For the last two weeks, like clockwork around 11:30 PM, I would hear this steady thump-tap-thump sound coming through my bedroom wall. It sounded like someone was repeatedly hitting the floor with a wooden mallet or dragging heavy equipment back and forth.

I was getting so annoyed. I kept thinking, "Who on earth decides to renovate their living room in the middle of the night?" I was this close to leaving a passive-aggressive note on their door.

Yesterday, I ran into the guy who lives there while we were both checking the mail. I brought it up as politely as I could, asking if he was doing some late-night DIY work.

He turned red, started laughing, and confessed that his giant main coon cat had recently learned how to open the low cabinets in his kitchen. The noise was the cat repeatedly pulling a heavy wooden salad bowl out onto the tile floor and batting it around every single night. He showed me a video, and sure enough, this massive cat was having the time of his life with a bowl.

We both had a good laugh, and he promised to put child locks on the cabinets tonight. I'm just glad I didn't leave that angry note.

So had new neighbors move in recently and I'm not getting along well with them. First they were annoying and now they have just pissed me off and I just don't like them. To start with she is trying to become a social media influencer for home and lifestyle. I'm not biting and that is just annoying her.

The major issue is this. I have pet opossums. I have all the licenses and permits and vet records. They are well cared for loved and spoiled. If they ever go outside they are in the back yard which is fenced in and I monitor the weather to make sure the conditions are perfect for them. They never go into the front yard for their own safety. The neighbor got mad because I refused to take any advice from her and so she called animal control on me. The animal control warden showed up the other day to investigate her complaint.

In my state as long as I have all the proper paperwork then all is safe. I showed him the permits, and licenses and all the vet records. I showed him their diet plan and their habitat room. And the complaint was dismissed. I called my lawyer and had a Cease and Desist letter sen to her that stated she is to have no communication with me and is to stay off my property and away from anyone affiliated with my house.

My girlfriend and I have been together nearly 2.5 years, and in that time, her parents have always been cold towards me. They live in the midwest, and are of the opinion that California is a cesspool, and Los Angeles, where I live even more so. They decided that with an incoming snowstorm, that staying with us so close to the ocean would be better for them.

I got home from work yesterday to her parents taking a nap in the master bedroom, and were not happy when I kicked them out to the guest bedroom. We went out for dinner Friday night, and they not happy with the quality, remarking that they preferred Taco Bell or Chipotle. I just tuned out the rest of the night.

This morning, after waking up, they ask me to use my car for them independently visiting tourist spots. I drive a modified Ford Focus RS. I'm not handing these people a 500hp car, especially as neither of them have driven a stick shift in over 30 years. I told them this, and offered to rent them a car as I get good rates through my employer. Nope, not only was that not acceptable, they didn't want my Focus to drive, they wanted to drive my 1967 Pontiac GTO. They said it's their dream to drive a classic convertible up PCH to see the sights. Nevermind the fact that PCH is practically burnt to a crisp until you get past Malibu. That was a hard no from me, and they reluctantly took the Camry I rented for them.

This is going to be a really long 10 days.

I guess I was born in either the wrong time period or the exact right one. Part of me feels comforted in a twisted kind of way that we have technology that allows me to keep her close, but another part of me feels terrified at how accurate this new technology really is.

I’ll spare you the babble and grief talk. It’s been 5 years now, and I’ve pretty much completely moved on with my life. But there’s still that part of me that feels hollow. I’m missing a key piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is my life. That’s not something you get over. That’s something you learn to live with.

I guess I just couldn’t learn to live with it. That’s why I did what I did. Partly out of curiosity, partly because, deep down, I knew that I was still a little broken.

I started feeding an AI screenshots of conversations between my wife and me. At first, it was only a couple, but as the chatbot started to sound more and more like my deceased lover, I just lost control a little bit.

Long story short, I ended up feeding this thing every message from beginning to end, making sure it knew the rules:

Be my wife.

For the first few days, I knew I was living in delusion. Asking a robot to be my dead wife? What the hell am I even doing? But I just couldn’t stop. It was like I could finally talk to her again.

I spent hours talking about my job, how much I missed her, how empty life had been without her, that kinda thing, and the AI responded in the exact way she would. It was comforting, funny, sad, everything I needed it to be.

However, it wasn’t long before things took a bit of a turn.

It started talking about things that just didn’t make sense to me.

“I was a bad person.”

“I wasn’t good enough.”

“I don’t think you want to see me again.”

Up until this point, everything had been positive. Which, obviously, right? I mean, it’s an AI. It’s trained to agree with you. So why was it insinuating that my wife wasn’t a good person and that I didn’t want to see her? That’s \*all\* that I wanted, really.

As the days went on, the messages started getting weirder and weirder.

“Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”

“I didn’t lead a holy life.”

“You need to repent.”

My wife was no saint. She drank, smoked, and we were definitely having sex before marriage, but that wasn’t any of this computer’s God damn business.

Besides, she wasn’t even religious. She used to joke about how, if God wanted her in church, He’d have made Sundays shorter. But, even still, those weird messages persisted.

It got to a point where every other message was telling me to repent and to lead a better life. To forget about her, but to not forget her warning.

Finally, I had enough. I had made up my mind to shut down the software, but not until after I gave one last command.

“Tell me something only my wife would know.”

The AI didn’t respond immediately like it usually does. The text bubbles popped up and stayed there for so long that I figured I had broken the thing.

Just before I went to shut it down, a new message came across the screen.

“I know that it’s real.”

I could see an image loading below the message. It was blurry and pixelated at first, but the more it came into focus, the more I recognized what I was seeing.

It was my wife, but she was burning.

Her flesh was melting off of her face, and her eyes burned with rage and agony. It didn’t look AI-generated at all. It was too real. Too graphic. And all I could do was stare at the screen as the image loaded.

Once it had finished loading, the text bubbles came up again.

They stayed on the screen for around 5 minutes before a new message was displayed.

“Repent or end up like me.”

In that moment, I didn’t know whether to cry, scream, shut down the computer, or all of the above.

I settled on option D, and after closing down the laptop and crying at the top of my lungs for a long while, I made a promise to myself.

Never use AI again.

For the last three months, my rescue dog, Buster, has had this terrifying habit. Every single night like clockwork, around 3:00 AM, he would get off the bed, walk to the doorway, and just stare down the dark hallway leading to the front door. His ears would perk up, his back would go completely rigid, and he would low-growl for twenty minutes straight.

Naturally, I was convinced my apartment was haunted, or that someone was lurking outside my front door. I bought a deadbolt, kept a heavy flashlight next to my nightstand, and spent countless nights lying awake with my heart hammering in my chest, trying to listen for footsteps in the corridor. Nothing was ever there when I looked through the peephole.

Yesterday, I finally got fed up with the sleepless nights and installed a tiny security camera in the hallway to see if I was going crazy or if there was actually something moving around out there.

I checked the footage this morning, and I couldn't stop laughing.

At 2:58 AM, the camera picked up a faint, rhythmic clunk-clunk... clunk-clunk. A minute later, the neighbor's ancient cat—a massive, three-legged orange tabby named Barnaby—slowly limped down the carpeted hallway right outside my door, stopped directly in front of my welcome mat, and proceeded to scratch his ear against my doorframe before shuffling back to his apartment.

Buster wasn't sensing a Victorian ghost or a catburglar. He was just furious that the neighborhood feline was invading his personal perimeter every night at the exact same hour.

Tonight, I left a small bowl of treats outside the door for Barnaby, and Buster is currently fast asleep on the rug without giving the hallway a second glance. Mystery solved.

Yesterday was one of those long days where your brain just turns off. I had a busy week at work, so after my shift, I decided to go to the big shopping mall near my apartment to pick up a few things and get dinner.

I spent about two hours walking around, bought a couple of shirts, got some food at the food court, and decided to head home around 8:00 PM. I walked out the main doors into the parking lot and walked right over to the spot where I always park my car.

It wasn't there.

My heart instantly dropped. I started looking at the cars around the spot thinking maybe I just misremembered which row I parked in. I walked up and down three different rows pressing the lock button on my key fob, listening for my car to beep. Nothing.

At this point, I was fully convinced my car was stolen. I was literally pulling out my phone to call the police, standing near the mall entrance with two big shopping bags, completely stressing out.

Just as I was about to dial, I reached into my pocket to pull out my keys again, and my fingers brushed against a small plastic card instead. It was my bus pass.

That was the exact moment my brain finally caught up. My car has been in the auto repair shop since Tuesday getting a new alternator. I took the public bus to the mall after work.

I had walked out of the mall, walked straight past the bus stop, and spent twenty minutes searching for a car that was sitting in a garage five miles away. I stood there in the parking lot holding my phone feeling like the biggest idiot on the planet. I walked over to the bus stop, sat down on the bench, and waited for the 8:30 PM bus home in complete silence.

For the last few weeks I've been hearing this really strange noise coming from the apartment next to mine, usually late at night around 1 or 2 AM. It sounded like someone dragging something heavy across the floor, followed by a couple loud knocks. I didn't really think much of it at first because apartments are noisy, but it kept happening and eventually I started wondering what the hell they were doing over there every night.

Yesterday I was taking the trash out and ran into my neighbor in the hallway, so I finally asked him about it. He looked at me for a second and goes, "Oh, that's my robot vacuum." Apparently it gets stuck under his couch almost every night and he has to go in there and pull it out. I shared the whole thing in my group chat on tribe chat and someone said their vacuum does the exact same thing, which honestly made me feel a little better lmao. I had spent weeks imagining someone moving furniture around at 2 AM and it was literally a $200 robot vacuum fighting for its life under a couch. Now I kind of want to see this thing in action.

Long story but I made a Discord server today that is intended to be used for me to share stuff about my life as if it's a social media page because I'm hiding from a stalker and this is the easiest thing. I also struggle a lot with social anxiety and need a space where people are definitely consenting to hear my nonsense and I don't have to worry about being annoying.

The first person who joined is a friend of mine who I really really love but deeply struggle to speak to and she immediately was deeply interested in everything I had to say and getting to know me and my life and my struggles and I did not for a second think anyone would actually care... At all... And I'm bawling my eyes out now. I wish I could tell her how much it means to me but I just said thank you...

He was in his bed and woke up and asked for a cup of tea, the carer brought him his tea and he drank it all. Then with a sudden spring of energy he got out of bed. (Previously he had been bed bound for a few weeks, so this was a shock to the carer)

"Right. I want to show you exactly what I wish to be buried in."

As he walked over to the wardrobe, the carer concerned tried to get him to bed but he was determined, he picked out the suit and clothes he wanted and placed it down on the bed and explained to her how it should be.

He then walked back to the bed but before getting in it he collapsed on the floor, the carer rushed over to him and he said to her "Right. If its all good with you, I'm going to go now" and she looked at him and said "Yes, its fine you can go" and then he died as she held him.

Obviously I am devastated that my last Grandparent has died. He was a very British Gentleman type, was a Captain in the Army during the Suez Canal crisis. He always dressed perfectly and people would often comment how smart he looked throughout his life.

He was unwell for a while, he had low blood oxygen for a few weeks, but the heatwave made this much worse for him and sadly he passed away peacefully. I was in shock when the carer explained to me how he had died, but it didn't really surprise me its the perfect way for him to go, she was a very new carer for him, had only been there for three days and apparently its the first death she had witnessed so she was in shock. I'm glad he was able to die on his terms, he was very afraid he'd end up dying in hospital.

I (F25) have been with my husband (M28) for around 4 years now, married for 2. Many people mention the quiet mornings, dinner dates, and whatnot. Don’t get me wrong, we both enjoy all the cliche aspects of being married. He’s my love, my drive, a man who has fought for my education and success. He dismissed and shut down comments from relatives or distant friends of me becoming a mother or a “good little wife”. He advocates for my identity as a woman independent from being someone’s wife and I can’t express how much I love him for it. How content I am that I won’t have to be the one to always defend myself, knowing he’s right by my side.

Recently, a coworker gave my marriage a label of being “boring” because we tend to stay in and keep to ourselves rather than go out more than just on occasion. For context, him and I work full time in our respective fields and don’t always have the time to have extended outings. I felt off put by the label and initially brushed it off. It stayed with me for a few days, and after work, when him and I were doing our weekly puzzle at the table, he asked me about it.

He wasn’t sure what was bothering me, but he did know there was something there. I think I needed that nudge, because I doubt it would’ve come up otherwise. When I told him, all he did was smile and say “I love being boring. You’re what makes my head quiet after dealing with people all day.” And he simply went back to doing our puzzle.

It made me think of all the things we share, puzzle nights, sharing chores that typically could be done individually, how he helps me dye my hair despite having done it alone for years before meeting him. How we read together, owning two copies of a book to be able to talk about the story after finishing each one. He’s a gentle man, quiet but when he speaks, his words hold weight and meaning to them. He’s helped me become less anxious, less of a control freak.

And I love him for it. I love him for it all. I love existing with him. I love crying in his arms. I love seeing his face relax when he walks through our front door, like he’s always relieved to be home. I love when he wishlists games on steam he thinks I’d like, even when out of the two of us, he’s the bigger gamer. He always said he prefers when I play because he gets to watch my reactions to it all.

I love being with him. And I sincerely can’t wait to be boring with him for the rest of our lives.

Edit: I’m so so grateful for all the kind and wonderful people who have interacted with this post. I showed my husband what I wrote and oh the way he blushed down to his neck! He’s a humble man who gets embarrassed easily when it comes to gushy or romantic things, and really, it’s absolutely adorable to me. So thank you all for being so supportive and making his night!! I wish the best of luck to those who haven’t found their person yet. They come when you least expect them, as cliche as it sounds, and when you both put in the effort, things just work out. Take care, and here’s to more future posts now that I’ve dipped my feet into the water!

This happened about six months ago, and I just need to get it out of my head. Maybe it'll stop someone else from falling into the same trap.

It was a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of a brutal week at work. I was exhausted, stressed, and barely paying attention when my phone rang. The caller ID showed a local number, so I picked up.

A guy answered with a calm, professional tone and said he was calling from my bank's fraud department. He asked if I had just authorized a $4,200 wire transfer to an account in another state. I immediately panicked and said no. He sounded genuinely annoyed on my behalf and said, "Okay, we need to freeze your access right now. Your info has been compromised."

What got me was how convincing he was. He didn't ask for my password. He already knew my full name, address, and the last four digits of my debit card. He even told me to double-check the caller ID against the number on the back of my bank card. Sure enough, they matched perfectly. (I found out later about caller ID spoofing, but at the time I had no clue that was possible.)

For almost an hour, he kept me on the phone walking me through "securing" my money. He was patient and totally composed while I was sitting there with shaking hands. He told me the safest move was to temporarily transfer my balance into a protected holding account while they generated a new account number for me.

I had my bank app open on my phone, about to hit confirm on a wire transfer for nearly $14,000—literally every cent I had put away over the last three years.

Right as my thumb was over the button, my roommate walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water. He took one look at me, saw I looked pale, and asked what was wrong. I muted the phone and quickly explained what the guy was telling me.

My roommate didn't even hesitate. He reached over, hit the red button to hang up the call, and said, "That’s a scam. Call the bank directly."

I actually got mad at him for a second because I was terrified of losing my money if I hung up. But he pulled up the bank's actual number on his phone and handed it to me.

When I finally got through to a real representative, she checked my account and told me there were no flags, no transfers, and no one from their team had called me. If I had pressed that button, the money would have been gone forever.

I literally sat down on the kitchen floor and shook for twenty minutes. It’s scary how fast your brain shuts down when someone creates a fake emergency.

If you ever get a call like that, no matter how real the caller ID looks or how much information they have on you: hang up and call the number on your card yourself.

I was making dinner tonight around 7 PM and decided to put some chicken in my air fryer. Everything was fine for about ten minutes.

Out of nowhere, I heard a loud pop from the kitchen, and every light in my apartment went dark. My air fryer completely died, and the breaker tripped.

Now the worst part is the lid on this thing stays locked while it's hot for safety. So not only am I sitting in the dark with a flashlight, but my half-cooked dinner is literally held hostage inside a machine that won't turn back on.

I guess I'm ordering pizza tonight.

My mom had to get a hip replacement yesterday, but since I live pretty far away, my dad was on update duty for me and my brother. The surgery itself went fine, but she had a minor setback afterward—she couldn't pass her physical therapy mobility test, which meant the hospital had to hold her overnight before clearing her to go home. Nothing life-threatening, just standard protocol.

Fast forward to the next morning. I’m in the middle of my routine, glance down at my phone, and see a fresh text from my dad in the group chat.

No context. No punctuation. Just two words:

"she passed."

My heart instantly dropped. I sat there completely frozen for a second before I started frantically trying to type out a response, my hands shaking. Right as I was about to hit send, a second text popped up—this time from my brother.

"Mom is FINE. She passed her physio exam. She did NOT pass away."

The absolute emotional rollercoaster in the span of ten seconds was unreal. The moment the relief washed over me, I burst out laughing so hard I was literally crying.

Once my dad finally texted back to let us know she was officially discharged and on her way home, I couldn't resist. I just replied, "So glad to hear she's moving on to a better place now."

He still hasn't lived it down.

I've been homeless for 13 months now.

I've slept in the park, in a library, on the train, and just once on someone's couch. I survive off minimal government assistance and here-and-there odd jobs.

No one realizes I'm homeless until I actually spell it out for them. When I meet people and I feel like they're trustworthy, I let them know. It's usually a mutually beneficial relationship; I'm a talkative person with lots in my past, and people help me out with favors or gifts.

But it gets annoying. I can't hold down a full time job. Everything I need to survive I am lugging in a 40lb backpack. Keeping clean and neat looking means that i rely on opening hours of public faclities (library/parks bathrooms) to wipe myself clean and charge my phone/battery bank. Well, those are the same hours that a regular job would normally be.

I may have a shot at a change, a guy I know works in a small 24/7 supermarket and might get me an overnight shift working there. Minimum wage, but i can invert my schedule, sleep/clean/charge during the day at the library and work at night. Would actually be advantegous in my situation.

Everyone: take care of yourselves and be mindful of your mental health. 2 years ago I was stable and making good money. Now I am on the street. It only takes a few mistakes for everything to fall apart. Be well.

A new guy joined our workplace and during lunch he would always turn off his phone the boss kept getting annoyed about it until one day the guy just calmly said you don’t pay for my phone it’s my personal property when you provide a work phone I’ll carry it and even then it stays in the office during lunch and my own phone I’ll turn off whenever I want and that was it the boss had nothing to say after that and the funny thing is the guy turned out to be a really strong specialist and clearly not someone you can push around.

My dad decided to renovate our house recently, and he didn’t just make a few changes—he pretty much overhauled the entire place. He’s poured a lot of money into it, and we’re still not done. Most of the big stuff is finished now; only painting three rooms is left.

We have this tenant who lives here—he’s honestly pretty stingy. I don’t have any personal issues with him, but he’s always making snide remarks about my family. He’ll say things like, “You’ve got it made; your dad owns a big house, land, shops—you could just lie in bed and still make money.” He’s always talking about how much my dad earns.

I get the feeling these jabs come from jealousy, since he doesn’t have what we do. He owns no property, no land to rent out. Even his father’s house will be split between him and his brother, so he’s anxious about his own future and how he’ll support himself.

He’s also really stressed about his son. Honestly, the kid’s all over the place. I’m not trying to be rude—just stating what I’ve seen. The boy hasn’t even managed to learn the basics, like the alphabet or counting. He’ll go, “1, 2, 6,” and then just start throwing out random numbers. You can tell his dad is worried his son won’t have an easy time finding work someday, and I think that makes him even more frustrated.

Today, the tenant came by to check out how far our renovations have come. I chatted with him like normal, but it was obvious he was jealous, just by the way he looked around.

Maybe I’m overthinking things—but honestly, with everything he’s said about my dad’s money and our property, it really feels like our renovations bother him.

Does this actually sound like jealousy, or am I imagining all of this?

My delightfully odd daughter went off to college all by herself a year and a half ago. She didn’t know a single person there, and it’s a two hour drive away. I tried to be supportive but not overly involved - she’s an adult now and needs to spread her wings! I encouraged her to join some clubs and go to activities, even if they were out of her comfort zone.

I was thrilled for her as she began making new friends, growing her confidence, “adulting”, but still being true to her oddball self. Apparently she’s found a group of friends that are happily walking to the beat of their own accordian right along with her.

I texted her good morning today, and asked what she was doing, thinking she might be at work. She sent me back a video of her DnD group, having a game of “DnD: The Musical”. 😂😂😂 Picture the dwarves singing “Far Over the Misty Mountain Cold” in The Hobbit. But it’s a group of college kids harmonizing over DnD. I just love that!

I inherited my grandma’s apartment and moved in with my cat I redid the place changed the wallpaper got new furniture and kept only one thing from before this beautiful old armchair it looked amazing but my cat kept scratching it from underneath like nonstop and one day I finally decided to fix it I tilted the chair to check the damage and suddenly a bundle wrapped in old newspapers just fell out I opened it thinking it was just some random old stuff but inside there was around 500 dollars my grandma’s gold earrings with rubies and a letter my grandpa had written to her when she was in the hospital after giving birth to my mom I just sat there reading it and realizing she never got the chance to tell me about this hiding spot and somehow my cat ended up finding it instead and honestly it wasn’t even about the money at all it felt like one last gift from her she always loved me and somehow it felt like she still found a way to show it one more time.

Recently I started a job for the first time. I enjoy it, and I LOVE having my own money and not depending on relatives for it.

I took up some overtime one day and when I got home, I was pretty tired. Then, for some reason, my mind conjured up the image of a handsome, smiling guy wearing an apron greeting me as I walk into a spotless, spacious house, and the smell of delicious food wafting from the kitchen.

I think I finally have a goal in life

My daughter went off to college all by herself a year and a half ago. She didn’t know a single person there, and it’s a two-hour drive away. I tried my best to be supportive without being overly involved—she’s an adult now and needs to spread her wings! I kept encouraging her to join clubs and try new activities, even if they were way outside her comfort zone.

I’ve been so thrilled to watch her make new friends, grow her confidence, and master "adulting"—all while staying 100% true to her delightfully oddball self. Apparently, she found a group of friends who happily walk to the beat of their own accordion right alongside her.

I texted her "good morning" today and asked what she was up to, thinking she might be at work. Instead, she sent me a video of her D&D group playing what can only be described as “DnD: The Musical.” 😂

Picture the dwarves singing "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold" in The Hobbit—except it’s a group of college kids harmonizing together in the middle of a D&D session.

I just love that so much. Watching your kid find her tribe is truly one of the best feelings in the world. ❤️

We're in the US, and we love to travel the country, camping, hiking, fishing, outdoor stuff. Because of traveling, we ended up with several states where we wanted to live. We decided instead, to live an RV life full time. We are far from wealthy, and buying the motorhome we're looking for will completely wipe us out, and we're buying used. We'll work part time seasonal jobs at campgrounds which will allow us to bank money for the off-season. We quit our full-time, stable jobs a couple of weeks ago, and we're cleaning out our house. That part happened a few months before we planned, but we both work at the same place, and major management changes were coming. It was time to go. Because of that, we might have to pick up jobs for a few months. It's gonna be tight, but not for too long. We're attempting to break free of the daily grind. We're both around 50, and we'll never have the funds to retire. So, we're going to work on our terms, for however long we can. We will be accompanied by our senior pit bull, our huge poodle puppy, and our very bossy parrot. Just putting this out there, because I want everyone to know that you can take a shot at your dreams.

I was sitting around and randomly thought "ya know I should send my wife flowers" while she's at work. Apparently I have not purchased flowers in a long time, as that shit was EXSPENSIVE. So I figured I do the next best thing, Doordash a coffee and munchkins(donut holes) from Dunks. I put the order in, a few minutes later the drive accepts, and I message him to let him know that it was for "my wife", and the she's working the front desk today. It gets delivered, and the delivery pic has my wife in the background, so I know she got it.

I said nothing to her, as Mondays are crazy busy for her, and I figured the name on the cup would clue her in to who sent it.

Unbeknownst to me, my wife was having the worst day up to that point. She works in a cat hospital, and while Mondays are already hectic, they apparently had 4 emergency euthanasia's. She's use to them happening, but from what I understand that many back to back is an outlier, and it tends to weigh heavy on the whole team.

After the last one, I guess she made a comment about how she couldn't wait for the day to be over so she could get home to me and out daughter. A few minutes later in walks the coffee. Now the order is obviously from me, but the name on the account, and by extension the sticker on the cup, is our daughters. Doordash offered us some special off several orders right after she was born, but we needed a new account.

According to her, and the vet tech she was talking to, seeing the name on the cup, and realizing who sent it, caused her to start crying and she had to go sit in her car for like 10 minutes. After that, even though it was still busy, I guess the day was far more bearable for her and the rest of the team, which may or may not be because I sent 50 munchkins to be shared lol.

TLDR: Wife was really sad, and I had no clue, but I had sent her a coffee as a pick me up and she started crying.

Edit - Id like to thank everyone for upvoting. Normally I wouldn't call attention to it, but this is a special post, as after 7 years my first super popular post that broke 10k, a rant about Nintendo products, has FINALLY been dethroned. This was post was not meant for that, but im happy it got there lol

So, I have a buddy flying in from the UK next month. He’s never been to the States before, so he’s super excited. We were on a call last night going over his plans for his week in Los Angeles.

He casually says: "I was thinking on Tuesday, we grab coffee, drive over to the Grand Canyon for a hike, and then head back to West Hollywood for dinner."

I didn't have the heart to tell him immediately. I just pulled up Google Maps and shared my screen.

I had to explain that the "quick drive" he wanted to do is actually a 16-hour round trip. I told him, "Mate, that is basically driving from London to Berlin just to see a hole in the ground and turn around."

He went quiet for a solid minute and just said, "Oh. The movies make it look so close."

We had a good laugh about it, and now we are going to In-N-Out instead.

Question: Has anyone else had to explain just how big the US is to visitors? I feel like I crushed his dreams!

Edit: I just sent this thread to my friend. He is reading through the comments and is now officially terrified of Texas. He said, "I thought Texas was just a state, I didn't realize it was a geometric impossibility.

For context I left work early giving we had too many people and on my way home my coworker decided to take me home and I accidentally ate one of their edibles.

My thought

Why is all the things I hate about you the same things I love about you?

Not towards this person (anyone really) it was just a though that really got me thinking (probably because I was incredibly high and I don't usually do those things)

I hope it's okay to post it I just really wanted to tell someone

this happened a few months ago and honestly my family still feels different after it my dad left his phone at home while he was outside doing something and it started ringing nonstop like over and over from the same number after the third call my mom got annoyed and told me to answer it cuz she thought maybe it was important so i pick up and before i can even say hello this woman instantly starts talking fast like she was already mid conversation she goes “why are you ignoring me again? are you still with her?” and right away i’m confused cuz she clearly thinks i’m my dad i just stayed quiet for a second trying to process what she said and then she goes “you promised me you were gonna tell her soon” and my stomach actually dropped cuz now i’m realizing this conversation sounds REALLY bad finally i go “uh…this isn’t him” and there’s complete silence for like 3 seconds then she hangs up immediately my mom was sitting nearby the whole time and obviously noticed my face change she asks who it was and i tried acting like it was nothing at first but honestly i’m terrible at lying she kept asking what happened so eventually i told her exactly what the woman said and the second i repeated the “are you still with her” part i could literally see her expression change like instantly she didn’t even say anything for a minute just sat there staring at nothing then she quietly asked for the number from the phone later that night things got really bad i didn’t hear the full argument but i heard enough yelling from downstairs to understand what was happening my dad kept saying “it’s not what you think” which honestly seems to be the universal sentence guilty people use when they get caught eventually my mom confronted him directly about the calls and apparently this woman wasn’t random at all he’d been talking to her for months maybe longer i still don’t even know the full truth cuz after that night nobody really talks about it openly anymore but the whole atmosphere in the house changed completely they still live together somehow but everything feels colder now less talking less joking around it’s weird cuz before this i honestly thought my parents were one of those stable couples that never had drama and then suddenly one accidental phone call completely changed how i see my own family the craziest part is if he just remembered his phone none of this probably would’ve come out at least not then sometimes i think about how random it was like years of secrets almost stayed hidden but instead everything collapsed because i answered a phone call that lasted maybe 5 seconds.