Sometimes, you hear a story so wild that you heave a sigh of relief when it’s over. But then WAIT…it gets worse! Well, these people have lived and seen such stories, and we’ve brought you the best of the worst.
1. Close To Home
A couple of years ago, some employees from a local mechanic shop took a customer’s BMW out for a joyride around midnight. They flew off a roundabout at about 130 mph and crashed into the big oak tree in my front yard. Both front wheels tore off the car, shot across the yard, and smashed through my front concrete block wall.
The driver was thrown out into the road after being ripped free of his seatbelt. The car came to rest about 60 feet away, right outside my bedroom. The passenger died at the scene, still strapped in.
The driver was barely alive at first, but he died soon after. I saw the whole thing, and it left a permanent mark on me. But somehow, it got even worse.
My landlord wouldn’t let me break my lease and refused to repair the hole in the wall because he said he was too “traumatized.” In the end, I had to pay him just to get out of the lease—after watching two young men die in front of my house.
2. Since ‘Nam
When I was seven, my mom bought me a rat from Petco. I’d had pet rats before and really liked them. Three days after we brought this one home, it started acting tired and just stood in the corner of its cage. So, like an idiot, I picked it up—and it bit me. It held on hard. My mom had to pull it off my hand, and that same night the rat died. But that was only the start.
About a week later, I got a fever, and my parents thought I had the flu. I got to stay home from school and watch TV, which felt pretty great at first. But after a few days, I wasn’t getting better, and I developed this strange rash with little pus-filled bumps in the middle of red circles. Then, within about an hour, I went from feeling sick but okay to being unable to move without extreme pain, and my joints were giving out. I had to go to the hospital and stay there for two days.
At first, everyone thought I had meningitis, but the tests came back negative. Then my mom mentioned the rat bite to the doctors—we hadn’t thought it mattered before because everyone had been focused on meningitis. The doctors got really concerned because rat-bite fever can spread from the joints to the organs and eventually kill you, so they gave me huge doses of penicillin—something like three times the normal adult amount. Big mistake.
That’s when I found out I’m allergic to penicillin.
When the doctors realized I had rat-bite fever, one of them walked into my room and said, “Well, I haven’t seen this since ’Nam!” They brought in med students from all over the state to look at me and scrape samples from the pustules. It was awful.
3. The Big Bad Pig
When I was growing up, we had several sheep and one very large pig, around 700 pounds. They lived in the same pen for years and mostly got along fine. But as the pig got older, he became senile and aggressive. One day, he picked a fight with the lead sheep and sat on him until he died.
Then it somehow got worse. After the sheep had been lying there for a few hours, the pig started eating it. He just went right in and began tearing into the sheep’s side and guts. It felt like something out of a nightmare—and then it got even stranger.
We still have no idea how it happened, but the next time we checked on the pig, he was somehow wearing part of the sheep’s fleece. A huge section of wool had ended up draped over his back, and he strutted around with it like a trophy for almost a full day before my mom used a rake to pull it off him, because it was seriously scaring the kids. That’s when we realized he was too dangerous to keep. We didn’t want to dig a hole big enough to bury him, so we sent him off to a processing plant.
4. Runaway Sitter
On one family vacation, my parents hired a babysitter through the hotel to watch my little brother. He was one year old at the time and was basically just supposed to sleep while we went out to dinner with their friends. When we got back to the hotel room, we found my brother alone, completely hysterical, hoarse from crying, and with his clothes torn.
It turned out the babysitter was pregnant, broke into the room safe, stole everything inside, and ran off with her boyfriend, leaving my little brother alone for hours.
Then things got worse on the trip home. We had left our car at the airport, so after we landed, my dad went to get it and drive around to pick us up. He was gone for what felt like forever. Eventually he came back…on foot. The car had been stolen.
And somehow it still got worse. We took a taxi home, and my aunt, who had been house-sitting, had left a note in the kitchen that said: “Don’t go outside.”
Our dog was out there—and it looked like he had been dead for some time.
5. The Day That Would Never End
It was my first week at an office job. I found a parking spot on a street with no visible NO PARKING signs. Since there was also a huge truck parked there, I left my car and went to work. About two hours later, I realized I’d left my old school bag in the car, so I told my supervisor I was stepping out to get it. The car was only two blocks away.
“Sure, but if something happens, call me so I know not to expect you,” he said.
“Okay,” I replied. “The car’s just two blocks away. I’m grabbing the bag and coming right back.”
So I left—only to find my back window smashed and my bag gone. Inside were about €50 worth of art supplies, but more importantly, sketches and notes for the next three issues of my self-published comic. It was about a month of work and research—storyboards, dialogue, everything. I was crushed.
I called emergency services to report it, and then I noticed something on the windshield:
An €80 parking ticket. I checked the time it was issued: ten minutes before I got there. I asked nearby people why I’d gotten a ticket, and they said parking there wasn’t allowed.
“But there’s no sign saying that.”
“Yes, there is—right there.”
They pointed to a NO PARKING sign attached to a pole that had been knocked flat onto the ground, hidden behind where the truck had been parked.
Then one of them added, “By the way, the people who smashed your window did it about twenty minutes ago.”
“And you didn’t tell the parking officers? They wrote the ticket ten minutes ago!”
The response I got was basically, not my problem. So I thought, I need to call the police right now—they might still catch them. When I called, they told me to stay there and wait. They’d be there in ten minutes.
So I called my supervisor, but he didn’t answer. I called again. And again. And again. Then the line was busy, and after that he ignored me. Just as I started thinking I should run back to the office and explain in person, the officers arrived. I had to stay to report what had been stolen and give them the description I’d gotten from the witness.
Eventually the officers left and said they’d contact me if they found anything. It’s been two years. They never did.
I went back to work devastated. My insurance was useless, so I had to pay for the broken window myself because of technicalities. I’d just lost months of work toward the career I wanted, plus my supplies, and now I also had an unfair parking ticket to pay.
I honestly felt like I’d hit bottom. Naturally, that’s when things got even worse. I walked in and saw my supervisor absolutely furious. He was yelling, demanding to know where I’d been for all those hours, why I hadn’t answered my phone, why I hadn’t called him.
I had been gone for 35 minutes.
I tried to explain that I had called him repeatedly, that my car had been broken into, and that I had to stay for the police report. I showed him my call log. I showed him the signed statement from the officers. I even showed him the parking ticket.
It didn’t matter. He fired me.
But the day still wasn’t done. I packed up my few things and started driving home. On the way, a taxi ran a red light and hit me. Ambulance, hospital, broken leg, twenty stitches. At least insurance covered that part. I had to stay overnight.
Around midnight, I got a text from my girlfriend of three years. She hadn’t answered any of my calls all day.
She broke up with me out of nowhere, saying she “couldn’t handle the relationship anymore.” No explanation. No answering her phone. No replies to my messages. Midnight was also the start of my birthday. I couldn’t process anything else, so I just drifted off in the hospital bed.
Three hours later, I woke up because an elderly man mistook my hospital room for his, walked in, and started shouting at me to get out of his bed.
By the time a nurse came, I was too shaken to get back to sleep.
So I tried logging into Facebook, thinking maybe some birthday messages from friends would help a little.
But my account had been hacked, and the password had been changed.
Two years later, I still haven’t gotten that account back.
6. Camping
When I was a kid living in Indonesia, the expat Boy Scout troop took a camping trip to an island near Krakatau. We landed, unloaded our gear, and quickly discovered the beach wasn’t sand at all. It was covered in sharp, bleached chunks of coral, about one to six inches across. Walking on it was incredibly painful.
That wasn’t even the worst part. Apparently a cargo ship had dumped stuff nearby, because the shoreline was lined with a thick layer of rubber flip-flops and doll heads. Very creepy.
We made our way to a small cluster of trees where there were fewer coral spikes and set up camp. Once the tents were up, we got a campfire going using the flip-flops and doll heads, which sent thick black smoke into the air. Then one of the scouts suddenly yelled a single terrifying word: “Scorpions!”
The boots he had just set down already had several scorpions crawling inside them. So we sealed our bags and gear as best we could.
We actually had a pretty good time exploring the island. There was an old Japanese airstrip from World War II with some artifacts still around. But when we came back to camp at sunset, we found our food being overrun by a huge column of red ants. We brushed them away, resealed the food, moved it somewhere else, and made dinner while picking out the ants that were still left.
That night was so hot and humid that seven of us decided to sleep outside instead of squeezing into the tents. Surprisingly, nothing bad happened. Or so I thought.
A few days later I got sick and went to the doctor. All seven of us who had slept outside were there too, all being diagnosed with malaria. For weeks afterward, my fingernails were still blue from losing so many red blood cells.
7. The Pirate
My friend loved adjusting the trigger on his paintball gun. He always made it extremely sensitive, so it barely took any pressure to fire.
One time, he set the gun down by his side with the barrel pointed upward so he could pull his mask over his face. Unfortunately, as he did that, his finger brushed the trigger and the gun fired.
It was the most unlucky shot imaginable—straight into his left eye.
Doctors had to remove a large part of the colored area of the eye, so afterward he had a pretty striking all-black left eye.
But somehow it got worse. While he was sitting in the emergency room with a patch over his left eye, one of the nurses kindly brought him a soda with a straw.
When he went to take a sip, he accidentally poked himself in the other eye.
8. Honey, When Was My Last Period?
I bought a box of pregnancy tests that came with two tests, and both were defective. Then I bought another box of the same brand from a different store. Also defective. Then I bought a third box, this time a different brand, and didn’t even have to wait the full three minutes before it clearly said “Pregnant.” At least I got refunds for the other four tests.
“Congratulations, you’re pregnant!”
Then at my first exam they added, “You also have a tilted uterus, and the pregnancy and delivery are probably going to be difficult.”
I had to stay within five feet of a trash can at all times because I could start violently vomiting without warning. I even threw up on one of my dogs. She didn’t seem too bothered by it.
At seven months pregnant, I was told, “You’re borderline for gestational diabetes. You’ll need to test your blood sugar four times a day.” On the bright side, I got over my fear of needles pretty quickly.
Then it became: “The baby isn’t moving as much as we’d like. We’re going to induce labor.”
After 24 hours, I was still on the table. I asked if I could just go home since the baby clearly wasn’t interested in coming out. They said no, and told me they were going to “poke me with a stick” to speed things up. Why not start there?
So they broke my water, and yes, that definitely sped things up. I called my husband and told him it was finally time to come sit with me. The pain was intense, and one nurse kept insisting I take medication. By then I’d already been in labor for 24 straight hours. I also learned that when your water breaks, it does not all come out at once. It keeps leaking little by little, and you end up changing your hospital gown over and over.
The nurse convinced me to get a shot so I could sleep for a bit. She seemed nice enough, despite all the yelling. But it went badly. The medication made me fall off the table. Apparently opiates are not for me.
A few hours later I woke up screaming because the shot had worn off. The doctor came in and said, “If you don’t get an epidural, I’m scheduling a C-section.”
So, reluctantly, I agreed. By the time the anesthesiologist showed up, I’d been awake and in labor for 36 hours and could barely process what he was saying. The epidural machine was attached to the wall, not a movable pole, so I also had to get a catheter. None of this looked anything like it did on the Discovery Channel.
Then the epidural didn’t even work, and I demanded they bring the guy back. I told him it felt like I was being torn apart. He looked at me like I was losing my mind and said, “The epidural won’t help with that. It only takes care of contraction pain.” But the contractions were the one part I could handle.
At that point I decided I could not do it anymore and asked for the vacuum. The doctor said no. I still couldn’t get the baby out. Finally: “Fine, we’ll get the vacuum.” Then the doctor announced to the entire room that since we had chosen not to learn the baby’s sex ahead of time, the nurse needed to find a gender-neutral colored cap for the vacuum. This was clearly just a delay tactic to get me to keep pushing on my own. I seriously considered kicking the doctor in the face.
Eventually the nurse found a white cap, and they used the vacuum to deliver the baby—46 hours and 26 minutes after labor began. Then I needed 30 minutes of stitches and couldn’t even hold the baby right away. While stitching me up, the doctor started telling me all about a documentary she had watched the night before about Australopithecus. I briefly considered stabbing her with her own scissors.
Eventually, they sent me home.
Five days later, the baby had a pediatrician appointment. The doctor pulled up a chair, sat right in front of me with shaking hands, and said she was calling the Children’s Hospital to arrange an immediate appointment with a pediatric cardiologist. My husband drove across town as fast as possible and dropped us at the entrance while he parked. I ran up the stairs to the second floor instead of waiting for the elevator and tore half my stitches doing it.
After hours of ultrasounds, we found out the baby had a heart murmur, but thankfully didn’t need surgery. If I’d been the praying type, I might have given thanks, but I was too distracted by the missing stitches. Unfortunately, that still wasn’t the end of it.
For the next two weeks, going to the bathroom was terrifying for a lot of reasons. It took long pep talks just to get myself onto the toilet. They really should make an epidural specifically for that stage of recovery. That’s when you need one.
Then the baby started vomiting, and we took her back to the pediatrician. This time, she needed intestinal surgery. The day we drove her to the hospital for admission, our car died in the parking garage and had to be towed. It turned out it needed a whole new engine. I didn’t even know that was something that happened.
The baby ended up staying in the hospital a week longer than expected. For 11 straight days, I never left the room. Thankfully it had a shower. I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix nearly a dozen times.
It was awful.
But eventually, things got better.
9. Rain, Rain, Go Away!
It was my birthday. I had a slight sniffle but didn’t think much of it, so I went to school anyway. By the time class ended, I had chills, cold sweats, and was feeling unbelievably nauseated.
Back then I had to take two buses to get home. The first one was supposed to come every 15 minutes, but that day it was an hour late. By then my arms and legs hurt so badly I started crying, and I usually have a pretty high pain tolerance. By the time the bus finally arrived, I was in tears from the pain. Everyone was staring at the shaking girl who was crying on the bus. They probably thought I had completely lost it.
When I got to the second bus stop, it was raining hard. Since that bus only came once an hour, and the first bus had made me late, I had another 45 minutes to wait.
There was no shelter because it almost never rains here. So now I was completely soaked, in terrible pain from what turned out to be the worst flu I’ve ever had, shivering from cold and pain, lying across a bus bench, crying like a crazy person.
Then it started hailing. Who knew little frozen pellets could hurt that much? Somehow I made it home, freezing, dizzy, and miserable.
It was the worst birthday I’ve ever had.
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10. Strep-Everything
When I was in high school, my family planned a trip to Paris for spring break. I had never been outside the United States, so I was incredibly excited. Then my rowing coach told me I couldn’t go on the trip because I had to stay for twice-daily practices instead. I hated it.
During that wonderful version of spring break, I got strep throat. I kept going to practice anyway, but it was awful. Swallowing hurt so much that every time I tried, I started coughing.
But it got worse.
Rowing had given me some nasty blisters on my hands. They started hurting more than usual, so I went to the doctor. He tested some of the fluid from a few of them and told me that the strep infection had somehow spread to the blisters on my hands.
He said that in 45 years as a doctor, he had never seen a single case of “strep hands.”
11. Visa Mishap
My friend realized he had lost his Chinese visa just a few weeks before he was supposed to leave for a business trip to China. It was Thanksgiving week, and we were all coming over anyway for Friendsgiving dinner, so we helped him tear apart his apartment looking for it.
What made it especially strange was that he had only recently moved into that place, and before that he had been living pretty lightly and traveling around, so he didn’t even own that much stuff to begin with. In the end, he had to get a replacement, which cost him $4,000.
The worst part was that his company refused to help cover any of it. But somehow the most frustrating part was that he ended up finding the original visa a week before his flight.
12. The Intervention
My family had an intervention for my dad because we thought he was using illegal substances. He admitted he had a problem, but said it wasn’t completely out of control and promised he would get clean.
Then we found out he had actually been using heroin for four years.
And while he was in rehab, his boss learned that he had been stealing parts from work and selling them for cash, so he got fired. Then we found out he hadn’t paid the mortgage in six months and we were about to lose the house. And when he came back after a month in rehab, my parents separated.
He’s been clean for a year now, but he moved very far away to find work, and I haven’t seen him in about a year.
13. The Adventurous Hikers
Some friends and I went hiking out in the Australian bush, and for the first few days everything actually went pretty well.
But on the last day, the wind picked up from the already loud 30-knot gusts we’d been dealing with each night to a full gale at 48 knots. As it kept getting stronger, we made a rough, hurried descent back to the car. We were trying to outrun both the weather and the danger, because as intimidating as Australian wildlife sounds, being under gum trees during a storm is even worse. We made it to the car just as the wind passed 50 knots and were relieved to start driving toward the highway, which was only 40 kilometers away on a clear dirt road.
We thought we had made it through the worst of it. We were very wrong.
Before long, we came across a fallen eucalyptus tree. Then another. Then another. Each one somehow bigger than the last. By the time we had moved four trees, the ones blocking the road were either too massive to shift or too firmly stuck in place. We called emergency services, and they said they would “see what they could do,” but they couldn’t even work out exactly where we were, so we weren’t feeling very hopeful about getting rescued.
That was when one of the other girls mentioned that her Leatherman had a saw blade. At first we laughed and jokingly posed next to the trees with this tiny pocket saw. But eventually we actually tried it, and then kept going. We had to get out because we all had flights home after the trip. In total, we sawed through four full-grown gum trees in about two hours, and clipped and moved sixteen more.
We reached the main highway just in time to get text alerts telling us our flights had been canceled and we’d need to take them the next day. It really would have been nice to know that before sawing through all those trees.
14. Another Prom Story
Being one of the least-liked kids at my school made senior prom pretty miserable.
At first, I couldn’t find a date. That wasn’t the end of the world—I wasn’t exactly popular, and at least most of the girls I asked turned me down politely. Eventually one of them said yes, and I was really excited because she was one of the girls I liked most.
So I bought our tickets and started planning the night, including a nice dinner and even a limo. Around that same time, I found out that the few friends I had at that school had decided to go to other proms instead for various reasons. I didn’t look too far into it. I figured it would still be fine because I had a date, and I was planning to go with her group anyway. I had no idea what was coming.
When the night came, I had already given her the ticket. My parents dropped me off at the restaurant, and I waited... and waited... and kept waiting. Then I got a call from someone I didn’t know, and found out it was another guy—the one she had actually taken to prom. So she took the ticket I paid for and went with someone else.
But it gets worse.
For some reason, I still decided to go through with the night. I ate dinner alone, took the limo I had already paid for to prom, which was being held at a Natural History museum with big open, multi-level rooms.
As the night went on, I felt completely miserable. Her date and their friends kept bothering me and making fun of me for thinking anyone would want to spend time with me. Eventually I’d had enough. I called the limo driver, told him not to come back for me, and said I’d mail him the rest of the payment plus a tip. Then I called my parents to come get me—but before leaving, I had one last idea.
She was standing near the exit with her group of friends, wearing a very expensive white dress. I went over to the buffet, filled a plastic cup with grape juice, and walked toward her once my parents had arrived. I kept the cup low in my right hand and used my left hand while talking so she’d focus on that.
I don’t remember my exact words, but I said something like, “I hope you’re enjoying the dance. I just want you to know I’m really hurt that you lied to me and got my hopes up just so you and your friends could laugh about it. I may be polite, but I’m not someone you should treat this way.”
While she was responding, I threw the grape juice all over her white dress, dropped the cup, and walked toward the door. So I guess the night got slightly less terrible right at the end.
15. Ineffable Occurrences
We were on a long road trip across the country.
On the last day, we noticed what looked like a huge dust storm ahead of us. Visibility was bad, but still manageable. After driving through dust for about half an hour, we realized it wasn’t improving and decided to take the next exit.
We were about a mile away when we drove straight into a wall of dust so thick we could barely see a few feet ahead. The car in front of us came to a complete stop, so I slammed on my brakes and turned the wheel left, trying to avoid getting hit from behind. It all happened so fast.
That’s when a huge SUV crashed into my tiny car. I spent the next hour running around in the dust storm—which really stings—trying to exchange insurance information. That was also when I found out my roadside assistance had expired a few months earlier. It ended up not mattering, because local officers called a tow truck for us. The tow driver thought the car was probably totaled, but he offered us a ride to a hotel near a hospital since we were still four or five hours from home and my partner was hurt.
He dropped us off at a Best Western, we emptied the car, and then he left. I spent the next hour on the phone with the insurance company, only to find out they wouldn’t cover the car. We had just finished paying off the loan a month or two earlier, and once that happened, the comprehensive and collision coverage the bank had required was dropped.
I had planned to add it back on during the next billing cycle, but since I’d never had a serious accident before, I didn’t think it was a big deal to wait one cycle. That turned out to be a terrible decision.
By the time I got off the phone with the insurance company, we were ready to head to the hospital. We opened the hotel door—and the ground was covered in snow. The temperature had dropped about 35 degrees since the accident.
We walked to the hospital through the snowstorm and then got lost trying to find the entrance. Once we finally got inside, we had to walk down a long hallway to the emergency room, only to find it completely packed. My partner mainly had back pain and whiplash, so it didn’t seem worth waiting for hours around all the other sick patients. We decided we’d deal with it once we got home. Then we had to walk all the way back to the hotel in the snow.
When we finally got home, we carried all our stuff inside... and discovered that our bedroom and bathroom were completely flooded for some unknown reason.
We called maintenance, but the guy couldn’t figure out what had caused it.
We still don’t know. At this point, we’re pretty convinced it was some kind of curse.
16. Consecutive Losses
In 2009, my uncle—my mom’s brother—passed away. In 2010, my grandma, my uncle’s mom, died too. Then in 2011, I lost my dad. And on December 30, 2012, my mom passed away as well. It’s been an incredibly painful few years, honestly.
17. A Series Of Unfortunate Events
My dog died. Three months later, my husband left me. Then I was diagnosed with cancer.
After that, my small business failed. Then I was threatened with eviction from my home.
I’m still waiting for something good to happen.
18. A Cold Night
This happened to me earlier this year.
It was around October, and it was so cold I couldn’t feel my hands. I was at my high school football game, where I had to perform with the marching band.
I’m in color guard, and it was really hard to spin a flag with numb hands. Then I found out it was senior night, which basically meant I had to stand completely still in the middle of the football field during halftime while all the marching band seniors were announced, with my hands feeling like they were about to fall off.
When halftime ended, I decided to get a slice of pizza. While I was standing in line, I suddenly heard a pop. The electrical box right next to me burst into flames.
Thankfully, no one was hurt, but they ended the game and evacuated the school.
I thought the night was finally over and I could just go home, go to bed, and act like none of it had happened.
But when I got home, my parents were sitting at the counter crying. It turned out my grandmother, who had been in the hospital, had passed away. And to make it worse, there was the guilt.
My mom had gone to visit her the day before—she lived a few hours away—but she didn’t know when she’d be coming back. She offered to take me with her, but I was too worried about missing school. So, like an idiot, I stayed home. I missed my last chance to see her, all because of a couple of stupid tests I could have made up.
19. Exam Jitters
My sister set her phone alarm for 7 a.m. so she could get up early for her first college math final. Her phone died, which made her late.
As she got onto the highway on-ramp, she realized she had forgotten her calculator.
And to top it all off, she accidentally ran over a kitten while backing out of the driveway the second time.
20. Wrong Number
A former high school classmate asked me for an intimate photo. I shrugged and decided it wasn’t really a big deal. Wrong.
I accidentally sent it to my 35-year-old Christian boss. My palms started sweating, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I watched my text say “sending...” with no way to cancel the picture message.
I was already putting together a panicked text explaining that he shouldn’t open it, that it wasn’t meant for him, and all of that. Then, of course, the word “sent!” popped up on my screen.
Then it got even worse.
Right as I started typing my apology, my phone glitched and shut off. I ran to my bedroom to plug in the charger. And of course, because my phone was terrible, I had to wait what felt like forever before it would turn back on and let me open my messages so I could send him a flood of “PLEASE DON’T OPEN THAT!!!!” texts.
A few hours later, he replied, “Deleted the thread. Didn’t open anything. Don’t cry.”
Everyone I tell this story to says he definitely opened it and saw it. Ugh :(
21. Hotel Stories
My wife and I run a small hotel. Here’s a story from the hotel, told from my wife’s point of view.
Robin and Jeremy were a nice couple from Alabama. They always paid their rent on time, until we got closer to them and then the payments stopped coming. Jeremy had been hurt at work, and they were giving him the runaround about his benefits. That seemed understandable, so we assumed the money would come eventually.
Then one day Robin was caught shoplifting at the grocery store in town. To try to get out of trouble, she told people Jeremy had been abusing her, which wasn’t true at all. Even so, he was arrested.
He called me asking if I could help get him out on bail. I told him I would sign if needed, but I didn’t want any financial involvement. He also told me he had just found out Robin was supposedly pregnant with his twins.
I felt bad for him, but by then he already owed the hotel $2,000 and his disability check still hadn’t arrived. I really didn’t want to get more involved than necessary.
I had trusted both of them. Jeremy had done nothing wrong and was sitting in jail with no easy way out because bail was set at $15,000. I called his mother for him and told her to contact the bail bond office to see what could be done. But I also told him there was nothing more I could do that night.
Who would have guessed that the sweet pregnant southern girl we welcomed into our home, let spend time with our baby, and shared movies, music, and meals with, would turn out to be who she really was? We trusted Jeremy more than her...and that says a lot.
Jeremy was eventually released because Robin had made up the story about him abusing her. We know that for certain.
He later told us everything he learned after Robin was arrested for shoplifting. He had called the authorities to ask what he should do about getting her out on bail, and they told him they had some information for him and asked where he was. When he stepped outside to talk to them, they arrested him on domestic charges. He had no idea what was happening.
And then it got worse.
At the station, he was questioned about Robin. Apparently she had told them anything she could think of to get herself out of trouble—fake names, fake birthdays, fake Social Security numbers.
Jeremy found out she had active warrants in Alabama and had recently been in prison for identity theft, something he had no idea about.
They had grown up together but lost touch for about 10 years, and had only recently reconnected. He then learned she had been in prison before and had other children. She had also lied to him about being pregnant with his twin babies.
When he got back here, he started going through her belongings, which he had never had a reason to do before.
He found a driver’s license belonging to a girl who had stayed here a while back. Robin had recently dyed her hair, and we think she was planning to travel using that girl’s license. He also found a stack of other people’s credit cards, blank checks, and more.
22. Family Hikes And Party Boats
My family once went on a very dangerous hike at Lake Powell.
It was an all-day hike. At dusk, we got back and found that two boats were stuck in the water. My grandpa took charge and led all twenty of us—including 12 kids under 15, and I was 9—on a seven-hour hike around the lake to look for help.
The middle of the night came and went. Eventually we found a road and followed it for a while, and then... it just ended. No barrier, no fence. The pavement simply stopped. Suddenly there was no road at all.
My aunt and uncle had had enough of following grandpa. They saw lights on the lake about half a mile away, along with sounds of people partying, and decided to swim toward them. The rest of us stayed at the end of the road and waited for help.
About an hour later, headlights started coming down the road. We were thrilled. I had actually passed out, but woke up to people cheering. My aunt and uncle had made it through.
A man in a small minivan tried to take all 20 of us to the nearest hotel. Somehow, we all squeezed in.
While we were piling into the van—completely exhausted, sweaty, and frustrated that we were all packed together—my 13-year-old cousin suddenly shouted, “Somebody is touching me!”
For the first time all day, everyone burst out laughing.
The man was flying down the road at 40 mph and drifting between lanes because, as it turned out, he was the least drunk person on the boat, but he was still pretty impaired.
Luckily, we made it safely to a hotel.
But my cousin is honestly still upset about the van.
23. Petty Revenge Gone Wrong
It was Hawaii, 2003. I went surfing and got stung by a jellyfish. The pain lasted about four or five hours.
It was awful, so I decided I wanted some revenge. I ordered jellyfish at an Asian diner to get even.
I got incredibly sick. I really hate jellyfish.
24. Tragic Love Story
My roommate finally lost his virginity at 26 with a girl. Best day of his life, right? Well...
He got her pregnant. Then it turned out the girl was another roommate’s 18-year-old sister.
They decided they were probably going to get married eventually. They lived together for a while, and he supported all of them. But the girl, being 18, understandably panicked after having the baby and left. My former roommate ended up basically becoming a single dad.
25. Birthday Blues
On my birthday, I walked outside and found that someone had stolen my car. The next day, I lost my job and my girlfriend broke up with me. I thought, “Well, at least it can’t get any worse.”
Later that night, my friend died in a car accident.
26. Grinch Origin Story
I was bitten by a dog. He tore my lip open, and it was just hanging there.
It was my dog. He had just been hit by a car, and his back half was crushed. So when I tried to pick him up, he snapped because he was in so much pain.
It was Christmas morning. We hadn’t even opened our presents yet.
I went to the hospital to get stitches.
Then I went to the animal hospital and stayed with him while he was put to sleep.
27. Funerals Are The Worst
My aunt’s husband was killed during a convenience store robbery. Then my cousin’s 4-year-old son died in an apartment fire. After that, my aunt was shoved down a flight of concrete stairs by someone stealing an iPhone. She suffered countless broken bones and a severe head wound. The next morning, she was gone.
At the funeral, I parked my SUV in the funeral home lot, and while I was loading photo boards, easels, and other displays after the service, my car was broken into. My purse was emptied out and my iPod touch was stolen.
28. The Cherry On Top
It’s Friday, and I get a call at work telling me I need to go to the ER to meet my girlfriend and son.
By 2 a.m., my son is in the OR having surgery for an abdominal washout. Because he has peritonitis, he needs to be transferred to his transplant center four hours away. On Sunday morning, he leaves with his mother in the ambulance, and I drive four hours, stay for two, then drive four hours back so I can make it to work on Monday.
I go to work on Monday... and get laid off.
29. Coaches
The varsity baseball coach at my school was a complete idiot. He knew a lot about baseball, but apparently never learned how to manage his personal life.
For context: at the time of this story, he was in his late 20s or very early 30s, and he was also a gym teacher. He was married to the varsity softball coach, who was also a teacher.
So, during my freshman year of high school, rumors started going around that he was cheating on his wife. Awful, but not the worst thing in the world.
It gets worse: he cheated over and over. With students.
Yes, really.
This guy was sleeping with his own students. And the story gets even worse.
The main girl he was involved with was one of his wife’s softball players. One of the best players too. And that still wasn’t the worst part.
It turns out that after he and his wife got divorced, he started dating another teacher at my school. They’re married now. And the guy always benched me.
30. Disaster Multiplied
My aunt had flown more than nine hours to attend a family member’s funeral. On the morning of the funeral, her husband called to say the house had flooded during a plumbing repair gone wrong.
After the funeral, her husband called again to say the disaster recovery company had set up fans to dry everything out.
Then one of the fans caught fire and the house burned down.
31. Everything That Could Go Wrong Went Wrong
I went to Cabo with my family for a week. Halfway through the trip, a hurricane hit. We were stuck in our hotel room for two days, and three times a day the staff came by and basically dropped off a box of sandwiches. Not ideal, but these things happen. The weather finally cleared, and we managed to enjoy the last couple of days.
Then, when we got to the airport to fly home, we found out our flight was delayed. Eventually we learned the plane wasn’t full enough, so they canceled it and moved everyone to a later flight going into an airport 90 miles away from the one where our car was parked.
When we landed and turned our phones back on, my mother-in-law got a call from her brother. Her mother had passed away that morning. Instead of waiting another hour for a bus to take us to the original airport, we decided to rent a car and drive home ourselves, which turned into a 130-mile trip. We dropped my mother-in-law off at her brother’s house so she could be with family, and finally got home around midnight.
And somehow, it gets worse.
When we got there, our dogs were gone. We had paid the sweet 13-year-old girl next door to watch our two big labs while we were away. So I went over to her house and woke up her parents to find out what happened. They were in tears. Apparently, the day we left, one of the dogs had died, and their daughter was so upset that they took the other dog into their house.
She felt terrible and blamed herself, while her parents were angry with me for putting them in that situation. At that point, all you can do is keep moving.
And somehow, it gets worse.
The next day I came home and the whole family was gathered to make arrangements for Grandma’s funeral. My wife walked in carrying a big bouquet of flowers her boss had brought her at work. We’re the kind of family that copes with hard times by joking around.
Even though they were probably just meant to comfort her after such a terrible week, one of the cousins joked, “Oh wow, did your boyfriend send you flowers?” We all laughed a little. But my wife looked like she’d been hit. She went completely pale.
And that’s when it clicked.
She was having an affair. I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I knew. Four days later I found proof. Up until that moment with the flowers, I hadn’t suspected a thing.
I confronted her, and for about four months she told me I was imagining things and made me question my own sanity. Then I caught her without any doubt. We tried to make it work for the kids.
She said all the right things about fixing our marriage, but in the end she never actually ended the affair. I caught her again and told her to leave. Her boss eventually let her go because of “the economy,” but really it was because she had become a risk to him, especially since he was never going to leave his wife.
Within three months she married someone else—not the boss—because she didn’t really have anywhere else to go.
And somehow, yes, it gets worse.
She’s working for the old boss again. Good riddance.
32. The Fall
Last year I climbed a tree and fell from about 26 feet up. I broke six bones and had to use a walker to get around. It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life.
The guy I was seeing at the time cheated on me with an 18-year-old while I was in the hospital. He was 24, and I was 25. Then a few days later, he broke up with me.
33. The Serial Cheater
A little over two years ago, my husband of three and a half years told me he had cheated on me.
But wait, there’s more.
He had cheated with more than 50 people, including men, women, transgender people, very young women, an elderly woman, and even a few people who paid him through Craigslist. And somehow, it gets worse.
I was pregnant with our second child when he told me.
34. Hit And Lie
A teacher of mine had his car hit by a construction vehicle that was pulling away. Twice.
Then he got hit by another car, whose driver claimed they never get into accidents, despite driving a car covered in obvious damage from previous ones.
That second driver ended up in court, and their lawyer gave one of the most unbelievable arguments imaginable. He contradicted himself over and over, and at one point even seemed to argue that hitting the other car was justified.
Somehow, they still got away with it.
35. Marriage Ended Before It Started
Someone I know had a huge, extravagant wedding that cost around $80,000, and then they split up on their honeymoon. The marriage fell apart because the groom had been cheating on the bride with a series of one-night stands, while the bride was having an ongoing affair with the best man.
But somehow, it gets worse.
Out of embarrassment, they pretended to stay married for six months. Then it all exploded in the worst possible way: he posted a massive Facebook rant calling her awful names and tagging friends and family. The comment section turned into absolute chaos.
And somehow, it gets worse.
The bride and the best man decided they wanted a baby. She immediately left with him and got pregnant.
36. A Sad Birthday Gift
A friend of mine just lost her ex-husband, who was also the father of her child, in a motorcycle accident.
But then it got even sadder.
Their 15-year-old son had a birthday just a few days later. On his birthday, a package came in the mail: his dad had signed him up for motorcycle lessons.
Just devastating.
37. Collective Heartbreak
A coworker of mine, we’ll call him Andy, had a brother we’ll call Mike. Mike’s wife died after battling cancer, leaving Mike alone with their two kids, around 5 and 7 years old.
Overwhelmed by grief, Mike later took his own life, leaving the two children without either parent.
But it got worse. Andy had to take his own parents to court to get custody of Mike’s kids because there were serious concerns about the grandparents.
And then it got worse again. Andy’s wife died suddenly too, leaving him to care for Mike’s two children along with his own two kids, who were about the same ages.
All of this happened within three years.
38. “Uhm, Actually, Could You Run Some Tests?”
I was on call in the operating room. When I got to the hospital, I checked in with the doctor and patient in pre-op. At least once a year, we see someone come in with something stuck where it really should not be.
This young man was there with his mom and sister, who explained that an adult toy had gotten stuck on Friday night. But because their grandmother was ill, they waited until Sunday to bring him in so he could still visit her.
Then, like usual, the family and patient were asked if they had any questions before we took him back. The mom said, “Yes, while he’s in there, can you test him for STDs? His sister tested positive, and she used the toy before he did, so we want to be sure.”
39. Red-Handed
A woman I know got divorced just days after her wedding because she found out her new husband had been unfaithful.
But it gets worse.
She discovered it because he apparently cheated during the wedding itself with the woman he was seeing, who had also been invited.
They were caught by the bride’s father.
40. Mistake Or Malpractice?
I had to get my wisdom tooth removed at a very cheap dental clinic. The dentist must have had some kind of vision problem, because she pulled the tooth next to my wisdom tooth instead of the wisdom tooth itself. And she was using manual tools, so removing just one tooth took nearly an hour.
She realized the mistake only after taking out the wrong tooth. Then she started working on the actual wisdom tooth.
But as soon as she began, the anesthesia started wearing off.
By the end, I needed a large stitch where the wrong tooth had been removed. And to make things worse, the procedure was on a Friday, and the following Monday was my first day at a new job.
41. Eyesight Complications
I went to my eye doctor for my yearly checkup, and he said, “Huh, there’s a spot here that wasn’t there last year. You need to see a specialist.” So I did.
The specialist looked at it and said, “Yeah, this doesn’t look good. You should see another specialist in Miami.” So I went to Miami, and they told me, “Yep, it’s a mole. Don’t worry about it, but call us if anything changes.” So at least that sounded like good news… right?
A couple of years later, I went back for another checkup and mentioned that my vision had gotten a little worse. My eye doctor said, “Hmm, that thing got bigger. Yeah, you should probably get it checked again.” So, back to Miami I went. This time the specialist said, “Okay, it’s cancer now. I need you in surgery next week. I have to figure out how to save your life.”
A week later, they did a biopsy and found out my vision had gotten worse because the mole had caused a cataract, so they fixed that too. Then the next week I had a radiation patch attached to my eye for three days.
But somehow, it got worse.
Just when I thought I was through the hardest part, I woke up one morning completely blind in that eye and in intense pain. Another drive to Miami. When the doctor saw the results, he went pale. The tumor had basically exploded inside my eye. The medical term is tumor necrosis, and it’s a very rare complication.
They sat me down and told me, “There’s a chance we may have to remove the eye. We’re sorry.”
But actually, that wasn’t the end of the bad news. Thanks to some aggressive treatment, I kept the eye. A few months later, they were even able to restore my vision with reconstructive surgery.
42. The Pregnant Junkie
I used to live in an apartment with three other women, and one of them was struggling with addiction. It started with casual cocaine use, but pretty quickly it became an everyday habit. After a while, it turned into a serious addiction that lasted for a few months.
During that time, she got involved with another guy who was also using heavily, and over one weekend they had unprotected sex several times. She became terrified that she might be pregnant, but all she could really do was wait a few weeks. Then this happened.
One day she came out of the bathroom looking completely shaken. We asked what was wrong, and she said she thought she had just had a miscarriage. She said it felt like she had a bowel movement, and then she saw blood and tissue in the toilet.
But then it got worse.
Because she thought she might be pregnant, she later admitted that she had been intentionally overdosing on substances every night for a week trying to force a miscarriage. At that point, I was stunned. I couldn’t understand how someone could be so reckless.
But somehow, it got worse again.
We let the issue drop for a while, until one day she used her “coke” with a friend who had more experience and the friend said, “This isn’t cocaine.” They tested it, and it turned out she had actually been snorting powdered meth and baking soda every day for months.
She completely fell apart, got rid of everything she had, and confessed it all to her mom. Her mother made her go to a doctor. After hearing the story and examining her, the doctor told her she had never been pregnant at all, and that what she thought was a miscarriage was actually damage to her stomach lining caused by the substances she’d been using.
She’s doing okay now. To her credit, she quit everything immediately. But after a while she started using other things again, like actual cocaine and hallucinogens. The last time we talked, she told me a story about taking ecstasy in a way that was so chaotic I honestly didn’t know what to say.
43. Digestive Troubles
I currently live in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house. At the time, my roommates were getting married and had a bunch of bridesmaids staying over. A couple of them spent the night after drinking.
The next morning I woke up needing to use the bathroom badly. Every move I made felt like a disaster waiting to happen. I could hear both women in the bathroom laughing and getting ready, so I panicked.
I grabbed a roll of toilet paper and headed for a far corner of the backyard. When I went outside, I accidentally left the door open just enough for our shih tzu to slip out. I didn’t notice while I was dealing with my emergency. Then I ran back inside to get a plastic bag, and right then the women walked into the living room.
So there I was, making small talk and pretending everything was normal, while trying not to think about what I had just done in the backyard. Eventually they left, and I went back to clean it up.
That’s when I found that it was half eaten, and my poor little dog was face-first in it, happily licking away. Gross, right? It gets worse.
I had to clean his face with rags, water, and soap. But before I could gather everything I needed, he jumped up on the patio furniture and rubbed his dirty face all over it.
Then, just as I got close to him, he shook himself and sprayed the mess everywhere. I finally got him cleaned up and brought him inside. I cleaned the patio furniture pretty quickly, and since it was outdoor furniture, I could just hose it down.
Sounds manageable, right? Not even close.
When I walked back inside, the house was a disaster. The poor dog had eaten too fast, and of course it didn’t stay down.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I counted 16 separate piles of dog vomit and poop all over the house.
Most of it was on the couches. I spent the next 12 hours cleaning up what had basically become my own mess all over again through the dog.
And the smell was absolutely horrible the whole time.
44. It Started With A Dry Socket…
I had a tooth pulled and ended up with dry socket. After a tooth is removed, a blood clot is supposed to form in the empty space. Dry socket happens when that clot gets knocked loose, leaving the bone and nerve exposed.
Eventually I healed and went back for the implant surgery… and got dry socket again.
I also learned that laughing gas and hydrocodone trigger panic attacks for me.
45. Just One Thing After The Other
I was already running late because I overslept. Then I slammed my toe into the table really badly.
After that, I had to hurry to the embassy to sort out my passport. I almost completed the three-hour drive before I realized I had forgotten all the documents I needed.
46. Worst prom ever?
This probably wasn’t the worst prom in human history, since we all made it out alive. But it was my prom, and it was terrible.
(1) My girlfriend had broken up with me a month earlier, and I couldn’t find a date before prom. I was a huge nerd and pretty awkward socially.
(2) My closest friends all had girlfriends or boyfriends at a nearby school. So instead of going to our prom, they all went to another school’s senior prom.
(3) Meanwhile, all the people I couldn’t stand were there. The same people who had spent the last four years mocking me, insulting me, shoving me into lockers, and throwing milk cartons at me. I was completely alone. Thankfully, they were mostly distracted by their dates.
(3) ALSO, IT WAS ON A BOAT. The boat went out past the Golden Gate Bridge toward the Farallons. It was cramped, and the night was freezing.
(4) THE DJ was terrible. I’m really into music—I was even a radio DJ at the time, at KVHS—and this guy’s playlist was awful. Just one bad song after another. Lots of country, Garth Brooks, and weak hip-hop. This was 1997. The closest thing to a rock song was “Pop” by U2. For me, it was miserable.
(5) THE BUFFET GAVE PEOPLE FOOD POISONING. So around 9 p.m., people started getting sick. It was gross. Vomiting, diarrhea, the whole thing. And there were only a few bathrooms. Before long, the bathrooms were the busiest part of prom. Luckily, I had eaten before prom, so I didn’t get sick myself.
(6) THEN THE BOAT BROKE DOWN. We lost drive power, though not engine power, so we still had electricity—but the boat was just drifting somewhere off the Bay, around Marin County. So senior prom kept going. Instead of leaving afterward to have fun, we were all STUCK.
ON A BOAT. IN THE COLD. WITH A BAD DJ. AND FOOD POISONING.
At one point I saw a girl being comforted by her date while she went back and forth between crying uncontrollably and vomiting over the side of the boat.
Power finally came back around 6 a.m. We had to limp back to Berkeley.
So yeah, my senior prom was… memorable.
47. Three Diagnoses
A few years ago, I noticed a lump around my stomach, but for a while I didn’t think much of it. After about two weeks it started getting bigger, so I went to the doctor.
At the first visit, the doctor felt around and told me it was a “spare rib.” I didn’t even know that was a real thing outside of a Chinese restaurant menu, but he was the doctor, so I figured he knew what he was talking about.
At the second hospital visit, it was still growing. They examined it again, and a different doctor told me it was a pulled muscle. At that point I was starting to doubt them, but I accepted it, because the only other explanation I could think of was something much more serious. So I let it go.
But it kept getting worse.
I went back another two weeks later. By then the lump was sticking straight out from my abdomen. I finally got a scan, and a week later I came back for the results. The appointment was with an African doctor who, as soon as I sat down, told me very bluntly, “You have liver cancer.”
Since I was 21 at the time and mostly thought of cancer as something that happened to people over 60, it was a huge shock. For a while, I just felt numb.
Anyway, three years later, I’ve had three recurrences, three successful operations, and right now I’m a year and a half cancer-free and healthy :)
48. The Rube Goldberg
One time my roommate had a girl over to watch a movie. They were sitting in the living room with his laptop, and I could see them from outside the apartment.
I thought it would be funny to burst in like Kramer. It scared both of them half to death, and it startled my roommate so badly that he dropped his phone into a cup of coffee.
Then, while trying to save his phone, he knocked the coffee onto his laptop.
Then, while trying to save the laptop, he accidentally opened a video of a middle-aged woman having sex with a well-endowed Black man.
Needless to say, the girl never called him back—though even if she had, he probably wouldn’t have been able to answer. We still call it the Rube Goldberg machine of embarrassment.
49. Fast And Furious Attempt
I used to be a manager at a hotel in Oakland. One time, a valet took a guest’s Corvette out for a joyride. He lost control in a residential neighborhood and crashed into a parked car in a driveway.
The Corvette and the parked car then slammed through the home’s garage door and caught fire. Part of the house burned down. The valet was found a block away trying to run off on foot with a broken leg.
