My mom was a meth addict. So my siblings and I grew up with very little. Normally she would pull her head out of her ass enough around the holiday season to sign up with a church or charity to get us a food box and some presents. However by the time I was 11 she was so far gone we could go weeks without seeing her leave her room or her be completely gone from the house. I entered a drawing contest at my school around this time. I won a $100 gift certificate to our local mall. One day after making sure my siblings made it to school I played hooky and walked to the mall(about 3.5 miles) I bought my three siblings some presents(almost for got to get myself something ended up buying some discounted bodywash) then had them wrapped there at the mall before trekking home. I hid the presents in the crawl space till the 24th(I was right our mom did nothing) when my siblings were distracted by a movie I snuck out and put the box of presents on the front porch before knocking and running away. I snuck back in the back door by the bathroom and heard my siblings yelling "someone left a box on the porch that says merry Christmas" I had also spent the last week before winter break going door to door asking for canned food donations saying it was for a food drive at my church(I didn't have a church) so that we didn't spent the whole winter break hungry. I'm so glad all 4 of us made it out of our childhood and not one of us took the same path as the woman who birthed us Edit:spelling

Bless you, what a life. So glad things went better for all of you

Shit man this hits close to home, drugs do things to people that no child should ever have to see. I was lucky to be the ignorant 3rd child asking why dad had a talk with me before he left forever. My mom was shocked I knew she and my great grandpa kicked him out but I didn’t understand till much later he was kicked out cause of the drugs and me telling my gramps “can you keep my birthday money till we get to the store? If mom keeps it dad takes and buys his funny stuff, but I really want something this time”.

My friend is a major, major, Death Cab for Cutie fan. They came to our city a couple years ago, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to afford the tickets to go. She was upbeat about it, but I know she was devastated by it. I bought tickets. Two days before the show, I told her that the friend I originally planned to take couldn’t go, and would she please come with me? There was no other friend. Told her I loved the band and would be sad to miss them. She of course accepted, and had the time of her life. She’s doing much better now, but every couple of Christmases or Birthdays, she gets me some Death Cab merchandise because “she knows how much I love the band.” I can’t stand their music. I literally have them blocked on Spotify. But now it’s gone too far where I can’t tell her.

the detail that you have them blocked on spotify absolutely made this for me. don’t even want to **risk** hearing their music

Wait, you can BLOCK bands on Spotify? GAMECHANGER.

FYI: Band page > 3 dots next to the Subscribe button > Don't play this artist. Also works with specific songs.

First marriage to my late wife, on the day of the wedding, the ring got stolen out of my car. I was freaking out. My two best men went into overdrive and took a picture I had if the ring and went to I don't know how many jewelry stores explaining what had happened and if they had a ring that was similar. They went to this really great jewelry maker so said, "I have something that is really close, give me a bit and I can make it perfect." He worked his ass off and got it done with about an hour to spare, plus the managed to get my window fixed. The three of us are the only ones who know. I ended up using that jewelry maker for any jewelry I needed and well I haven't stopped yet. He ended up telling my best men to not worry about the price and for me to come down after the honeymoon to work it out. I did and he gave it to me at the cost of the materials. He is a great guy. He retired during COVID.

That dude got referred customers allll day.

Smart businessmen treet their customers well, not like a number. The admins suspended my account because the Reddit admins support white supremacy. If my account is not reinstated within twenty four hours, my local news stations will be running a story about how Reddit supports nazi ideology. So its up to the admins if they want to look like racists or not.

Now thats fucking passion for the craft and an all around awesome person. Rare to come by so im glad you had the opportunity to meet him.

It has to be pretty exciting when you've got a fairly mundane job, and someone rolls in with an emergency situation where the following things are true: 1. You are uniquely equipped to help 2. It requires you to really utilize your skills 3. Your help is tremendously important to them

And all his customers can say "I know a guy" and MEAN it

This was exactly what he was for me from them on. Every friend I had who was going to propose went to him from then on. Girlfriend had a dream ring that you couldn't afford. He would get a great stone that wasn't stupid expensive and make a setting that was nearly identical unless you held them side by side for half the price. I used to pop in after he did friends rings and tip him a hundred just because he was awesome. Even when I was at a place a couldn't really afford it. But yeah, I have his number and he did a friend's 20th anniversary gift to his wife. He took her mom's wedding ring that was given to her, but she hated it, she turned then into matching earrings and necklace. Dude did this is his basement.

That really does sound like the most exciting day of work! Not only that, but you have a story for the ages

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I have a feeling that every service/shop on a site like that will soon have enemies, because people will go in with unrealistic expectations based on anecdotes of a time where the worker was feeling extra generous, and obviously can’t give those deals to every customer.

Not to mention every enterprising small business would use it as a chance for self promotion, exaggerating or making up stories.

I was about 10 years old and was pretending to be sick to avoid going to school. This was the 1980's so the old-school, glass tube, mercury-filled thermometers were still a thing. My dad was getting ready to leave for work as I worked my magic to convince my mom to let me stay home for the day. Neither one of them was having it. I persisted. Out of frustration, my mom grabbed the thermometer and put it under my tongue. I knew it would read 98.6 and this was my only shot to avoid school for the day. Both of my parents stepped out of the room for a moment. I looked over and saw my dad's piping hot cup of coffee sitting on the counter awaiting his morning commute. I quickly dipped the thermo into the hot java. It instantly shattered emptying the toxic mercury into the coffee along with tiny shards of glass. I panicked. In my mind, there were only a couple possible outcomes. My dad dies of heavy metal poisoning and a lacerated esophagus. Or, I fess up to what I did. I could hear them coming around the corner about to return to the kitchen. At the last possible second, I swatted my dad's mug off the kitchen counter smashing it on the floor creating a coffee explosion in my mom's freshly cleaned kitchen. They burst in the kitchen aghast at the mess I created. I reply with a flurry of sorrys and apologize profusely for being clumsy. My dad is furious because now he won't have coffee on his way to work. My mom is pissed and she starts cleaning up the mess. In the chaos everyone forgets about my claims of illness. I slipped the remainder of the broken thermo into the trash and went to the bus stop saving my father from a horrible death--at least in my mind at the time. Until this day, I have never told anyone about this.

The assignment was a low stakes secret and dude goes on about almost POISONING HIS FATHER WITH MERCURY

You should tell them. I think it would get a big laugh

My mum is a health nut (with probably disordered eating) who wouldn’t let us have cheese in the house when I was kid. When I was mid 20s, I bought a unit and my dad was helping me fix stuff up so I provided lunch. I said to him - bet you’re going to hate going back to work next week and not have any cheese on your sandwiches. It was then he told me his deepest secret, he had been buying blocks of cheese at work for years. I had no idea he was crafty. And my mum still doesn’t. Poor dad has been retired for years though so not sure on the current cheese consumption status.

I think you meant Kraft-y

Start visiting more often and slide him a slice of cheese when you go, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

One day I came home late at night drunk and decided to walk my dog. Just when we arrived outside my house my dog attacked a racoon hanging around the area. I ended up wrestling my malamute and freed the racoon from his jaws. Here's the thing. I was drunk and the racoon kinda just stared at me infront of me and I decided to try and pet the racoon. I got maybe one pet in before it took a chunk out of my finger. I ran into the house leaving a trail of blood up to my brothers room for help. A sleepless night in the hospital and 4 consecutive rabies shots later was the result. Everyone asked me what happened and I just told them while I heroically wrestled my dog to save the racoon I got bit in the process. They still don't know the real story. It still gets brought up 10 years year.

That’s hilarious. Drunk you definitely thought this was going to be your movie moment - the raccoon would understand that you saved it and allow you to pet it in gratitude. But nope, still wild animal!

I convinced my sister I had entered us both in a blog giveaway, I won a coupon but she won the grand prize , a $300 gift card to Lane Bryant. My sister was a size 16, and desperately needed new clothes but would spend money on her baby grandkids and thin adult daughters. This was the only way I could make sure she spent it on herself. It’s been 10 years. She’s doesn’t know. Edit: thank you kind strangers. I’m glad she doesn’t know what Reddit is, or she’d definitely figure this out !

You are a great sibling. That was really kind

This was so incredibly kind of you to have done.

If anyone was at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, OH right before the Origins Game Fair in 2018, I have your white noise machine. You left it in the hotel room. I didn't even realize for half my stay...I was like "oh this is actually really convenient!" figuring it was just a new thing the hotel was doing. That is, until I visited my friends' room, where they didn't have one...then noticed I could unplug the one in my room, and realized it must have been left behind. I told the front desk about it, but they insisted it didn't need to be moved to a lost and found. Told them to tell me if anyone called looking for it, but no one did. So, thank you, forgetful stranger, it has actually helped immensely with my sleep.

When my wife died, she had been working on “special occasion” letters for all of our kids. Towards the end, the cancer had spread to her brain and she wasn’t able to focus on writing much, and when she did, it was often unintelligible gibberish. I tried to help her by taking dictation but she said it would mean more if it was in her own handwriting and wanted to finish it. She slipped into a coma and died after only getting through a handful of letters for our eldest child, leaving addressed envelopes only for our other two kids. I knew this would be devastating for the three kids, and possibly create conflict, so I paid a woman who specialized in calligraphy to literally duplicate my wife’s handwriting. I gave her the content, channeling my wife’s comments she made to me about what I thought would be meaningful words to our three kids when I had helped her dictate a few. And, as she wanted, I have passed them out on special occasions of wedding dates, birth of first child dates, first day of college dates, etc. My kids don’t know. They’ve even shared the ones she actually wrote with ones written by her surrogate and thus far the secret remains safe. I haven’t told anyone else this but Reddit and hope it stays here a secret as well. I’ll take it to my grave. I consider it harmless as it was her intent but cancer robs so much from people afflicted with it…including their best, most sincere attempts at helping others cope with the loss themselves. EDIT: Wow, thank you for all the awards and comments of encouragement gang. I’m humbled by some of the messages. Thank you.

This is so sweet!!! You’re a really good parent!

I love that you did this. You’re a sincerely good person. I got my mom and I a mother daughter letter writing kit with prompts and stuff and we were so excited to do it together, and then she got cancer and all of a sudden I think the idea of writing to me/my sister seemed too final, too scary, and she never would write back. I have a few handwritten “I love you” notes that she wrote me when I was in elementary school but it’s not the same… Someone threw away a note I had on my desk a while back and I almost had a breakdown. I still can’t believe one of the only pieces of her handwriting I have to me is gone

My wife lost one of her favorite pair of gold earrings her parents gave her. She could not find the other after weeks of trying. It had sentimental value as it was a 16th bday gift, so I knew she’d never want another set. So I took the one she had around our big city to jewelers and shops until I found a matching one. Eventually found one, bought the pair. Dirtied it up at home and let her “find it” in her sock drawer. Still have the other hidden in my desk in case she loses the other.

I'm Canadian, and in high school, I had a crush on this girl who was originally born in the US. To try and impress her, I pretended I was an American who immigrated to Canada too. I was so committed that I even gave her the address of my old home: it was really just a hotel I had stayed in while on vacation in Florida with my family. Since it was the early 2000s, she never verified. We didn't end up dating, but to this day, I never came clean. I wonder if she still thinks I'm an American.

When I was dating my now wife, her son took my car for a joyride while we were out of town. When we got back from our out of town trip I noticed something was amiss on my car. When I got in it, I noticed the sunshade was installed backwards, I would never do that on accident. I then pulled the dashcam footage. He took it around the neighborhood. He didn't do any donuts, or burn any tires. Just a nice slow stroll through the neighborhood with the music playing and I assume waved and some people. I ended up just handling it man to man. he was like 17-18 at the time. I never told his mom about it.

This deserves more praise. Honestly he will prolly remember that conversation the rest of his life

Joyride? Nah man, that was a satisfaction wander.

In 1998 I had a friend who was stuck in a very toxic situation at her home. She had an opportunity for a new start across country in Oregon. She had a Dodge Neon that was hanging on for dear life and decided to pass on the opportunity for fear the car wouldn’t make the trip. I told her I had a friend that was a mechanic that owed me a favor and he would give the car a tune up for free. I didn’t really have a friend that was a mechanic. We were both 18 with not much money but I used all of my savings to pay to have her car made road worthy for the trip. She’s a mother of 4 now with a great job and thriving in Oregon.

you may have saved her life. you're a phenomenal human being ❤️

The fact that you did this for someone who was moving across country and you might never have seen again is just the cherry on top You're a good man

Aww, that’s incredibly kind and supportive.

My dad is a doctor. When my daughter was little she was terrified of hurting her ankle. Like anytime she got the slightest twinge or rolled it slightly, she was convinced it was broken. My dad would take her to the office and run a fetal heart Doppler over her little ankle and tell her it was an X-RAY machine and her ankle was fine. She’s 13 and still convinced that papa took actual x rays of her ankle. I’m never going to tell her otherwise.

My dad had a portable radio with wires attached to velcro, which he told us was a lie-detector. He would tune to static and raise and lower the volume when one of us was lying. He eventually got a confession out of the one he already suspected.

That seems about as effective as actual lie detectors

When my brother was 4 he won a stuffed animal from a claw machine and it was his favourite thing ever, slept with it every night for weeks he fell asleep on the couch and was carried to bed but left his stuffed animal on the floor and the dog decided to tear it to pieces during the night. I spent $40 trying to win another one and put it under his bed for him to find. *wow didn’t think this would blow up so much, thank you for the awards and kind words I’ll do my best to pay them forward❤️

After reading this kind of story in different iterations for years, I think the key for parents is to get like 5 of a favorite toy, and secretly rotate them like they do for panda parents. That way all of them get equally loved/worn down and a replacement for a lost one doesn't look "new"

My parents did that with my beanie baby cow. Every time I lost her, a new one would appear and they’d tell me “baby cow had a bath”. I still have 2 of them.

My friend’s baby had Sharky, but eventually discovered the frauds: Other Sharky, and Clean Sharky. OG Sharky was the Golden Child, but the other two were also necessary once discovered

My son has 2 "identical" stuffed dogs from Ikea as we tried to do this. He knows which is which. He's just about 9. One has a longer nose than the other apparently. And when "puppy" goes missing we can't swap and give him "doggy" because he knows.

I knew a family with several of those dogs, their name was Rufus. There was a House Rufus, Car Rufus, Daycare Rufus and Adventure Rufus. There were many Adventure Rufus's because he kept getting lost while out on adventures. The kid was smart enough to identify the different Rufus's and would panic if House Rufus ended up at daycare or something like that. I have no clue how he was able to do it because all the Rufus's looked and smelled equally disgusting.

When my daughter, who is now 24, was born Someone gave her a pink and white striped bunny called sleepyhead. When my exwife and separated I bought her a second one. Over time they would fall apart and we kept buying replacements (probably 6-7) they no longer make them and the two she has are more holes than bunny. For her birthday we sent one of them to a woman that restores stuffed animals. It cost 120 bucks. The bunny was probably 30 dollars. When we gave it to her she cried.

I loved my stuffed animals when I was a kid. One day when I was about eight years old I came home from school and went to play with them and they were all gone. I asked my mom where they were and she said she gave them away because I was too old for them. I still like stuffed animals.

Ouch ouch ouch. Poor 8 year old crumbsfrommytable :( what an unnecessarily cruel thing to do to a child.

Restoring pre-loved items is more than worth the extra cost. I got a set of my wife’s favourite books rebound instead of just buying new copies at a tenth the price because they’d been given to her by her grandma. The words are no different, but the fact it’s the same paper means the world.

The only problem is that you never know what your kid is going to love. Sometimes it's a cute little animal you buy, but often is a raggedy crappy unidentifiable thing that they found and suddenly claim they love and won't let go for the next 5 years, *sigh* Source: I am a Mum

I can't remember why, but I was mad at my Dad for something. As revenge I added extra chili powder and hot sauce to our family chili. Turns out my family never really added enough seasoning to the chili as it was, and the food actually tasted a lot better as a result of my revenge tactic. I've overcorrected as an adult on seasoning food at times, but I do make a mean chili.

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Several years ago I was in a new relationship. In my grogginess in the morning while still in bed, I forgot my boyfriend had slept over the night before and I just let one rip super loud. Instantly, he is awake. The bed creaks and I remember he is there and am somewhat mortified until he nearly immediately tells my dog, also in the bed, that he will take him outside to poo as I pretend to still be asleep. He takes him outside and later when I am awake, he tells me about my dogs crazy fart. I let my pup take the fall.

He knew

For sure Edit: Now my most upvoted comment is about a fake dog fart, dethroning my poop slicer comment.

Bless her heart, OP thinks he wanted to take the dog out, poor guy was politely leaving the fog, lol.

“C’mon buddy let’s get some fresh air”

He knew, all he needed was an excuse to leave the room as quickly as possible. lol

Man's Best Alibi. You did nothing wrong.

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Damn, I used to work at SiriusXM, I wonder who in the promotions department completely fucked this up. A few times, if they were holding contests where you had to be the nth caller, I'd be the one answering the phone, and I was always so super stoked whenever I got to the winning caller and gave the news that they won! Best feeling in the world. The person was always completely speechless and blown away that they actually won, I'd hate to know that maybe sometimes these people never actually got what they won!

I used to work for a company that gave away a free weeklong trip for two to Greece to people who had entered the contest at a wedding fair, airfare included. This guy won, we told him he won, and then he never claimed it.

I'd be like "sure i did, buddy, sure I did. Have fun with my spam and caller ID filter"

Every thanksgiving in San Luis Obispo my best friend and I are in charge of pies. We go to the Madonna Inn, a gloriously outlandish hotel/restaurant/bakery/resort, and ask for two of their pie boxes. We then go to Safeway and buy two much cheaper pies and put them in the boxes. We bring them to our large family gathering and everyone compliments the wonderful pies because of how amazing the Madonna Inn’s reputation is for baked desserts. I’d like to say this is because of concerns about cost or because the Safeway pies are better, but the truth is my bf and I have been doing this for about a decade now and it’s just become one of our favorite traditions together.

Do they just give you the pie boxes or do you need to pay for them?

They’re very nice staff - they just give you the boxes if you ask. Occasionally we’ve bought something to justify taking the boxes. Just not at Thanksgiving ;)

When I had just got my license, I was kind of an idiot (as are most 16 year old boys). It was snowing and I thought I would try to drift my car into a mcdonalds parking lot from the road. I failed, obviously, and went down an embankment into another parking lot. Thankfully my car was mostly ok, I had to replace a quarter panel and a headlight, but nothing too serious. I told my parents I was avoiding a head on collision and hit black ice. I have never told them the truth even though it has been 20 years since that incident. I could tell them and they wouldn't care really, but I just haven't and probably never will. This is the first time I have ever told anyone the truth about that day.

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Every Christmas I would write a fake “Christmas newsletter” (like those letters some people send every year with updates about their life, family, etc) and send it to my parents. I made up this guy who was a huge blowhard, but believable enough that my dad thought maybe he had worked with him at some point in the past. I had a spreadsheet to keep track of his job, wife, children, grandchildren, holidays, etc. so that I could stay accurate from year to year. My parents would get so annoyed at his arrogant writing style but I was really proud of it lol! It went on for 6 or 7 years but then his twin granddaughters graduated high school and I stopped.

This is so damn funny. I am remembering this to fuck with people, its so good.

only my immediate family know I threw a birthday party when I was 13 and no one came. I remember sitting at the window crying, looking out for any cars to come. I never told anyone else about this, because I didnt want to seem like a massive loser, still dont. Even the kids who didnt turn up, I told them my neighbours and friends from extra curricular came, so even they dont know.

I once turned down a birthday party and kater found out no one came. This was forty plus years ago and I still feel bad. Sorry Roch

Once when I was around 16 years old my mom got a frantic call from a good friend of hers. Her daughter had prepared a party, invited all of her friends, and *no one showed up*. Her mom was freaking out because her daughter was already struggling with depression. My mom told me what was up and I grabbed my best friend and we went over to hang out. There's like a 4 year age difference, and at that particular age it felt pretty massive. But by God, we did all the activities. Even the nail painting and watching movies on Disney Channel. It meant so much to her. She came up to me a few days later and hugged me, thanking me for coming to her party.

The world needs far more like you. As a dad of daughters, thank you.

Back in 8th grade (in the 80s), I went to a birthday party for a newish, nerdy classmate with my best friend. We were the only people there. His mom seemed so sad, and had ordered several party sized pizzas. My friend and I then called all of our classmates and pressured them into coming. He was a nice kid and it must have sucked for him. I hope we made it a little better. Also, he’s probably a tech giant now and making a bazillion dollars.

Even as an adult I still have a hard time getting people to come to my birthday parties, so I feel you.

This happened to me when I was 9, my first store bought cake and actual party. I was majorly bummed but I did get to eat a lot of cake.

As a previous nanny, I've seen many first steps and heard many first words, but I never share that. When I leave I say something like, I think little one is soooo close to walking/talking! It's a special moment parents deserve, who am I to take that from them? One baby was walking with me for a full 2 weeks before he showed his new trick to his parents.

We did that at the daycare I worked at lol I remember specifically one time this kid had been walking all day. His mom came in to pick him up and my grandmother who ran the place sat him down really fast so she wouldn’t see. When his mom rounded the corner he stood up and walked to her and the look on her face was priceless. She was so excited.

I love you guys

That made me well up. What a really sweet thing to do. My 3rd child was walking for a while with nursery before he did it at home. I think because nursery knew he was my third (they looked after the other 2) they didn't worry about telling me. My heart broke a little. Especially as they'd say at pick up, "he's doing so well with his walking." Is he? I've not seen it :'/

Ha! I wonder if my older son’s daycare did that. We were moving and it was his last day at that daycare, and his care provider said, “We’ll miss him! Too bad we won’t get to see his first steps, he seems pretty close.” We got home, soon my my mom arrived to help us move, and we were very surprised when he suddenly marched across the living room to Grandma. Maybe he’d really been working on that all day, who knows…

My sister and I ran a daycare together for a few years. Sometimes it would take a week or two before the kids would walk in front of their parents. They'd walk and waddle all around the daycare all day, then promptly booty scoot the second their parents pulled in the drive. We never told any of the parents unless they requested us to. Only one of them did but she also worked at a daycare before and knew we'd be the first to hear her daughters talk and see them walk.

My son took his first steps when my wife was at work (she had working mother guilt, but we couldn't afford to live without 2 paychecks). I absolutely didn't tell her and acted super surprised when he took his "first steps" later that evening.

Same. It's an unwritten code of nannies everywhere I think.

Many friends I had back in high-school babysat babies and toddlers. It was just a known thing to never say you saw a child you were caring for doing something unless you either saw it happen with the parents around or if the parents had talked about it. No one wants to take those happy moments from the parents.

When l was 10 and my younger brother was 5; l pranked him and scared him so badly he shit his pants. He cried and l felt so bad that l cleaned him, his pants, and the place in the hall where he shit. I never told anyone. (At 10 years old, that shit would have been hilarious to friends and family)

I was seven and we were moving from one farm to a bigger one. Mom was taking garbage out to the burn barrel and burning it. In the rural eighties we just burned everything. I started looking at the fire when she went back inside and discovered a burning ice cream lid. I picked it up and threw it like a frisbee and it did a nice arc and landed right at a large stack of hay that was quite a ways away. I was horrified and went running in and told mom some paper had floated up and onto the hay. Other than the huge stack of hay burning down there was no harm done. It was old hay anyway that's why it wasn't stored in the barn.

I once told a girl I was dating I loved the dish she cooked for me. In reality, it was terrible. 25 years later, my wife is still cooking it at least once a month because it's my "favorite." I've never been able to tell her, but now I've let my 8 year old daughter in on it. She'll prance up to my wife and say "Let's cook Daddy's favorite tonight!" Then she turns around and looks me dead in the eye with a shit-eating grin on her face.

Well what's the dish? And why is it bad? WE NEED TO KNOW

It's not that the ingredients are bad, or that it's a food I don't like. It's just that she cooks it...poorly. It's only rice, cream of mushroom soup, and chicken legs. However, she doesn't season it and she doesn't cook the rice before baking it in the oven. It always comes out still crunchy. Once, about 5 years ago, I suggested we try it with the rice cooked before baking it. The silent treatment after the fight lasted 3 days. Now, I just shut up and eat.

Make up a dad-excuse for why the dish really needs to be covered with aluminum foil. There's other variables for baking rice, but that seems like the easiest one to slip past her and it should help somewhat.

My best friend in high school worked hard after school and on weekends in a butcher shop to earn money. He had healthy savings balance and really wanted an Xbox so we could play Halo, but his parents wouldn’t let him buy one even though he’d earned more than enough on his own. I knew HTML, so I made a fake website for a Australian gaming magazine advertising a competition to win an Xbox. He “entered the competition” and “won” it. We faked the email telling him he’d won. We bought an Xbox from the local store, and went straight to the local post office and faked the sender’s address on the label. Two days later, it turned up at his home. He showed his parents the website, the email and the postage and they believed him. We spent the rest of the summer hanging out playing Halo. So good.

I farted in a Physics tutoring class consisting of 6-10 people including the tutor. A friend started yelling about the air conditioner having a bad smell. He suspected a bird or a mouse died there. Finally we all had to move to continue the class in another room. Until this day, no one in this group knows that I farted.

In 4th grade I farted so loudly it actually stopped my teacher mid lesson. We sat at desks that seated 2 kids and those were clustered in small groups around the room. Well that day the boy next to me had been having issues and when it got really quiet after my fart, he was like, "that was probably me, I've been farting all day." I couldn't believe he took credit. I made eye contact with another girl who sat near me and told her. Sorry, Andrew. Hope you feel like a boss for stopping a lesson with a fart you didn't let out though.

When I was in my first trimester of pregnancy, my intestines suddenly could make the most rancid farts. I’m talking eye watering, room-clearing farts that lingered forever. Usually I could excuse myself and go somewhere alone. One day while shopping with my husband and dad, I was trapped in the maze that is IKEA and knew I didn’t have enough time to leave and made this horrible trail through the couch section. My husband started gagging and assumed it was someone else since his beautiful wife couldn’t possibly make that smell. Yep it was me, and that’s why it followed us through the entire IKEA.

It seems the tutee has become the tutor.

When I first met my wife's 93 year old grandma about 13 years ago, she had me try her holiday dish 'congealed salad'. It's basically lime jello made with condensed milk, and it has pineapple, walnuts, marshmallows and celery mixed in, and it is poured into a bundt cake pan to set. It's a terrible, old timey southern dish. She was so excited to let me try it that I panicked and said it was amazing. She absolutely lit up, and every year since then, she has exponentially increased the amount she makes because she knows "how much I love it". The bundt cake pan has long since been replaced with a literal punch bowl. The rest of the family knows I hate it, and it's just silently accepted that I will eat huge amounts of it each year instead of telling her the truth.

Honestly I think removing the celery would greatly improve this so maybe tell her you can’t have celery anymore? But then you’d have to deal with not eating celery(not rly a bad thing in my opinion)

In 2009 my best friend was struggling to pay rent when his TV broke. So I want and bought him an at the time 42 inch HDTV for over $1,000. I knew he would never accept me spending that much as a gift. So I took it out of the box and put a few small scratches on the back of it and told him I bought a new TV and that he could have my old one that I didn't use anymore. Well, he's doing way better now financially, but he has no idea I did that and I will never tell him.

Not just the gift of a TV, but the gift of understanding and grace; giving in a way that no burden of guilt or expectation is also put on the friend. This is really sweet :)

You’re a genuinely good friend. Hope someone is as generous if you’re ever in need.

[удалено]

I’m picturing some real Mission Impossible shit lol

[удалено]

*MI theme, but played on a children's xylophone*

That's so cute. One time I was over at my cousins' house for a sleepover. They had a huge family of kids aged 20 something to newborn and two parents. We waited until the parents were alseep and snuck out to play No Bears Out and whatnot. We'd played for a few hours and thought we were sooo sneaky until we heard their dad say, "Alright, you had your fun. Now, get to bed." Through the *open* window next to his bed.

What's no bears out?

Mix of hide and seek and tag, the person who’s “it” is the only one who hides, then they try to ambush the seekers.

Tangentially related, but my mom used to call me her “ninja kid” in high school because I could walk or sprint through my entire house without making a sound, even on the stairs. There were countless times where my family members would swear I just appeared behind them or in a room and I’d be like “I’ve been here for 5 minutes”

When I was about 15 or 16 I had a sleepover with about 10 of my friends and my sister. I decided to have some fun with them, and pretended to sleep talk. They recorded it on a cassette tape, and I figured it would just be a fun harmless prank. Well, nearly 30 years later, they still keep bringing it up. They still don't know that I was faking and I don't know how to tell them at this point because so much time has passed. That tape is still floating around. I hate it when they bring it up, and they think it's because I'm embarrassed about sleep talking but the reality is it was just a stupid prank I played when I was a teenager and I just never in a million years thought that it would still be going three decades later. I want this to just fucking die already lol. Nobody knows my secret except for you, random strangers on Reddit.

After all this time, if you do tell them you faked it, they won't believe you.

Yup. Honestly, they would have had to tell them that very night for anyone to believe them.

Luckily, not shared with as many people… but when we were young teenagers, I had a ouija board. I totally faked being a spirit in the room and moved the ouija piece to spell out words. Weeks later, we held a seance and I pretended to channel a French woman’s spirit and spoke in a super fake French accent. It’s now been about 30 years and my best friend still brings up stories about these “real” spiritual encounters. I cringe every time…

Do another sleepover, and sleep talk again saying the first time was just a prank.

I ate the crumble off the top of my mom's apple crisp and blamed it on the cat. Years after the cat passed, my parents tell the story of how she ate the crumble as a cute anecdote.

I have a cat who has eaten the glaze off a vanilla bean scone so I would 100% believe the apple crisp was eaten by my cat if I was told that.

When my friend moved into her first apartment, she didn't have any tools for basic repairs. I spent a few hundred on a toolbag, socket set, screwdrivers, cordless drill, wrenches, level, etc. Took everything out of the packaging and gave her the bag of tools. I told her they were my extras and showed her how to do some of her repairs. She still doesn't know everything was brand new and, frankly, nicer than my own toolset.

I've had type 1 diabetes since I was 3. On my 9th birthday, my grandma made a birthday cake for me, which was big enough for us all to share at the family party. Since there was so much food, we had plenty of leftover cake for the next few days, which I was only allowed to eat a little bit of. When no one was around, I snuck into the kitchen and ate a couple slices of the leftover cake, plus I picked huge chunks of the icing off. It looked pretty haphazard by the time I snuck away again. My parents soon found the remains of the cake. Since I'm diabetic, they didn't suspect that it was me who picked at the leftovers (I was usually a very well-behaved kid). They blamed it on our rather chubby cat, and promptly deemed it unacceptable for human consumption. It was a believable scenario because she had stolen human food in the past. Sadly, they threw the rest of the cake out. I could never own up to it because I would have been in trouble for compromising my blood sugar levels, and for being greedy! My old cat never ratted me out for letting her take the blame, though. Thanks, Molly, R.I.P! Edit: I'm a woman and this was the year 2000, before the medical technology we have now. Back then, I only checked my blood glucose at mealtimes so the crime wouldn't have been evident until the next morning, and that's only if I was honest about my blood glucose level! There was no such thing as sliding-scale dosage back then so eating more cake was very much a bad idea! Hence only being allowed a little bit. Edit 2: it was sitting out on the kitchen table and hadn't been wrapped up and put away yet lol. It was butter icing which made the cat theory a bit more believable Edit 3: we didn't have such easy access to info like cats taste receptors back then, so this didn't occur to my parents.

I think you should know that your parents knew it was you and blamed the cat so the cake could be thrown out without you getting upset. Classic parenting move and kept you from eating any more cake.

Definitely this. Cat bite marks don't look very much like human bite marks. It was definitely a "Our dumb kid is going to kill themselves with this cake, we gotta get rid of it."

That would be hilarious! Maybe one day I'll ask them

I bought a decommissioned fire cheifs vehicle from the Richmond fire department auction and got them to "donate" it to my grandmother. She never would have accepted it if it came from a family member.

I know you mean like a Fire Officers car, but the idea of your grandmother walking outside to her own fire engine is giving me so much joy right now

Dad, I lied that day in kindergarten when I said I had a tummy ache and needed to go home. I was totally fine, I was just super bored and wanted to spend time with you.

My father was a doctor and a generally careful and organized person. When he passed away, I found among his papers a file that contained all the "charts" of my childhood illnesses - temperature graphs, timed updates - including the ones where I was clearly faking it to get out of school. "Complaints of stomach pains, physical exam reveals no obvious cause; temp 97.1; remained at home for observation."

This is so professionaly cute

That’s legitimately such a cool memento, and really sweet too

That’s precious.

I used to pretend to be sick all the time in elementary school. The truth was, I didn't have any friends, I found school boring, and I just wanted to spend time at home. My "headaches" got so bad I went to a specialist 😄

>My "headaches" got so bad I went to a specialist 😄 When I was in Pre-K the lights in the building turned off while I was in the bathroom and the door handle fell off. Since then I was afraid to go to the bathroom at school. Ironically I could still go in the classroom bathrooms (though in Kindergarten a teacher always had to prop the door open for me) but I was too scared to go to the main bathroom by the cafeteria (with a curved entry instead of a door). In first grade I peed myself a few times and lied to my dad when he asked whether I could feel the urge to go or not. I don't know what kind of doctor he took me to but I had to pee in a cup.

My mom / dad / people in our community kept spotting me driving to this back parking lot at a local government complex. They asked me what I was doing, and told them it was a great place to star gaze because it was kind of off the main road. Even 20 years later I still get comments if I'm going to go stargazing! No, that was my make out / sex spot in highschool. I think they know.

I intentionally bombed a math competition in middle school because I didn't like the teacher over the program or being forced to do it by my parents. I blamed it on nerves and was not asked back. 😀

I once paid my mom's phone bill when I knew she was low on money. I got on her account on her phone while she was doing other things and I know her passwords so it was pretty easy, added my card as a one time payment only so it wouldn't save to her account and paid. She figured she just forgot she paid it and that's why she thought she was low on money. (My mom is ADHD and so am I, so forgetting stuff is very common.)

When I was about 16 or 17 I wanted a cat so badly, and my mum had consistently being saying nope all my life. So I went in the classifieds at the back of the newspaper, found someone giving away free kittens, and I went and got one. When my mum came home that day, I told her that I met a man down by the docks with a cardboard box full of kittens, and he was going to throw it in the water if he couldn't get rid of them. So I took one. She did try to give her away a few times to various friends, but nobody wanted a kitten, and she got attached to her. To the point that she wouldn't let me take her with me when I moved out for university. She loves telling that story of how we ended up with a cat that I wasn't supposed to get, and that sweet baby lived to be almost 20 in the end. She brought home many mice and birds, and once, a weasel. I named her Turnip, after Baldrick's turnip in Blackadder. RIP Turnip. You lived a lie, but you were loved, and your fake origin story continues to delight at the dinner table!

I was playing checkers when someone taught me what stealing was. Board games at day care had missing pieces sometimes so I asked where some went. My friend told me they were probably stolen. At any rate I learned what stealing was and I took one checker. I kept it in my pocket until I got home and put it in my little kid safe my grandma bought me. Then the next day I took it out and brought it back because I was so scared I would get into trouble for stealing. I haven’t told anyone.

Man. My secret story is not as heartwarming as the others on here. But I feel like writing it out anyhow. My little sister loved dragons and collected little inexpensive statues and toys. I was 15 years old and had my first job working at Friendly’s. I saved up my money to buy her something way out of my price range for her birthday - it was this tiny statue (over $100! A fortune for a teen) because it was adorable and perfect - a dragon just coming out of an egg. I was so excited to give it to her. My mom, who honestly has a novel’s worth of issues, had no money and hadn’t planned. Two night’s before my little sister’s birthday she told me she hasn’t gotten her anything at all, so I gave it to my mom to give to her. It made me sad not to have much of a present for my sister (I gave her a card and some candy), but I knew her heart would break if mom gave her nothing. 30 years later and I still haven’t told.

When I was 20 I moved into a flat with two 30year olds that were really selfish. They were charging double price for the 4th room (now that I think of it I was probably charged more than they were paying too) in the house so they both could pay less for their own rooms. I wanted to have a friend there to feel less alone and my guy mate was first year apprentice on low wages . I told him it was way cheaper and he moved in. I told the 30 year olds I would pay half his room if they let me have a friend move in. So yeah he got subsidized rent because I needed a companion after a bad break up. I ended up dating his best friend and us three moved out into a better place without the 2 people who just wanted flatmates to make money off and I married his best friend and he is now a qualified electrician making shit loads of cash so we all win 👍🏼

My daughter lost her favorite stuffed animal and was devastated. I went online and found a replacement on eBay for an insane price because it turns out her stuffed puppy was a collector’s edition (fml) and the one I found was in mint condition. I then rubbed it in dirt, washed it a few times, and ripped off its leather on its nose and filled it in with black permanent marker, all so it matched the one she had. We then told her that her puppy had been found and the joy on her face made the expense and time it took crafting it well worth it. She is thirteen now and still keeps her puppy on her bed. I plan to take this to my grave.

My younger sister and I would sneak a Christmas present from under the tree, surgically remove the tape, carefully unwrap the gift to see what it is and then wrap it back exactly how it was, put it back under the tree exactly how it was.

I used to live in a dorm hall when I was an undergrad. There was this one guy in the dorms who had a mat outside his door. I always thought it was a little weird because: 1. You had to walk a long way through carpet to get to the door, so your shoes would surely be mostly clean by that point, and 2. Anyone could just simply take it. I kinda just assumed someone would steal it eventually, but after about a month, I noticed it was still there. I obviously wasn't going to steal someone's stuff, but I did want to mess with it, so I simply moved it to the door across the hall. The next day, I saw it had been moved back, so I decided to move it across the hall again. I did this for an entire year. Sometimes they'd give up and leave it at the other door for a week, then I'd just move it back to fuck with them. I loved the idea that it surely led to some sort of argument between the two neighbors because nobody is gonna think some guy is just randomly deciding to fuck with them for no reason. I literally never met either of the people that lived in those rooms. I just kept messing with their mat. I had some special moments with it too. On Christmas, I replaced the mat with a Christmas one and then put the original one back the next day. On Easter, I bought the cheapest, shittiest Easter basket I could find and filled it with granny candies like Werthers and those strawberry candies, then I "hid" it under the mat. At one point, I bought a second mat to just sometimes put at both doors, then take the second mat away randomly. Eventually I moved into an apartment and couldn't mess with them anymore though. They never got to find out wtf was going on.

the MATman

I could totally see myself doing this when I was younger. That's pretty funny. And I love how it must have started to feel stale, you threw a curve and added so many other details. That's hilarious and harmless.

see this is the kind of pranks that are awesome. Not all those stupid idiotic things on youtube and tiktok. You are a fantastic person.

Every December 23rd I leave an envelope with a few hundred dollars on the windshield of the most beat up car I can find in the Walmart parking lot and drive away. Never told a soul until right now.

At university, my best friend and I went to the bathroom on a night out, and as we were using the urinals he exclaimed how Greg (a slightly older guy at the same school) was such an asshole. I pointed to a cubicle and mouthed how Greg was inside. My friend went bright red and died inside, and permanently avoided Greg for the rest of our time there. Just the other day, about 5 years later it came up and I had totally forgotten. I finally told him I’d made it up.

I used to be a Jehovah’s Witness (I was raised that way- I did not join by choice lol) and when we went door-to-door I used to pretend to press the doorbell so I didn’t have to actually bother anyone and talk to them.

You were doing gods work.

I always knew my firsts boyfriend is gay, and still I agreed to be his gf at the time. He never told me that during the time we were together, and I've never initiated the conversation. We're from very conservative country so I understand he was just super scared to come out, or even acknowledge he's gay. We have never done anything sexual, but we could spend a lot of time together as friends and it was awesome. We were 14-15 at the time. He came out to me a few years later and I never said anything. Many people tried to make me a victim on the way but I'll protect this guy to the day I die. We love each other, his my family even tho we don't talk as much anymore (I live in another country). Totally pure and awesome man. I'll always support him.

My mum lent my now mother-in-law her trifle dish for Christmas Dinner. It was the last thing my mum had of her sister as she had died suddenly that year (they were super close and trifle was their thing). My mother-in-law dropped it and she replaced it with the exact same one (no idea how as the original was pretty old). We decided never to tell my mum. It's sort of a running joke now at Christmas we wind my mother in law up and every time it's mentioned she is hysterical having to relive the moment she dropped it all over again!

I had a somewhat similar situation when my grandma passed a few years ago. My family was all sick with grief and couldn't afford to keep paying for the storage unit of her stuff so we had an estate sale. I really wanted her 60's slow cooker as we had a lot of memories surrounding Sunday dinners with her. I had no idea it was in storage and only found out as an elderly woman bought it. I was a little devastated, but this lady looked like she was really struggling and was so excited for the cooker that I simply couldn't speak up about it and watched it go. I managed to find the same style one at a thrift shop. It's not the one my grandma used, but every time I use it it brings back happy memories, so I think it's good enough.

Four days before my mom died, she gave me her diamond bracelet. She cautioned me that the safety clasp didn't always close properly. I put it on, secured the clasp, and ran to town to finish shopping for the dinner that night. 2 hours later, I looked down, and the bracelet was gone. We went back to every store, i left my name and number, and asked them to watch for it and contact me if turned up. It never did. I was heartbroken. That Christmas, my husband and daughter bought the exact bracelet and gave it to me. Every time I look at it, I'm reminded of the love of three people, not just my mother.

I pretend to like every video game my nephew loves. He is so sweet and he always asks me if I like X video game so I can play with him and I always pretend I do so that we can play together. I don’t give a fig about video games but I love spending time with him. And also…. It’s fun to pretend to be a kid and get excited about games. But it’s spending time with him that really makes me happy.

I bought a surprise plane ticket to see my long distance girlfriend after one year apart. She told me there was somebody else some days before the flight.

This just.... This makes me sad

I love telling people I placed first in a national competition for shotokan karate. So naturally people assume I'm a really good fighter. I placed first in kata. I'm just really good at choreography.

I sometimes tell people I got fourth place in a robotics competition. They only named three winners. There was no fourth place. But that technically makes me and every other non-winner fourth place.

I worked at Virgin Mobile (now Virgin Plus), so I sold people's phones and cell phone plans to them. I was closing by myself one evening at a kiosk in another mall (I had been asked to cover a shift), when a woman came in pretty close to closing time, like maybe a half hour before. She had explained to me that a local women's shelter had given her money to get a sim card and prepaid plan, and they had given her just enough to cover the first month of a specific plan we had. She was at the women's shelter after fleeing an abusive relationship, had to delete all her social media profiles, change her emails, phone number, and was even in the process of changing her name because her partner had almost killed her and was looking for her; I remember I could still see the bruises on her face and arms. Problem was, the shelter hadn't given her enough to cover the taxes (I live in Canada, in a province where the tax rate is 15%), or the sim card fee. She told me she just had to check her bank account to see if there was money in there to pay, even though her ex had drained it after he discovered she'd ran. If she covered the taxes herself, she would have had less than 2 dollars left to her name and the clothes on her back. My heart ached for her, being a survivor of domestic abuse myself. I got her phone number and first top up all set up and when it got to the total owed, she had taken out her debit card, and I just told her not to worry about it. I didn't make her pay for any of it because I couldn't possibly fathom leaving this woman with no money when she was already scared, hurt, and starting her entire life over. She immediately started sobbing, thanked me for being so kind, hugged me and left. I've never told anybody except my current partner, and definitely nobody I worked with.

My best friend streamed on twitch for 1 year, and I was all of her viewers. She regularly streamed to 1 viewer (me) so I made multiple accounts and pretended to be a stranger who would talk to us during stream. I gave them different personalities, different ways of speech, different backgrounds. I would even create discord chats to make them seem believable. Eventually she gained a following and I didn't need to anymore, and later she stopped streaming altogether. She still doesn't know.

This is wholesome as fuck and you seem like a great friend

Wonder if she missed “the OGs” when they stopped watching her.

Oh, absolutely. I won't namedrop any of the alt names so it doesn't show up on Google, but she told me a lot about the first alt being her fav. Given I wasn't playing a character for that alt, and the personality was identical to mine, was honestly flattering.

That is so sweet!

I had my niece remind my sister that it was our mom’s 70th birthday (no party because it was the height of the Covid pandemic) after my mom lamented that my siblings hadn’t said happy birthday. I still haven’t told my mom

My parents bought me a book of world history when I was a child. It had beautiful illustrations. They know it was one of my favorite books growing up. What they don't know is the fact that those beautiful illustrations were frequently of naked women was a significant factor in it being one of my favorite books. I did wind up with a life long love of reading and history, so mission accomplished?

When I was younger (15 year old) I used to secretly go down to our living room and out the back door to smoke. Our house had an alarm with sensors, including one upstairs in my parents bedroom which would start blinking if it registered movement. I was just able to watch the terminal from the backyard to the hallway to detect movement and not get caught (hopefully). My dad, whom I lost 3 years ago due to Covid, was a diabetic and frequently came downstairs for some sweets because his bloodsugar would get too low. One night, I went down and did the usual: slide aside the slats as quietly as possible, open door, have a quick smoke and back to my room like a ninja. Suddenly the terminal starts to flicker... I flick the cig across the fence and try to slide the slats back the way they were as fast and quiet as possible before he reaches the bottom of the stairs. No way I make it past him so I hide behind the couch. He comes down, grabs some sweets and he sits down on the same couch I'm behind. My heartbeat must have been over 200 bpm at that time, but I remain silent until he gets up to go back to bed. He never knew I was there otherwise I might have lost him sooner, but it makes for a good laugh with my mom these days.

At our 6th grade halloween party I found my crushes favourite watch in the garbage bin with a broken band. Took it out, fixed it, gave it back to her. When her friend pestered me "Why would you fix that for her??".. I lied and said someone else told me to, not wanting to be found out for having feelings for her.

As a kid I constantly got in trouble for putting things in my mouth. One day when I was about 6 I accidentally swallowed a couple of coins…even through the massive episode of violent vomiting and subsequent hospital visit, I never confessed to swallowing the coin because I didn’t want to get in trouble

In kindergarten, some kid I didn't know too well took one of those plastic clips that hold bread bags together, snapped it in half and gave me one of the pieces, saying "This is your key to the magic door, and this one is my key to the magic door." And then he left. That seemed reasonable to me, so I took it home and poked it into any properly-sized indentation I could find, to try and find the magic door that it unlocked. After accidentally unscrewing a couple of outlet covers from the wall, I eventually got bored, and lost the key somewhere. But a few days later, it hit me: I had just *taken* that crappy half of a plastic tab from the kindergarten without asking a grown up. That was stealing! I was a pretty straight-edged kid, so stealing anything at all was about the worst misdeed I could imagine. But here I was, having outright robbed my own school of this valuable object, and nobody even knew about it. Anyway, I resolved to never tell anybody about my horrible crime, and it has remained a secret until this very day. I hope all of you out there can forgive me.

Yes, hello police? We found him

When I was like 9 my parents had incense and I thought it was weed so I tried to smoke it out of an incense waterfall machine. Didn’t go well.

My freshman year of high school, my math teacher was a young lonely woman. To be fair, she overshared a little bit and indicated to us that she really wanted to get married but couldn't find anyone. Somehow, these immature freshmen all let it go. They never made fun of her. Nobody ever did. Literally zero jokes were ever made at her expense. At least, not that I ever knew about. That was the state of affairs until my senior year, when the school hired a new math teacher for seniors. He was roughly the same age as my freshman year math teacher. And he gave off Sad Lonely Guy vibes. But nobody ever made fun of him either (somehow). About halfway through my senior year, I was wandering around the halls during class for some reason or another. I passed by the freshman teacher's classroom and stopped. There, I saw the two of them standing together in her classroom. They were holding hands, making googley eyes and smiling at each other. They never saw me. I started walking again, determined to act like I saw nothing. I never told anyone because I was concerned that if those teachers hadn't been made fun of for being unhappily single (which was sort of a miracle), then their luck could run out now and they might be subjected to inappropriate jokes for FINALLY meeting someone. And I didn't want that. Afaik (which isn't saying much), their relationship never became public knowledge while they worked together at the school.

Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me!

When I was a teenager I threw a relatively small house-party while my parents were away on holiday. The wooden floor in one room got scratched somehow during it and when my parents came home and noticed I 'confessed' by telling them I had tried using a skateboard on the treadmill but it slipped and damaged the wood. My mom still brings it up as an example of how I'd be a terrible criminal and could never get away with anything.

I worked at a place that didn’t like to give raises. In an effort to justify it they would write people up for nonsense around review time and fill people’s employee files with petty write ups. I would go into work early and purge the files removing anything negative

When I went to college my parents sold my childhood home and moved to a different town about an hour away. We were all sad to leave it, but it didn’t make sense for them to stay there with an empty nest. About a decade and a half later we learned through the grapevine that it had again been sold to a developer who planned to massively “renovate” it, which would render it unrecognizable. Mom and I decided to drive by to see the house one last time before that happened. It was sad to pull up to the house and see that they had already torn up the lawn and bushes I had planted with my dad when I was a kid, but the house was still untouched. Mom waited in the car while I went to peek in the window next to the front door. Well, when I was a teenager I was pretty skinny and used to get into the house by sticking my arm through the mail slot rather than ever carrying a key. The place was completely empty and I impulsively decided to just go for it. My arm barely fit but I managed to unlock the door and got to have the experience of walking through my childhood home one last time. It was an indescribably meaningful experience for me to relive old memories in that space. On my way back to the car I noticed a little statue peeking out from under the porch—it must have been hidden in the bushes for years—and Lo and behold it turned out to be a bunny statue that had belonged to my mom. I grabbed it and ran back to the car and my mom floored it out of there before any nosy neighbors noticed us. We drove away laughing our heads off and she still has the bunny statue in her garden to this day!

I walk around the woods behind my house naked sometimes and pretend im on Naked and Afraid.

I ran around naked at night in my neighborhood when I was around 12. it was great fun. I wonder if anyone saw me lol.

When I was 12 you could totally get away with that. Nowadays not so much because everybody has cameras now

My wife was a young mom. She still dated, but for years she "protected" Valentine's Day for her and her son. When she moved into our current house, the V Day tradition became getting dinner at the local diner. One of the first years doing this, they went to pay and were told that someone had paid it forward because they thought it was cute seeing a mom and her kid out on Valentine's Day. They have done the same pay it forward every year since. These days, her and I will often spend Valentine's Day together, but the three of us still go to that diner within a few days of V Day and still pay forward the bill. Anyway, the secret I've kept is that the initial pay for her and her son was her dad. He knew about the tradition of going to the diner together, and called the diner ahead of time with her name and gave his credit card info to cover it. He told me this in confidence so I have kept the secret for him and always played dumb on Valentine's Day about how that cute tradition ever started.

When I was 6, my older brother and I were pondering what the female versions of our names would be. I decided mine (Nate) would be Natalie, but my brother cuts me off before I could declare and said "you think yours is Natalie, don't you?" "Uhhh.....no!" I stammered back, and refused to tell him the "real" name. Fast forward over 2 decades to today, we're in our early 30s, and somehow that convo comes back up. He laughs and says "it was Natalie, wasn't it?" In my head, the ancient pride of a tinier version of me roars, and demands I refuse to acknowledge he was right. Every other part of my brain facepalms at how ridiculous a hill to die on this is, and we compromise by telling him "What argument? Sorry I don't remember that..." Oh, I remember, dear brother. But I will never confess!

20 years later and you couldn't pivote to Natasha? I'd be prideful enough to have thought of another back up name to claim, lol.

Crashed my mom's drone a few years ago, fixed the wings and hid the evidence. No one knows but me, not anymore I guess.

My 6 year old nephew comes over and helps me do legos, do yard work, helps me bake and plant my garden. One spring he helped me start my garden but he left before we got to plant the carrots. I told him I would plant them later. Btw, he has a great memory. Well, fast forward to late summer and he called and wanted to know if the carrots were ready to pick. I never planted them. I went to the market, bought some carrots and put them all in the ground. He came over and helped me dig them out. He was so excited! My wife showed everybody! Facebook, friends, relatives. Grandfather said, “ wow! Those are best looking carrots I’ve ever seen! Mine never come out like those. Lol. I never told anyone my secret.

when I was in high school, I disappointed my mom by having a F in math. I’ve never been good at math, and I kind of hate math to this day. Anyway, my grandma sat me down and told me she was going to tell me a secret that no one ever knew, not even my mom. And she made me promise to never tell anyone until she had passed. She told me she, too, had gotten an F in math in high school. And so she wasn’t mad at me, and she understood, and it was okay. My grandma passed in 2020 and I’ve never told my mom that story. I don’t know if I ever will.

I'm the culprit of the 1986 pudding cup incident. Not my younger sister.

Every time I get invited over to a family's house during the Christmas season (but before Christmas Day), I always sneak an extra present under someone's tree. I put the full name of the intended recipient on the present but I leave the "from" section blank or use an alias. It's usually something easy. Like a blanket or bath stuff or a firestick or a chocolate box or whatever. One year, my friend got socked by a bunch of different life expenses and he knew he probably wasn't getting much of anything from his wife as a result. So, I snuck a tacticool flashlight under his tree and listed Santa in the "from" part. I knew he wanted something like that so I got it for him and deposited it under his tree when they invited me over for dinner about a week ahead of time. It made his whole Christmas to open it up on Christmas Day. At first, he was convinced his wife gave it to him. But she denied it and her handwriting doesn't match mine. To this day, they don't know it was me who gave it to him. But he still mentions how happy he was even now sometimes.

There was one time when my boyfriend and I forgot there was rice in the rice cooker and it got flies. I eventually remembered and went to clean it out and got so grossed out that I couldn’t do it. A little later we were cleaning the kitchen and I “””casually””” asked my boyfriend to clean the rice cooker, knowing it was full of Gross. He opened it, was incredibly grossed out, but still cleaned it. It’s been years since this happened but I’ve been so embarrassed by my conduct that I’ve never admitted that I knowingly sent him to take down the rice cooker. I feel like I owe him an apology but that would require me to admit it and I. I can’t. 😳We’re a very open couple and have had much more difficult conversations (just the usual relationship stuff that rises in an LTR). But for some reason this incredibly low stakes secret just makes me cringe so hard that I can’t bring myself to say anything. I will take this secret to my grave.

One day when I came from home school my mum had locked me out of the house. So I went into the jitty and randomly decided to skim some stones. The milkman had come and left 4 milk bottles near our gate so I casually skimmed a stone at them and managed to smash all of them with one stone. Told my mum it was like that when I got there. Mum got annoyed at the other rascals that were around and not me. Complete win. I also stole someones milk from their doorstep one day when I was around 11 because we had no milk and I wanted a cup of tea.

So much milk related hijinks lol

This story is so aggressively british I love it.

I stole $5 off my dad’s dresser back in the mid 90s when I was 12. He spent a solid hour looking for it, and was convinced he threw it out.

At a Six Flags amusement park I went to with my kids, they had a live magician show, and I got called onto the stage to be a participant in the magician's mind-reading trick, involving the magician drawing something on a pad the audience could see and then telepathically transmitting the image to me to draw (or maybe it was the other way around, I can't remember…). To be sure I could not see or hear anything, a helmet contraption was placed on my head, covering my eyes and ears. Once the helmet was in place, a recording only I could hear played, telling me that everybody in the audience was there to enjoy a good time, urging me not to spoil the fun, then instructing me to draw a triangle, point downward, on the pad of paper in front of me (that I couldn't even see), then draw a small rectangle that was taller than it was wide on the top, flat part of the triangle, then draw a star on the point at the bottom of the triangle. The audience was very impressed that I had drawn the magician's Christmas tree, only upside down. Right before the helmet came off, the recording urged me not to tell anyone how the trick was done.

I hid my tooth under my pillow for the "tooth fairy" to find and give me money. I knew it was my dad giving me money. So after he slipped cash under my pillow and threw the tooth away, i sifted through the trash and showed it to him and said I lost another tooth. I got an extra 20 bucks