Some of our weirdest stories may seem like they came from movie scripts. From harrowing encounters to lucky breaks, these Redditors shared their most unbelievable stories. Do you believe these crazy tales?
1. Convenience Store Officer
When I was ditching first period in high school, an officer stood in front of me in line at 7-11. The cashier couldn’t break his $50 so I paid for his coffee along with my stuff. He thanked me, we jabbed about me being “late” to school, and I noticed the tattoo on his neck and we joked about bad decisions. Two weeks later I got caught in a speed trap, and who sticks his head in my window?
The 7-11 officer. He went, “coffee girl”! And I went, “tat neck”! And got let off with a finger shake.
2. The Suspicious Letter
I was walking through BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, it's the train station that takes you to and from San Francisco and elsewhere), where an average of 375,000 people pass through daily. I walked up the escalator to my train, and passed by an envelope lying on the ground. At first, I didn't think much of it, but I took a couple steps back to pick it up anyways.
The next part freaked me out. I looked at the address, and it was addressed to ME. I instantly looked around to see if it was a practical joke, or if I was about to get assassinated or something. Neither of those were the case. The sender was a family friend, we'll call them the Johnsons. I knew that Mr. Johnson took the BART daily, but I had never personally ran into him.
After work, I called him up and asked him about the letter. Turns out, he had about 300 letters with him on BART, and was going to send them out for his daughter's graduation party. What in the world are the chances of him dropping the one letter addressed to me out of the 300, combined with the chances of me being the one out of 375,000 people to pick it up? Pretty wild.
3. IRS At The Door
So I worked for the IRS collecting taxes several years ago. I had seized someone's car and the IRS salespeople were in the process of selling it. The IRS procedures around some of this stuff are ancient. One of the procedures is to post a notice of sale in three public locations. So I went to the library to post a notice of sale.
The person on the ground floor said that I'll have to talk to Steve on the second floor to see if it was okay for me to post the notice of sale on the bulletin board. I walked up the stairs and saw a guy sitting at the desk. I asked him, "Are you Steve"? He replied playfully, "Who's asking? The IRS?" It was just an off-handed comment and he was totally joking.
There was a long pause. Eventually, I said, "Yes, in fact. My name is XXXXXX....." Steve just about fell out of his chair. He said, “Jesus Christ! I've been using that joke for 20 years! I never thought anyone would ever say yes!"
4. Ball Game Shocker
When I was a kid, me and some friends got caught in a horrible thunderstorm. We'd been playing baseball and had to go across the field to get to our respective homes. Since I owned the bat, I was carrying it over my shoulder. Then suddenly, everything went burning white. About halfway home it felt like God reached down from on high and slapped me across the back of my head.
When I came to, I had no shoes, and the bat was melted almost in half. I had a burn where the bat touched my shoulder, and a headache the size of Texas. I wasn't really hurt, but I couldn't talk on the landline phone or sit near our TV for about a week, but all was good. I’ve been hit by lightning two more times directly, and once indirectly since then.
5. Do You Think You’re Clever?
I was in my late teens, on the fairly packed bus on the way home from work. There was a large group of French kids—I'd say around 14-15 years old—toward the back of the bus being quite loud in French, but not obnoxiously so. The bus stopped, and this guy who looked very clearly to be homeless got on. He paid in all change, then sat down next to me.
He started chatting to me, and it got really uncomfortable REALLY quickly. Anyway, after a while, he started to get agitated. He pointed at the French kids at the back of the bus, and said to me, "That makes me mad. They're obviously chatting about me. What are they saying"? To which I kind of shrugged. He got more and more wound up as time went on until finally, the French kids burst into laughter, and that was the last straw for this guy.
"RIGHT," he said. "I've had enough of this". He got up, walked to the back of the bus, and tapped one of the kids on the shoulder. He got right up close to his face and aggressively said to the kid, "Come on then...Do you think you're clever?" The French kid was like, "Pardon”? The dude repeated it, slower. "Do. You. Think. You're. Clever?"
The French kid looked confused, but answered "Um, yes"? The homeless dude looked MAD. He stood up straight, his eyes wide. He shouted, "Really"? He reached into his jacket. The whole bus went still, pretty certain we were about to witness a stabbing. "Well then," says the homeless dude, and pulls out...A RUBIK'S CUBE. He handed it to the French kid and said, "Well do this then, I've been stuck on it for days".
I caught the eye of an old woman sitting opposite me and she mouthed, “what…”, and almost everyone on the bus started shaking with silent laughter. It was one of the most surreal moments in my life, to the point where I started looking around for a cameraman. I've told friends this story, but I’m pretty sure they all think it's bull!
6. Trick Shot
One day at school, I was playing basketball during gym class with a group of mostly white classmates. Someone made an underhanded comment about the stereotype of Black people being good at basketball. I said, "Me being Black does not mean I am good at basketball", before lazily throwing the ball backward over my head to score a three-pointer.
7. Urine Trouble
I peed on a bear once at age 12 or 13. I lived in a mountain cabin with some family—aunts and cousins and stuff. The cabin was small but we had several acres so we had about four RV trailers for the rest of the family. Two were for my aunts, one was just for hanging out, and the last and closest smallest was for me and my brother.
It was a cold wintery day with fresh snow. I woke up having to pee so bad I'm surprised I didn't wet the bed. I was groggy and my eyes were barely open as I headed to the trailer door and opened it to start my morning leak. I did not notice the bear less than two feet away, so close I could've pet him if I leaned a bit forward.
Its head was inside the garbage can until I was halfway done, and then it moved. So of course, I turned my whole body in my half-asleep state to see what moved, and I finally noticed a giant brown furry thing. I peed all over its hind left thigh and leg as I was wondering what it was. The bear lifted its head and looked at me.
We stared at each other for a moment as my actions began to dawn on me. A moment later, I finished. The bear and I stared at each for several moments until I took a step back, shut our flimsy door, and locked the deadbolt that would've been useless had the bear decided that I insulted his honor. I went back to bed listening and waiting until I eventually went back to sleep.
8. Nerf Slinger
This is like a super childish thing, but one time at a party someone brought out a little NERF pistol. Then someone took a ping pong ball from the pong table and started tossing the ball into the air and trying to shoot it with the nerf gun while it was still in the air. Several people started trying and nobody could hit it.
Finally, I spoke up, more than a few drinks in at this point, saying, "Give me that. I'll hit it first try FROM MY HIP". “Yeah right”, everyone said. One of the other guys said I could have all the cash in his wallet if I hit it on the first try from my hip. I didn't even get up out of my seat. They tossed it up, I fired, and sniped that ball right out of the air. There was silence, then we all lost it.
Everyone started yelling and screaming like young people do when something crazy happens and I just took another sip of my drink. Luckiest shot ever but I felt like a badass. I made $40 too.
9. The Candy Mafia
A long time ago in Japan, my mom sent me a box full of snacks from my home country. Some time passed and I received a slip about a package that I needed to pick up. I went to the designated place and it was just full of containers. I showed the slip of paper and asked around. Some guy said he knew how to help me and we both walked over to some other place, and soon the package came out.
I was going to take the package and go, but he told me I should have it inspected. He gave me more documents and said they should be signed elsewhere. I asked some other people and they agreed to help me as well. This kind of thing went on and on. All kinds of documents and signatures. I didn’t really care what was on there, I just signed them.
I arrived at around 10 am, and it was now nearing 5 pm. I had like ten guys following me around all day having me sign documents. I looked like some mafia boss. They got the dogs out and had my box sniffed and weighed. I finally got my box at like six pm and went home wondering what just happened. Come to think of it, I think I “imported” a single box full of snacks.
10. A Pain in the Knee
I was seeing a surgeon about a knee issue that looked like it required surgery. My GP had given them a file of my information before my appointment. The doctor called me in and started asking me how knee rehab had been going since my surgery. I was very confused, and said that I was here about the issue that potentially needs surgery.
He grabbed the file and clarified that I'm First Name Last Name. I said, “yep”. Then he read out my date of birth, which was one day different, including the year, and I said, “No, not quite the right date”, thinking maybe there was a typo when the file was created. So he said, "Wait, are you First Name MIDDLE NAME Last Name"? I wasn't. He had another patient that had the same first and last name as me, whose birthday was one day different, and had the same knee problem I did.
11. Pedal To The Metal
I was walking on a hiking/biking trail when a woman rode past me on her bicycle. I yelled out, “keep the pedal to the metal”. Not two seconds later I heard an awful metallic noise and turned to see the poor woman’s pedal mechanism had fallen apart. She told me, “you shouldn’t have said that”! I apologized profusely and asked if she needed any help. Naturally, she didn’t…not from me anyway.
12. Meet And Greet At The Urinal
I was at Comic-Con in New Orleans a few years back. I went to the bathroom and everything was normal, until I noticed the guy at the urinal next to mine. He was really tall, had long hair and beard, and was tatted out the wazoo. I swear I’ve seen this guy before…Wait a minute, it’s Jason Momoa! I’m peeing with Aquaman!
We both washed our hands and I was like, “Hey man, my mom’s a huge fan of yours. We have a picture scheduled for the meet and greet later so you’ll get to meet her”. And he was like, “alright cool, can’t wait”! So we walked around the convention until the photo session, and when we went in he recognized me. We even got an extra picture with just my mom and him, it was awesome. But that wasn't all.
He also recognized me the next year when we got another picture with him. He said “You’re the guy I peed with”, when we walked into the booth. Aquaman referring to me as his pee buddy was pretty darn memorable.
13. Name Game
I once checked in at a restaurant and gave the hostess my name to hold my slot. She then asked for my last name since the person below me on the list shared my first name. When I told her my last name, she looked at me like I was lying. The person below had my first and last name. She laughed and introduced us, and we took a pic. I’ve never met someone with my same first and last name since.
14. Courageous Chanteur
I went to see some London fireworks around ten years ago, not NYE—it was the Mayor’s parade or something, and we were all on the bridge waiting quietly for the show to dazzle us. A tipsy fella and some tipsy ladies were singing “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast but got stuck on a certain bit and couldn’t remember the line.
Flashback to 10-year-old me sitting in front of the TV watching a VHS of Beauty and the Beast, scribbling the lyrics for that very same song onto some paper. See, my class in school was putting on a Beauty and the Beast play but we didn’t have lyrics. I can’t sing, but I’d valiantly offered to transcribe them, not realizing the Herculean task ahead, trying to decipher some of the words.
The play never happened. It was a shame because I’d been cast as Gaston, but the lyrics for "Be Our Guest" would forever be seared into my brain, waiting for their opportunity. One day. And now, fan my brow, the opportunity had finally come knocking! But I was so nervous. I was sweating. Maybe even shaking. But somehow the stars aligned.
The universe bestowed upon me the courage to help these inebriated revelers who were clearly in over their heads. I waited for someone, anyone, to join in. No takers. It was now or never. Well, it was then or never. I prepped my dodgy French accent and started singing: “Life is so unnerving, For a servant who’s not serving. He’s not whole without a soul to wait upon…”.
It was like a film. People turned around and made way for me as I started shakily walking toward them. “Ten years we have been rusting, Needing so much more than dusting! Needing exercise! A chance to use our skills! Most days we just lay around the castle…” They turned around beaming. One dude put his arm around my shoulder and we sang the rest of that bit together.
“Flabby, fat, and lazy, You walked in and oopsie-daisy!” We high-fived, onlookers clapped, and I shakily walked back to join my mates. Once I’d come to my senses, I asked why none of them had filmed it! I’m not sure if anyone else filmed it. I remembered seeing cameras pointing at us so I hunted around YouTube for awhile after that but eventually gave up.
Regardless, such an opportunity may never appear again and I’m so glad I temporarily had the guts to just go for it.
15. The Squirrel God
I was having a hectic day once, running errands I didn’t enjoy. Grocery shopping, quick Home Depot visit, going to the bank, etc etc. I forgot an item I needed at home for the bank teller so I drove back irritated, driving fast, trying to make it back to the bank before closing time. As I turned into my apartment’s parking lot, I noticed a squirrel ahead of me.
I hit my breaks to let the squirrel run by, but he was just sitting there, nibbling on something. As I slowly drove closer I noticed this squirrel was not only nibbling on fries, but he was imitating dipping a single fry into a crushed and empty ketchup packet. I looked around to see if anyone was seeing what I was seeing. I couldn’t believe it.
This guy was dipping a fry in ketchup. A squirrel. I didn’t take a picture because my phone wasn’t working. “Proof or it didn’t happen”, I know, I know. But, I think about this memory once a month or so and it has been two years. No one ever believes me. A Bigfoot sighting would have been more plausible. Sometimes I think the fry-eating squirrel was a form of deity or god, reminding me to slow down in life. Who knows.
16. Ready, Aim, Fire
My grandfather had taught me to shoot. One day a coyote that had been harassing and injured a dog on the farm showed up about a third of a mile downhill from the farmhouse. My grandpa threw me the rifle and told me to take a shot. I’m not big on hurting animals unnecessarily, but I lined up my shot, and as I pulled the trigger, the coyote ran away.
My grandpa chided me for missing despite the distance, angle, and wind. I endured the scolding and said nothing. A month later, the neighboring ranch calls my grandpa over to see something. It was the body of a coyote. The same one. The rancher shot it. But that's when I noticed something odd. It had a clean, recently-healed shot through its ear. I didn’t miss.
17. Cash For Caves
A guy I played baseball with in high school was a notorious liar, or at least an embellisher of the truth. He started going on one day in the locker room about the cave next to his house, about how cool it is, how it used to be a speakeasy during Prohibition, and how he goes in there all the time. I called bull on the story. There was no way this could be true.
I had been best friends with him all through elementary and junior high school and we had drifted apart in high school, but I told him there was no way I was just hearing about this now. We would have been playing in that cave for years if it truly existed! He was a liar and I was gonna call him out on it. So I told him I’d pay him $20 to take me there, but he owed me $20 if there was no cave.
We planned to meet on Saturday at 10:00, and I was thinking this was the easiest $20 I’ve ever made. I showed up at his house that morning expecting him to not even be there, but there he is, wearing an old pair of jeans, messed up sneakers, and holding two flashlights like he’s about to get muddy in this “cave”. I said, “Wow, you’re really dedicated to this lie”.
He replied, “I’m not lying! Walk with me down the driveway”. He took me down into this wooded area at the end of his driveway, and lo and behold, there was a freaking hole in the ground. It had been gated but there was a spot where we could squeeze through the grate. We went a little way down and the cave opened up into a room with a fireplace and a massive bar carved into the rock. It really was a bar in the ‘20s. I lost $20.
18. The Consequences Of Littering
I've ridden motorcycles for a very long time, and this story has to do with a couple of things that annoy me to no end: people who litter in general, people who litter from their vehicles, and ESPECIALLY people who litter things into the road. These things become obstacles, or if done in motion they become missiles. One day, I was out for a ride.
I have a couple of regular routes, and on one of those routes, there is an intersection that has a notoriously long light cycle, meaning that when I’m on the bike I get to sit and cook on a hot day. I was on that route that day to make a couple of stops along the way. This story takes place at that light. I was sitting, waiting for the light to change.
Then I saw from a car a few spots ahead of me in line that the passenger crumpled up a big ball of trash and just dropped it out their window. Something in me snapped. I pulled into the next lane to my right. I rolled up the 30 feet or so and put my bike in neutral, put the kickstand down, and was able to lean just far enough to pick up the recently littered trash.
I leaned back up, kicked up my kickstand, took aim, and absolutely cannoned the trash back into the car. I had no idea just how diabolical this was. The ball of trash hit the center console with an audible pop, covering the inside of the vehicle in messy, wet poop. The trash was a diaper. If I had hit it at any speed, I would have been the one covered in poop.
Instead, the driver and passenger got to wear it. I don't think I've ever had better timing to drop the bike into gear, get moving, catch the light turning green, and accelerate ahead of a long line of cars between me and the diaper duo. What’s the moral of the story? Don't litter, especially out of your car. Whatever you toss out might come back to you at speed.
19. Rock, Paper, Scissors
This was a couple of years ago but I pulled up to a stop light, and another vehicle in the next lane also came to a stop. The car was filled with what looked like high school kids. The kid in the passenger seat noticed me, tapped on his window, and started doing the universal sign for rock, paper, scissors. I looked at the light, which was still red, and decided to play along.
We started: one…two...three...shoot and we tied. One…two...three...shoot. We tied again. This kept happening. All the young kids in the other car were involved and were screaming like "WOOOOOAAH" everytime we tied. We literally got off like 15 rounds of rock, paper, scissors and tied every single time until the light turned green. I'm still high from that and hope all those guys are doing well.
20. Double Damage
I moved to a new city and figured I would go for a drive to get the lay of the land. At a stop sign, I was trying to turn right, looking left at traffic. I saw my chance and turned right without looking. A pedestrian was crossing in front of me and I hit him, not super hard but hard enough for him to kind of roll up on my hood.
He got off and stood up. I rolled my window down and apologized but he was kind of like Eric Idle in National Lampoon's European Vacation. He kept apologizing, saying it was his fault, just a flesh wound, etc. I decided my sightseeing tour should come to an end after running someone down in the street. I got a little turned around before finding my bearings.
I was headed up a hill toward my new place and didn't realize my lane was ending. I didn't see the car in my blind spot and totally cut them off and our cars very lightly bumped. I stopped immediately next to the car I hit at a red light. When the driver stepped out, I did a double-take. He was the same pedestrian I ran over 20 minutes ago, five miles away.
Again he was disturbingly polite, he apologized to me, and did not want to exchange insurance info.
21. A Hairy Encounter
One day when I was about eight years old, I was playing outside. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the unthinkable happens. An eagle came for my face. I ducked, and it ended up grabbing my hair and taking a chunk of it with it as it flew away. I ran inside crying and told my mom. She didn't believe me so I never told anyone else until now, 14 years later.
22. Walking Into Spiderwebs
I worked at this restaurant that was near a dueling piano bar. We usually gave them half off, and they would pour us cheap, super stiff drinks. As such, we would tend to go there if one of us had a birthday or something. One night, we were there, and it was a massively busy night. We were all just standing around and drinking.
We were just enjoying the night, keeping to ourselves, and trying to ignore the scores of frat boys and sorority girls that typically frequented that establishment. That’s when these two older dudes, a white guy, and an Indian guy, approached us and asked if we had any substances we could sell them. They said we looked like the guys to talk to.
To be fair, they were correct. There were eight of us there and between us, we probably had at least four ounces. They didn’t need much, they told us. Just something for the night. Obvious authority move, right? We told them as much, letting them know we weren’t there to be apprehended, and we told them to leave. They pleaded. We laughed. They walked away dejected.
About an hour later, the piano players at the bar announced that they had found out they had some special guests in the audience. The band No Doubt would be playing in Dallas the next night, and the guitarist and bass player were in the audience. They said if we all asked nicely, maybe they would come play a couple of songs with them. When I saw who they were, I couldn't believe it.
Lo and behold, the older white dude and Indian dude walked up on stage and played “Just a Girl” and “Spiderwebs” with the fine folks of the dueling piano bar. And that’s the story of the time we didn’t sell to No Doubt because they looked like officers.
23. Close Call
At the end of the work day, I had a really bad feeling about driving home. I was afraid that I was going to get hurt somehow, and I didn’t want to leave. I sat at my desk for five minutes, trying to convince myself that it was just a silly feeling. I mean, I can't possibly stay in the office all night, right? So I got into my car and drove home.
At the intersection near my house, there were three cars that had collided only moments before. One driver got out of his car slowly, and I could see blood streaming down his face. In the end, nobody was seriously injured. But I always wondered what would have happened if I left work on time that day.
24. Ninja Skills
When I was a kid, probably 13 or so, I came home from school one day and walked up to the front door. I swung my key around on the lanyard and threw it at the door, because I was a ninja fighting something invisible that'd be vulnerable to a single key on a string. The key actually hit the keyhole and just plopped in there. I was alone, so nobody would ever know that I actually “was” a ninja.
Nobody has ever believed me, except my wife but she didn't care at all. I don't work as a ninja today, unfortunately.
25. Purple Cow Angel
I got saved during a blizzard in the Alps by a big purple cow. I was skiing in the Alps with some friends and we were off doing some jumps and stuff. I was at the back of the group and fell and twisted my knee from not quite landing a jump. I managed to get myself a bit lost as a blizzard set in and I couldn't see. I carefully moved around on my dodgy knee for a bit and thought I was about to end up in a fair amount of trouble.
Then, out of the snow appeared my purple angel. A purple shape came out of the blizzard, which, as it got closer, appeared to be an upright purple cow on skis. It turns out that it was the Milka chocolate mascot. It was just a guy dressed in a purple cow costume, skiing about the hills dishing out chocolate. He skied right up to me and said "Hey man, you ok? You want some chocolate?"
He then skied back to the piste with me and took me to the nearest bar to get a drink. Guess who else was in the bar! My friends, who were getting increasingly concerned that they'd lost me! Milka man dished out some more chocolate to everyone and skied off never to be seen again. Thank you purple cow angel, you saved me that day and gave me chocolate!
26. The Model Girlfriend
When I first met my wife, I was in Vancouver for a student program for the summer. She was a model and crazy beautiful. I was some dirty farm kid from Saskatchewan who couldn’t flirt to save his life and had never kissed a girl or taken one on a date. So when I came back to my hometown, the way I told people about my girlfriend was: “Yeah I have a girlfriend, but she’s a model in Vancouver and no one here has ever met her yet. Maybe one day”!
It took more than two years for anyone to believe me. We have now been married for five years.
27. Sick Story, Bro
Many many many moons ago, I was 15 at the time we were at a house party. We were all drinking and getting rowdy—usual teenage nonsense. My parents were pretty cool in that they knew what we were doing and knew they couldn't stop it, so they told us, "Don't get in a car if someone's been drinking, call us and we'll come get you”.
So around 11:30 pm or so I called my dad and said "I need a ride". We were on the edge of town right where it starts to become rural. So I asked my Dad, "Can you meet us at xx Intersection”? Me and my friend walked down to the intersection, down a dark semi-rural road. My friend at the time had drunk too much and was feeling really bad.
He decided he needed to stick his fingers down his throat and get rid of some of the booze in his system. So there he was, wrenching his guts out at the side of the road. A car passed, and I saw a light bar on top. It’s an officer, we thought. He hit his brakes and I said, "Uh oh," thinking we were about to get jammed up again for drinking underage. When suddenly…CRASH!
The officer got rear-ended by ANOTHER OFFICER! I don't know how, or why, I just know that I watched one officer slam into the back of another car. I did not need to be told that that was my cue to exit! Me and my friend booked it out of there. About ten minutes later, we circled the block and came around from the opposite direction we ran in, just as my dad pulled up.
28. A Stranger In The Street
A few decades ago, I was in the city for whatever reason, on my way to the metro. I encountered this tourist who seemed a bit lost. Finding tourists isn’t rare. They are everywhere in the summer. Though this was a smaller street with nothing around and he was looking confused. So I approached him and asked if I could help him.
Yes, indeed I could! He said he got a bit overconfident while out for a walk, and now he could not find his way back to the hotel. The hotel in question was “the expensive” one in the city, quite a bit away. I knew it would be more confusing to explain how to get back via bus/metro, so I just walked him there. We had a really nice and pleasant conversation.
He told me he was in town for a few concerts, so I asked him which ones. He looked at me with a smirk and said his name is Bryan Adams and he is having a concert the next day, and a couple more after. He said he would like to invite me to one as a thank you for bringing him back to the hotel. Now, I didn’t know much about him, but I just could not believe it.
In my mind, this friendly guy might be part of the gig, but no way Bryan Adams would cross my path like that! I refused to believe it and we both actually had some laughs about it. He even showed me his driver’s license, but nope. I wasn’t buying it. Once we arrived at the hotel, we shook hands and parted. That was it for me, or so I thought.
I told this story to my boyfriend when he got home and he was not happy that I didn’t accept the tickets. Bryan Adams was indeed in town. A few weeks later an instructor of mine told me a funny story she heard from her partner. He works at a record company and is the guy who personally takes care of the stars, so he told her about a conversation he had with Bryan Adams.
He told him he got lost in the city and a lovely lady offered to bring him back, and that she would not believe who he was, even after showing his license. And that she refused free tickets. They had a great laugh about it and he said it never happened before and that he enjoyed it. To be honest, I am still suspicious, but yeah. Looks like I turned down free concert tickets from Bryan Adams himself.
True or not, it makes me smile thinking about it and it made me more open to taking chances.
29. Text Tales
So I was in class, and one of my friends was giving me his number. I text the number just to make sure it was the right one. He didn’t get the text. I overheard a girl behind me talking about a random text from a random number she just got. I texted him again. Again, I heard the girls talk. I asked her if somebody texted her what I texted my friend.
Turns out, I put the last TWO digits in wrong, and it happened to be the number of a girl behind me. She was hot too. The odds blessed me that day. I've always wanted to calculate the chances of that happening.
30. Past Due
I had an eighth-grade student who never turned in her final paper for my English class. I threatened to “chase her to the ends of the earth” for the paper. That summer, I left Atlanta for a stint in Nepal. My flight out of Atlanta was delayed. So, at the last minute, instead of flying US Air via London, they sent me to Lufthansa via Frankfurt. I barely made the flight.
Five hours later, somewhere over the Atlantic, I looked up and saw my eighth-grader's younger brother walk by. After shocked small talk, I casually sauntered up the aisle to where she was sitting. I knew exactly what I had to do. I walked up, cleared my throat, and said sternly, “Young Lady, I'm getting pretty tired of tracking you down. Do you have that paper yet”?
31. Pop Culture Prophet
Back in January or so, I was doing bar trivia with my regular team. During a pause between rounds, I started telling them about how I could not stop thinking about this episode of Full House where Stephanie and Michelle get on a plane, somehow thinking it was going across the bay to Oakland, but was actually going to Auckland, New Zealand.
I was infuriated because they somehow managed to get on an international flight without going through customs or having passports on them. I had no idea why I brought it up, other than that I frequently bring up weird old pop culture hangups out of nowhere—like, okay, what kind of lawyer would grant a divorce where one parent got sole custody of a twin? Come on, Parent Trap.
Anyway, two rounds later was a category about travel or something. The very first question was about a man who misheard an airline employee and went to Auckland instead of Oakland. We all just kind of stared at each other in disbelief before I yelled "I'M A PROPHET" and wrote down the answer. We got first place. Thanks, Full House.
32. Good Cop, Bad Cop
Years ago I was picking up lunch. Got pulled over by two officers for expired tags I'd forgotten to renew. One officer was very hostile. Her communication was all aggressive, saying things like, "don't make any sudden moves”! And she demanded I roll down my back windows because "someone could be in the backseat pointing a pistol at her”.
I rolled the windows halfway down, and she yelled, "I need them ALL the way down”! Meanwhile, I sat confused with my bag of Wendy's beside me, wondering, is this for real? She wrote me a ticket for expired tags. I went home, annoyed, and got online to renew. While I was online, I heard a knock on my door. I answered and it was the second cop—not the aggressor.
I'm thinking, "You have to be kidding me, what now"? Without apologizing directly, he explained that his partner is in training and that I don't need to worry about the ticket, he'd be throwing it away. He said to be sure to renew the tags, which I confirmed I was doing. He shook my hand and left.
33. Comedic Connections
I went to see Mitch Hedberg do stand up. We stayed around for awhile hoping to see him leaving. He never materialized though, so my husband and I walked towards our car. As we were walking we heard a woman yell from an alley, “Hey! Mitch Hedberg is back here signing autographs”! We walked around the corner behind a scary old building.
It was like 1 am and pretty dark. There stood Mitch Hedberg and no other fans. It was just him and his wife, who had been the one to yell about autographs. He hugged my husband and me and told us what his fans mean to him. He took pictures of us for his scrapbook page online. He was also hilarious. We were just there behind a building at 1 am with Mitch Hedberg and his wife laughing and hugging deep into the wee hours.
When I tell people this, they go silent and I’m not sure why. I figure they don’t believe it.
34. It’s Just Semantics
I was playing basketball in the park with my mom. Neither of us were very athletic, we were just having fun. There was some kid hanging around us and we weren’t trying to be rude so we let him be. After a few minutes of some of the worst questions I’ve ever heard, he asked me if I could throw the ball at the basket backward.
I said sure. See, had he asked if I could make the shot backward I would have said no, but he only asked if I could throw it backward, which I could. My mom knew what I was doing. I picked up so much from her growing up, it was probably her idea before I said anything. I took a half-hearted peek at the basket, turned around, and with no warm up, just let that ball fly.
I turned back around to watch the obvious miss. I started to say, “See, I threw it at the basket”, but all I got out of my mouth was, “See-“. And then the ball went in. Swish. Nothing but net. That thing never even hit the rim. I wouldn’t have had the will to keep a straight face if I looked at the kid. I looked at my mom and said “Just like that”.
She was almost as surprised as I was. That kid told me he didn’t think I could do it again. Mamma beat me to it this time and said, “I think it’s your turn”. He left us alone soon after.
35. The Birthday Book
We gave my uncle a coffee table book that commemorated an NFL team for his birthday one year. He was so excited. He immediately opened it to the center spread, which was a panoramic shot of the fans in the stadium. Unbeknownst to any of us beforehand, right in the center of the page was my uncle in the stands. That was quite the birthday gift!
36. The Takedown
When I had just started college, I saw my brother's best friend on campus from a distance. He was hard to miss: He’s six foot six, skinny, and has long brown hair. Fitting of our childish friendship, I straight up open-field tackled the guy from behind. BIG MISTAKE. I got terribly blindsided. It wasn’t him. I apologized and sheepishly ran away. Three hours later, a girlfriend from high school introduces her new boyfriend to a group of us.
It's the guy I tackled. It turns out, he’s a super nice…and forgiving…guy. We've been friends for 15 years.
37. Lunchtime Launch
Back in middle school, I was walking back to class after lunch when someone chucked something down the hallway as hard as they could. My natural instinct was to jump up and catch it. It was a perfect catch. I felt like an all-star athlete, and not a single person saw me. The projectile…was a mozzarella stick.
38. Fowl Play
I was in elementary school, during recess, just kinda daydreaming and looking at some ravens flying overhead. Suddenly, one of them took a nosedive...right into an open trash can. So of course, I rushed over there to check it out, but when I looked in the garbage—I gasped. The raven had disappeared, even though I never saw it fly away.
I was not the only one who saw it though. Another kid came rushing over as well, and that’s how I met my best friend for the next four years.
39. Picky Parrot
I did pet shop work in college and got asked to fill in a few graveyard shifts at a nearby store. Just me alone unloading and stocking. There was an African Gray Parrot in there and before I started to make a bunch of noise with the forklift and pallet jack I went up and tried to give it a calm "hello" so it wouldn't be startled by me moving around.
I've always been fascinated by them. It just slowly turned its neck, like an ancient magic statue, looked me in the eye, and went "...meh". Then just as slowly turned back. It was the hardest burn I've ever gotten.
40. Training Fiasco
A friend and I were hired by an officer in our small town to “help train” officers and make a training video. They gave us pieces to hide on our bodies—I even put one in my hair. Then we drove to a dirt road and were only told, “When you see us come around the corner, floor it!”! And that was it!! That was all that we were told!
When we saw the car, we floored it and went racing down the road. The patrol car followed us into the road with a gravelly field that we'd pulled off into. The captain was already there, set up and ready to film his officers. They came screaming in with road dust and bluster, yelling at us to get out of the car. They had their pieces out.
I am assuming that they were unloaded, but no one ever said anything and we never asked…we had NO idea that it was going to go down like this. They were yelling using the speaker on their car, “GET OUT OF THE CAR!! GET OUT OF THE CAR”! We were genuinely flipped out now and our adrenaline was so, so high. We put our hands up, my friend threw the keys, and we TOOK OFF RUNNING!
We got tackled and frisked. I tore my pants and my shirt and the officer didn't find the blade in my hair—it was the 90s, my hair was pretty big. I got put into the back of the patrol car. The captain/filming officer was standing in front of the car to film through the window. I could reach up from the back into the front seat and WAS ABLE TO GET THE PIECE AND PULL IT INTO THE BACK SEAT without him noticing!
I was holding it up so that the filmer could see that I was able to get the piece and I pulled the blade out of my hair to show that it had been missed too. My friend was put into another car. Then it was over and we got a small drink from Dairy Queen as payment!! It all went so badly that I heard that the tape was not really used.
I do wonder where it went and would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when they all talked about what they'd done! It was such a completely wild and surreal experience. When we talk about it now, we howl with laughter at how absurd and wrong it was and no one can believe that it really happened. The small drink coupon really puts it over the top!
41. The Other Form Of Payment
I went out to buy tobacco, but when I got to the register and the clerk rang me up, I noticed that I had forgotten my purse at home and only had about $2 in my pocket in loose change. The tobacco was $5. On a whim, I said, "Well then, I have to pay the other way. Give me one of the scratch card lottery tickets, please".
I bought the ticket, scratched the symbols open, and almost screamed out loud. I'd won. I proceeded to hand the ticket back to the guy without saying a word. Because winnings smaller than $200 will be cashed out directly, I got to leave the store with my tobacco and $95 in cash, leaving a very perplexed store clerk behind. The best thing is, I managed to keep a totally straight face the whole time.
As though winning that $100 would be the most natural thing to happen in this situation.
42. One Ruler To Rule Them All
When I was in sixth-grade English class I asked my teacher if I could borrow a ruler. When she handed the ruler to me, I flipped it over to see my Dad's name etched on the back, and underneath that was my sister's name. I told the teacher that the ruler had their names on it, and that I was going to take it home. My sister had apparently lost the ruler when she was in the same class eight years prior.
It was my Dad's ruler when he was in middle school in the 1950s.
43. Gas Station Surprise
My mom was pumping gas at a gas station, and found a wallet on the ground. As she was walking into the store to turn it in, she got curious and looked inside. She was stunned to see my driver's license and bank card. I had been to that gas station a bit earlier, and my wallet must have fallen out of my bag. Thank goodness she picked it up and not someone else!
Wikimedia Commons, Santeri Viinamäki
44. Lost And Found
I used to fly out to Nevada to play in backgammon tournaments each November. One year, I was flying out of Connecticut on American Airlines (AA). It was chilly in the Northeast that time of year and I had arrived at the airport wearing a heavy jacket. While I was at the AA counter getting a boarding pass and checking luggage, I decided I ought to stuff my jacket into the large suitcase I was checking as it was a balmy 75 degrees in Vegas.
So right there on the scale at the end of the AA counter I opened my bag, grabbed my wallet and papers out of the jacket, crammed it into the bag, snapped it closed, thanked the attendant for waiting, and headed off to the gate. So I got to Vegas for a five-day stay. I ended up having a really good tournament—my best ever actually—by cashing in three separate events and placing second in the Open Doubles.
All told, it was a great trip. I was returning home about $6,000 richer! When I arrived at the airport for the return flight, I found that my driver’s license was nowhere to be found. Oh well, it was a small price to pay. They let me on the flight and I got a new license when I got back home. Jump forward about one year, and I was to Vegas again for backgammon.
Again, I was on AA, and again I found myself at the very same counter getting ready to check my luggage and acquire my boarding pass. The guy in front of me was showing his ID and so forth, and the agent dropped his license which fluttered down and slid right into the slim crack alongside the baggage scale. She had to grab a piece of paper to slide into the crack and coax the license out of the end of the crack.
Well, out popped a license which she held up to read, and I saw an odd, perplexed expression cross her face as she looked from the man to the license. This was not that man's license. I was watching this all unfold as I was next in line. And I am like, wait a minute, no way!! I stepped forward and said, “I believe that is MY license”.
And sure enough, it was!! One year had elapsed and my license had sat here the whole while until the moment I was there. That is just beyond freaky! A year earlier when stuffing my jacket into my bag, I had laid my loose license on top of my bag before I opened it and it had slid down into that very same crack. The attendant was also able to find the other guy's license too but his only spent a few seconds lost down there.
Mine spent a whole year down there, only to resurface in my presence. Cue the Twilight Zone music.
45. Clown Crossing
I saw a clown get hit by a truck one time. No joke, it was a clown in full costume, red nose, funny hair, big shoes. He ran out into traffic in a particularly busy area and was dancing around like he was playing live-action Frogger. Well, he lost. A pickup truck hit him, he got launched, and the impact knocked his shoes off. I was at a red light in the intersection when it happened.
My brain couldn't really process what happened, and all those years of depression and Adult Swim made my default reaction "laughter".
46. Red Light, Green Light
You know about the chicken crossing the road, right? Well, I was driving home one day, and when I pulled up at a red light I saw a cat sitting by the side of the road. I watched the cat for a while while I waited for the light to change. When the green light came on, the cat got up and crossed the road! It was the craziest thing, and no one believes me!
47. Odd Numbers
This odd coincidence happened during my first week of military service. We were issued our personal rifles, and we were told to memorize the six-digit serial number that was stamped on each part. It turns out it was easier than expected, because it was identical to the bank card PIN I had been using for years.
48. Wrong Number, Right Person
So, I was at work, replacing a modem for my boss. I had removed the modem and connected a telephone to test that it had a dial-tone. Soon after, the phone rang. It didn't make much sense, because that phone line had only been used for outgoing calls from the computer. When I picked up, the person on the other line just said, “Hey man, you want to see a movie later”? My jaw DROPPED.
I recognized the voice. It was a friend of mine. I was really confused for a second and said something like, “Josh? How did you get this number”? He said he called my home phone number. He must have misdialed my number, and accidentally dialed the number for my boss’s modem line at work. He called the wrong number, got the wrong house, and the right person picked up, on a phone that had only been connected for two minutes in the past two years.
The odds must be astronomical. It was a weird coincidence that I'll always remember.
49. Beyond The Grave
I went on a bike ride with my husband last week. I said, "Let's go over to that cemetery on Main Street and read gravestones." We got there and I said, "Let's look at that statue and then go to that middle part. Every time I drive by, I want to look at that middle part...by that big statue and those benches.” We go over there, and when I saw it—I froze. My husband froze.
Right next to the big statue is my paternal grandmother's grave. My father's mother. We googled her death date and confirmed it—it is a unique name, so I had little doubt. I've had no relationship with my father or his mother since age four. I had no idea she was buried there. My husband and I have never walked around a graveyard before. We live in a huge metropolitan area with many cemeteries.
This isn't a small town where everyone is buried in the town cemetery. I know no one else in that cemetery. For some reason, that specific area of the cemetery always interested me when I drove by. It seems to have larger statues and a ton of benches and oversized monuments.
50. Mistaken Identity
I used to go to college with this guy named Sam. Sam was a pretty quirky guy. We had classes together twice a week and were pretty new friends. Anyway, I was walking down the strip of shops between the dorms and the campus and I saw Sam across the road. I walked up to him, said hi, and was friendly. After a short conversation, I excused myself and said, "Bye Sam". He replied, "I'm not Sam".
Oh, come on. It's Sam. He talks the same way and held the conversation fine. I noticed nothing different. He claimed to be Sam's identical twin brother. I called Sam on his bull—pretending to be his own twin is the kind of thing I'd expect out of Sam after knowing him for three months. No, no. He insists. He's not Sam.
Then prove it, Sam. I made this complete stranger, who had no idea who I was, pull out photo identification, like I'm the campus officer. Is it Sam? Nope. He was his identical twin brother, whom Sam just never mentioned. Seriously? How have I known this guy for three months and not known about his twin brother? I bet this joker has set me up. I went and confronted Sam about it before our lecture later in the day.
I told him the story. “Not a chance”, said Sam. He didn’t believe my story. He didn’t believe I'd interrogated his brother and he thought I was making it up. “I swear, it's all true”, I said. Prove it, he said. He called his brother. I was super confident—but I was thrown for a loop again. Turns out, the guy says he has no idea what Sam's talking about!
Sam's brother continued to claim to not recognize me for like seven more months until their birthday party—the only time I'd ever manage to get them in the same place.
Sources: Reddit, ,
