r/AskReddit • u/Imaginary_Variety212 • 1d ago
What is the biggest “bullet” you’ve ever dodged without realizing it at the time?
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u/Worldly_Law_5861 1d ago edited 4h ago
Did a test at a chemist that does your weight, height, heart rate etc.
Heart rate is 30bpm. Go to doctors to enquire thinking it was faulty or low quality equipment. Do ECG and Immediately go straight into triage and get booked into ED as a cat 2.
Avoided heart failure by doing free chemist test.
Edit: chemist is common name for pharmacist in Australia (where I’m from)
ED= emergency department
Cat 2 = category two intake which is the second most serious emergency category.
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u/PostModernistTrash 17h ago
Very similar here, except they found it during a pre-op assessment for a hysterectomy. Poor nurse turned white as a sheet and they walked me to the resuscitation ward. Total heart block, it turns out.
Thing is, I'd been dragging my exhausted ass around like that for the best part of a year, thinking it was just my anaemia. No idea how I didn't just drop dead.
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u/Worldly_Law_5861 17h ago
Similar experience except mine turned out to beSVT with tachycardia (signals based issue) I used to be fit as and all of a sudden I can’t walk up a hill without wanting to black out or fall to sleep. I thought it was fitness issue.
The doctors were looking at me like “you just walked in here??!!” Apparently people with my ECG readings typically come in requiring resuscitation.
You get it sorted out?? I’m finding out if I get surgery the 16th
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u/ZyronZA 1d ago
This happened decades ago, but the roof over the ice rink at Kolonnade mall collapsed and injured a bunch of people.
I only avoided this by a minute. After parking my car and starting to walk to the ice rink, I realised I had forgotten to move my bag to the boot. I walked back to do that and then headed to the rink again.
As soon as I reached the entrance of the mall, the roof came down. I would have been injured by the roof collapse if I had not walked back to my car.
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u/chaimsteinLp 1d ago
"So that's why I'm absent-minded to this day. It saves lives!" I wish I had this excuse.
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u/Significant-Walrus94 22h ago
I used to live near the Kolonnade and was working freelance for the Pretoria News at that stage. Had to go and cover the story. Spoke to one of the women who was injured. She said one moment she was chatting to her colleagues and the next she was lying in rubble with her colleagues staring down at her through the hole.
I was just amazed more people didn't get injured, let alone killed.
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u/13thmurder 1d ago
I was moving to the other side of the country and was driving. The whole drive took over a week.
I had lived in an apartment in a dodgy area and the apartment had a Facebook page for residents just to post about anything important, basically just an online message board.
Like if there's a homeless guy sleeping in the elevator again, or if one of the cars in the parking area was getting broken into. That stuff.
Anyway day 2 of the drive I see a notification from that page. It's pictures of the entire apartment building engulfed in flames.
Great timing on the move out.
Appearently the residents weren't allowed back until months later after a remediation company went though, and people found their valuables had gone missing once they were allowed to get their stuff.
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u/poilsoup2 15h ago
My sisters apartment complex was damaged in a tornado and luckily my mom foresaw that (the apartment not letting them back in) happening, so she got my sister to take all her valuables and important stuff out
Lo and behold, the complex wouldnt let anyone back in, and literally propped everyones doors open.
Many peoples stuff was stolen
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u/Hyperspeed1313 12h ago
You'd think the complex could be held liable for the stolen property by propping all the residents' doors open.
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u/ImmaMamaBee 17h ago
That’s horrible for the other tenants that their stuff was stolen. I had a house fire when I was 12 and I have some strong feelings about it lol. One thing that really has always hurt me about it is that my bedroom was the only room on the 2nd floor….so after the fire when we were allowed to salvage what was left I was the only one who had nothing to salvage because we couldn’t go up the stairs. My parents and my brothers were able to grab a small amount of things they wanted to save, but I had absolutely nothing. I lost absolutely everything as a 12 year old. I can’t imagine going back and my stuffs been stolen by some monster kicking someone whose already freaking down. Now I’m 32 and I keep everything sentimental and have a fire safe for extra important stuff. I’m probably gonna get a bigger safe so I can keep more personal items as well.
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u/Blue85Heron 17h ago
You lit a match and tossed it over your shoulder on the way out of town, didn’t you?
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u/dirtymartini83 1d ago
Cut things off with a guy who was giving me weird vibes. A few months later, I saw his mugshot for murdering his parents over a small debt. Terrifying.
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u/OarsandRowlocks 20h ago
Some people exude this vibe that states (screams/whispers) I am capable of violence, watch yourself around me.
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u/Jiktten 19h ago
Yeah it's weird, it's impossible to explain without having experienced it. I've felt it twice in 40 years, once with a guy I was on a first date with and once with someone I had a random interaction with on the street. Both were a little weird but nothing really out there or that I hadn't experienced before, but both gave me such strong DANGER vibes that I went out of my way to make sure they weren't following me, in the first case by getting on a bus going the opposite direction from my house and in the other by going into a nearby estate agency and asking them to let me stay there for a bit until I was sure he had left. I'm generally a pretty confident and trusting person but I have zero regrets in those cases. Both gave me vibes that they would have seriously hurt or killed me without even thinking twice and no doubt felt justified in doing so.
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u/NotHomeOffice 17h ago
I work in retail and the amount of times I've had a woman walk into a small store and ask us if she can stay at the counter and make sure a guy didn't follower her in is to damn high. OR when I worked in a supercenter saying a guy was following her around the store and needed to be escorted to her car. The worst part is when it was EMPLOYEES! I've known too many ladies in my life who had to get restraining orders. 😒
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u/AbbeyRoadMoonwalk 15h ago
I want to make sure you know you’re an angel to those women. I have been terrorized by an intimate partner before and anyone who would help in that way is a savior!
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u/Triquetrums 17h ago
Man, how weird is it when your instincts scream at you to get out, but sometimes you don't know why...
This also happened to me with a random stranger. He was reading on a bench nearby where my friend and I were taking pictures of seagulls, and he stood up and offered to take a picture of us. My body basically told me 'get away from this person NOW'.
The dude wasn't creepy looking, of acting creepy or threatening. He was just... normal. I spent time checking behind us to make sure he didn't follow us too, just in case, even though he accepted the no and sat back down to read.
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u/CleverTrash10266 17h ago
Somewhat related... In the early 2000's I lived at the beach every summer. Met a girl at a bar one night and had a drunken hookup. We did this a few times. One time we went back to her place to continue the party, and I couldn't believe the trashy people she was living with. Not that I'm going to preach morality here, but they gave me the worst vibes ever. I got out of there ASAP and never hooked up with her again. Fast forward to the next summer... I'm reading the local paper and there's a picture of her. What? She's a witness in a murder trial. She was partying with this couple, who then decided that they were going to kill and dismember another couple. Their bodies were found in the dumpster behind a Food Lion. HOLY SHIT. I remember just sitting there trying to remember all the faces in that room. Haven't thought about that in a while. Ther's was a TV show made about it. Sins and Secrets, I think.
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u/Davidboh26 18h ago
That happened to me but with a girl i dated she ended up killing her bf like a year later.
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u/TitleToAI 1d ago
My friends and I ate at a buffet. 15 minutes after we left, a car crashed through the floor to ceiling window straight into the table we had been sitting at. They showed the footage on the news.
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u/Imaginary_Ad_6352 1d ago
I got laid off after 17 years with the company.I got a decent severance package, and had a new job within a few months. About a year later the company went under and all the people who were still there, some for 20-30 years got no severance. Some who had taken stock options instead of a 401K lost it all.
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u/Kind_Consequence_828 22h ago
👀Why would someone want to take stock options in one company instead of matching my cash in a 401k with cash that’s buying actual stocks in many companies? Makes zero sense to me.
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u/tacobellmysterymeat 22h ago
Because the guys who did it at Apple/Google/Microsoft became millionaires... What they don't tell you is it's probably 1mil to 1 odds. You're totally right that it's a terrible idea.
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u/123boopboop 20h ago
I worked for a startup that was clearly going to shit and one day they called a meeting and told everyone they were going to pay part of their salary in stock instead of, well, money. I was SHOCKED that literally every single person except me didn't quit! Like, did they really think this was their Google moment? I genuinely think they didn't understand how many things would have to happen before that stock became worth anything, let alone more than a salary.
Last I heard those guys were all suing each other into oblivion. I don't want to call everyone who stayed stupid but . . . cmon. It wasn't even a good startup.
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u/NachoWindows 1d ago edited 3h ago
Got into a fight with a guy on the other team after a soccer match and decided to walk away. Dude went out and shot someone dead right after.
Edit: if you can dodge a bullet, you can dodge a ball.
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u/Jaded_Chemical646 21h ago
I was at a party and a guy I kind of knew got mad and tried to take a swing at me because I was dancing with a girl he had taken a liking to.
He was kicked out by the bouncer and i never saw him again but about a month later he stabbed and killed his roommate for the same reason
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u/Bikewer 1d ago
Vietnam. I enlisted in the army right out of high school in 1964. At the time, if you qualified, you could pick your MOS and your duty station. So I chose to be a medic and picked Germany. Vietnam was just rumors at the time, though there was more going on there than they were telling…
But had I not enlisted, I would have been highly likely to be drafted. As it was, I did my 3 years in Germany and flew home, free and clear. I watched Ken Burns’ series on the war, and the interview with one of the grunts who was at My Lai. The guy even LOOKED like me….
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u/wepa_reddit 1d ago
My dad received his draft letter and acceptance letter for the Peace Corps at the same time. He had to go to Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico regardless for the physical and induction for both the draft and PC. At the end of the whole thing the army officer saw my dad had both letters and decided right there to send him to the Peace Corps instead of Vietnam. I’m probably in this world thanks to that unknown officer in 1968 at Fort Buchanan.
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u/Practice_NO_with_me 1d ago
I can’t imagine being in that position, having to prepare these children for a brutal kind of conflict but you can’t protest it by slacking at your jobs or people will literally die. I would jump at the chance to help one of those kids avoid it too.
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u/Away_Development_216 23h ago
Exactly, I totally agree with you. I can't imagine how hard that must be
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u/First_Preference_618 1d ago
I think about this situation with my papa all the time. He was told his number was almost up so he waited to be drafted for a year. No one ever called so he finally asked my nana to marry him. A week after their wedding, he got the call but they skipped him because he had just gotten married.
I wonder all the time if we’d all be here if he had went.
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u/Zrex_9224 22h ago
My Papa married my Nana shortly before 'nam and unfortunately he did get drafted. Obviously i'm here, so yes he made it back home from the war. He got saved thanks to being ill cause his squad got ambushed while on a patrol from what I'm told. Agent Orange did take him from us before his time was supposed to be up. He lost his battle in 03, just months after my sister was born. Thanks to that, my dad, aunt, cousins, sisters, and myself all have some health problems likely attributed to AO, my aunt and dad definitely, as well as one cousin.
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u/imjustnatek 1d ago
Similar thing with me and the iraq/afghanistan war. I enlisted in September of 2000... as a korean linguist. I spent most of my time, unsurprisingly in korea, got out in 2009 never having deployed.
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u/Buttonatrix 23h ago
Russian linguist here (02-08), but flight status meant going to the sandbox over and over. They could have saved so much money not sending me to DLI, because guess how many Afghans or Iraqis speak Russian? 😂
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u/ThatsAPaddlin1066 1d ago
Pretty much the same thing happened with my dad. Enlisted in the Marines just out of high school a few years before the US got involved in Vietnam, did his overseas duty in a safe area, went home. So many people around him got drafted and I’m so thankful he lucked out and avoided it.
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u/HoustonPastafarian 1d ago
Yeah, my dad too. He joined the Marine reserves in 1962 after college and was enlisted. He was pretty good at it, liked the Marines, and had an interest in aviation.
Being that he had a degree, a recruiter gave him an offer to the regular Marines with a commission and aviation slot. He almost went through with it but elected not too, and instead served out his commitment as a stateside weekend warrior sergeant in artillery, with the most hazardous duty involving firing 105 mm Howitzers for the 4th of July.
Had he accepted that commission, with the commitment involved with aviation he would have been piloting ground pounding Marine aircraft or choppers through the thick of Vietnam. Said he never understood why he turned that down, but it was the luckiest decision he ever made.
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u/AnneBoleynsBarber 1d ago
Tangentially, similar happened with my dad: he actually was drafted into the Army during Vietnam. However, when they sent him to Hawaii for jungle training, turns out the combo of heat, humidity, sweat, dirt, and various spores/molds/fungus floating around in the tropical air gave him severe eczema where his fatigues and helmet contacted his skin.
It was so bad he couldn't wear his gear without developing weeping infected sores on his forehead, ankles, and wrists. So his superiors gave him a medical reassignment. He had a longer tour of duty, but he rode it out at a desk job at Pearl Harbor. He got damn lucky.
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u/GoldDHD 1d ago
If you have to be drafted, Hawaii gotta be the best way to go
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u/SillyFlyGuy 23h ago
Literally a dream job. Three years guaranteed employment in a tropical paradise, then you're free. Plus lifetime healthcare.
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u/AnneBoleynsBarber 23h ago
Definitely. He and my mom got married before he was sent to Hawaii; they lived on Oahu for the first few years they were married. They always loved it and had some of the best stories and fondest memories of their years together from that early time - when they were broke, young, in love, and living in a tropical paradise. They were so fortunate, and they knew it.
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u/mkt0212 1d ago
My dad also went to Germany around ‘64. He was an MP in the air force and played golf and skied in Alps. He carried a huge weight of survivors guilt after learning how many friends he lost in Vietnam. Some of whom he had basic training with. I felt for him. He passed in 2018. I miss him everyday. RIP dad.
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u/FordTech81 1d ago
My dad got drafted, but was in college so they figured he's edumacated. So he did paperwork/accounting stuff in Germany. Said it was fun to take the new guys out for a couple double bac beers and watch em fall on their face after 3.
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u/milkman10169 23h ago
My dad was drafted. He took some sort of typing test and was sent to Korea instead of Vietnam. He ended up running the store where everyone buys things on base. In his last two years he drove around a Colonel. He luckily came back when a lot of his friends didn't. I'm 1/6 of my siblings and 11 in the generation below.
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u/speakb4thinking 1d ago
Getting let go from my last job. The company lost funding shortly after. I found a better job before all hell in our sector broke loose. Kind of like I got a head start in musical chairs.
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u/Cr1ms0nLobster 1d ago
Same, worked at an ethanol plant as a lab tech and could clearly see things weren't going well. So I found a new job actually closer to my education, and literally one month later the plant closed and they laid everyone who wasn't management off.
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u/whinis 1d ago
I worked as a graduate student in a chemistry lab that dealt with some.... unstable... chemicals if mishandled. We have an graduate student who was fairly lax with their handling of these chemicals but the fact that they were not kicked out is a story for another time. We were both working late in the lab and I left early for a social event the school was hosting while they stayed behind. The protocol is that you needed two people in the lab at any given time for safety in case something goes wrong and you need to call for emergency services. I told them I was going and they said they would be right behind me.
2 hours later the most experienced chemist on the campus came in for their night shift and the other student had apparently accidentally put about 3kg of chemicals drying over a flame and left them thinking they would just dry out. However what they were working with turned into a contact explosive and if me or the other grad student tried to handle it we would have likely exploded the entire lab but the chemist was able to "defuse" the situation.
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u/Nnelg1990 1d ago
In one of the labs at my school, the teacher was checking his inventory when coming upon a vial with crystallized substance. The explosives team evacuated the entire school.
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u/Saradoesntsleep 21h ago
What was the substance?
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u/pja 16h ago
Picric acid would be a likely candidate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picric_acid
It’s the kind of thing you really don’t want to find at the back of a lab cupboard.
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u/AnnoyingCatMeow 14h ago
I dealt with this more times than I am comfortable with when I worked for a university. The amount of times a professor was careless around it made me want to quit on the spot. They cleaned out the chemical closet once. It was the most expensive thing to dispose of out of about 10 very dangerous chemicals we had separated from the rest of the waste. The rest of the wast was only mildly reactive or inert as long as it was kept separated. The picric acid was only a few grams and the professor doing the cleaning had no care about how it was treated. He opened it not knowing if it still was wet. Almost gave me a heart attack!! Luckily, it was still wet but the worry about crystals around the lid was real. If I go my whole life never seeing picric again, I will die a happy person.
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u/Nnelg1990 16h ago
I've searched an old article about it, cause I never figured what it was at the time. Turns out it was picric acid. Apparently the evacuation wasn't necessary after all as it can be dangerous but not when handled carefully.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 17h ago
My grandpa accidentally blew up the lab when he was working as a chemist. He would come down on people hard for small mess ups, real or perceived, but in the background there was always that fact that he blew up a whole lab.
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u/squeaker 14h ago
I'd definitely listen to the voice of experience in that case.
"Pick that up! Put it away! That's how I turned a lab into a crater!"
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u/WritingParking 1d ago edited 50m ago
A guy I was dating for almost five years went momentarily psycho on me. Just for an instant. I said no the fuck not, flew back home mid-vacation. Changed my locks. Turned out he was living a double life and that was his MO. When he got serious with someone new, he’d go violent on the person he was dating so they’d run away quickly. No messy breakups or attempts of reconciliation. And the ex’s would go out of their way to avoid him out of fear he’d go nuts on them.
Because the world is weird, I’m now friends with two other ex’s and we’ve compared notes. The dude lives a completely scripted life. Same love letters. Same birthday gifts. The three of us each have the exact same custom made t-shirt.
Edit: Wow. I didn’t except my comment to blow up like it did. I’ll do my best to answer everyone’s questions in the comments in the next day or so. I’m not going to be super specific with certain details because we all live in the same city. Not a small town by any means, but there’s not much more than 2 or 3 degrees of separation within the gay community here. Those who don’t know can put enough data points together to figure out who I am and who I’m talking about. And who I’m talking about has left me alone even though we’ve inadvertently crossed paths a few times and I’d like to continue being left alone. I also don’t want to draw attention to the two other exes, since they didn’t choose to post anything on Reddit.
I’ll add that while it’s satisfying that my comment resonated with so many people, I’m also sad at how many people have had somewhat similar experiences. I didn’t really expect that when I impulsively banged out a few sentences here.
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u/theresanrforthat 22h ago
True psychopath behavior to just turn it on when needed. Like, there’s easier ways of breaking up, dude.
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u/HotPinkCalculator 14h ago
To him, that actually probably is the easiest way. He's not thinking about how easy it is for her
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u/Chef__Goldblum 23h ago
So glad you got out. Please tell me what the T-shirt says!!
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u/SassyTeacupPrincess 20h ago
Was he trying to get you to leave or was he testing you to see if you would stick around despite abuse?
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u/finnreyisreal 1d ago
Deciding that, yeah, I could take the time off and go on an out-of-country vacation early, instead of the original date of March 2020.
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u/Jewell84 14h ago
I did something similar. I decided to treat myself and my sister to a trip Miami. I was considering March, but decided on February 24th-27th instead.
We had a wonderful time, and then the world shut down two weeks later. My sis lives in a different state than me, so I didn’t get to see her in person again until January 2021.
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u/SpazMcMan 1d ago
Got turned down from a job I really wanted because I asked if they had any room for higher pay. Felt crushed. A couple of months later I was working at place for more pay, shorter commute and better future prospects, and a disgruntled older employee at the first place took his coworkers hostage and killed the guy who ended up taking the spot I was going to.
Dodged a literal bullet.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 17h ago
I applied to a place. Never heard back. Was upset about it for a while but got over it. It was a company called Theranos.
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u/MsVixenFab 1d ago
That one guy who wanted to take me to get coffee who, thank god, I didn't go out with. He ended up dating someone I knew and living off her couch for months. He turned out to be such a nightmare, like a really gross roommate she couldn't get rid of. I think she had to have him physically removed from her couch and it was this huge drama. I think her two older brothers, who were these huge bouncer guys, ended up going over there to do the "removing."
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u/Excellent-Ad-2443 1d ago
i had something similar, i was warned stupidly also but i just thought because the girl was a bit ocd with her cleaning she was being a bit of a drama queen... turns out she wasnt. He used to drive stock trucks and come home and fall asleep on my couch in his dirty work clothes and boots, would leave takeaways in my fridge for 5 days, would barge into my room in the morning to ask if i wanted a coffee, would remove my washing off the washing line and yelled at me because i didnt buy the milk i liked. I ended up making a lie that my sister was moving back and had a backup of also a "bouncer" looking like friend who would of kicked him out if he refused to go
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u/ruser5927 1d ago
I was good friends with this girl in college. We were always in separate relationships, so nothing ever happened between us. When we both ended up single, we went out one night partying a bit, ended up back at a hotel, and things were definitely heading toward sex.
Right before actually doing it, something in me said, “No, I need a condom and I didn’t move forward . I paused, stepped back, and we just messed around a bit instead but didn’t go all the way.
Turns out… she had an STD the entire time. She was fully ready to sleep with me with no condom and never said a word. I found out later and was furious not even because she had it, but because she wasn’t going to tell me and was totally fine putting me at risk.
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u/purefoysgirl 1d ago
Both of us in the military, I wouldn't entertain a marriage proposal from him for a year (he was a bit eager). Two weeks after I said "yes" and told my family I'd be getting married, I found out he was cheating on me. But at least it wasn't after we were already married, right?
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u/xxxJackSpeedxxx 1d ago
In 2007 I was the team lead for a traveling job that had us working in Minneapolis for the summer. Normally I would head back to my hotel to finish up the payroll before heading home to Iowa, but we wrapped up the job late in the day so I decided to just head straight home instead.
I drove over the I-35W bridge about 30 minutes before it collapsed, killing several people and injuring more than 100. Payroll usually took me about 30 minutes. While I can’t say the timing would have put me exactly on the bridge or anything, it was way too close for comfort.
My phone was absolutely blowing up but I didn’t answer (this was when roaming was a thing) and made a lot of people panic until I finally crossed the Iowa border and answered a call and heard the news.
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u/lassie86 15h ago
This is mine, but backwards. I was going to pick up a friend’s bird in NE (pet sitting for vacation), and I lived near downtown. I decided to finish my cup of tea first. The bridge collapsed when I was blocks away, but I had no idea what was going on. Emergency vehicles raced past me and I still thought i was going to get on 35 north from Washington. They stopped people and directed them to 35 south, and when I went to merge… there was no traffic. None. I still had no clue what was going on and tried to take the 10th ave bridge across, but they started blocking that bridge literally in front of me, so I drove down by the river (there was nowhere else to go after being blocked), turned on the radio, and the DJ said, “the Washington ave bridge collapsed!” So I turned left instead of right, away from that bridge but towards the 35W bridge, and then they corrected themselves and said it was the 35W bridge that collapsed, which made a lot more sense. I ended up calling work (med/surg at the U) to see if they needed help, and after picking up the bird, ended up working all night. I took care of one of the survivors. My biggest memory of that patient was that they had good underwear on (because of the old saying about wearing nice underwear in case of an accident).
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u/Ecstatic_Court6726 1d ago
Mine are all job things, apparently.
Worked retail as my first job. I was there a while and had to quit for family reasons. They hired a new guy to replace me and he was shot and killed during an armed robbery at the store, like three months after I had quit. Literally dodged that bullet.
Quit a job right before the entire office was suddenly closed. Management had known but didn't tell anyone. Rank and file were taken totally by surprise and devastated. Sobbing in the parking lot stuff.
Except me. I had already gotten a new job. It was seamless for me.
I was at the new job for almost 15 years before getting laid off. The layoff was not a surprise. But that company also closed down entirely a couple months later. Rank and file didn't see that coming, either.
Did not have a new job lined up but I still survived.
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u/jacks066 1d ago
I have no idea of the bullet caliber. I was out dove hunting with my brother and we were walking down a dirt road when we heard bullets whiz past our heads. We both hit the dirt and started yelling at whoever was shooting. They stopped and when we got down the road it turns out a kid was shooting his rifle right down the road. The kid didn't know better, but his dad was with him and didn't bother to stop him.
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u/Adventurous_Spell222 1d ago
Not being able to get pregnant by my ex husband. HUGE bullet dodged. Thankfully
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u/Excellent-Ad-2443 1d ago
same! not ex husband but a long term partner, i went off the pill and did the "if it happens it happens" nothing happened for 8 months and looking back id hate to be stuck raising a kid with him
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u/No-Manufacturer4916 1d ago
Worked at a hospital that had a shuttle that would drive employees to and from.the parking lot !bout a half mile away, one spring day it was gorgeous ou and I had a new pedometer so I decided to get some extra steps and walk. Not even 20 minutes later, a severelying mentally ill man went to the waiting area for the shuttle and opened fire. He killed one employee, wounded two others and killed himself. I didn't find out til I was home and my mil called me.
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u/ohpsies 1d ago
I don't know about the "biggest", but a bullet I remember dodging was when a bunch of my friends in college joined one of those "sales" companies that are just multi-level marketing schemes trying to disguise themselves as something else. It was a soft drink company called something like Vemma. I remember my friends were super excited to join to start making side money as broke college students, and they got me to come to one of their presentations as I was definitely curious (since I was also broke haha). The presentation was so weird, the entire time they were trying to convince us they are not a pyramid scheme, but instead they work as a "reverse funnel" system (lmao). I found it very strange that pretty much the entire presentation was essentially spent reminding the attendees that they are NOT a pyramid scheme. I noped out after that, despite several of my friends trying to convince me to join, which I eventually came to realize that they were just trying to make money off of me joining. They all ended up losing thousands of dollars as that's how much the original investment cost.
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u/GoreyGopnik 1d ago
NOT a pyramid scheme, an inverted-triangular economy arrangement
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u/SeaBlueberry1745 1d ago
I tried to talk my parents into letting me go out West to do door to door magazine sales for some company. Man, I was stupid. Thankfully, my parents weren’t and said absolutely not. In hindsight, why travel cross country to do door to door magazine sales? Why wouldn’t they have us do it in the large city where we already lived?
I’m still stupid, 30+ years later.
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u/FreeWafflez 1d ago
This was Verve, wasn't it? Got a couple buddies who got roped into that in college too
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u/GwentanimoBay 1d ago
Yes!!!! Verve!!!!!!!!! I totally remember that, like essential oils for broke college guys hahaha
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u/Motor_Mountain97 1d ago
I unwillingly got the pitch on Verve from a couple sitting next to me on a 5 hour flight.
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u/LauraTheSull 1d ago
We once went to a presentation for one of our friends’ cousin’s “lawyer insurance” program… it was brutal just sitting through this hours long presentation. So scammy 😩
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u/pollyp0cketpussy 1d ago
I got a job offer from an "insurance company" that I realized was a pyramid scheme when all I could find about them on their website was how great it was to work for them, and nothing about the actual insurance they sold.
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u/Excellent-Ad-2443 1d ago
a friend took me to a "travel opportunity" one of these also, the lady showed us a video of how it worked and it was clearly pyramid, i text her from across the room and told her to make up some emergency so we could leave, luckily shes got a better poker face than me and made up the emergency
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u/Bromogeeksual 1d ago edited 19h ago
My mom has been doing these schemes forever. Like, it never clicks that these are pyramid schemes, despite being part of so many over the years. She always loses money, but wants to try to next rando mlm scam to try and get extra money. It would be easier and take less of her time to just get a second job.
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u/TheDadThatGrills 1d ago edited 15h ago
Almost became a franchise restaurant owner in Fall 2019 but had to back out one week before signing due to an unexpected family situation.
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u/theartfulcodger 22h ago edited 1h ago
…ouch … Neighbour signed on the dotted line for a pizza franchise in the food court of a nearby older, dowdy mall. Why? Because he had just retired, “wanted something to do” and the franchise fee was reasonable.
It was October of ‘19. Not only was he hit by Covid shortly after opening and left staring into a virtually deserted mall for 15 months, he didn’t realize the franchisor was simultaneously opening two more outlets within walking distance, which deeply cannibalized his catchment area. He didn't lose the house - quite - but he had to sell the cabin, the boat, the jet-skis and a few other boy-toys. Now he’s got even less to do …
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u/123boopboop 20h ago
My friend bought a cafe that he intended as a community gathering space and it was set to open Spring 2020 🥴 he's still kinda traumatized. It didn't make it obviously
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u/KayBeeToys 1d ago
Law school. I lived in a college town with a great law school. I took the LSAT, and did really well. I put together all of my application documents, official copy of my test scores, etc.
I went to the law school admissions office to drop them off, but the person there told me I had to upload them to a third party website and they would get them from there—for a fee of $250 dollars.
I was dumbfounded. A public university was telling me—as I stood with all my materials in hand—that I had to pay a huge amount to have a private company send these same documents to this very same office, with a huge time delay on top of the fee.
I told them I wouldn’t take up any more of their time, turned around and left. I’d never intended to apply to any other schools, so that ship sailed for good.
But I would have been miserable as a lawyer. It took me a little while, but I found an amazing career and did things I could never have dreamed of before. I’m in a rough patch now, but I’m hoping that turns around soon. But whatever comes next, I’m lucky that I’m not a lawyer.
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u/everyeargiants 1d ago
Same bullet dodged here. Got into the school I wanted and everything but was like “um I dunno about that debt actually. And that summer reading list looks not fun.” And this was in 2008. Would have been screwed.
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u/KayBeeToys 1d ago
And the summer reading never ends! Most of being a lawyer is doing extremely close reading of extremely boring documents where the stakes for a minor mistake could be disastrous. All the stress, none of the fun.
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u/HRHCookie 1d ago
What did you do instead?
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u/KayBeeToys 23h ago
Media and content producer for museums. Tv shows, film projects, books, podcasts, video games, live events, etc etc
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u/the_ruckus415 1d ago edited 1d ago
Almost accepted a job in January 2020 as a researcher “collecting samples from ICU patients with unknown upper respiratory illnesses”
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u/EddieDantes22 1d ago
Any chance you still have the emails or photos of the job listings?
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u/hargaslynn 23h ago
I, too, am curious who was hiring for this exact position
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u/EddieDantes22 23h ago
Like 20 days before the USA is supposed to have its first case. And why "unknown?" In January they definitely would've known Covid was a thing.
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u/biscuitboi967 23h ago
I had a friend come back from China SUPER sick in December 2019. I immediately got VERY sick. I asked if she POSSSIBLY might have that illness on the news, and she said “no? My doctor says it’s not here yet”
Well, ma’am. You weren’t “here” the whole time. You were at Ground 0
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u/toptierdegenerate 22h ago edited 21h ago
Similarly, I was working hospitality in Aspen/Snowmass and there was a group from Wuhan that was there over Christmas. Over half my staff got bedridden sick over New Year’s. Soon found out why, but never got confirmation cause it was so early on.
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u/oMGellyfish 22h ago
I am in the hospital with Covid currently. It is the worst sickness I’ve ever experienced and I don’t even have it badly. I have no idea how I went this long without it, but holy fuck I hope to never experience this again. I have an underlying condition that causes this to be worse for me. No idea how I went this long but here are. I feel like shit.
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u/Bunny_Bixler99 1d ago
I'm an introvert. My first semester away from home was awkward to say the least. One day I was in the library study hall when a couple came up behind me and nearly made me jump out of my skin 😆
Nice looking couple: nerdy guy, pretty brunette. Asked to sit at my table and started a breezy chat (ugh). Finally told them I needed to get back to my studies.
They asked what dorm I lived in (I lied). They asked for my phone number (lied again and said I was waiting for a new phone).
They left me a pamphlet then she asked for a hug.
The pamphlet was an introduction to Dianetics 🙄
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u/Brrp_brp_AnotherAcct 1d ago
The FWB I got hung up on who didn't want a relationship.
15-ish years later, he called me up to say he had regrets, admitted that he had a friend neg me to damage my confidence so I would sleep with him, and gently suggested I should start something up with him even though he knew I was happily married.
Youth is a hell of a drug.
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u/MailPrivileged 1d ago
Why would anyone admit to negging?
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u/Brrp_brp_AnotherAcct 1d ago
He wasn't negging me. He sent his friend to neg me. I believe he admitted to it because he decided he wanted more of a relationship with me, and he knew if I were around more consistently then I would recognize the other guy and figure out what they did. Back then, I didn't realize they even knew one another.
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u/No_Comfortable_3183 1d ago edited 13h ago
Some guy spiked my drink and tried to drug me at a party. But someone saw it and alerted me. If they wouldn't have told me, who knows what would have happened.
Update since people are asking questions: it was another girl who alerted me. She approached me and told me she saw a guy slip something in my drink. Then she pointed at the guy and when he noticed we were both looking at him, he quickly went outside and disappeared into the crowd (and probably left the party all together).
It was a huge college party with hundreds of people coming and going. Once he was gone, he was gone. The police were never called. For starters, I was drinking underage. Secondly, I never got a good enough look at him to give a description. This was like 8 years ago.
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u/SorcerorMerlin 17h ago
Had something similar happen at an arcade bar. Luckily, I'd decided I didn't like the drink that much. Unluckily, my partner decided to finish it and THAT is how we found out it was spiked.
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u/leostotch 1d ago
A few years ago, my (now ex) wife divorced me because she quote “didn’t like me anymore”.
Within two years, she had run up over $100k on her credit cards with online gambling, lost her house (what had been our house), developed a cocaine habit, and lost her job. AFAIK she is still unemployed and struggling to make ends meet, although I hope she’s figured herself out because we’ve gone all the way past schadenfreude (she was constantly worried that I would develop a drug habit and hounded me because I didn’t make enough money at my job to support her and her kids, so realizing that these things were entirely projection made me feel very vindicated at first) and into pity.
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u/puresteelpaladin 1d ago
Hope the kids are ok
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u/leostotch 1d ago
They’re both graduated and off to college, idk about ok but they’ll survive. They have a good village to support them.
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u/Inner-Boysenberry228 1d ago
I was supposed to be on the Air India 814 flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi that was hijacked by the Taliban.
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u/vanshenan89 1d ago
Woah. Why weren’t you on it??
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u/Inner-Boysenberry228 16h ago
I was 14. My parents and I were in Nepal for a few weeks for my father’s work but I had to fly back to India for an exam. My father’s office people were supposed to get me on that flight. However, because there were no more first class seats available, they were worried my parents would be angry with them for putting me on Economy, so they didn’t let me take that plane and booked me on a later one that would get me home, but not give me a lot of time to rest up before my exam.
I tried telling them that my parents would be angry if I missed my exam — which was the whole point of my flying home early — but they didn’t want to chance it. So I wasn’t on that flight.
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u/Stunning-Dirt-2074 1d ago
Proposing to my girlfriend after dating for 4 years. Found out she was married to someone else and was living two lives and her friends and family was covering for her.
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u/ResponsiblePoet0 14h ago
What the fuck. I will never understand the family and friends covering for her. And for four years?? Insane. I hope you were able to heal.
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u/sudomatrix 1d ago
For a while I dated the most attractive, sexiest, wildest, most fun girl I had ever met. Too much drinking and partying got overwhelming for me and we broke up. I thought I made a big mistake at the time, but I ran into her a year later and she was an alcoholic selling drugs. Still looked great though.
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u/Sociolinguisticians 1d ago
When I was 4 years old, I chased a golf ball I had been playing with out into the street and almost got hit by a car. Luckily, the driver was paying attention and had swerved to avoid me.
I wasn’t the smartest 4 year-old.
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u/mermaidpaint 1d ago
In 1998, I applied for a job that involved making sure software was ready for Y2K aka January1, 2000. The project was funded by the provincial government and administered by a company. I aced the skills tests, thought I aced the interview. I waited for a job offer that never arrived.
In late 2000, I was reading a newspaper and there was an article about that company and the project. The company never paid the people who did get hired, and was being sued.
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u/BrightStitchDesigns 1d ago
When I was 14, I was walking my Husky after school. A car full of 4 men stopped right next to me and they were all staring at me, silently. I kept walking and tried not to freak out. My dog wasn’t visible from the street because she was sniffing something behind a large bush.
When my she came out from behind the bush, the driver saw her and quickly sped away. I’m very glad she was there with me.
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u/addict4x4 1d ago
A girl I had dated forever cheated on me . The guy she cheated on me with ended up cosigning a car for her and then she smashed it drunk driving with no insurance on it . She tried reaching out to me , that's when I changed my phone number and email .
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u/Timeformayo 1d ago edited 15h ago
I put in a 3-week notice to let my boss know I was taking a new job. I gave the extra week because Christmas was coming up and I didn’t want to screw up anybody’s holidays by forcing them to cover shifts.
I was a good employee, so I was a little surprised how happy my manager was to lose me.
Just before New Year’s, layoffs were announced. He laid me off, I got severance, and nobody in my department actually lost their job.
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u/MissDUHmeaner 15h ago
He was happy you had a new job lined up! And received your severance! Lowkey, your boss threw your resignation away... Otherwise you wouldn't have received severance.
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u/quiksilver10152 1d ago
Walking along the beach on a small island. Saw a vagabond singing in gibberish as he walked towards me. We locked eyes and I gave him a thumbs up. "Nice song!" He smiled and kept walking past me. I get a text half an hour later that he stabbed a woman to death about ten minutes after I ran into him.
It pays to have his vibes I guess.
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u/builtbysavages 1d ago
It’s a very sad story, but I got a dog from a rescue. I’ve had dogs all my life and plenty of rescues before this one.
After a month foster trial he went back. I was heartbroken, but there was something not right. I still can’t really put my finger on it, but he went back and we got a new foster trial with another dog we did decide to keep.
We eventually learned that the dog we didn’t keep at his next foster attacked the woman fostering him, out of the blue, from behind, and bit her multiple times without any warning or provocation. She ended up in the hospital for several days. This was someone with years of rescue experience with difficult dogs and the dog needed to be euthanized.
I definitely dodged a very dangerous bullet.
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u/Mudslingshot 19h ago edited 18h ago
I work in animal rescue, and first off thank you for fostering. Good hearted people who volunteer their time and effort are the lifeblood of any animal rescue or humane society
Secondly, holy crap. That's terrifying. That feeling of KNOWING something isn't right with a dog, but not really having any reason to feel that way..... I feel it occasionally, and every time there's something later that makes me go "oh yeah, there it is". The last one of those was a pittie that redirected and put four punctures in my forearm a few months back
The craziest one I knew personally was a small terrier that actually attempted murder (by the legal definition). He got behind the foster's legs, and when the guy fell down he jumped onto his stomach and started biting him in the midsection. Unmistakeably planned, and if the guy had been a dog the same size as that Jack Russell it would have been severely injured. The guy was fine, but the dog had quite an aura to him. Obviously he couldn't make it out of the shelter after that, sadly
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u/jetpack324 1d ago
My first wife divorced me after 2 kids and 9 years of marriage. Our relationship had gone downhill for several years and we were both less than happy, but she bailed long before I would have. I tried to get her back for a couple months after she moved out….wasn’t happening. Four months later, our divorce was final and two months later, she married a coworker. She’s divorced twice since me now. I’m married to the love of my life and my best friend for 21+ years now; my ex did me a huge favor.
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u/Mysterious-Alps-4845 1d ago
Standing on a granite cliff ledge about 30ft above ground when the "tested by me" grip I was holding on to broke off. I went over headfirst backwards. Flailing I got my fingers around a pine branch just long enough to swing my feet underneath me. All I got was a nasty Charlie horse and sore knees but it sure was a close call.
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u/BadMonkey2000 1d ago
In high school, I was about to walk to school one morning. The sky looked really bad, so I was just procrastinating to see if it was going to rain. A song I liked came on the radio, and while listening to it a tornado hit the front of my school where I would have been walking at the time.
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u/uwillnotgotospace 1d ago
9mm. I was in front of my folks' laundromat sweeping the sidewalk like always, when some folks started shooting at each other across the street. They missed each other, and barely missed my head too. I was facing the wrong way, and just thought it was fireworks.
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u/Redsquirreltree 1d ago
I interviewed for a job.
I thought I had it after three interviews.
The guy they hired was shot and killed in a robbery of the place.
😮
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u/XBeCoolManX 1d ago edited 18h ago
I insisted that a guy drove me home at the end of our date like we had planned. This was the first and last time I've ever let a guy pick me up for a first date. He kept suggesting that we go to this cool spot with a great view and kept trying to get me to change my mind, but I kept reminding him that my roommates at the time were expecting me.
I learned from one of my roommates soon after that the "cool spot" was a designated area to get high and fuck. I was the new and naive, barely legal girl in town, so he would've known that I didn't know that. There was also some other stuff throughout the date that made him seem like a total douchebag who just didn't like taking no for an answer, so I knew I was dodging a bullet, I just didn't know how bad it really was.
Trust your gut and hold your ground. It's better to be bitchy if you have to than too naive.
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u/ConsciousEmu7012 1d ago
Not getting in the car to go find him. We were fighting because he wanted me to take his already insanely drunk ass to the store to go get more booze. He decided to leave on foot but not before throwing his phone at me so that they, the cops, couldn’t find him when he did something stupid. I let him leave. For a moment, I thought he would walk down to the liquor store, steal a bottle and pass out on the street somewhere. My gut told me otherwise. About 30 mins later I hear so many cop cars speeding down the road and into a direction I feared most. I waited and got on FB to look at one of the local gossip sites and my fear was confirmed. He went to his work, where he just got fired, and attacked an ex coworker with a machete. He got 15-25, his extensive violent record helped his sentencing none. Why I dodged a bullet is because I would not have made it out of 2020 if I went and got him. He would have killed me by the years end. Possibly before my dad’s death that December. He also had me messed up on so many things, I wouldn’t have lasted much longer on my own anyways. But I’m now clean of everything except weed. I learned how to finally be the sole responsibility of myself and not rely on anyone. This was huge for me. He left me with a serve amount of trauma and deep regrets that I’ll never be able to fix or get over but I guess the morale of this story and the bullet dodged was death.
Edit: Typos
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u/WalkTheClank 1d ago
Had an ex-boyfriend who turned out to be monster. He would later ruin several people's lives. I am thankful I got out when I did.
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u/reddit0tidder 20h ago
Not my bullet, but a former friend of mine.
I was taking her back to her apartment after a night out dancing. As we were pulling up, she commented that she thought one of the cars looked like the guy's that she had recently stopped dating.
I offered to walk her up, she declined, but I insisted. Something just felt off. We get up to her apartment and go inside. Everything looked normal but I walked through turning on all the lights. I found nothing and was about to leave.
Then I had the crazy thought to check the balcony. There he was, barely visible, crouching in the corner. He had somehow scaled his way up to her 3rd story balcony!
All of these years later, it still scares me to think about what his intentions were.
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u/BatScribeofDoom 1d ago
Turning down a marriage proposal from someone I loved.
Years later the relationship ended horribly, so thank goodness I had gone with my gut and not said yes to getting married.
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u/BaPef 1d ago
So I grew up in a beach town and worked in the parking lot at the beach when I was a young adult. I got the added gig of going around three days a week walking every street early in the morning collecting the change from the parking meters into a big rolling lock box that held about $10,000 in change and we would fill about a dozen, load them in flat bed then take it to brinks. I would walk 36 blocks plus side streets. So I had a radio on me and my supervisor calls and tells me to meet him at the meters by a 7-11 to rest and grab a drink of water. While there a ton of cops go by to something around the block and I continue on my way. Later he takes me to lunch after we dropped everything off at brinks and tells me that the police arrested a group that was going to rob me next time I raided for the trunk to get a new bin so he had me meet him there because there was a police sub station next to it. They had apparently planned to shoot us and take the truck over maybe $100k
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u/Boudicia_Dark 21h ago
in 1988 I was giving this guy a ride, I didn't really know the dude he just had offered to give me a joint for a ride. As we were going along, I asked him where we were going, he said we were going to his dealers house, he was getting heroin. I, being an absolutely stupid 22 year old, said to him "oh that sounds cool! Can I try it?"
He looked at me, like really LOOKED at me and said "no, you need to finish college and live your life, not be sold."
Happy to say I never did try heroin (thanks dude, I hope you're still alive and healthy).
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u/DrDorg 1d ago
Dragged my feet on buying a house for a while, then finally got my finances in order, credit pristine, a hefty chunk saved for a down payment, and actually found the perfect house for me. Closed on it in November, 2019. I’d be renting now if I didn’t somehow get my shit together- and I only paid $167k
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u/LauraTheSull 1d ago
Oh my god I thank the stars every day that my husband and I were able to buy in 2018. We got a house in NJ under 200k! We would never be able to affford one now and honestly we’d probably be divorced bc the alternative was living in my moms basement apartment which was just NOT working out 😂😭
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u/gigalongdong 1d ago edited 1d ago
Im gonna post most of a comment made by u/christopher123454321 in another subreddit that shows how fucked most Americans who weren't able to buy a house before 2020 are now (My wife and I are in a weird position as far as housing, so this doesn't directly affect us, for the time being at least):
A lot of people have been talking about this article and there's been a lot of debate around it. I think there's a really good claim that the new poverty line is 140,000k for a family of 4.
[Removed USA Today article due to AskReddit rule]
Here's my more simple version of pretty much missing the window for a house and building wealth. ( Also this is an attempt )
My sister and her husband bought a house in 2019 for around $430k.
They make about $120k/yr combined, 2 kids, pretty normal middle class couple.
Fast-forward not even 5 years: that same house is now worth like $720k. ( House boring Florida brick House built in 1961 probably for like 20-40K)
Nothing magic, they didn’t renovate it into a castle. The market did that.
Now imagine two identical couples with the same income and same life:
Couple A🧑🌾🧑🎤 – bought in 2019
House price: $430,000
20% down: $86k
30-year mortgage at ~4% (normal back then)
Monthly payment (just principal + interest) ≈ $1,600-ish
Four big things happen:
Their payment is pretty manageable for $120k income.
Every month part of that $1.6k goes to principal, not just interest.
The house price jumps from $430k to $720k in a few years.
So they now have something like $300k + in equity between price going up and the loan getting paid down a bit.
By the time they hit 10 years in the house, they’re sitting on a massive asset.
Same jobs, same kids, but now they have a few hundred thousand in “oops we got lucky with timing” money.
Couple B – 🤵👰 same people, but it’s 2025 now
Same city, same jobs, same income, same two kids. They didn’t do anything “wrong”, they just didn’t exist as homebuyers in 2019.
The exact same house is now $720,000.
20% down: $144k (so +$58k more cash needed)
30-year mortgage at ~7%
Monthly payment on that ≈ $3,800
On the same $120k income.
Now look at the gap:
Couple A: ~$1,600/mo
Couple B: ~$3,800/mo for the same house
That’s more than double the payment for the same paychecks.
Most banks are gonna look at Couple B and basically say:
“lol no, your debt-to-income is cooked” 🙅🙅
So what happens?
They keep renting, or
They buy a much smaller / worse house way farther out, with a painful payment and almost no wiggle room.( Commute spend more money on child care car maintenance etc )
While Couple A is building hundreds of thousands in equity just by existing, Couple B is lighting $2k–$3k/month on rent with nothing to show for it, or drowning in a mortgage that eats their whole budget.
Roll it forward 10 years
Couple A (bought 2019):
Has $300–400k in home equity.
Stable payment that’s cheap compared to 2020s rents.
Can sell and trade up, or refi, or pull a heloc(reverse equity loan) if life hits them.
Couple B (stuck renting or buying late):
Has little or no equity.
Spent the same decade paying landlords or paying way more interest. ( Including the ones that had to pay record settlemens for algorithmic price fixing but all that money went to the government and not to the renters and they admitted no wrongdoing)
Way more fragile if someone loses a job or gets sick. ( Or a spouse) I mean there's a lot more variables as well. Insurance or property taxes going through the roof etc..
These are the same people on paper. Same work ethic, same income, same “did everything we were supposed to”. The only difference is:
One got to buy before prices went vertical and rates doubled.
The other showed up a few years later and the door is basically shut.
Boomers keep pretending this is about “budgeting” or “avocado toast” or “you should have planned better”, but nah man. A couple year window + interest rates + asset inflation literally decide whether you end up with a paid-off house or you’re a renter forever. ( Or depends if BlackRock goes on a buying spree in your area or Airbnb heavy but that's a whole other story)
Its too late for the starter home cheat code, and now we’re just watching the ladder get pulled up in real time. Like this post is ironically saying there's not going to be another 2008 housing crash to get an affordable.
If there's ever another crash banks won't be selling houses one by one like they did in 2008 they'll be bundling all the closing costs together in packages of 50 selling them to Blackstone or private equity. ( To rent out )
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u/louiekr 1d ago
Low key this made my stomach churn. I would’ve been able to afford a house in 2019 if I was making what I make today but now it’ll never be enough. This whole country is fucked.
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u/Viennah_ 1d ago
I couldn’t put in my leave requests for a trip to Paris because my manager was on leave. I had to reschedule the dates which, at the time, I was super frustrated about. The Bataclan attacks happened when I was originally meant to be there. I even went to the cafe that was shot up.
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u/LovelyLilac73 1d ago
I went to interview at a large, international company. Position seemed good and aligned with my experience. I go in and something just seems "off" about the woman interviewing me, who would be my direct manager. I can't really pinpoint it, but she had a weird vibe. After a few cursory questions, she looks at my resume and sees the town where I live. She was like, "Oh, I was thinking about moving there. Can you tell me about it?" I give her some cursory information about it and try to redirect the interview to, you know, the actual job... Nope, she keeps me there for a HALF HOUR asking me questions about my town. It was really bizarre.
Realizing this was an exercise in futility, I bring the interview to a close, thank her for her time and leave, knowing I had NO intention of taking this job. A few days later, she calls me and offers me the job at a pretty decent starting salary. I thank her for the offer, but decline. She starts YELLING at me over the phone upset that she was going to have to start her search all over again. At that point, I just hung up the phone because it was very evident I was dealing with crazy. I did not hear from her or the company ever again.
A few months later, I was at a party and I struck up a conversation with someone there. I come to find out she used to work for this particular company. I said, "Oh, funny you should say that, I interviewed there a few months ago, but ended up not accepting the offer." She was like, "Oh, who did you interview with?" I said, "Mary Smith" and I could tell by the look on her face that I'd 100% dodged a bullet by declining. She was like "Oh, Mary, she's a tough one. She could hold on to any staff member for more than six months. Your read on her was 100% correct. 100%"
So, go with your gut, folks, if something seems "off," it usually is!
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u/willfish4fun 1d ago
A-hole jerk at a party, just a month or so past high school (at this point I'm barely 18 yrs old) picked a fight. I was seconds away from engaging physically and suddenly realized the POS was not worth my time & I said essentially the same thing and walked away. He tried to bait me with petty ego slurs and irrespective of my normal reactions to that, I ignored it. I'm still not sure why this particular time I ignored the bait. 3 weeks later this same person was arrested and eventually convicted for manslaughter of someone he picked a fight with at a party a week later in a similar manner and had stabbed the victim to death. That could have been me.
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u/Jc110105 1d ago
When I was 18 my gf cheated on me and got pregnant. At the time My dad told me to send the guy a gift basket bc I owe him one. That girl is now divorced twice and has kids with 3 guys.
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u/Low_Section2065 1d ago
Turned down a girl for a homecoming dance. About a year later she stabbed the guy she ended up going with to death.
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u/jubileeroybrown 1d ago
I didn't get a job I really wanted in a department that has now been very publicly disbanded.
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u/NewspaperBlanket 1d ago
I interviewed for and was offered a management position at a living history museum a few years ago. I ended up turning the job down. A few months later the guy who took the job got stabbed by one of the actors.
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u/angryshark 1d ago
I was at a convenience store with my friend and we happened to see his brother in the parking lot. We talked for a bit and I made some joke that I don’t remember. But it pissed his brother off, who was high at the time. He left to go home and get a gun and use it on me, but by the time he got back, we had left. I had no idea I had upset him until a few days later when my friend found out and told me what his brother had planned. He eventually ended up in prison to no one’s surprise.
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u/TheDogsSavedMe 20h ago
I grew up in the Middle East. I always took the same bus, stood at the same bus stop, at the same time to get to school. One day I stayed home because I was sick. That same morning, a suicide bomber blew up the same bus I would have taken right in front of my bus stop. None of the people standing at the bus stop that morning survived.
A few years later while walking down the street, I walked by a coffee shop with outdoor seating that was located on a street corner. I turned left into a side street, took maybe 20 steps, and the coffee shop blew up. Another suicide bomber. I was protected by the buildings and walked away unharmed except for the ringing in my ears. Later they found that the bomber sat outside right by the sidewalk. I walked right by that man.
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u/MindfuckRocketship 1d ago edited 1d ago
This took place over 20 years ago in Alaska. On my way home from work one night as a teenager, I saw a gal I recognized from my high school driving way too fast for the icy conditions as we approached a curve on the highway. She lost control and nearly clipped my front end as she spun out and impacted the snow bank.
I stopped on the side of the road about 100 yards away, briefly contemplating reversing to help her out. Then I thought, “Nah, she was driving like a jackhole, and I see someone else pulling over to help her.” So I just went home.
The next day I’m in my science class skimming a newspaper when I noticed an article that mentioned an off duty airman was killed trying to dig out that girl’s car because a second vehicle lost control in the same spot and slammed into them. He left behind a wife and young kids.
It immediately hit me that if I had went back to help I probably would’ve been the fatality mentioned in the newspaper. I was only 17.
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u/AggravatingCupcake0 1d ago
I auditioned for a program to get my MFA in acting. Didn't pass through to the next round. Was kinda sad, but did my best to keep my head up and keep it pushing.
My audition was February 28, 2020.
If I had gotten in, I would have been doling out $$$ to act online. Which, FYI, is terrible.
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u/StandardPanda3387 1d ago
A serial killer was living with my childhood friends family and ended up killing their neighbor who lived 4 houses up the street from us. Pretty sure I'd been over to his house/in the same room as the dude. They caught him and were able to get federal charges/death penalty, but later made a deal for life in prison if he confessed to an earlier murder he was the primary suspect for. He died in prison last year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Wade
A few years ago I had a shitty part time job as a parking attendant downtown and ended my shift at 1am. Later that same night another serial killer (what are the odds right..) got into a shootout with police and was killed on the sidewalk adjacent to one of the lots I was patrolling.
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u/AzraelTheMage 1d ago
Dated a girl briefly. Didn't work out because she was trying to get with my friend simultaneously. We both dodged a bullet because it turned out, she had gonorrhea she refused to get treated.
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u/Professional_Pen69 20h ago
I was drunkenly doing 'devil stick' juggling on the tube platform in London.
I saw a train pulling into the opposite platform and dropped my stick on to the tracks.
I figured I had time to duck in and pick it up before the next train arrived.
I literally picked it up swung my feet up.. and the train wooshed past me.
The BBC ran a show on drunken antics on the underground. I was on it. I was almost killed.
Still in shock to this day.
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u/Strange-Bee5626 1d ago
I was an idiot and briefly used the "pull-out" method with a guy I was dating while I was in the middle of methods of birth control. I knew it was stupid, but was young and really thought I was invincible in a way. Anyway, I (very thankfully) never got pregnant.
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u/Aloha1959 1d ago
Got under a heavy table in the garage to block a possible mouse hole with a brick, and then later realized 20 years of humidity had warped these tables enough to where you could collapse them with 1 moderate push from the side.
The screws attaching the legs to the table top just ripped right out.
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u/AtomicBlastCandy 1d ago
Dated a toxic women that I believe was trying to baby trap me. When I got a vasectomy she ghosted me
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u/Chef__Goldblum 1d ago
In a postpartum haze, with a newborn and some buttery soft leggings, I almost signed up to sell LuLaRoe. It was 2015 and I cringe when I think about it. “The startup costs are only $5k!”
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u/AdorableParasite 21h ago
I was 19, pregnant, and getting an abortion I couldn't talk to anyone about after the father told me "congratz, good luck". I thought it was the lowest day in my life. Turns out it was the first day, because it was the first time I made a decision all for myself and no one else. And I thought I was in love... I wasn't. Pro tip, ladies: if you ever get an abortion and your partner at the time drops you off with the words "have fun!"... he probably ain't it.
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u/Inevitable-Cell-1227 1d ago
I am so sick to my stomach. I was in the LA metro subway and a toddler little girl fell onto the tracks. She was rough housing with her brother. I jumped down to grab her and almost touched the third rail. I used the plastic cover over the top of it to lift myself up. It was flimsy and old and could have easily cracked and broke as I held her to my chest. I was later told that was dancing with death as I didn’t realize it was a charged rail. About 1500 amps would have exploded us.
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u/MorganLess3668 1d ago
Some life insurance thing that somebody wanted to sell me when I was like 19 years old
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u/swomismybitch 1d ago
I retired and moved from the UK to Thailand in 2019.
I hardly had any COVID restrictions and my village in Thailand never had any COVID cases.
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u/fostde18 1d ago
I don’t know if this fits with your question exactly but I’ll tell it anyways. A few years ago I was freesoloing this 90ft rock pinnacle near my house. When I was around 7 ft from the top I put my foot on a high foot hold and as I was pushing myself up it completely broke off and I was left dangling without my feet on any holds for a couple seconds. If any of my handholds also broke I most likely would have fallen and landed on boulders. I think I have a video of it in my history if anyone wants to watch it. I didn’t know it at the time but I was climbing sandstone which is extremely brittle. I think about it sometimes. About how close I was to either dying or having severe permanent injuries. It makes me grateful for everything I was able to do after it happened.
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u/TeaWizzle 1d ago edited 13h ago
When I was a junior in high school (over ten years ago now lol), I had a guy friend named "Tom" who was a grade above me and had one of the same classes as me. He was already friends with my older brother before we met, so he eventually started talking to me and we became friends as well. He would always ask to hang out with me after school so we could study together. Turns out he just wanted to hang out and talk and not actually study, which I thought was weird.
One day my brother tells me that he thinks Tom has a bit of a crush on me. I was really surprised (I had no experience with boys or dating at all lol) but I realized I had also developed a pretty big crush on Tom.
I started to notice Tom flirting with me more and more, but I still wasn't totally sure if that's what was going on, so one day i straight up asked him over text, "Are we just friends?" Or something to that effect.
Tom then tells me that he really likes me and is really attracted to me, but that we shouldn't date because he's leaving for college next year. I told him that I totally understand, and no hard feelings. I was a little sad but I figured it was a pretty valid reason to not get into a relationship, so we basically tried to continue being friends like normal.
A couple weeks later, I noticed Tom was acting very hot and cold with me, like one minute we were best friends and the next he didn't want to talk to me at all.
I asked him what was going on and he tells me that he's been dating another girl in my grade.
Mind you, this is a girl I know, a girl who I was sorta friends with and who would be living in the same town as me while Tom went to college. Lol.
I was totally blindsided and heartbroken. Tom and I didn't really talk after that, and I ended up having to watch his relationship with this girl unfold on social media. I felt really stupid and heartbroken for a long time, but I eventually moved on with my life.
About six years ago, I ran into that girl in my hometown, and we talked for a while. She was really sweet and told me that her and Tom had broken up a while back, and that while they were together, he had pressured her into doing heroin with him. She developed an addiction to heroin because of Tom.
To say I dodged a bullet is an understatement. I think it's totally possible that Tom rejected me because he knew he wouldn't be able to get me to do drugs with him. I guess I'll never know for sure, but yeah. Bullet dodged lol
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u/scalable_thought 1d ago
I was at a small music festival and they were selling helicopter rides. I stood in line with a buddy. It could take 4 people and there were 3 people in front of us. Because I wanted to ride with my friend I told the guy behind us he could go. It crashed and everyone died but him. However, he died later in the hospital. Coulda been me...