Life is full of choices, some more difficult than others. There are a handful of monumental decisions that can alter the course of your life, like deciding where to go to college or asking someone to marry you. Other smaller moments may not seem so finite at the moment, only for you to look back and realize they were. Every day, people are constantly making decisions, big and small. Unfortunately, their choices are not always the correct ones. Just take it from these people, who recently shared stories about the worst decisions they've ever witnessed someone make.
60. I Could Use A Mental Health Day Too
59. High Fryer
58. New Car, New Me
She had just graduated from nursing school and got one of those "We Finance Anyone!" flyers in the mail. Of course, now that she was a newly graduated nurse with a real job, she "needed" a new car.
This was maybe three years ago? Since then, she's remarried again, is pregnant again, and the car she bought is long gone because it was a GMC Acadia and we all know what happens to them after a few thousand miles. I have no idea who paid that bill. My buddy (her ex-husband) certainly didn't.
57. The Sitter
56. Now It's There Forever
55. Nerf Or Nothin'
54. You Gotta Have Priorities
"What are all these socks doing in the garbage can in your bathroom?"
53. The No-Challenge Challenge
52. Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
51. He Who Represents Himself Has A Fool For A Client
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
50. The House Always Wins
49. Your SUV Just Became A Submarine
Image by Jeep Grand Cherokee
48. I Can See Why She's Your Ex-Wife
47. Do You Want My Honest Opinion?
Photo by graham wizardo from Pexels
46. Debt Or Deck
45. All Falls Down
Was in Yosemite doing a hike up to the top of (I think) Vernal Falls.
Some kid from a large Church group decided to swim at the top in the (seemingly but not really) calm water at the top.
I saw him get swept away and taken over the edge.
The water has been running over there for thousands of years so the rocks are smooth and there's no vegetation. There's literally nothing to grab ahold of if it happened to you.
Was not in the mood to see a kid lose his life that day. Read the signs and please stay the heck out of the water like you're told.
44. Sad Symphony
I know a guy who was supposedly recruited to be part of Vancouver Symphony Orchestra not even out of high school. Saw his girlfriend dance with another guy at graduation and in a inebriated fit of jealousy punched a brick wall and shattered a dozen bones in his hand; he never played an instrument again.
43. A Little Off Track
I was at a track meet and I watched a guy warming up with his arm by throwing his shot put directly above him. About 3 throws later it came down and clobbered his skull and he had to be rushed to the ER.
42. Striking Out
My cousin dropped a full ride baseball scholarship in a college in a town he grew up in because he wanted to move for a girl he started dating his senior year of high school.
She was two years younger than him. He went to a state school instead that's 40 minutes from his hometown. She cheated on him and they broke up not long after school started. Ouch.
41. What The Smell
I witnessed my friend kick a skunk in order to get it away from him. Bad decision.
40. Spicing Things Up
Some idiot I used to know was convinced pepper in the eye wasn't nearly as painful as people made it sound. We just watched him pour pepper in his open eyes and laughed when the screaming began.
39. Horrifying High Tide
Our English teacher told us about this incident that happened a few years ago. He went to this beach with his family, but it was high tide (the warning flags were up and everything) so they couldn't swim. This lady comes along and lets her 3 kids go into the water. He tries to stop them and tell her it was high tide, but she wouldn't listen and the kids go into the water anyway. Of course, the worst comes to pass and the kids are drowning. My English teacher and a few other men swim out and save the kids while fighting against the tide. When all the kids were saved, he gave the woman a proper scolding (he is a teacher after all). He says it still terrifies him to think what would have happened if the tide had been any stronger.
38. Not Kidding Around
A good buddy of mine got together with this girl he met off of an OKCupid-ish app. Had three dates with her (she lived about an hour south) before she decided to quit her job and move in with him.
Roughly three months later we're out having a few drinks and he's complaining about her toxic personality. Says he's through with her and going to break up.
She gets pregnant. Buddy "mans up" and agrees to marry her.
I don't see my buddy much anymore, but the last time that I did, he had had a big fight with her and came over to my house to crash on my couch. What was the fight over? She had open palmed slapped the kid in the face. The kid is like one year old.
37. Head-Stand To The End
When I was about seven years old I was in the car with my parents, going across the bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario to Niagara Falls, NY. The deadly Niagara River is right below. There was quite a wait due to traffic so we were pretty much stopped.
A bunch of teenagers were goofing around. Hopping out of their car and play fighting, etc. One guy hopped up on the railing of the bridge and did a handstand. It was terrifying. His friends yelled at him and he hopped down.
Then he did it again and fell over the railing to his end.
36. Real-Estate Regret
Friends sold their beautiful home for a huge loss because they were concerned about the way things were going with the local real estate market.
Later that year, gentrification took root and their house was worth almost three times what they sold it for.
35. Acting Out Of Pocket
I slowed down from 100kph to about 80kph on a highway because I saw a large kangaroo at the side of the road up ahead. A young guy behind revved his car at me at drove really close and held his horn down, obviously annoyed. I had gently put the brakes on, so couldn't understand what his problem was. He just kept revving too. I put the brakes on again when I saw the roo start taking off in front of me. It would have safely passed in front of me - until the Idiot behind floored it around my car and absolutely destroyed the poor animal right in front of me. It went up and over his bonnet, rolled down the side of the car finishing under the back wheel. He pulled over further ahead and I drove past him with tears in my eyes, I'm shocked. He had a really nice, expensive looking car and the Roo was large, so I really hope it did some exceptional damage to that loser's car, lest its end be a total waste.
34. Free Ride For A DUI
Outside a bar, the bouncers offer to pay for a cab. Guy says no, calls his girlfriend; she won't pick him up because of the baby. He says he won't drive, walks off, gets in his car, does 80 mph down a side road and gets busted for a DUI. He was offered a free cab ride home...and instead messed up his life, and could have hurt someone.
33. Going To The Chapel, Then Into Debt
A girl I know spent $50,000 on a wedding for a marriage that lasted 6 months.
32. House Terminated
A colleague of a friend came into work excited about having bought a new house. She thought she'd got a great deal because they took like 50k off the original price.
Why? Because they found out the place was completely infested with termites. Really all she bought was a very expensive piece of land.
31. Piece Of (Pan)Cake
This happened at a family birthday party at the Pancake Manor. Some cousin-of-a-cousin (18 or 19 at the time, I think) decided to try and impress the cute waitress by ordering eight pancakes, saying he could totally eat them all. Everyone warns him off it, saying it's way too much - even big, burly chaps can only do four. He goes ahead with it regardless.
Unsurprisingly, throws his guts up. The waitress does not give him her number.
30. You're Fryered
An old coworker at a fast food place I used to work wanted time off. He was worked to the bone and knew he would never get it, so he decided the best way was to go for some compulsory sick leave. Dude bloody stuck his hand in the fryer; only problem was when he claimed it as an accident they reviewed the camera footage...Which clearly showed it was 100% intentional. Lost his job and had a decent medical bill.
29. Scammed At Starbucks
While I was studying at a Starbucks I couldn't help but overhear a middle aged woman talking a 20-something woman into what was definitely a pyramid scheme.
She was selling different makeup packages that the younger woman could sell to her friends. Had gold and premium packages too. Very much a "shake your head in sorrow" moment
28. For Science
While over at his house, one of my best friends decided on a whim to sniff cayenne pepper, "for science."
It went about as well as you could expect.
27. Not A Fan Of This Situation
One of my sister's deadbeat boyfriends: Fixing an industrial fan. After fixing it, he switches it on with the cover off to see if works. It works but then starts to fall forward. He puts his hand out to try and catch it. The blades take off two and half of his fingers.
26. Pathetic Parenting
I watched a woman let her little boy pass away from cancer.
She noticed a lump on his leg but ignored it for months. It was only when it had grow so large that other people were starting to ask about it and it was causing the boy a lot of pain did she take him to the doctor. It was bone cancer, and it was quickly spreading. They ended up amputating his leg and giving him chemo. The thing was, she dragged her feet at every step, like her son's cancer was the biggest inconvenience to her. She ended up not taking him to half the chemo treatments he needed. It was no surprise then when scans came back showing cancer had spread to all parts of his little body. He passed shortly after his 7th Christmas.
The real kicker? She was a welfare mom living off the government. His treatment was absolutely free for her, she didn't have to pay a dime. The hospital even sent vans to pick them up and take them to his chemo appointments, but she was too lazy to get off her butt and go.
25. Drowning In Desperation
This stupid loser friend of mine was so desperate for attention when we were partying, and coupled with his idiot competitive attitude that's always on, he told this cute girl/mutual friend of ours to dare him to drink as much of the bottle as possible in one go.
She was confused because those are some stupid words that came out of his mouth. She said "Uhh... okay? What am I agreeing to?"
He drank like 80% of a huge bottle straight in like 10 seconds, in a desperate attempt to impress this girl so maybe she'd be so turned on by his willingness to do everything she says that maybe she'd get intimate with him.
Instead, he got yelled at for being idiotically stupid, threw up for like 6 hours, and cried for the rest of the night.
I felt bad, but he's a god awful friend who lost my friendship, so I laugh about it now. I'm 100% certain that he's going to pass away either inebriated, in his car going 120 on some road somewhere, or both.
24. Music Hall Of Shame
My friend didn't read an email where he was asked to join a band. The band is now one of the biggest bands in the world and he works in a call centre. I guess the bad decision here was him deciding to ignore his emails.
23. Sprinting Between Bus Stops
Not the worst, but I just witnessed this earlier today.
I was taking a walk home from the gym, and this young kid dashes past me. Probably 13-14 years old, maybe younger, wearing his school uniform and carrying a huge book bag.
5 minutes on I come up to the first bus stop on my way home and there he is, sitting at the bench looking like he's waiting for a bus. Cool, guess he missed the bus he was running for. I carried on walking.
A few minutes later he dashes past me again! I come up to the next bus stop and there he is, panting and looking at the road anxiously like he was still waiting for a bus. Bad luck little bro, guess we all have those days.
A few minutes later he dashes past me for the third time. There he is at the third bus stop, panting harder than before. What the heck? Maybe have a little patience and just wait and save your energy?
A few minutes later AGAIN he dashes past me and I'm thinking what the heck this kid is either panicking because he's late for something or a complete idiot. At this point, I'm coming up to the fourth bus stop, and as he's running he takes a look at the road and notices a bus approaching and he doubles up into a full on "this is it" sprint. I'll be honest, at this point I was quietly hoping he'd miss the bus because that was just bizarre what he was doing. The bus drives right past because it didn't notice this kid running for his life.
I made a left turn after that stop so I don't know what happened to the kid next. Some may say he's still running between bus stops to this day.
22. Forty-Foot Flop
When I was in the boy scouts, I walked into an aquatic center for our pack's recreational day and saw this huge diving board set they had. They had 12, 20, 30, and 40 foot diving boards and the moment I walked in, our diving instructor immediately told us that there was no need to worry about the 40 foot jump because everyone has done it safely and there has never been an injury or fatality from the jump. Seconds after he said that, at the same diving board, a young teenager ran to the end if the platform and visibly changed his mind at the last second, just to then slip at the edge and hit his head, spilling blood immediately and then falling forty feet to the biggest belly flop I had ever seen.
21. Down In Flames
I was on my way home with my parents from a day out and we were driving down a fairly steep and winding mountain road. A car passed us with all the windows open and four teenagers hanging out yelling and swerving around. Horseplay, you know.
They disappeared down the road but about ten minutes later we catch up to the place where they had gone off a bridge and landed upside down in a gully. My mom was an EMT so we stopped and she started to climb down when the car burst into flames, like an immediate fireball. We could hear the tires pop, and the screaming, which didn't end quickly. There was nothing we could do. With the way the car was wedged into the rocks, no one could get close enough to have even a chance of extracting those guys.
We waited for the emergency personnel and we were cleared to go home finally about an hour later. An hour of watching that car burn itself to ashes as people futilely tried to help. I still hear it. I still smell it.
Those kids were only a few years older than me. It's been twenty or more years and I've lived probably about double their lifetimes. Drive safely, people.
20. Off The Rails
Running back to pick her phone off the train track.
It wasn't pretty.
19. Jeepers Creepers
My roommate took out a $10,000 loan to buy a jeep, even though he's 19, didn't go to college, has plenty of other bills, a $350 monthly insurance payment, and works a minimum wage job 3 days a week. Mind you the jeep had 150,000 miles on it.
18. Playing To Fail
This was my sophomore year of college: had a final for a very important class that was required for my major the next day. It was a really hard class and I had been skipping a lot (only went once a week). Acquired a stimulant from my friend, so I felt pretty confident about my planned cram sesh and the test the next morning. I took the stimulant and felt so focused that I decided to play some FIFA and then study late that night. After crushing 4 or 5 games, I decided "I'll play till I lose." Next thing I know it's 5:30 AM and I had still not lost yet. I won somewhere between 20 and 30 games in a row that night. Upon realizing the magnitude of my terrible decision making, I started to study. I started to come down off the stimulant as I attempted to study a statistics book that I had opened only once or twice before. I passed out from exhaustion and woke up at 9 just in time for my 930 test. In total, I studied for about 45 minutes, slept 2 hours, and played FIFA for 8. I failed that test, failed the class, and was forced to change my major.
17. Not The Brightest Bulb
My Dad tried to repair a lamp, forgetting to unplug it from the mains. There was a loud bang, there was a flash, there was smoke, there was a horrendous burn where the screwdriver he was holding melted to his arm. There was much laughter from us onlookers.
16. Poppin' Off
I once saw a guy add coca-cola to 18-year-old fancy drink.
15. Fenced In
Walking into an electric dog fence with the collar around his neck because he didn't think it would hurt. My sister has big dogs who are close to 100lbs, so it wasn't a light zap. It was absolutely hilarious because he did it more than once.
14. Stamped Silly
My stepbrother inherited our family's old stamp collection that was valued at a minimum of $50,000. He ended up selling the whole thing for $1,500. Dad got very angry and said that he could have sold JUST ONE of the valuable stamps for $1,500.
13. Dumb Around Drums
A kid took a substance then proceeded to headbutt my drumset and have a seizure on the floor, only to get back up and do another substance. As a non user, this kid is one of my inspirations.
12. Too Far Gone
I had a best friend of over 20 years. We lived in different states, and he got engaged. He would get inebriated every weekend and call me, telling me that he was sure she was cheating. I encouraged him to call off the wedding. This went on for months. Finally, they get married. I am the best man. After the wedding, before the reception, she sneaks off with her boyfriend. My best friend gets very inebriated, and I encourage him to get an annulment. They make up, and I lose the best friend I ever had.
11. Real Pizza Work
I used to work in a pizza shop. The number of inebriated people (and not very intelligent sober people) that walk in, order a pizza, get it given to them in a flat box where they turn it sideways and hold it under their armpit and walk out was astounding.
We called after people but by then it was always too late, I could the sauce dripping on the floor.
10. A Bit IrRATional
Quit veterinary school to run a rat rescue.
9. Wa Sobbing
Well, one time a friend of mine tried to prove that she loved wasabi, so she ate a spoonful of wasabi, then walked around with a red nose for the rest of the day.
8. Bombs Away
While vacationing at Dale Hollow in Tennessee, some of my friends decided to take turns jumping from cliffs of various heights into the water. One of my friends (who underwent a chest procedure not even 6 months prior) wanted to show off to a bunch of guys on nearby boats. She jumped off one of the highest cliffs not thinking about the pain that would ensue once those new accessories hit the water. She had bruises in places people shouldn't have bruises.
7. Sending It At The Slots
$4500 on slots in 10 minutes.
$150 spins...I could hardly watch.
6. Heat Of The Moment
I used to work at a cafe. The microwave door broke. It wouldn't shut properly and so wouldn't turn on. This was bad as we used it to pre-heat things that we were going to toast, so one of the boss's friends decides to try and fix it. Has no idea how microwaves work. I walk into the kitchen and he has the door open, with his head in it, manipulating the sensor so the microwave thinks the door is closed and the thing is running. With his head in it. It was facing everyone else in the kitchen and they didn't bat an eye.
5. Penn State Frame
So, my fiancé's cousin was donating $50 to "thon." Thon is a fundraiser, held by Penn State, where they dance for hours and hours to raise money for causes; like a running marathon, but dancing. He was donating to a friend, and did it in coins, hot glued to a cardboard backing, making a big Penn state logo. Cool looking. Well, his girlfriend decided it was so cool looking it should be framed.
She went to a frame shop and got a custom frame that ended costing over $600! For something that was to be taken apart (the dabs of glue were small, and he engineered it to come back apart easily) shortly after it was given.
He was mad. And they couldn't even return it, because it was a custom frame. So, they ended up keeping it (as to not totally waste $600) and he wrote a check for $50 for the donation. Now they have a silly framed $650 Penn state logo on their wall...and neither of them even WENT to Penn state.
4. Ski Slip
A friend went off the 'large' (think x games) ski jumps at Breckenridge when he had no right to even hit the small ones. He didn't clear the landing and slammed into it, fracturing his spine and every other important bone in his torso. He's still in the hospital, paralyzed, over a year later. Complete idiot move cost him his life.
3. Wrong Way
New Year's party back when I was 19, everyone was pretty inebriated, I even more so. I'm not a smoker but I dabble when I'm a few in, so while a friend of mine sat next to me having a cigarette, I grabbed his cigarette and used it from the wrong side. My lip burnt and swelled up to twice its size on one side only. My only glory to this story is that in the morning my parents decided I needed to go to the ER where I managed to convince the doctor that I was stung by a bee...it worked.
2. Burnt From The Bottom
A friend of mine harvests and processes firewood. Prior to the incident, I'm going to describe, he would save stumps and have a huge bonfire each year (now he mulches them). By huge, I mean 30ft high by 75ft wide pile of wood and the fire was stoked with a forklift. Now for the bad decision. The stumps would burn, but not on the tops, mostly just smoldering on the bottom half. So idiot thought it'd be funny to run to the top. No clue how hot it was, the air was probably above 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Before he even made it to the top he was overcome by the smoke and heat, and others had to run up after him and get him down. The guy was pulled down safely, but one of these guys who ran in to get him tripped and landed hand first into the fire; he was severely injured and no more big bonfire parties.
1. Last Stop
I used to hang out with these guys in my neighborhood when I was 18 and in community college, just for laughs and partying. They were lunkheads but lots of laughs. These were guys I knew since kindergarten, and for reasons I won't go into, they'd dropped out and had no plans for their future.
We use to go to this wooded area near the freight train tracks to mess around and yell and play heavy metal music. One day a train was lumbering by really slow. No, they did not get on, which they could have. Instead, they were egging each other to slap the rails between the cars, which they did. Nobody lost a finger or a hand that night, but they did lose me. I was just absolutely horrified at such stupidity. I walked away without saying a word, never hung out with or called any of them again, and said nothing about it to anyone until now. I still cringe about that night, even 30 years later, I am ashamed I ever kept working at a company of such idiots.
