going well for three months until I noticed the receipt was $20 more than what it said on the pump. I had become friendly with these people and they said not to worry about it. Eventually, I caught on to what was happening.
They would charge the card $20-$40 more each time I came in and pocket the difference. They then asked if I wanted to split the profits, I said yes. I made $100-$150 a week for two years. My brother then took over for me and he did the exact same thing. I’m not proud of this but I felt the need to tell this story
56. I Couldn’t Keep Calm About This Storm
Years ago, I worked as a bartender at one of the many bars on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Our famous Hurricane drinks were pre-made and kept in five-gallon buckets with little spouts at the bottom to pour the drink from. But here's the big secret: These buckets were never emptied or cleaned. One year during Mardi Gras, one bucket became so empty we could actually see the bottom.
Much to our disgust, we found a t-shirt in it—a nasty, old, gross t-shirt. There was no telling how long it had been in there. Not only that, but all the random booze leftover from the promos were dumped and made into a Hurricane. And don't even get me started on the Tooter shots.
57. A Painful White Lie
My parents were soulmates, so I never knew why I was an only child. I found out when I turned 18; the day I was born, the doctors found an inoperable brain tumor in my mom. They told her she could live to be 100 or die tomorrow, but could never have another kid. My dad asked what she wanted out of life, and her response was heartbreaking: She requested that her daughter never ever know.
She didn’t want me to grow up scared, but I was the only one kept in the dark. Our town, our friends, our family, everyone but me knew for 18 years. I found out the hard way when I left home for college. My mom passed on the first day I got there. The dorm room phone was ringing the moment my dad and I stepped in with our first load of boxes.
58. They Profited From The Pooches
The veterinarians where I used to work were all paying off student loans and adding pools and decks to their beach houses. They would get spiffs on procedures they provided to clients. So, if your dog came in with a case of vomiting and diarrhea after something minor, they would talk you into an exam, Xrays, bloodwork, and about five different medications.
Clients trust their vet, so they would believe them. It would break my heart to watch. Especially cancer patients. Even if they KNEW treatment more than likely wouldn’t work, they WOULD NOT tell the client this.
59. Bills, Bills, Bills
My dad told me how my mom forged his signature to remortgage the house so she could go shopping. When he found out, all my mom could say was: "It's only money." But that wasn't the worst part. My Dad also bailed her out of her credit card debts, which were in the tens of thousands. He even had to refinance part of the house to pay for a multiple credit card bill of close to $50k.
When I was clearing out my parents' house to sell it, I found a sheet of paper with the math working out how much my mom owed. She had nothing to show from her spending. My dad said the only reason he didn't leave was because of me and my brother. I never told my mom because I knew she would lie about it. My dad passed two years before my mom, and I miss him a lot.
60. Don’t Count Your Geese Before They Hatch
Some family friends came over with their crew of four young kids, all between 6-12 years old. All the kids usually went outside to play hide and seek. We lived on a farm with five outbuildings on about 6-7 acres. My dad instructs us not to go in one small shed as he had geese eggs in there, that were in incubation and had to stay warm.
The game starts and I make a beeline for the shed, as I know no players would dare to go in the shed as my dad had a terrible temper. The incubator is glowing with its bright light and I unplug it, thinking 5-10 minutes would be okay. When I go to plug it back in, I realize I had actually pulled the cord out of the plug part.
My life flashed before me, knowing I was going to get the belt in front of everyone there, I dropped the cord, snuck out of the shed, and hid at the back of the house, lying on the ground. Ultimately, my dad accuses the second youngest of the visiting family and holds a grudge for the rest of the time.
61. For The Greater Good
Throughout college, my fiancée and I would host various drinking get-togethers, and proceed to party college style. I would mix drinks, and my fiancée would pour shots. I love to mix drinks and I am known for it! My entire friend group thinks I make incredible strong drinks. Even my fiancée. But they didn’t know my secret.
I would, and still do, make cocktails or margaritas with half a shot, then provide a straw. I would pour a bit of the liquid into the straw or right on top unmixed, so it tastes stronger. All of them at the time loved shots and partying hard, and I didn’t want anyone to get sick and still don’t. Sometimes I would do a full shot, but never more than one, especially on big party nights.
Additionally, I would switch out shots with water and lime juice.
62. This Employer Was A Rotten Egg
I worked overnight in the dairy department of a Wal-Mart—and it was a downright horror show. We would often get returns or stuff that had been left out in the store. It was our job to put it back into the cooler; however, there was no thought given as to how long these things were left out. It didn’t matter if a gallon of milk had been sitting out for five minutes or five hours.
It was put into a cart and wheeled back into the cooler, and probably put back out on the shelf. This is done in the name of "expediency," which is what drives every policy at Wal-Mart. Things don't get done right—they get done fast. Therefore, if a dairy employee finds milk outside the cooler, it would probably go on a return pallet.
Dairy employees knew better than to put room-temperature milk back in the cooler. The store then would get a refund on the milk we would send back to the milk company. However, regular employees were trained to put it in a basket, wheel it into a cooler, and hand it off to the next guy, who was probably being told to "get this stuff back on the shelf.”
Meanwhile, eggs would come in with general freight. There were no returns on eggs. So, once again, if a dairy employee picked them up, they probably got ditched in the giant bin of milk/eggs/flour that would sit outside the cooler. It would ferment and smell terrible but never see the shelf—unless someone got yelled at to put it back out. I hated every minute of working there.
63. Just A Friend With Benefits
Around a week after I met my current SO, I got a message from my old on-and-off friend with benefits: “Wanna grab a quick drink?” I knew what he really meant (“dtf?”) and I wasn't sure whether I was up for that. At this time, my current SO and I hadn't known each other that long and had only been on one or two dates.
We weren't exclusive, hadn't done any of the fooling around. I also wasn't looking for anything serious—in the autumn, I would be moving out of the country; I didn't really want to get too attached, and I saw our relationship pretty much as a fun summer fling. When we weren't hooking up, my FWB and I are fairly good friends.
I convinced myself there was nothing wrong in going, because I could just catch up with him and leave it at that. What's the harm in that? I knew I was fooling myself—but I didn't know how much I'd regret it. When we met up, he (my FWB) noticed I was a bit more reserved than usual, and I ended up telling him I was kind of dating someone. That's cool, he says, no pressure; we'll just have a drink and a chat, and then go our own separate ways.
Needless to say, that's not all what actually happened. Even though I know my SO and I hadn't agreed to be exclusive at the time, looking back on it, I feel kind of terrible. We ended up falling hard for each other, and I think it'd kinda break his heart if he knew. Nobody else knows, and I doubt that he'll ever find out but...but I'm just kicking myself internally for letting myself screw up the beginning of our otherwise wonderful relationship.
64. Sickening Sandwich Shop
I used to work at a grocery store deli. If we ever dropped cold cuts on the floor, we were supposed to go to the back and "just rinse it off" in the sink. The first time that it happened to me and my boss told me to do that, I did it to appease her. I just ended up throwing it into the food waste bin after she left—and every time after that.
65. The Runaway
This happened during my best friend’s grandfather’s funeral. He had left a letter to be read during the service. For a long time, the family was under the impression he was born an orphan and had no biological family living. That bombshell of a letter quickly revealed the truth and changed how the family saw their grandfather.
The letter detailed how he ran away from home after his wealthy pastor father started extorting people’s money. He saw through the lies being peddled to vulnerable people, changed his name, and went halfway across the country to start a new life. The letter also revealed the names of his brothers and sisters, many of who were still living.
None of the family wanted to reach out to those siblings after they learned about what his father had done. That side of the family continues the practice of extorting people for their hard-earned money. Some are in prison. Some are living off the father’s money in comfort and luxury, having never worked a day in their lives.
66. A Juicy Secret
In a place I used to work, there was a fridge with bottles of juice. I thought they were just for everyone and I took a cup from time to time, always using my coffee mug instead of a glass. One day, I was sitting right next to the only balcony of this floor and so I was chatting with the smokers. One of these was the boss's secretary.
After a couple of weeks, she ranted to me how inconsiderate people are. She always brings her favorite juice and puts it in the fridge and people drink her juice and she's starting to be really fed up with that and is thinking about reporting this to the boss. And I was sitting there, with my coffee mug, sipping her juice, nodding and agreeing how rude this is and how these people should be ashamed of themselves.
67. Anything For Puppies
When I was nine, I went over to my neighbor’s house (I would usually go hang out with my adult neighbors because they would let me watch TV and give me snacks in exchange for helping them) with the intention of seeing if I could play with the foster puppies she had. Well, she wasn’t there, but her door was unlocked so I just went in and played with the puppies.
When I walked out of the house, she was coming down the driveway (there was a bunch of stuff in front of her door blocking it from view from the driveway). I just pretended like I had been waiting for a minute and we walked in and I got to play with the puppies again.
68. This Job Was A Rocky Road
I used to work at Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory. We were forced to do all sorts of disgusting stuff. The white chocolate was blended with Crisco shortening, and when the caramel apples sat out and became moldy, we sampled them to customers. If chocolate strawberries did not sell, we would put them in the fridge for the next day.
When they became shriveled, moldy, and disgusting, we had to drizzle them with chocolate again to hide it. When the chocolate would become dusty and have a white film called "bloom" on it, we would have to polish it with wet paper towels to make it shiny again. And for the record, none of the chocolate was made there, we had it shipped from Colorado.
69. Out Of Place
In university, I befriended a guy who was into heavy metal music. He was quite different compared to me. I was sporty and on the university football team, while he was big on metal music and substances. He had come from the other side of the country and I could tell he felt quite lonely. He was also just barely surviving financially.
I used to invite him into my room with some of my other friends, and it would always end up with us talking about conspiracy theories until the early hours. When we were going out, I would drag him with me and I would stick a $20 or so in his pocket. I started a cook-off with him in the halls as he wasn't sure how to cook. I gave him a few recipes and he ran with them.
He was a great guy–we liked totally different things, but at the same time, we connected. Anyway, one of these nights, I forced him out because he was looking homesick in his room. He was tipsy and when we were walking home, he made a confession I've never forgotten. He put his arm around me and said: "You know, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here right now."
I thought he as referring to him being out and about, so I responded, "I know; you were tough to persuade to come out." He then said, "No, not this; I meant that you saved me so many times and you don't know it." Being confused, I asked what he meant. "Dude, I'm so unhappy here that I've thought about ending it all, only for you to come in and start talking to me."
I was in shock. I remember him looking straight at me as if he didn't just confess his darkest secret. He just smiled and motioned to the takeaway stand, asking if I wanted anything and saying that he was buying. A few weeks later, we broke for Christmas and we all went back to where we came from for the holidays. He rang me and he was in the car with a friend driving back to university to get his stuff.
I remember him sounding so relieved. He thanked me for everything. It was only later that I realized the difference I made, and it messed with my head a little bit. I started thinking about how things might have played out if I didn't initiate all of those times. I sincerely hope he's doing well nowadays and that he's no longer feeling homesick.
70. Ultimate Introvert
My fiancée is the only person I actually enjoy being around. I don't say that out loud because it puts unfair pressure on her and exposes my antisocial tendencies. I wasn't always this way—it kind of happened over the past six or seven years after a deep depression and struggle with substance issues. I've been happy and drug-free for several years…but I haven't been the same.
Whenever I manage to make myself hang out with friends, I generally sit there thinking about how long I should stay before I can duck out and go home without looking unfriendly. It’s hard for me to have conversations with people because I just think things like, "When are they going to leave me alone?" or "When can I leave?"
I'm pretty good at hiding it and have several people who consider me to be their friends, but I secretly get no enjoyment out of those relationships. I'm not sure why my fiancée is different, but it makes me very afraid of losing her. I'm almost positive I won't find anyone else that I will be able to love like I do her.
There have been a few months here and there in the past where we split up and I went out on dates with several other women—some of them were very pretty and very nice, but I absolutely hated the entire process and never followed through on subsequent dates.
71. Mysterious Beeping
In eighth grade, someone’s phone alarm would go off for minutes at a time in each class. It was extremely loud and annoying and it would interrupt each class a couple of times. Some of the classes were with the well-known strict teachers and they especially would get furious because they had to wait for the beep to stop before they could proceed with teaching.
Every classmate saw the matter as the biggest mystery and when the sound would go off, we would all stare at each other trying to resolve it. During one of the breaks, I look in my backpack for money...and I made a hilarious discovery. I find one of those old Nokia phones in the first pocket. It turns out every single time I leaned back on my chair, I would press the buttons, making the alarm go off.
I couldn't believe the annoyance and angry teachers scolding us was caused unintentionally by me. Of course, I didn't tell anyone especially since I wasn't a favorite among anyone. I was mortified the moment I found out.
72. A Real Penny Pincher
When my great uncle passed in the late 90s, he had been living in total squalor in an apartment in the Bronx. His wife had really awful dementia, and had passed a year or so earlier. All of our family offered to take him in, but he didn’t want to move. My mom would call him once per week and some of us tried to see him, but he didn’t want to be seen in person.
When we eventually found out that he had passed, his body had been in the apartment for some time. People in hazmat suits had to go in not just because of the decomposing body, but because of how bad the apartment was. Entire boxes full of cockroaches, 40-year-old magazines stacked to the ceiling, the smell of decay and rot, and that sort of thing.
Well, they also found something other than refuse—and it was utterly bizarre. It turned out that despite these atrocious conditions, he had a huge stock portfolio of major companies, all of which had been issued in the 1940s and 1950s. The man was sitting on a very comfortable amount of money—enough to have bought a nice apartment in Manhattan even at the time, in order to live out the rest of his days.
It’s too bad because he was a really lovely guy and we’d have loved to take care of him. We could’ve even used his own money to help him if he wanted to. But such is life, I suppose. My grandfather wound up inheriting it all and eventually distributed it evenly to all of the family about six years later.
73. Time To Get Friendly
I am the only openly bisexual guy in my broader friend group. I've done stuff, in secret, with quite a few of my so-called “straight” guy friends, but none of them know this about each other, only with me. They all believe they are the only one to have done anything with me. Most of the time, it’s just drunken experimental nights at their request, nothing too serious.
Some liked it more than others. They all act like it’s the most taboo thing ever. If only they knew that a bunch of their other friends have done it too, they probably wouldn't feel so weird about it.
74. No One Learns Anything In High School
I never graduated high school, but I have an engineering degree. I moved from one province to another and skipped a year of school halfway through the year, missing a grade nine tech credit. During graduation, they called my name, I went up to the front, accepted my diploma folder, took photos with the principal, sat back down, and opened the folder.
There was no diploma. All my friends had diplomas in theirs. I met the guidance counselor the next day and asked what was up. She told me I was one credit short but the university I applied to had already accepted me based on my mid-term grades without seeing a full transcript. The guidance counselor made the issue go away…and I successfully attended university and got my degree.
75. What A Waste
I used to work at a pharmacy and was surprised at how much medicine would go to waste. Anytime we sent medications to homes, and they were paid for by Medicare/Medicaid or whatever, they would be considered "used." We would literally get huge trash containers full of unopened boxes, full pill packages, etc., that had to be destroyed. It made me sick to my stomach.
We weren’t permitted to donate these medications to people that actually needed them either because it was not allowed.
76. Repulsive Rentals
I used to work at a major rental tuxedo store. We used to color in black collars with sharpies and burn lapels to make them stop fraying, minutes before the suits headed out the door. The jackets were not dry cleaned, and the vests were rarely washed, just Febrezed 10,000 times. Neck grime would still be visible around the collars. But that's not the most horrifying part.
We've found wasps nests in a few of the tuxes, probably from some wasp-ridden corner of the warehouse, and pocket-handkerchiefs were made out of cut-up ties. Even though a rental would cost $200, the jacket and pants were purchased from the manufacturer for around $95 total. The tuxes were also an identical fit and material as the non-name brands but rebranded by high-end designers.
77. Missed Connections
Before dating my girlfriend, I was with a girl for something like eight years. I was certain we were going to marry and be together forever. But for some reason, I just felt like we weren't going to be able to make it work out with our lives going separate ways (with a job, college, and the long distance). I wanted it to, but I ended it because I thought it'd be best for us both.
It worked out well for both of us in that we did succeed more in life. But there's a dark secret hanging over both of us. My ex just got married a few weeks ago to second-place. I call him second-place because that's what he is, and she and I both know it. Prior to her getting married, we professed to each other that we still loved each other after I had a fight with my girlfriend.
My ex said (after getting married) that if I had asked for her back just then, she would have come running. I didn't, because I wanted to have integrity and not break up her relationship nor mine. I just wanted to make things work for everyone. It was the easiest way for all involved. My girlfriend and I’s fight has really put a wedge in our relationship for me, emotionally.
I'm not able to connect with her anywhere near where I was before. I feel like she's only a friend these days. I still feel that way was best, but every day I think about her and every day I know that if we found ourselves single again, we'd be back together. We were perfect for each other...the timing and distance just got in the way.
If my girlfriend knew this, she'd probably stab me in the face.
78. Lead Astray
I cheated on my wife when she wasn't looking at a family potluck. My wife and her sister put their peanut butter cupcakes side by side on the table and her sister makes crazy good cupcakes. My sister-in-law made peanut butter cupcakes with real peanut butter filling AND filled it with Reese's Peanut Butter chips. So good!
Meanwhile, my wife only put a tiny bit of peanut butter topping on hers with no PB filling. I kept making excuses to go back to the dessert table and scarf down my sis in laws cupcakes especially when little kids were near it to make it look like they were eating most of the cupcakes. Didn't even touch my wife's cupcakes.
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79. Don’t Tell The Boss
My boss has a daughter that is the same age as me and he brought her to work one day so she can use the office printer for her college applications. We do security for a building where everyone is working from home so it was just me, him, and her. My boss tells me to show her to the fourth floor and just keep her company so she’s not by herself.
We got to talking, we’re flirting hard, and eventually, we made out and traded numbers. We’ve been hooking up every month when she’s in town from school for the past six months now. My boss has no idea.
80. It Was In No Way Finger Licking Good
I worked at KFC. If we dropped any uncooked chicken on the floor, we were expected to wash it off and cook it. If we dropped cooked chicken, we just threw it back on the fryer for a second or two. My 23-year-old manager at the time refused to make us serve the dropped chicken. He was fired, and most of the other staff, including myself, left with him.
81. I’d Give This Job A Bad Rating
I used to be a customer service employee for 13 years. The surveys we would send out after we closed a ticket determined whether or not customer service representatives would keep their job. If they get enough bad surveys, they go to the bottom of the stack, and they're the first ones to be fired or laid off. Unfortunately, when people fill out these surveys, most of the time, they are grading the experience they had with the product, not the customer service.
They don't realize it is the customer service person who is affected by the survey, not the company itself. The company doesn’t do anything with those surveys other than grade the personnel. You might think they would take the feedback and use them to make their product or service better or to improve their management processes so that you have a better overall customer service experience, but they do not.
It's all a numbers game. Since a majority of the surveys are going to come back with negative responses, usually because the customers are angry that their product was broken, the managers hold on to them. When it comes time to reduce staff, they use these surveys to justify laying off or firing people. As a result, when someone applies for unemployment, the company can deny the application, stating that they were a bad employee because they got lots of bad reviews.
82. Scared Of Myself
My girlfriend, soon-to-be fiancé, has no idea of my extreme mental health struggle in the past, how I used to be medicated and even checked myself into a hospital when I was extremely suicidal from said medications. I’ve since been fine and haven’t had an issue of anxiety or depression in years BUT it still hurts me knowing my brain could be so dark.
When she talks about depression or anxiety she just doesn’t understand because she’s never had to deal with it. So, I’ve kept it to myself to not put my old burden on her. Maybe one day I’ll bring it up.
83. Ends Justify The Means
When I was 10, I was very lonely. My parents had been working day and night to get their start-up business off the ground. It was the classic latch key child scenario. As they say, idle hands are the devil’s workshop. So after several months of spending my afternoons alone with microwave burritos and Transformers cartoons, I decided to diversify my entertainment selection. But I went way too far.
I proceeded to ransack the entire house, making it appear that a person had broken in and rummaged for money. I broke a window, two lamps, smashed the legs off a chair and pulled every file from the cabinets in the office, and tossed them around the room like confetti. I then called my mother and told her I’d just gotten home and found the place burglarized.
She told me to get out of the house and called the authorities on her way home. They arrived with their sirens blaring at about the same time she rolled up. They stormed the house, screaming come out with your hands up! When I saw them bashing through my front door, I knew that I had probably gone a little too far this time.
Long story short, a detective came to take a report after the patrol had cleared the premises. As I was sitting on my living room sofa, surrounded by the tattered remains of my dirty work, the detective looked me in the eyes and said, “There was no break-in, was there?” I was terrified. The man looked right into my soul and knew the truth.
And I knew he knew so lying was pointless. I burst into tears and started blubbering. He walked over, put his hand on my shoulder and said it’ll be alright. Thankfully, I was young enough to escape any charges. My parents weren’t too harsh with their punishment either. I guess they figured it was more a cry for help than the actions of a burgeoning sociopath.
84. Unfortunate Circumstances
I've seen both of my sisters-in-law without their clothes on. The first time, I accidentally walked in on my brother's wife whilst she was changing. I didn’t realize she was in the room and just walked in. She knows it was me but, we've both just pretended that didn't happen. The other time, my wife’s sister asked me to fix her laptop as it wasn’t working.
It turns out it hadn't had a system update for nearly four years and the computer was filled with all kinds of bloatware and malware. Unfortunately, she kept her pretty explicit photos in a prime position in her downloads folder, which I needed to access to install the updates. I returned her laptop in working condition with a new folder named "Private."
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85. Not Really The Happiest Place On Earth
I was a former Disneyland employee. It was a standard policy that no one dies in the park. Someone could be decapitated, but the ambulance would have to announce the death after leaving the park grounds. Also, the Rivers of America ride was kept dirty to hide the tracks for the large boats. So much so that if 60% of a guest's body is in with the water, Disney has to send you off to get a tetanus shot.
86. The Audacity
My cousin was my best friend. She was a year older than me. We loved anime, and we would stay up to binge-watch Inuyasha or other girly shows. She and her brother even lived with us for a couple of years after CPS took them from their mom. She said we would always be friends and that our kids would grow up with each other as we did. But I just found out it was all a lie.
It turned out that she used to touch my little sister inappropriately when they were alone. I found that out last year. My sister begged me not to confront her. What did she have to say about it? "I'm sorry I did that to you, but I can't remember most of it." All those red flags—my little sister trying to switch rooms, the huge personality change she showed after my cousin moved in—all that time, I thought she was jealous.
Now, that cousin is pregnant, and she lies to everyone saying that my family used to take advantage of her and that she had to run away to a better life. The audacity...
87. Next Of Kin
There was an accident that killed a guy I knew. His parents were left in absolute devastation over the loss of their healthy son, and it nearly ruined them. The mother went on a brutal downward spiral of drinking and substances, and of course, their other son, who has cerebral palsy and an addiction to pain medication, also went off the rails.
A young girl got knocked up by the guy before he died and she had gone to live across the province with her dad while she had the baby. Ultimately, she gave it up for adoption. Only a small handful of people know, and of course, his parents are not among them. Somewhere out there, his parents have a grandchild they know nothing about, and a kid is out there with the biggest, most loving family you've ever met.
I wonder if he looks like him. The kid would be 18 now and part of me wants to try and find him, but I'd have to give up her secret to do that. It breaks my heart and I'm torn about keeping that knowledge to myself.
88. Work Smart, Not Hard
A co-worker retired and I inherited one of his reports, which is one of my employer's Key Performance Metrics. Every two weeks, it would take him an entire eight-hour day to complete. The first week I was able to automate most of it down to one hour. Over the next nearly 10 years, I've improved it to the point that it runs in less than a minute.
I then spend the next eight hours surfing Reddit, watching movies, and just doing whatever I want in my office from home. All this time, I've told my boss it takes me eight hours to perform, and sometimes I'll tack on extra hours because of "technical issues." No questions asked as long as it's in his inbox by the end of the day Friday.
89. Wholesome Secret
When I ended up in a spelling bee, I quickly realized the girl I was against had put a lot of time and effort into it, whereas I basically just showed up. Plus, she was more on the nerdy side, not a lot going outside of school, and I felt she needed a victory. So I came up with a plan. She missed a word, so I purposefully missed mine to keep her in the competition.
This happened a few times. Later, I missed one on purpose to give her the victory. She went on to the state competition. The teacher giving the words threw me a look of disgust, as she knew what I did, but no one else ever found out.
90. This Was Straight Up A Bad Gig
I used to work at a mall kiosk selling straighteners, curlers, hair extensions, and other hair products. I was basically one of those annoying sales ladies who had to approach people walking by and try to get them to sit down and try the products. However, we weren't actually allowed to approach people. I was once threatened with a $250 fine by the mall manager.
I was caught off guard and completely unaware of that rule. My manager just told me to be more careful. I was also told by my manager to tell customers that all of our products were from Italy. That was a total lie. Whenever we restocked the shelves with a new shipment, it was my job to take all the "Made in China" stickers off the boxes.
We were also told to tell customers that they could exchange the products at any time, but when they came back with any returns, we would nail them with a $30 exchange fee for no real reason. We would sell VIP passes that would allow the customer to come in and get their hair done for free at the kiosk. When customers would come for their VIP treatment, most of my coworkers and the manager would make up some reason as to why they couldn't do their hair at that time.
Not only that, but everything had a maximum and a minimum price. For example, we tried to push our straighteners for $200. The minimum price we could sell them for was $100, which gave us all sorts of negotiating room to make up sales tactics that "end today" in order to throw on "free" products if the customer was dumb enough to buy the straightener for $200.
So, throwing in a "free" straightener was really just selling them both for $100. On Amazon, you can get these straighteners and curlers for $30. The hair serum I had to sell for $75 was only $10 online. They weren’t bad products, just overpriced. Once I had done the research and found out you could buy the products way cheaper online, I put in my two weeks notice and quit.
91. Seafood Shambles
I worked at a Red Lobster, and every night, the leftover food would be stored in the walk-in freezer. About once a week, a couple of women would come in to pick it up for the local food bank to help feed needy families or the homeless. All I would EVER hear them say was, "OOOH yeah, we havin' lobster for dinner tonight."
Then the other would reply, “Well, I have lobster almost every night. I wish they would start giving us something else.” You could just see their mouths watering over the free, fairly expensive food they were getting. I knew for a fact that, unfortunately, none of the food we gave ever made it to the food bank with those two in charge of pickups.
92. What Did You Learn?
In my freshman year of high school, I ditched class so much that I flunked the year. I moved to a different town over the summer and somehow they lost my "permanent record" in the mail. It was the early 90s, so they had computers, but they weren't integrated between school districts, so it was just a fat folder of paperwork.
When the new school realized this, they called me in and asked what classes and grades I had, so I straight up lied my way out of having to retake freshman year.
93. Say “I Don’t” To Working Here
I used to work at David's Bridal. The company wouldn’t donate discontinued or lightly damaged gowns to charities. They would instead make workers shred the dresses to bits and throw them away. They would also purposely play "Butterfly Kisses" when they thought you were close to buying a dress and make you imagine being walked down the aisle.
If they could make you cry, you were more likely to buy the gown. The veil stories were mostly baloney to get add-on sales, and the undergarments were ridiculously overpriced. Lastly, the interest on the credit card was nearly 24%. They would say you could make payments before the no-interest period was over, but they wouldn’t send a bill before then, and good luck finding the address of the company to send your payment to.
94. I Turned The Tables On Them
I worked at a Joyce Leslie clothing store. Once a year, I was given the most jaw-dropping task. I had to take a rack of out-of-season and unsold clothes and destroy every garment with scissors. I was supposed to cut the clothes so they couldn't be worn. When I asked why they couldn't just donate them, I was given some nonsensical corporate answer.
The stock boy and I decided to donate them anyway. I spent an hour pretending to cut them. He bagged them and threw them behind the trash bins. I scooped them up on my way home and dropped them at a local women's shelter.
95. Guardian Brother
About eight years ago I discovered my wife's sister's reddit account accidentally. It was a variation of a username she'd used for AIM before, but with different numbers and no underscore (the numbers were a significant date to her though). There were too many coincidences in her posts for it not to be her. She was posting on the relationship advice subreddit. When I saw her posts, it broke my heart.
Her (now ex-) husband was abusive. We'd known something was off about him but couldn't really put our finger on it. I created another account that I only accessed from incognito mode to send her encouragement to leave, and to ask her family or friends (but kinda steered her towards us) for help. She didn't want to impose or be a burden on any of them (we'd just had a kid, and I make a bunch of money but we live well within our means so you wouldn't think this based on appearances, so it was an understandable concern).
I slowly, over several weeks and several different posts she made, convinced her that it's possible her family realizes something isn't quite right and would not consider it a burden to help her out. After their divorce, I deleted that account. Nobody will ever know that the random internet stranger who was weirdly persistent in encouraging my sister-in-law to reach out to her family for help and leave her abusive marriage was actually me.
96. The Secret Was Out Of The Bag
I used to work at Victorias Secret—and oh my god, did they have a secret. We were required to refund and take back any used underwear as well as anything else that came back in the store. It would then immediately go back onto the sales racks, even if it had obviously been worn. I showed my manager a used pair of panties that had a disgusting smell, and she advised me to "just spray perfume on it."
I would often grab a pair of scissors from the back and accidentally cut the ones that I knew had been worn so they had to "damage" them out and not be sold.
97. Caught In The Act
I worked as a receptionist for a chiropractor. One day, our first appointment came in, so I went in the back to look for him. I walked in on him doing the deed with a co-worker on the table. It was the same table the patients sometimes would lay on face down on. I went back to the front and said, "He'll be with you in a couple of minutes." I was disgusted.
He was married with two young kids. I didn't work there long after that.
98. Down To The Penny
My parents saw me as an investment and kept a secret journal of how much they spent on me my entire life. This included what I got for Christmas, birthday gifts, movie tickets, even when they gave me quarters for the arcade. Even after I got married, they would track anything they gave us: gifts for the kids, things they bought for our house renovations, etc.
Eventually, I found my Mom's diaries and a handwritten ledger with my name on it, detailing everything when we cleaned out her house. She also really didn't like my wife—she repeatedly wrote that I married someone that she felt was from a lower class. She had multiple notebooks detailing what to do when she passed that we found throughout the house. What I found left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.
The notebooks stated that my wife, her family, and her friends were not to enter the house after her passing, nor would they have any of her possessions. Jokes on her, though. It took us six months to clean out their three properties, and guess who showed up to help? My wife and her family helped me to clean out the three properties, which was completely packed with stuff.
They helped me to sell anything that we didn’t want. My family—the ones from my parent’s side—never showed up until the day of the final property auction. It completely changed my entire view of my parents and their love for me.
99. Don’t Bank On It
I used to work for Wells Fargo bank. It was all-around shady. We had to straight-up lie to people to get them over to a banker to open up checking accounts by telling them our policies were changing, and they had to do this. We had to make sure they had every single product we offered, whether it actually benefited them or not.
We weren’t supposed to give up until the customer had them all. This is the most chilling example: One time a blind lady came up to my window with THREE separate checking accounts under her name, and she didn't even know why she had them. A banker had opened them all up for her to meet their quota. Once I quit, I moved all of my accounts elsewhere.
100. Hold Your Horses!
My grandad was a farmer his whole life. Every animal loved him—and I do seriously mean every animal. Every time we would go to a new place, dogs would be mysteriously coming straight to him, or horses would cuddle up with him. He just had a charm with them—or so we thought. This illusion was about to be shattered for us.
One day, while cleaning out his closet and digging in his pockets to make sure nothing of value was thrown in the wash, we found grains, bits of dried meats, dog treats, bits of old carrot. Turned out he didn’t have a natural charm with animals at all! The man had simply been secretly bribing animals with food all this time.
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101. A Hidden Treasure
Great-Grandma owned a speakeasy in Philadelphia during the Prohibition. She stashed all of her money away in the form of gold. Eventually, she had the gold turned into picture frames that she then painted black and hung around her house. We found out after she passed, when my uncle wondered why the picture frames were so heavy when he took them off the walls for the first time in decades.
I always thought the black picture frames were ugly but never asked about them.
102. Escapism For Moms
My sisters and I found my mom's fantasy love letters that she wrote to other men besides my father. I know they were fantasy because she didn't even know half of them and some were happily married. They were the saddest things I've ever laid eyes on. She wrote about how she wanted to run off with these men and have their babies.
She would write them, wad them up, and just throw them wherever. I'm surprised my father never found them. My youngest sister would scream at her, "ARE YOU INSANE, MOTHER!?!" We just thought she was unhappy with my father and never said anything to him about it.
103. Dad Checks Up On Daughter
When I was 20 years old my brother let me know that I was adopted. Everyone in the family—I'm the youngest of five—knew and kept it a secret. It turns out my mom and birth mom are distant cousins. My birth dad was in a biker gang and he and my mom both had addiction problems and had absolutely no clue how to care for a baby.
After I found this out, I saw some pictures of my birth dad, I was shocked. Turns out I recognized him. He was a regular in the restaurant I worked at the year before I found out about being adopted. He was always very kind to me and told me he knew some of my distant family but left it at that. It turns out he wasn’t there for the food, he just wanted to see who his daughter was and know that I was turning out ok.
104. The Hostess Went All Out
When I was 11 years old, my whole extended family and I went over to a mutual friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a very large house, so for most of the night, the children played in the basement while the adults prepared the meal upstairs. Shortly after finishing dessert, someone noticed one detail that changed the night entirely.
They realized that my uncle and the hostess, who was our family friend, had disappeared up into the master bedroom. Mind you, my aunt and the hostess's husband were both sitting downstairs. Every one of us, one by one, went to knock on the door to see what was up, but they refused to come out. I heard some strange noises from behind the door, but I was incredibly confused.
I remember my aunt crying and the husband being extremely angry, but my uncle and the hostess just didn’t come out for almost two hours. When they finally did come out, the hostess was wearing different clothes, and everyone else was incredibly upset. This was always burned into my memory, so recently, I asked my mom what actually happened that night. Her answer wasn't at all what I was expecting.
It turns out that while we children were playing karaoke downstairs, some of the adults were drinking, and getting wasted upstairs. My uncle and the hostess had locked themselves into the bedroom to do some blow and eventually became too paranoid to come out—so they say. We still think they were getting busy up there, but who knows. All of the couples involved are still somehow happily married.
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105. A Secret Literally Carried To The Grave
Sometime in the early 90s, my brother passed on in a car crash. For years I grew up idolizing him. My family held him in a very high esteem: He was going to be a lawyer and his loss was seen as the worst possible tragedy. When I was 16, I discovered a box hidden in a compartment in his closet. What I found inside made my blood run cold. There were journals, sketches, and essentially a plan to kidnap and get rid of a girl from his school.
Whether this would have ever come to fruition or was just a fantasy, I’ll never know…but it messed me up for a good few years.
106. Fly Me to the Moon
Just got on a flight in London headed to Vegas. Sitting next to my GF, and she wants to show me something she has planned for the trip, so gets out her phone. It opens to the Messages and shows a chat with a guy (I know him) saying how much she is going to miss him and how she doesn't want to go away with me anyway. The doors close on the plane and that was a really fun 10-11hrs...
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107. You’ve Got A Friend In Me
My mother has always wondered why I didn't have too many friends back in high school. The real reason is a secret that I would never want her to know about. It is because, growing up, my family was always broke and I knew that she was struggling financially. So, in order to avoid anyone seeing how we lived, I always refused anytime people from school wanted to do things with me or have get-togethers at my house.
To make matters even worse, I decided during my senior year that I did not want to burden my mother by asking for money when I needed to buy things. As a result, I started working as much as I could outside of school. This gave me even less time to make friends. I would never want my mother to find out about this, and I would never want her to feel guilty or blame herself for my lack of social life as a child.
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108. Revealing Too Much
On the day of an economics mid-term, all 300 students had to go to a big lecture hall to take the test. Because it was such a big group, the professor had to use a microphone to give us instructions. So after giving this whole speech about the exam, he bid us all good luck and left the lecture to go do some work in his office next door.
Well, he didn't realize one important thing: He had left his microphone on, so while the entire class was silently writing the exam, we listened to the events that unfolded inside his office. We heard the brief muffled conversation between him and the female TA of our class. Then that conversation stopped. We all realize that they’re being intimate.
The TA’s quieted moans were magnified on the speakers in the lecture hall. The entire class stayed silent. Then, the professor swore loudly and abruptly shut off the microphone. Later, as if nothing had happened, the professor came inside. He was fired a week later.
109. A “Shameful” Family Secret
My great-grandmother hated me. I was an "illegitimate" child, and my parents split when I was three. When my dad got his girlfriend pregnant, my great-grandmother said that she would cut him out of her life if "He didn't marry this one." My father married my stepmother, who was a single mother, and my great-grandmother was fantastic to my step-brother and my sister, but not me.
She flat-out refused to have anything to do with me. I spent Christmas with the family, but I came home crying to my mum, asking why Grandma wouldn't talk to me. For the entire four days I was there, she ignored me, while cuddling my brother and sister as much as she could, because they lived in another country by then.
I didn't find out any of this until after she passed. I wasn't included in her will—the only grandchild not included out of about 7 grandchildren, and many more great-grandchildren. My dad took some of his inheritance and passed it on to me, along with a few heirlooms, keeping up the pretense that she didn't hate me up into my 30s.
I was so hated by her that I'm only just starting to meet family members, who had no idea I existed. My dad, siblings, and nana were forbidden to speak about me to other family members, so the few who met me when I was a baby had forgotten I existed. I’m 36 now… It’s a long time to be keeping me a secret from the rest of the family.
My sister only told me all of this a few years ago, though she'd known my great-grandmother hated me from when we were kids because she would speak very hatefully about me behind my back. My nana's partner confirmed it a couple months ago, with my mum finally telling me about it the last Christmas I ever saw her.
110. Doing Him Right
I used to work at a restaurant and one of the servers was having an affair with the general manager. I'm pretty sure she was literally a butt-kisser. She was awful to work with and a total snob. She got paid more than everyone else and she didn't have the minimum wage that servers got. Her paycheck said she was a cook and she made an extra $2/hour plus tips.
She always got the “good” section of the restaurant. It was a seat yourself kind of place so some sections were consistently better than others for tips and she refused to pull her weight or help anyone when they were busy but would expect help from others when she was busy and even when she wasn't busy she'd expect people to help her like bus her tables or make her drinks for her which was part of the server's job.
And she was allowed to do that because she was literally doing the boss in the office during work. And that's how everyone knew.
111. No Show
My wife's grandmother, who raised her, believed that when you are about to die your deceased relatives show up to escort you to heaven. She was by all accounts a horrible person. On her deathbed her last words were, in a quiet terrified voice, "They're not coming."
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,
