Secrets have a negative connotation, right? Well, it’s about to change. Because these heartfelt stories are for people to live their lives through rose-colored lenses. These white lies are to protect loved ones or cherished memories, but more importantly, they exist to sprinkle a little hope into people's lives. Why? Because we all need it.
1. That’s What BFFs Do
My friend is a major, major, Death Cab for Cutie fan. They came to our city a couple of years ago, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to afford the tickets to go. She was upbeat about it, but I know she was devastated by it.
I bought tickets. Two days before the show, I told her that the friend I originally planned to take couldn’t go, and would she please come with me. There was no other friend. I told her I loved the band and would be sad to miss them. She of course accepted and had the time of her life.
She’s doing much better now, but every couple of Christmases or Birthdays, she gets me some merchandise because “She knows how much I love the band”.
I can’t stand their music. I have them blocked on Spotify. But now it’s gone too far and I can’t tell her.
2. The Jewelry Maker Is My Hero
First marriage to my late wife, on the day of the wedding, the ring got stolen out of my car. I was freaking out. My two best men went into overdrive and took a picture of the ring and went to, I don't know how many jewelry stores, explaining what had happened and asking if they had a similar ring.
They went to this great jewelry maker, and he said, "I have something close, give me a bit and I can make it perfect".
He worked hard and got it done with about an hour to spare, plus he managed to get my window fixed.
The three of us are the only ones who know. I ended up using that jewelry maker for any jewelry I needed and well I haven't stopped yet.
He ended up telling my best man to not worry about the price and for me to come down after the honeymoon to work it out. I did and he gave it to me at the cost of the materials. He is a great guy. He retired during COVID.
3. Cards From Mama
When my wife lost her life, she had been working on “special occasion” letters for all of our kids. Towards the end, her illness had spread to her brain, and she wasn’t able to focus on writing much, and when she did, it was often unintelligible gibberish.
I tried to help her by taking dictation, but she said it would mean more if it was in her handwriting, and wanted to finish it. She went away for good after only getting through a handful of letters for our eldest child, leaving addressed envelopes only for our other two kids.
I knew this would be devastating for the three kids, and possibly create conflict, so I paid a woman who specialized in calligraphy to duplicate my wife’s handwriting. I gave her the content, channeling my wife’s comments she made to me about what I thought would be meaningful words to our three kids when I had helped her dictate a few.
And, as she wanted, I have passed them out on special occasions wedding dates, birth of first child dates, first day of college dates, etc.
My kids don’t know. They’ve even shared the ones she wrote with ones written by her surrogate and thus far the secret remains safe.
I haven’t told anyone else this but Reddit and hope it stays here a secret as well. I’ll take it to my grave. I consider it harmless as it was her intent, but illnesses rob so much from people afflicted with it…including their best, most sincere attempts at helping others cope with the loss themselves.
4. A Morning Chaos
I was about ten years old and was pretending to be sick to not go to school. This was the 1980's so the old-school, glass tube, mercury-filled thermometers were still a thing.
My dad was getting ready to leave for work as I worked my magic to convince my mom to let me stay home for the day. Neither one of them was having it. I persisted.
Out of frustration, my mom grabbed the thermometer and put it under my tongue. I knew it would read 98.6 and this was my only chance not to go to school for the day.
Both of my parents stepped out of the room for a moment. I looked over and saw my dad's piping hot cup of coffee sitting on the counter awaiting his morning commute. I quickly dipped the thermo into the hot java.
It instantly shattered, emptying the harmful mercury into the coffee along with tiny shards of glass. I panicked. In my mind, there were only a couple of possible outcomes. My dad drinks heavy metals and has a lacerated esophagus or I fess up to what I did.
I could hear them coming around the corner about to return to the kitchen. At the last possible second, I swatted my dad's mug off the kitchen counter smashing it on the floor creating a coffee explosion in my mom's freshly cleaned kitchen.
They burst into the kitchen aghast at the mess I created. I reply with a flurry of sorrys and apologize profusely for being clumsy. My dad is furious because now he won't have coffee on his way to work. My mom is angry, and she starts cleaning up the mess.
In the chaos, everyone forgets about my claims of illness. I slipped the remainder of the broken thermos into the trash and went to the bus stop saving my father from a horrible end—at least in my mind at the time. Until this day, I have never told anyone about this.
5. Oh Canada!
I'm Canadian, and in high school, I had a crush on this girl who was originally born in the US. To try and impress her, I pretended I was an American who immigrated to Canada too. I was so committed that I even gave her the address of my old home: it was just a hotel I had stayed in while on vacation in Florida with my family.
Since it was the early 2000s, she never verified. We didn't end up dating, but to this day, I never came clean. I wonder if she still thinks I'm an American.
6. I Gotta Eat The Cake
When I first met my wife's 93-year-old grandma about 13 years ago, she had me try her holiday dish 'congealed salad'. It's lime jello made with condensed milk, and it has pineapple, walnuts, marshmallows, and celery mixed in, and it is poured into a bundt cake pan to set.
It's a terrible, old-time Southern dish. She was so excited to let me try it that I panicked and said it was amazing. She lit up, and every year since then, she has exponentially increased the amount she makes because she knows "How much I love it".
The bundt cake pan has long since been replaced with a literal punch bowl. The rest of the family knows I hate it, and it's just silently accepted that I will eat huge amounts of it each year instead of telling her the truth.
7. When The Messer Becomes The Messee
When I was about 15 or 16, I had a sleepover with about ten of my friends and my sister. I decided to have some fun with them and pretended to sleep talk. They recorded it on a cassette tape, and I figured it would just be a fun harmless prank.
Well, nearly 30 years later, they still keep bringing it up. They still don't know that I was faking, and I don't know how to tell them at this point because so much time has passed. That tape is still floating around. I hate it when they bring it up, and they think it's because I'm embarrassed about sleep-talking.
But the reality is it was just a stupid prank I played when I was a teenager and I just never in a million years thought that it would still be going three decades later. I want this to just end already.
Nobody knows my secret except for you, random strangers on Reddit.
8. Blame It On The Chubby Cat
I've had type one diabetes since I was three years old. On my ninth birthday, my grandma made a birthday cake for me, which was big enough for us all to share at the family party. Since there was so much food, we had plenty of leftover cake for the next few days, which I was only allowed to eat a little bit of.
When no one was around, I snuck into the kitchen and ate a couple of slices of the leftover cake, plus, I picked huge chunks of the icing off. It looked pretty haphazard by the time I snuck away again.
My parents soon found the remains of the cake. Since I'm diabetic, they didn't suspect that it was me who picked up the leftovers. I was usually a very well-behaved kid. They blamed it on our rather chubby cat and promptly deemed it unacceptable for human consumption.
It was a believable scenario because she had stolen human food in the past. Sadly, they threw the rest of the cake out.
I could never own up to it because I would have been in trouble for compromising my blood sugar levels, and for being greedy! My old cat never ratted me out for letting her take the blame, though. Thanks, Molly, rest in peace!
I'm a woman and this was the year 2000, before the medical technology we have now. Back then, I only checked my blood glucose at mealtimes so the crime wouldn't have been evident until the next morning, and that's only if I was honest about my blood glucose level!
There was no such thing as sliding-scale dosage back then so eating more cake was very much a bad idea! Hence only being allowed a little bit.
It was sitting out on the kitchen table and hadn't been wrapped up and put away yet. It was butter icing which made the cat theory a bit more believable, and we didn't have such easy access to info like cat’s taste receptors back then, so this didn't occur to my parents.
9. Bitter But Considerate
Man. My secret story is not as heartwarming as the others on here, but I feel like writing it out anyhow.
My little sister loved dragons and collected little inexpensive statues and toys. I was 15 years old and had my first job working at Friendly’s. I saved up my money to buy her something way out of my price range for her birthday—it was this tiny statue, for over $100! A fortune for a teen.
This was because it was adorable and perfect, a dragon just coming out of an egg. I was so excited to give it to her.
My mom, who honestly has a novel’s worth of issues, had no money. Two nights before my little sister’s birthday, she told me she hasn’t gotten her anything at all, so I gave it to my mom to give to her.
It made me sad not to have much of a present for my sister—I gave her a card and some candy—but I knew her heart would break if mom gave her nothing. 30 years later, and I still haven’t told.
10. Hello Kitty
When I was about 16 or 17, I wanted a cat so badly, and my mum had consistently been saying “No” all my life.
So, I went to the classifieds at the back of the newspaper, found someone giving away free kittens, and I went and got one.
When my mum came home that day, I told her that I met a man down by the docks with a cardboard box full of kittens, and he was going to throw it in the water if he couldn't get rid of them. So, I took one.
She did try to give her away a few times to various friends, but nobody wanted a kitten, and she got attached to her. To the point that she wouldn't let me take her with me when I moved out for university.
She loves telling that story of how we ended up with a cat that I wasn't supposed to get, and that sweet baby lived to be almost 20 in the end. She brought home many mice and birds, and once, a weasel.
I named her Turnip, after Baldrick's Turnip in Blackadder.
Rest in peace Turnip. You lived a lie, but you were loved, and your fake origin story continues to delight at the dinner table!
11. Old Or New?
My daughter lost her favorite stuffed animal and was devastated. I went online and found a replacement on eBay for an insane price because it turns out her stuffed puppy was a collector’s edition and the one, I found was in mint condition.
I then rubbed it in the dirt, washed it a few times, ripped off the leather on its nose, and filled it in with black permanent marker, all so it matched the one she had. We then told her that her puppy had been found and the joy on her face made the expense and time it took crafting it well worth it.
She is thirteen now and still keeps her puppy on her bed. I plan to take this secret to my grave.
12. First Love
I always knew my first boyfriend is gay, and I still agreed to be his girlfriend at the time. He never told me that during the time we were together, and I've never initiated the conversation. We're from a very conservative country, so I understand he was just super scared to come out, or even acknowledge he's gay.
We have never done it or anything, but we could spend a lot of time together as friends and it was awesome. We were 14-15 at the time. He came out to me a few years later and I never said anything.
Many people tried to blame him for lying to me, but I'll protect this guy on my last day. We love each other, he is my family even though we don't talk as much anymore. I live in another country. He was pure and an awesome man. I'll always support him.
13. Magic Keys
In kindergarten, some kid I didn't know too well took one of those plastic clips that hold bread bags together, snapped it in half, and gave me one of the pieces, saying "This is your key to the magic door, and this one is my key to the magic door", and then he left.
That seemed reasonable to me, so I took it home and poked it into any properly sized indentation I could find, to try and find the magic door that it unlocked. After accidentally unscrewing a couple of outlet covers from the wall, I eventually got bored and lost the key somewhere.
But a few days later, it hit me: I had just taken that half of a plastic tab from the kindergarten without asking a grown-up. That was unacceptable! I was a pretty straight-edged kid, so taking away anything at all was about the worst misdeed I could imagine. But here I was, about to have a run-in with the law, and nobody even knew about it.
Anyway, I resolved to never tell anybody about my horrible misdeed, and it has remained a secret until this very day. I hope all of you out there can forgive me.
14. Here’s Your Plan
I worked at Virgin Mobile, now Virgin Plus, so I sold people's phones and cell phone plans to them. I was closing by myself one evening at a kiosk in another mall, I had been asked to cover a shift, when a woman came in pretty close to closing time, like maybe a half-hour before.
She had explained to me that a local women's shelter had given her money to get a sim card and prepaid plan, and they had given her just enough to cover the first month of a specific plan we had.
She was at the women's shelter after fleeing a problematic relationship, had to delete all her social media profiles, change her emails, and phone number, and was even in the process of changing her name because her partner had almost ended her and was looking for her.
I remember I could still see the bruises on her face and arms. The problem was that the shelter hadn't given her enough to cover the taxes. I live in Canada, in a province where the tax rate is 15% or the sim card fee.
She told me she just had to check her bank account to see if there was money in there to pay, even though her ex had drained it after he discovered she'd run. If she covered the taxes herself, she would have had less than two dollars left to her name and the clothes on her back. My heart ached for her, being a survivor of marital problems myself.
I got her phone number and first set it all up and when it got to the total owed, she had taken out her debit card, and I just told her not to worry about it. I didn't make her pay for any of it because I couldn't possibly fathom leaving this woman with no money when she was already scared, hurt, and starting her entire life over.
She immediately started sobbing, thanked me for being so kind, hugged me, and left. I've never told anybody except my current partner, and nobody I worked with.
15. Your Secret Is Safe With Me
In my freshman year of high school, my math teacher was a young lonely woman. To be fair, she overshared a little bit and indicated to us that she wanted to get married but couldn't find anyone.
Somehow, these immature freshmen all let it go. They never made fun of her. Nobody ever did. Literally zero jokes were ever made at her expense. At least, not that I ever knew about.
That was the state of affairs until my senior year when the school hired a new math teacher for seniors. He was roughly the same age as my freshman-year math teacher. And he gave off Sad Lonely Guy vibes. But nobody ever made fun of him either.
About halfway through my senior year, I was wandering around the halls during class for some reason or another. I passed by the freshman teacher's classroom and stopped. There, I saw the two of them standing together in her classroom. They were holding hands, making googly eyes, and smiling at each other. They never saw me.
I started walking again, determined to act like I saw nothing. I never told anyone because I was concerned that if those teachers hadn't been made fun of for being unhappily single, which was sort of a miracle, then their luck could run out now and they might be subjected to inappropriate jokes for finally meeting someone. And I didn't want that.
Their relationship never became public knowledge while they worked together at the school.
16. Best Souvenir Ever!
When I went to college, my parents sold my childhood home and moved to a different town about an hour away. We were all sad to leave it, but it didn’t make sense for them to stay there with an empty nest.
About a decade-and-a-half later, we learned through the grapevine that it had again been sold to a developer who planned to massively “renovate” it, which would render it unrecognizable. Mom and I decided to drive by to see the house one last time before that happened.
It was sad to pull up to the house and see that they had already torn up the lawn and bushes I had planted with my dad when I was a kid, but the house was still untouched.
Mom waited in the car while I went to peek in the window next to the front door. Well, when I was a teenager, I was pretty skinny and used to get into the house by sticking my arm through the mail slot rather than ever carrying a key.
The place was empty, and I impulsively decided to just go for it. My arm barely fit but I managed to unlock the door and got to have the experience of walking through my childhood home one last time. It was an indescribably meaningful experience for me to relive old memories in that space.
On my way back to the car I noticed a little statue peeking out from under the porch—it must have been hidden in the bushes for years—and it turned out to be a bunny statue that had belonged to my mom.
I grabbed it and ran back to the car and my mom floored it out of there before any nosy neighbors noticed us. We drove away laughing our heads off and she still has the bunny statue in her garden to this day!
17. Keeping A Secret For The Ex
My wife was a young mom. She still dated, but for years she "protected" Valentine's Day for her and her son. When she moved into our current house, the Valentine’s Day tradition became getting dinner at the local diner.
One of the first years doing this, they went to pay and were told that someone had paid it forward because they thought it was cute seeing a mom and her kid out on Valentine's Day. They have done the same pay it forward every year since. These days, she and I often spend Valentine's Day together, but the three of us still go to that diner within a few days of Valentine’s Day and still pay forward the bill.
Anyway, the secret I've kept is that the initial pay for her and her son was her dad. He knew about the tradition of going to the diner together and called the diner ahead of time with her name and gave his credit card info to cover it.
He told me this in confidence, so I have kept this secret for him and always played dumb on Valentine's Day about how that cute tradition ever started.
18. Magician’s Assistant
At a Six Flags amusement park, I went with my kids, they had a live magician show, and I got called onto the stage to be a participant in the magician's mind-reading trick. The trick involved the magician drawing something on a pad the audience could see and then telepathically transmitting the image to me to draw, or maybe it was the other way around, I can't remember…
To be sure I could not see or hear anything, a helmet contraption was placed on my head, covering my eyes and ears. Once the helmet was in place, a recording only I could hear played, telling me that everybody in the audience was there to enjoy a good time, urging me not to spoil the fun, then instructed me to draw a triangle, point downward, on the pad of paper in front of me, that I couldn't even see.
It then instructed me to draw a small rectangle that was taller than it was wide on the top, a flat part of the triangle, then draw a star on the point at the bottom of the triangle. The audience was very impressed that I had drawn the magician's Christmas tree, only upside down. Right before the helmet came off, the recording urged me not to tell anyone how the trick was done.
19. Faking It
My parents didn't want me to learn to ride a bike until I turned eight, but I really wanted to learn, so I snuck into the garage when they weren't paying attention and the garage didn't have cars in it and rode my sister's bike in circles and crashed into things until I figured it out.
Then I would sneak out and ride around the neighborhood. This went on for two years, and no one had any idea I was gone, it was the 80s, and being a kid was different back then.
Then, when I was eight, they bought me a bike for my birthday, and I was so excited, I forgot the secret, jumped on, and rode off expertly. "Wow, Magic, you're picking that up fast!" I realized what I had done and pretended to fall off, and then had to "re-learn" for them before I could go riding.
20. Birthday Surprise
My best friend and I work for the same company and our boss went on vacation. His 30th birthday was coming up, so I planned this massive buffet dinner with all of his childhood pals and distant family.
I told his family that our boss was covering the bill and everything, so they'd let me cover it. It cost me about seven thousand. I'd never told anyone, and when they thanked my boss, he played along. It's been ten years and he's still my best pal and I'm wondering what to do for his 40th.
21. All The Parties Are On Us
This just happened over the past few months. My wife's best friend since college has two beautiful kids and is a useless person for an ex-husband. Her oldest was graduating high school this past spring and while she makes enough to support herself and the kids it's tight.
Her ex contributes nothing or very little. Back to graduation, her ex was supposed to pay for the venue for the graduation party, shockingly that didn't happen, so mom covered it. But then, she didn't know how she was going to cover catering.
My wife and I stepped in and offered to cover catering, a custom cake, decorations, and beverages as well as set up and tear down. All the planning and reserving of things occurred in February and March. In April I got laid off from my job.
We still covered everything, but the mom has no idea I lost my job, she would have fought tooth and nail to prevent us from paying for anything. She'll never know and never have to worry about making sure her kid wasn't embarrassed because they couldn't afford a graduation party when all of her friends could.
We are taking Mom and the kids out for Mom's birthday tonight and covering that as well.
22. Anything For My Brother
My brother has had a rough few years and had been trying to figure out what he wanted to do in life for a career. At one point, he was doing door-to-door sales for greener energy during the pandemic. Proud of him for working and trying to find something it was not what he wanted to do but it did give him a lot of perspective.
Fast forward a few years, and he finds his passion in helping people, and after some pretty large life events he begins to train to become a life coach. It is a perfect fit for him. It was the first time I saw him this passionate about a career, but he had no clue how to run the business side.
I connected him with an old colleague who helps small businesses or individuals to have a livelihood but still provides support to people they want to be able to provide. I know how good she is at her job, and she said he was a good fit, and she could train him for $5k over three months.
I paid it happily and told her to come up with some story about why he didn’t need to pay. She has helped him a lot, and he is funneling people to her now for the same help. I haven’t told anyone besides the person helping my brother, it is not important to me that he knows, I’m just super happy and excited to see what he does and the good he will bring to people.
23. For My Dad
My dad was a farmer, and some summers were really dry, which stressed him out because if the crops don’t get enough rain, they ruin or have really low yields.
From about the ages of eight to twelve, whenever it rained a little, I would always sneak out to the rain gauge and add a little water to it. Those couple extra tenths of rain, I thought, would always get him in a good mood. I never did tell him. He is not alive anymore as of 2020.
24. Flip A Coin For Good Luck
Whenever I'm wandering around and I see a penny on the ground that's tails up, I flip it to heads up so that whoever finds it gets good luck. Since most of my time is at work, most of the heads-up pennies are at work.
I did it once in high school on a whim, and an hour or so later, when moving to another class, some girl was having a bad time. I don’t know why because she was crying with her friends, but I heard her go "Hey, I found a heads-up penny. That's...maybe my luck will turn around", and she stopped crying and ended up getting a perfect score on her test the next day.
Ever since then, I always try to flip up pennies to heads so that someone can at least have some good luck, whether it’s a superstition or not.
25. What Are The Odds?
I collect antique glassware. Consequently, I frequently visit thrift stores.
One particularly cold January day, years and years ago, I was at my local large national thrift store, that I won’t name because they’ve become monsters.
As usual, I was looking through the glassware which they had displayed directly across the aisle from children’s clothing.
A family of four was there—mother, father, and two daughters. They were looking at winter coats and boots. The youngest had picked out the loudest, pink glitter coat I have seen in my entire life!
For whatever reason, their card wouldn’t work at the register. I was in line behind them. I heard the mother remark, “I was sure our benefits went on today. Girls, we may have to wait on your coats because Daddy needs the boots for his new job. I don’t have enough money for boots and coats, and I can’t get the card to work”.
As cashier number one kept trying their card, cashier number two offered to check out my purchase at the register on the other side. I told her to put their order on mine and to not mention it. She gave me a conspiratorial smile and nodded.
As I gathered my things and left, I heard her say, “Let me try my machine. Sometimes that one is so finicky”.
Satisfied that I had released some positive energy into the world, I went home and never thought anything more of it.
Until next week…
I stopped by after-school care one late afternoon to pick up my youngest daughter. The kids were out on the playground. My daughter came running up to me with another little girl in tow whom she described as her “…new best friend!”
The girl told me that she was new to the school. Their family had recently moved to our town because her father got a new job here. After all, his old job “closed”.
It was then I noticed the pink, sparkly coat…
True to her word, my daughter has been “best friends” with that girl since that day. I’ve become friends with the girl's mother and father because of her friendship with my daughter.
The father quickly rose in the ranks of our local factory. He’s now a manager. The mother and I have run fundraisers for various local charities and, at one point we worked at the same place.
She doesn’t know that I helped her family when they were at their lowest point.
And she never will.
26. A White Lie
When I was 16, we were told that my grandpa, my mom’s father, was in the hospital. We couldn’t get a flight and the only people that could leave immediately were my mom and me. My mom was too emotional to drive, so I drove her for 11 hours to the hospital. I had just gotten a learner’s permit.
We got there at about 2 am, but he was already in a very bad state. At the time we knew he was unlikely to come out of it and my mom was struggling with the fact that she wouldn’t be able to talk to him one last time, but I stood in the hospital room as she tried her best to talk to him.
After my mom and I left the hospital to find a hotel, my mom broke down about him not being able to hear her or say anything back. I told her that when she said she loved him, his heart rate increased on the monitor and that he may not have been able to say it back, but he knew she was there with him and that he loves her too.
I’m not sure if that’s true or not. He never woke up. He was gone. But this was 10 years ago, and she still “knows” that he heard her. I’ll keep this secret for sure.
27. Let’s Stay In The Friendzone
I had such a huge crush on one of my best friends, but she was dating another one of my best friends. When they eventually broke up, she was living too far away for anything to ever be possible.
I moved on to other relationships back then, but she's now in a great long-term relationship. I've resigned myself to just having an amazing best friend and nothing more. Pretty great to be able to have such a special relationship, anyway!
28. Photoshopping The Flowers
My aunt passed on a few years ago, and I went to her service but my parents were out of town so they couldn't go. My mom felt bad she had to miss it, so she had a huge, expensive flower arrangement delivered to the home.
However, when I saw it in person, the florist had done a terrible job of copying the arrangement, and a lot of the flowers were already wilted.
My mom wanted me to send her a picture of it, and she really cares about getting her money's worth, so I took the picture, and then when I got home, I spent hours photoshopping the heck out of it to make it look better.
I layered over it with parts of the professional pictures, so it looked similar to what she ordered. I then sent her the pic and she was pleased. I have never told her and never will!
29. Cake, Cake, Cake
Before my grandma went away, we had our whole immediate family over for a big dinner. My grandma cooked the entire thing, she was an excellent cook, and for dessert, served a three-layered vanilla bean cake.
The entire family raved over it, and everyone complimented how amazing she was in the kitchen, and it was the best-tasting cake they’d ever had. I went into the kitchen for a drink or something and opened the garbage to throw something out and saw a Sara Lee Vanilla Cakebox inside the garbage.
I shut the bin and never said a word, but still smile when anyone talks about that cake today while reminiscing.
30. Oups!
My high school girlfriend and I were on a train that was making loud screeching noises on the way to a date in the city. She was talking about how much she and her friends loved food, and I said “Ugh, I love food”.
She couldn’t hear me and asked me to repeat myself, and I thought it would be funny to mouth what I was saying and pretend like it was so loud you couldn’t hear me making noise at all.
So, I mouthed “I love food!”, and she said, “I love you?’ Oh my gosh…I love you too! I’ve been waiting for us to finally say it to each other!”
We dated for six months after that and ended up breaking up when we went to college, so I think it’s ultimately harmless. But I’ll never tell her that was the background of our first time saying I love you.
31. You Can Have My Pizza
Growing up my family was super poor. Every once in a while, my mom would get us a pizza for dinner on payday. It was just my mom, my sister, and I at the time and there would always be two pieces of pizza left over that my sister and I could split for breakfast the next day.
I didn't want my sister to be hungry and knowing that one piece of pizza wouldn't fill her up I'd let her have both pieces and just say I didn't want any and that if she didn't eat her crust, I'd just eat that.
In reality, I wanted that pizza so bad. Pizza has always been my favorite. I think she's since figured it out and has asked on occasion why we didn't just split the pizza as kids, but I always lie and say I just didn't like pizza that much as a kid.
32. Finding The Perfect Doll
When my daughter was very young, I had to search to find a Caucasian brunette doll with a soft body. Most white dolls back then were blonde, and my daughter is a brunette. I found one, and she loved it.
It began to tear and scuff after much use. She took it with her everywhere. I repaired it many times, but it was getting to a point where I didn't have the ability to repair it anymore. That particular doll was so hard to find, so I wrote to the company and asked them if I could send it back to be repaired, and I told them why it had to be that exact type.
They sent me the replacement doll free of charge. I told my daughter that they did fix her doll in their dolly hospital. Then I tossed her old doll in the dumpster at my work. She never found out.
Maryna Kulchytska ,Shutterstock
33. Anonymous
My sister-in-law was single, never married at 40, lived alone, and was lonely. She suffered from depression and other mental health issues. She was spending another Christmas alone, so my husband and I bought her a bunch of Christmas gifts, and wrote some nice notes, but kept it anonymous and dropped everything off on her doorstep.
We never told anyone; I think her younger sister figured it out but didn’t tell her. My sister-in-law has been gone ever since, and as far as I know, I never figured out who did it. I know we brought her joy that year, and I’m glad we did it even though we didn’t always get along.
34. Me And Grandma Versus Everybody
My grandma loved card games. We used to play all the time with my cousins, too many different games, when we were younger. When we played kemps, we would always switch teams and try new signs, as they would get discovered quite fast.
But one day, I and my grandma partnered up and found a pretty great secret sign, we thought. We started playing it and it was so good we never dropped it. I think we played with this sign for a good eight years before she was gone.
No one ever found it, and I never told my cousins what the sign was, I don't even think they realized we had the same one for so long. We would always play together after that because we knew we could easily win.
35. I Have To Use The Bathroom
I was invited to a birthday party of a kid I wasn't friends within elementary school, second grade ish. My parents followed the rule that "If you were invited, you're going". I felt awkward the whole time and didn't know anyone, but I survived.
At one point during the party, I had to use the restroom. I'm not sure what malfunctioned, but when I flushed the toilet, the water did not go down. The bowl kept filling and I kept panic flushing, hoping things would eventually work themselves out.
It overflowed and I was horrified. I left the bathroom and told nobody. I'm not sure if anybody noticed for some time... maybe they knew it was me, maybe not. I didn't stick around to find out.
But Ben, I clogged your toilet and probably ruined your bathroom floor.
36. Where’s My Rat?
This didn’t happen to me but to our unit manager. I was an exhausted working mum when we got a note that ‘pest control’ was coming to our complex. Everyone else removed their pets but I was rushing in the morning so forgot.
When we arrived home our beloved pet rat was gone. I was devastated and my seven-year-old son was inconsolable. Peter came by the yard to see what the fuss was about. My boy screamed at him.
I wish I could say I owned up to it, but I didn’t. Peter just stood there on the receiving end of a young boy's grief. You were a good man, Peter; hope you are well.
37. Tell Me The Story Again Love
My girlfriend has some non-serious short-term memory issues, and I do as well. Sometimes I will forget I've told her a story or anecdote from the past, and she gently reminds me that I've already told her this every time.
Well, she does the same thing, and while I initially also reminded her that I had heard a story before, I decided to just... stop. I like hearing her stories and what she has to say, and even if she tells me them again, sometimes there's a detail she forgot to add the first time and I learn something new about her.
Sometimes nothing she says is new, and I just get to enjoy listening to her tell me a fun life story, and giggle along at the funny parts and punchlines of the anecdote. It's wonderful and fun to experience all the joy and laughter in her fond memories right along with her.
38. My Ideas Are Not Prom-Appropriate
The girl in my high school graduating year who was in charge of all the input for prom kept getting zero feedback on prom ideas. She would tape up sheets for music suggestions, theme suggestions, food suggestions, etc.
No one ever commented on them, so I started coming to school early and writing loads of ideas on the papers in as many different handwriting styles as I could.
This resulted in a very strange music playlist consisting mostly of whatever song was stuck in my head the day I wrote it on the playlist suggestion sheet. Also, I had just moved from a different country, and I didn't know anything about prom so none of the songs were particularly prom appropriate, mostly just random 80s songs.
She still doesn't know it was all me, please don't tell her.
39. Women Helping Women
My college campus bathrooms have those vending machines full of tampons and pads and such. I was drying my hands one day staring at those machines thinking about how bad it would be to need an emergency pad/tampon and not have the 50 cents to get one.
So, I left two quarters in the machine for someone who needed it. The next time I used that bathroom they were gone; I hope I helped someone out.
40. From Red Soxs, Sort Of
When my son was seven years old, he wrote a letter to the Boston Red Sox. He checked the mailbox every day, but nothing.
My sister-in-law has a friend who works in their front office. She found out about it and her friend sent him the most extravagant box of fan gear, including a bobblehead and replica World Series ring. That was nine years ago, and he still has no clue.
41. Key Lime Pie
I hate key lime pie, but my family is under the impression I love key lime pie.
One birthday, my mom made this gorgeous key lime pie from scratch for me. For some reason, she thought it was my favorite. It took her so long and looked amazing, she was so proud. I couldn’t possibly have the heart to tell her key lime pie disgusts me. So, I sat there with a good face on and forced myself to eat this huge slice of key lime pie.
Now, every birthday, for the last 13 years, I get key lime pie served to me.
42. It’s On Me
When I worked in a public library a few years ago, we used to get a lot of people coming in to use the public printers, mainly for stuff like CVs, official documents, etc. To not have personal data in a public space, the printer was behind the staff desk and people would need to come up and collect their papers.
Also, to note, printing was 10p per side.
One day was particularly quiet and a young woman maybe 18 years old, came in and asked if it was okay to book a computer and print a few pages. No issue told her to go for it and come to me when she was done for collection and payment.
Thought nothing of it. Assumed it was maybe schoolwork.
10 minutes later, she comes up and barely whispers that she should have three sides of printing to collect. We didn't ask questions about anything getting printed and general practice was to not look. But sometimes you inevitably catch glances handing things over. I see the name of a local women's clinic at the top of a page and notes about "disposal of a termination".
I don't hesitate or change the way I'm communicating with her, but I catch her eye and I know she knows I've seen.
I tell her there's no charge. She kind of looks up at me and says she thought it cost per side. I told her not to worry about it. Then I looked at her library account, needed one to print, and it's about £12, a common occurrence. I go ahead and clear that too. Then I put a note on the account exempting her from any further fees for the next year.
I told her to look after herself and have as great a day as she could.
Overall, I cost this library service less than £15 total in various fees, but the manager who was on that day was kind of an idiot and would have loudly reamed me out even for that amount. So, I didn't tell her or anyone, and it never came up.
Low stakes overall, but I hope that woman ended up okay. This would have been at least six years ago.
43. Donkey Man Instead Of A Toy
When I was maybe nine or ten years old, my family and I went on holiday. My parents gave me and two siblings $10 each to buy whatever we wanted during the holiday. This was many many years ago so $10 was a lot for a kid.
I had my heart set on a plush toy from a random little shop near where we were staying. I decided I wanted to wait until our last day to get it, in case I found something else better. The day before we left, we walked past a man dressed as a donkey busking.
Now being a young kid, I had never seen a busker before. Let alone one dressed as a donkey. Unsure what his actual 'routine' was but whenever someone gave him money, he would do a dance or something to say thanks.
So, as we're watching, a 20-something-year-old walks up and gives the performer a cash note and then, he does a big thank you dance.
It must have been a big amount because he looked genuinely chuffed. But this man turns around and grabs the note back out and as the performer tries to shut his case, probably assuming he would take more, the guy kicks him, and his group runs off.
There weren't many people watching this performer, but he looked shaken and embarrassed. I was furious and my heart broke for him. Without telling my parents, I walked up and gave him my $10.
He looked defeated and instead of the big thank you routine I'd seen him do, he shook my hand and just said thank you. He started packing up to leave right after that.
When my parents mentioned the toy, I had been holding out for, I lied and told them they didn't have the color one I wanted and was happy to give my $10 to "donkey man" and get a dance, even though I got no dance. Now don't get me wrong, still looking back on it I am happy I did that. But little me had my heart set on that toy.
For reference, my two siblings spent $10 on food. So, it wasn't like I was the only one going home without a physical item. In case anyone is thinking my parents let one child go without.
Also, I am pretty sure my parents would have gotten me the toy had I told the truth. that I simply forgot about it in the heat of the moment. But my parents weren't well off and just going on a holiday was a stretch. Even as a kid, I could tell money 'was tight', so I didn't want them to have to spend more money for my mistake essentially.
44. Already Married
I got married to my wife, six months before my actual wedding. Wedding planning was very stressful for both of us, also known as she was being an admitted bridezilla, and she asked me "What do you want from all this?" and I told her "I just want to be married".
So, we got married in secret. We didn't tell our parents, friends or family. We got married in a big ceremony a few months later, but this was for us.
45. My Secret Crush
I kind of want to “do” my boss. He makes crass comments all the time, is married, and isn’t that attractive but I don’t know, if the opportunity was ever there for a one-off, no one will ever know I'd be curious enough to do it.
I honestly don’t know why I am always attracted to men who behave pretty poorly around me. Like the guy who comments about me will have my attention but the guy who says he likes talking to me or tries to do me favors just has me suspicious.
46. Friendship Is Way More Important
I’ve wanted to date half of my friends in the past but never go through with it because If anything were to go wrong, I don’t want to lose them as friends.
47. Positive
During the pandemic my mom got hit with COVID, but no matter how many tests she took and how many symptoms were presented, in addition to all of us getting infected the same day, she never tested positive.
She was super sick and couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe at times, but she forced herself to because her job didn’t allow time off unless she had a positive test.
I switched her COVID tests with mine before she went to work while she wasn’t looking so that I could tell her that “See? You just had to wait a while for it to show it was positive”.
She believed me and was able to stay home after showing her boss my COVID test.
I never told her because when she found out she could stay home, she cried in relief and was able to get much-needed rest and recovery. I felt it was meant to be considering just a few days after her job removed the whole “You can’t come to work if you have COVID” thing.
I won’t tell her because she hates lying and wouldn’t trust me again. So only me and my siblings know. Because I love my mom very much and wouldn’t want her to know that I lied to keep her home that day.
48. Tips, Tips, Tips
When I was a bartender, one of the cocktail waitresses was going through a rough time. One night, after closing, I was hanging out on the back patio, and she was cleaning and telling me she wouldn't be able to go on a trip with friends and was crying a bit.
While her back was turned, I took three-hundred-dollar bills from my tips that night and threw them on the floor. When she found them, she asked if they were mine, and I said no. She was so happy and excited about the find.
She had a great time with her friends.
49. Our Queen
I was buddies with my high school English teacher my senior year. She would let my friends and I help grade papers during lunch, circa 2007. She was also in charge of taking in votes for Homecoming King and Queen. The typical mean girls in our grade were the nominees but so was one of our pals, a sweet little horse girl who we thought was more deserving of this silly little crown.
After looking at current votes she was, as expected, not going to win. Our teacher-friend stepped out for a little while one day, and we hastily threw in about 100 extra votes for our pal.
She ended up winning, was super stoked, and we never told her we were the reason why. It was pretty entertaining seeing how upset the other girls were over losing the big crown to the humble horse girl. Like I mean in tears upset.
The only problem was that later, the mean girls found out what I did and threatened to expose me. I was more afraid of my friend finding out than getting into trouble with the school, so I ended up making a deal with them and paying them all out to stay silent. Luckily they did, and to this day my friend still doesn't know that I rigged the competition.
50. Love You, Mom
My brother when he was in preparatory classes came home sobbing that he was about to win a prize and two naughty boys—every class had—came and pushed him and grabbed the toy.
He was crying harder because he felt unseen by his teachers who didn't help him get up and he was hurt, his knees had scratches.
My mom assured him she will talk to his teachers. The next day when mom went to pick him up from school, she had the toy in hand and my brother was the happiest. To him my mom heard him, felt his presence, and spoke to his teacher about him, his teacher now knew about him. It made him feel assured.
In reality—my mom bought the toy for him. My mom has been gone for more than a decade back and my brother is 31 years old now I bet this is one of his cherished memories with Mom I am never going to ruin it.
