We all have that one friend at parties. You know, the party pooper, the buzzkill, the wet blanket...you get the idea. There are some people in this world who always seem to find the right moment to drain the fun out of the room, the proverbial vampires of good times. Before us lay tales of fun turned foul, but don’t fret, because however terrible these experiences may be at the time, reflecting on them is often much more amusing.
1. Check the Tapes
It was a party for the cast of a musical I was in during my senior year. We were all having a great time and we decided to watch a video of the performance that the host’s mom managed to record (she had permission to record the show). In the middle of the recording, you could hear the host’s mom whispering while recording.
It was obvious she wasn’t aware the phone picked up her voice. She was talking about how her son deserved the leading role, not the guy who was actually cast. She was basically heckling his every move during the show. The party ended pretty quickly after that. The poor lead guy was really hurt. He wanted to go to school for theatre but that event really discouraged him.
2. Empty Promises
My friend used to work for a company that had always promised the IT department a trip to Hawaii for working through a couple of rough years without pay raise, with a promise that they also wouldn’t cut any personnel. It was a verbal promise that once they were back to profitable, the IT department would get an all-expenses-paid trip.
Back around October of 2015, they were gathered in the largest meeting room for a meeting with the president. There were snacks, drinks, pizza, etc. It was assumed that it was a celebration for a good year and they'd get the promised trip. It was a mass layoff since IT had been outsourced. All credentials were locked during the meeting and everyone was asked to leave the premise right after.
3. One Small Slip
It was the 50th anniversary for my old rugby club. People were flying in from all around the world, 150+ people ranging from late teens to 70s. We went on a big pub crawl, combined with my dad’s 60th birthday, the night before the big dinner. One of the old boys fell over outside the local pub, hit his head on the concrete, and was knocked out.
Ambulance was called and we helped him get into it, explained what happened to the medics and off he went with his brother to the hospital. We laughed it off and went back to drinking (by far not the first time a player has gone to hospital after a night out). The night after at the big suit and tie dinner, one of the old boys was wondering where him and his brother were, so he called the brother and asked if he was okay.
He wasn't. He had a brain aneurysm and had little to no chance of surviving. A room full of 150+ tough as nails men and women went from having the time of their life, to pretty much silent. He was gone four days after.
4. A Little Rain Won’t Hurt
I was on a Chicago to New York flight. We all get on the plane but were delayed taking off due to a heavy storm going on. About 20 minutes in, everybody was still pretty calm until the pilot announces they're working on getting our baggage loaded because it's been sitting on the tarmac this entire time. The entire plane looks out the windows, sees all our luggage just sitting there in the pouring rain uncovered, and starts freaking out.
5. Karma Hurts
I was at a really fun party which turned sour when one of the people in the room punched his pregnant girlfriend for no apparent reason. He mysteriously fell down a flight of stairs about 20 seconds later, with no witnesses to what happened.
6. Just a Game
I made the mistake of playing Scattergories with my mother. She said, "No Foreign words, you have to use English words." Fine, fair enough. She then called out someone for using a foreign word (I can't remember, it's been 10 years). He took off the points. The next freaking round, she used three foreign words. I called her out on it and she said it was no big deal, it was just a game. I argued that not only had SHE set the rule but that she already called someone out for doing it.
She cussed me out and left the room. The Thanksgiving family time was over, as pretty much everyone decided that it was the time to leave. Total time from game start to end of the family time? Six minutes.
7. Cracking a Cold One
The other day, on Thanksgiving, my brother cracked a cold one right as we were about to eat. Problem was, we were at my mom's and she's super anti-booze (unless she wants some). Well, since my brother cracked one, my dad did too, and my mom turned into something from the exorcist. Screaming, cussing my dad and brother, hurling personal insults, looking for keys so she could threaten to leave, the whole nine yards.
But that wasn't even the worst part: I hadn’t been able to see them in months, so I had just driven 3+ hours with my kids and my husband and we had just gotten there 30 mins prior. I just sat there awkwardly staring at my husband while the brawl took place until we could sneak out on the porch to hide. Then we all ate in silence. How was your holiday?
8. The Joker
I’d already seen Batman with Jack Nicholson as the Joker. I went again with my uncle (who's not much older than me) and a few of his friends. Remember that scene where Joker (who has yet to be seen as Joker) is talking to the crime boss who tried to have him offed? The boss (Grissom) calls Joker “Jack,” his real name. And Joker responds with “Jack’s dead. You can call me (steps out of shadows for the big reveal) Joker.”
At “Jack’s dead...”, everyone watched the film melt onto the camera, the screen going black. I laughed my bum off but everyone there who hadn’t already seen the movie lost their freaking minds. I actually thought I was going to witness a riot.
9. No Joking Matter
I was on a team of about 15 people on a special project for a regional Internet Service Provider. During the bi-weekly team meeting, the manager was super pumped about how far ahead of schedule we were due to some new processes we came up with. After about 20 minutes of “atta-boys” the manager concluded with telling us all we were being laid off in the same tone of voice she used for the whole meeting issuing a bunch of praise.
Most of us awkwardly laughed for a couple seconds thinking she was joking. She was not.
10. Heart-Stopping Silence
Back when I waited tables, a guy was walking to his table and had a massive heart attack. EMTs said he was gone before he hit the floor. I've never seen a restaurant go so silent, so quickly.
11. False Gratitude
I used to work for this new performance hall in NYC, and one morning during our morning meetings, one of our managers thought she was being unique and uplifting by ending our meeting by forcing us to say, "One thing I'm grateful to (company name here) for is...." All 30 of us were pretty happy to just start the day since it was a beautiful day out, but that soured our mood really quick.
A bunch of people got hostile with answers like "the wonderful health care we are given" (we have none) and "the magnificent hours" (hours are terrible and inconsiderate).
12. A Bit Too Much to Drink
The bride and groom, plus the six-person wedding party, finished a handle of fireball after the wedding ceremony right before coming into the reception. Their introduction song was a swing dance song, and the Groom tries to swing her under and between his legs. She had her head thrown back, and smacked the back of her head on the ground, knocking her unconscious for five minutes.
To top it off, he stepped on her skirt before he swung her, ripping a huge tear in her dress. People started leaving before the dinner began.
13. Robot Uprising
800 guys in a grocery warehouse being told it was going to be automated in five years. One fella yelled out asking, “If we fought the robots and won, could we keep our jobs?”
14. Blowing Up
A couple of friends and I were having a low-key get together in high school. We were all drinking and having a good time playing beer pong and whatnot at a girl’s house. Next thing we know, we hear a loud bang outside. The proximity of the sound and direction was right where all of our cars were parked. We all went out there to check and see what happened.
My car had its tire blown up and mirror ripped off. My buddy's car parked next to mine also had the mirror ripped off. So now a bunch of underage kids who had been drinking had to apprehensively call the authorities to file a report. While the officers are on their way, we discover a cell phone that belonged to the girl’s ex-boyfriend.
My car looked very similar to the car owned by the guy who she had been hooking up with, so that's why my vehicle received the bulk of the damage. I had absolutely nothing to do with their love triangle. The authorities show up and were super rude to me. I casually cursed a couple of times just being upset, you know, since my car's tire just blew up and the mirror got ripped off for no reason.
The cop said if I kept cursing, he was going to write me a ticket...and I had to deal with all of this while pretty inebriated. Everyone was pretty upset by the whole thing.
15. Snow Day
A bad snowstorm started at about 4 am a few years ago. My co-workers and I were texting each other thinking there was no way they would they make us come into our job that day (we are non-essential workers). We were all home waiting for the email to go out regarding whether or not our boss would give us the day off.
The email finally goes out around 7:30 am saying that we would have a shorter day but everyone must show up for work by 9 am. So, I layered up, cleaned off my car, shoveled out of my parking spot and headed to work on VERY precarious roads. I got to work on time and was greeted by my co-workers who were all pretty happy just to have gotten there without getting into an accident on the way over. All of the clients and meetings had been canceled, so there was a party-like atmosphere.
Just as we were talking about playing charades, we get another email from the boss saying because road conditions were so bad, they were closing the agency after all and everyone had to go home. This was 20 minutes after we had all gotten there. I have never seen over 20 people all scream ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME at the same time before. It was absurd and everyone was livid.
16. Delay Dilemma
I was in Portugal during the FIFA World Cup. I get there early to find a street bar in the center of town with a big screen. The place is soon packed. England start really well and everyone is singing and laughing. All of a sudden, the bar up the road erupts into massive cheers. Lots of people go out into the road to see.
Apparently, someone just dropped an entire tray of drinks. We all laugh and go back to watching the game. 10 seconds later, England score. Our bar erupts and we spill into the street. The bar up the road is deadly silent now. Weird. The game starts again and the bar up the road starts shouting again. Nothing going on in the game. What’s going on? People look up the road again. We can’t quite work it out.
Then a really bad tackle goes in and the shoe finally drops: Our bar's TV is the only one using satellite and all the other bars have cable. Our feed is about 20 seconds behind everywhere else. Every exciting moment is audible about 20 seconds before we get to see it. Have never seen a bar empty so fast in all my life.
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17. Pizza Party
One day at work, we had an hour meeting followed by a planned pizza party as a reward for meeting some safety goal. They'd been telling us all week not to worry about food because they were getting pizza. Well, after the meeting we were sitting around waiting for the pizza to get there when our boss comes in and tells us there was a failure of communication and no one actually ordered the pizza.
If you want to see 50 factory workers go from excited to out for blood in less than a second, that's what you tell them.
18. Spoiler Alert
I was a manager at a movie theatre when Avengers: Endgame came out. It was absolute chaos (I’m talking 24-hour showings, with showtimes starting as often as we could squeeze in, constantly surrounded by teenage employees who were struggling with hordes of people). It was a big-name theatre, one of the fancier ones that had restaurants and bars built into the theatre.
We often got special recipes for limited time only food and drinks for the restaurant to make based off of movies that we were showing (hot wings for Lion King, special drinks for Fantastic Beasts, etc.). One of the brilliant minds up at corporate decided to name a drink “Stark’s demise.” We had to put up dozens of signs with a very obvious spoiler to a very popular movie well before the movie even started showing because corporate required us to and we were subject to random visits at any time by corporate.
We had MANY complaints and had to give out lots of free stuff to make up for it before corporate mailed us stickers with the new drink name to cover the signs, because apparently, they got enough customer complaints that they finally realized it was a bad idea in the first place.
19. Questionable Choice of Words
I was bartending on one of our restaurant’s busiest days. The place was packed, and man and a boy of about nine-years-old couldn't stop wrestling and giggling. The man, who was about 30-years-old started repeatedly yelling, "I'm gonna grab your weenie!" Yeah, the whole place dropped completely silent. The mother grabs the kid and says they need to chill out.
20. Jewish Lightning
I was at a party at a woman's house. Everyone was talking and happy. They mention a local business burned down. An inebriated guy yells, "Must have been Jewish Lightning!" The entire party goes silent, awkwardly glancing between him and the hostess, who just so happens to be Jewish. The man looks around, thinks for a moment, and realizes his mistake. They didn't hear him! So, he yells louder, "MUST HAVE BEEN JEWISH LIGHTNING!"
21. Welcoming Party
Our plane landed home after my company spent a year in Iraq. Our company commander previously told us to tell our families that they shouldn’t come out to the tarmac to welcome us back because “It would be a freaking circus and you’ll just see them later anyway.” Stepping off the plane, who are the first and only people we see? Our freaking commander’s wife, three kids, parents, grandparents, brothers, and numerous cousins/friends.
22. Not Mine
Family members waiting outside the baby ward, and the husband comes out with a shocked expression, sits down and says, "The kid's not mine." Everyone becomes confused, then horrified. A day later, I could see the husband talking to who I presume are his in-laws, and they are begging him not to leave their daughter, saying they'll do something about the baby. What does that even mean?!
23. Spoilsport
In college, I took a PE class. Since the first day there was a guy—he looked to be in his late 30s to early 40s—who would complain about the rules/syllabus of the class. Nobody liked sitting with him before class, because he would begin to rant about some mundane thing that happened in his writing class or whatever it was he chose to be angry about that day, and he'd go on to say, "All these college kids don't know how good they have it..."
I was usually the one sitting with him because I didn't want him to feel left out, and I figured if he let it out on me, he would leave the others alone. That class was really shy because this guy was overly competitive/opinionated so nobody really wanted to pass/take the ball to/from him. One day he didn't show up and the chemistry in the class was so amazing.
Everybody was happy and encouraging. Sportsmanship and fun ruled the court. People were talking and laughing until the end of class where almost everybody left in a group to the lockers and even after that they still hung out by the gym. The next day, he didn't show up and the chemistry started to build to even higher heights than the day before.
Suddenly, he arrived. He was about 15 minutes late and the atmosphere completely disappeared. Everything got awkward and people weren't playing, they were just participating. No more shouting or laughing, no "good try" or "great shot!" It was just quiet. It really made me realize the impact a person can have with a sour attitude. I always wished the teacher would have a talk with the guy, but what would they say?
I saw the guy once more during winter term but never again after that.
24. Priorities
A dude decided to pop the question to his girlfriend...at a work holiday party...she said no...both parties began to cry inconsolably. All the guys in the room tried to cheer up the guy with their tales of woe. All the women in the room took the woman aside and did whatever the female version of the above was. It went from a fairly happy event to a complete disaster within minutes.
On the plus side, while all of this stuff was going down, no one was hitting the buffet so I cleaned the heck up.
25. Until the Last Minute
We had to work on a holiday but management didn't, so there was nobody to unlock the building. We waited outside from 7 am until 7:45 and were told that if we didn't get in by 8 am, we could go home. At 7:55 the manager shows up and lets us in.
26. Horsing Around
I used to work at some racing stables and lived in a notorious flood zone. One night it was absolutely pouring down and I knew some of the roads would be flooded, so I text my boss at about 4 am (work was 4:45 am) asking if he needed me in, as I was pretty sure the roads would be flooded in parts. He replied saying I needed to be there, so off I went in my partner's truck just in case.
Huge parts of the road were submerged and I had to take several different routes just to get there. I arrived at maybe 5 am due to diversions, only to be met by one of the other workers who was heading home. Apparently, the boss thought it was too wet to work the horses so we weren't needed. I was livid and honestly debated sending him a bill for the diesel used.
27. Metal Rage
I wasn’t there, but when the Metallica concert in New Delhi was canceled. 30,000 fans were already at the venue, super excited and waiting for 3+ hours for the concert to begin. India is not exactly a hot destination for big musicians, so when Metallica came over for their first concert in India ever, people flew in from all over the country to attend. Metallica is pretty popular in India as well.
I hear angry fans rushed the stage and broke equipment after the cancellation was announced.
28. Awkward Silence
This is more of a mild story, but it was still very uncomfortable. It was at work during break, a whole bunch of us were outside. One guy asks my coworker if he has any kids, and says that he likes to dress up as Santa for the young ones. So, my coworker tells him, “I have a daughter who just turned 20,” and he replied with, “Well she can definitely come sit on my lap!”
The silence after that sentence was so painful. Everyone ended up going back inside after that. It was super awkward.
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29. Out of Touch
I didn't witness it personally, but heard about it and the aftermath. Back in 2006, an Army unit was being extended beyond its original 12-month deployment to Iraq (this was the first extension for the surge and before it became common). Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld traveled to the unit’s home base to address the families of the soldiers and let them know why these folks weren't coming home, and why the few who had made it home were having to turn around and go back.
It wasn't a terribly happy crowd to start with, but they were willing to hear him out and be respectful. Apparently, he came in incredibly conceited about the whole situation and basically made a comment along the lines of, "They are soldiers and will do what they are told and like it." He was completely lacking in empathy or understanding and just expected everyone to accept and support the decision.
This comment and demeanor immediately turned the crowd hostile, and the town hall was quickly canceled. Rumsfeld had to be escorted out by his security detail.
30. Lost Bracelet
At a wedding. After the ceremony and before reception started, everyone was having drinks when the groom came in and started yelling about how an expensive gift had been stolen. He was rushing around yelling and screaming, then after about 30 minutes of all the guests searching everywhere, they worked out one of the bridesmaids had put it in her car for safekeeping and forgot.
It was 100% an accident. It was a bracelet the groom purchased as a gift for the bride that got put into a bag with other gifts for safekeeping in her car. She forgot the bracelet box was in the bag as well. It really left a weird vibe over the whole reception. It wasn't a great way to start their marriage, with him in a rage.
31. Urine Trouble
In 2007, the Mars Volta played at White River Amphitheater. They got through about four songs and then quit in a rage on stage. Turns out the guitarist was having speaker issues and someone threw a bottle of pee on him. He smashes his guitar on the speakers and walks off mid-song. The lead singer says, "This is what you get when you build an Amphitheater on an Indian burial ground. I'll give $10,000 to anyone who brings me the head of the guy that threw pee on us!"
Security ran out to escort them off, and we had a full hour and a half wait until the Red Hot Chili Peppers came out. Everything turned sour. Also, this is all available to watch on YouTube.
32. Gay Anthem
I was helping to run a Christian disco when I was a teenager back in the 80s. Everyone was happy and dancing until I innocently played "Tainted Love." The entire dance floor cleared in seconds because apparently, Tainted Love is a "Gay Anthem".
33. Confessing Sins
Not my story, but a friend of mine was attending a Christian Pentecostal summer camp a few years ago with some high school students and other adult leaders. For anyone who is unfamiliar with Pentecostal youth camps, the evening church services can get pretty lively and charged with emotion. People being slain in the spirit, speaking in tongues, lots of worship and confessing sins. That sort of thing.
There were probably a couple hundred students, so things may have gotten chaotic. Anyway, my friend and one of the other adult leaders get pulled on stage to confess sins to the audience. Not sure who thought this was a good idea, but maybe it wasn't planned. The other adult leader, a nice guy in his 20s (newly married), confesses to the packed auditorium of high schoolers hyped up on Jesus that he used to sleep with his dog.
The evening service pretty much ended after that.
34. The Denier
I was in a local independently run bookshop in my home town and it was full of people happily searching the labyrinth of books. The owner was talking to one particular shopper about World War II history books. They seemed to be having a proper good chinwag and it was kind of obvious that most of the other shoppers were tuned into their conversation—after all it was a very interesting talk they were having about history—right up until the shopper said something along the lines of..."You know there's actually a lot of evidence to suggest that the holocaust didn't exactly happen."
The tension in that room went up so quick I could smell it, it felt like we were all walking underwater, then the shop owner freaking exploded and threw the guy out of the shop. We then all perused the shelves in silence...
35. Eye Opener
This story took place my freshman year of high school. I was in an extremely small 5th-period theatre course with maybe about 10 or 15 other people in it. We were a very well-behaved class that acted more like a family than anything else. It was fun. One day we got a substitute teacher who I'll call Dee. Dee was very old.
She had short white hair, a permanent scowl, and always wore a jacket that looked like a duster. That particular day she was angry and you could tell. She had a difficult time with the computer playing the movie so she was yelling, fussing, and blaming her ignorance on us. In our class, we had several tech-savvy people, but she refused all help because we were too "risky."
Eventually, she gets it to work, giving us the chance to ignore her. Around 10 minutes into the film, someone realized she hasn’t said anything in a while, so they look over at her. Her eyes are open, still, and unresponsive—it was terrifying. They turned to the rest of the class (who were still focused on the movie) and alerted them. Everyone begins to freak out.
People are taking flash pictures of her and waving, anything to get her to respond. Eventually, she woke up, yelled at us, then went back to sleep with her eyes open once more. It was the freakiest situation ever, but the good news is that I never saw that sub working for my school again.
36. Bad Recovery
We were discussing road safety with the headmaster. One of the pupils pointed out that there had been a car crash right in front of her just as she had been about to step out onto the road earlier that week, which had been really scary. The headmaster laughed and asked her what she was wearing and if it had been her fault.
Absolute silence for ten seconds as he squirmed and then mumbled, “I mean were you wearing a ball gown, or...” as if that had been what he’d meant. Pathetic and excruciating. A 50-year-old man to a teenage girl.
37. Contractor Woes
I worked as a contractor at a tech company, hoping to get hired on as a full-timer. There is only one day left on my contract and the VP of Engineering calls me in. Oh, good! She tells me that she was really happy with my work, and thanks for putting in so much effort to make it work. And uh, good luck in the future! Bye!
So, I was quite disappointed. Then they had a big company meeting, and as I was heading to the conference room, the VP stopped me and said, "Hey, sorry, this is for full-timers only." Okay, well not only was I disappointed, but I felt like some rejected outsider too, after two months there too.
So, I'm sitting at my desk as my friend coworkers go into the conference room. 10 minutes later, they all walk out, loudly talking and I ask my buddy what's going on. The company ran out of money and is bankrupt. Going out of business as of today. Ah. So, all my coworkers are suddenly unemployed and very unhappy. I, on the other hand, horribly, feel great. Not because they all lost their jobs, but that I know that I wasn't rejected for a full-time job because my work sucked or they didn't like me.
I felt grateful to have even had the contract at that point. Then we all went across the street to a bar and spent the rest of the afternoon there. It's amazing to see people in the morning working hard to hit deadlines and goals, trying to solve some technical issues, then in the afternoon, just say screw it, who cares now, and go drinking.
38. Christmas Bonus
The president of our company got completely plastered at our Christmas party. His speech started off funny because he was slurring hard and he was playing on it. Then he started talking about how he came from nothing and became something. Then he proceeded to tell us how if it wasn't for us working so hard and keeping our clients happy, he wouldn't have been able to accomplish building his mega-mansion for himself and his family, nor would he have been able to afford his new Mercedes Benz.
Then came awkward muttering, followed by him directing us to, "Drink up and enjoy, because due to budget cuts, the future Christmas party/bonus budget is canceled from here on out." I'm amazed no one got up and punched him in the face. Many of my coworkers relied on that bonus. No one was impressed. Except for one person, the rest of us quit within the first few months into the new year.
39. Comedy Homicide
My wife and I went to go see a comedy show. About halfway in, the comedian seemed particularly annoyed with one woman in the crowd because she kept looking at her phone instead of paying attention to him. At some point, he essentially stops the entire show and starts to pick on her instead. It started out simple enough, "Look at this woman; her life is so important, blah, blah, blah."
Harmless enough at first and the crowd is on his side. Eventually, she decides to defend herself and starts jabbing back. Calling him a hack or whatever. Then he escalates his attacks by cussing at her. It was so awkward that the entire audience went quiet. Then, to make it even worse, some people in the audience started taking her side.
It got really ugly and he never really recovered. The comedian apologized profusely and said he was out of line. But it was too late. Several groups of people outright walked out. We stayed until the end but it was really uncomfortable.
40. White Elephant
My dad's family did a family white elephant for years. His youngest brother, a "happy accident," was probably 30-years-old when I was 15-years-old. He was notorious for always contributing not just dumb white elephant gifts, but actively bad and cheap gifts. This particular year was no different. It was my first year contributing, and I can't quite remember what I put in, but it was a solid gift despite my meager minimum wage, fast-food job pay.
As the white elephant rolls along, everyone is laughing and hee-hawing at the gifts. We always made a rule that a gift could be stolen no more than three times. Being the broke and hungry high schooler I was, I had been targeting a Chipotle gift card. Obviously, a high-profile gift. I took it the second time in the second to last round.
My uncle swiped it from me in the last round, and it was like a record scratch moment in a movie...since it was a whole family affair, it was typical custom that the older folks take the bad gifts, and especially a faux pas to take a good gift when you contributed a bad gift. That is literally the only time I've seen my dad (and two of my other uncles) ever yell at someone else in their family.
Pretty sure that was our last family white elephant.
41. Caught Red Handed
When I was a kid, there were about eight families in our area who were a good group of friends. We had regular holidays together, kids were all close friends too and in the same classes at school etc. The backstory was that one of the families kept noticing money going missing from a drawer in the master bedroom. They had an older son who was getting the blame, but he was denying it.
Fast forward a few weeks and it’s their younger kid’s birthday, and everyone is at their house. The usual script was the kids’ party would be late afternoon, then in the evening the kids would end up playing games in some bedroom as the adults had a few drinks. The kids were happy because we got to stay up late with all our friends, and the parents got to have a few guilt-free drinks. This night was going as normal until we were all shuffled out and went home earlier than usual. We got the full, brutally awkward story the next day.
Once the kids were out of the way, the owners of the house had turned on their tv and pressed play on a video. On-screen there was CCTV footage of the bedroom where the money had been going missing. Clearly in the video you could see the wife of one of the other couples, sitting in that very room, going into the drawer and taking money.
Apparently, they switched off the video, and said, “What you saw is exactly what it looked like,” and asked that couple to leave. Everyone else left shortly after.
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