People From Around The World Share How One Little Thing Made A Whole Room Angry

Ever go to a meeting thinking you were getting promoted, but you got fired instead? Or gone to a family dinner where your Uncle said just the wrong thing? These people have. Sometimes, it doesn't take much for an occasion to turn sour on a dime. We asked people from around the world to share the one little thing that managed to turn a whole room angry.

David Garrison on Pexels

39. Pint, pizza, and disappointment.

Once at my work my boss arranged a 'Pint, pizza and paint' night. The company had no budget for overtime so the bosses promised us that they would buy us booze and pizzas to encourage us to paint the giant store with them. So a big group of us volunteered just to get there and have the manager leave early, promising the pizza and beer would be along shortly. It never arrived.

Image by

38. No grace period.

We had to work on a holiday but management didn't so there was nobody there to unlock the building. We waited outside from 7am until 7:45 and were told that if we didn't get in by 8 we could go home. 7:55 the manager shows up and lets us in. There was some grumbling to be sure.

Photo by Steve Johnson from Pexels

37. Domestic whodunnit.

Family gathering was going great until the host realized she was missing thousands of dollars worth of jewelry. She started accusing everyone of being thieves until her husband said he put it away without telling her.

Image by

36. Good job, get out.

I was on a team of about 15 people for a special project for a regional Internet Service Provider. During the bi-weekly team meeting the manager was super pumped about how far ahead of schedule we were due to some new processes we came up with.

After about 20 minutes of atta-boys, the manager concluded with telling us all we were being laid off in the same tone of voice she used for the whole meeting issuing a bunch of praise.

Most of us awkwardly laughed for a couple seconds thinking she was joking. She was not.

Image by

35. Double standard.

Not exactly a room, but our plane landed home after my company spent a year in Iraq. Our company commander previously told us to tell our families that they shouldn’t come out to the tarmac to welcome us back because “it would be a complete circus and you’ll just see them later anyway.” Stepping off the plane, who are the first and only people we see? Our commander’s own wife, three kids, parents, grandparents, brothers, and numerous cousins/friends.

Pixabay

34. Delivery's gonna be late.

One day at work we had an hour meeting followed by a planned pizza party as a reward for meeting some safety goal. They'd been telling us all week not to worry about food because they were getting pizza. Well after the meeting were sitting around waiting for the pizza to get there when out boss comes in and tells us there was a failure of communication and no one actually ordered the pizza. If you want to see 50 factory workers go from excited to murder ready in less than a second that's what you tell them.

Image by

33. This flight's all wet.

I was on a Chicago to NY flight. We all get on the plane, but were delayed taking off due to a heavy storm going on. About 20 minutes in, everybody was still pretty calm until the pilot announces they're working on getting our baggage loaded, because it's been sitting on the tarmac this entire time. The entire plane looks out, and sees all our luggage just sitting there in the pouring rain uncovered, and starts freaking out.

Pixabay

32. Cuts in all the wrong places.

In grad school we were gathered in a room to hear about how the last term of classes in the program was going to be cut due to a new law regarding educator requirements for the state. Everyone was stoked because it was gonna save us like 5-8 thousand dollars.

Then they told us that due to “state budget cuts,” our total tuition was going to double. Cue the shouting.

Image by

31. We can see into the future.

I was in Portugal during the world cup. Get there early to find a street bar in the center with a big screen. Place is soon packed. England start really well and everyone is singing and laughing. All of a sudden the bar up the road erupts into massive cheers. Lots of people go out into the road to see. Apparently someone just dropped an entire tray of drinks? We all laugh and go back to watching the game. 10 seconds later England score. Our bar erupts and we spill into the street. The bar up the road is deadly silent now. Weird.

The game starts again and the bar up the road starts shouting again. Nothing in the game. Whats going on? People look up the road again. Can't quite work it out.

Then a really bad tackle goes in and the penny finally drops: Our bar's TV is the only one using satellite and all the other bars have cable. Our feed is about 20 seconds behind everywhere else. Every exciting moment is audible about 20 seconds before we get to see it. Have never seen a bar empty so fast in all my life.

Photo by Daria Sannikova from Pexels

30. Taking advantage of a bad situation.

This dude I worked with decided to pop the question to his girlfriend... at a work holiday party.

She said no.

Both parties began to cry inconsolably. All the guys in the room tried to cheer up the guy with their tales of woe. All the women in the room took the woman aside and did whatever the female version of the above was.

Went from a fairly happy event to a complete disaster within minutes.

Plus side, while all of this was going down no one was hitting the buffet so I got a whole feast to myself.

Pixabay

29. The rules of the game.

I made the mistake of playing Scattergories with my mother. She said "No foreign words, you have to use English words." Fine, fair enough. She then called out someone for using a foreign word (I can't remember, it's been 10 years). He took off the points. The next round she used three foreign words. I called her out on it and she said it was no big deal, it was just a game. I argued that not only had SHE set the rule, but that she already called someone out for doing it.

She called me a [BLEEP] and left the room. The Thanksgiving family time was over as pretty much everyone decided that was the time to leave. Total time from game start to end of the family time? 6 minutes.

Cauldrons and Cupcakes

28. Aloha means hello and goodbye.

My friend used to work for a company that has always promised our IT department a trip to Hawaii for working through a couple of rough years without pay raises and on the flip side we won't get any personnel cut. It was a verbal promise that once we are back to profitable, the IT department would get an all expense paid trip. Back around October of 2015, they were gathered in the largest meeting room for a meeting with the president. There were snacks, drinks, pizza, etc. It was assumed that it was a celebration for a good year and they'd get the promised trip. Instead, it was a mass layoff since IT has been outsourced. All credentials were locked during the meeting and everyone was asked to leave the premises right after the meeting.

remote beach on Molokai, Hawaii Image by mcyumyum from Pixabay

27. The definition of awkward.

We were discussing road safety with the headmaster. One of the pupils pointed out that there had been a car crash right in front of her just as she had been about to step out onto the road, earlier that week, which had been really scary. The headmaster laughed and asked her what she was wearing and if it had been her fault. Absolute silence for ten seconds as he squirmed and then mumbled “I mean were you wearing a ball gown, or...” as if that had been what he’d meant. Pathetic and excruciating. A 50 year old man to a teenage girl.

teenager_girl_stressed_headache_istock-1541430068437-300x240.jpg Pixabay

26. No love for the substitute.

This story took place my freshman year of highschool. I was in an extremely small 5th period theatre course with maybe about 10 or 15 other people in it. We were a very well behaved class that acted more like a family than anything else. It was fun. HOWEVER one day we got a substitute teacher who I'll call Dee. Dee was old. She had short white hair, permanent scowl, and always wore a jacket that looked like a duster. That particular day she was angry and you could tell. She had a difficult time with the computer playing the movie so she was yelling, fussing, and blaming her ignorance on us. In our class we had several tech savvy people but she refused all help because we were too "frisky." Eventually she gets it to work giving us the chance to ignore her. Around 10 minutes into the film someone realized she hasn't said anything in a while so they look over and see her eyes opened, still, and unresponsive. They turned to the rest of the class (who were still focused on the movie) and alerts them. Everyone begins to freak out. People are taking flash pictures of her, waving, ect everything to get her to respond. Eventually she woke up, yelled at us, then went back to sleep with her eyes open once more. It was the freakiest situation ever but the good news is that I never saw that sub working for my school again.

Image by

25. Pied dans la bouche.

Back in high school, there was a classmate of mine whose father had died. The circumstances of his death were tragic enough (he died the same day my classmate was born) that all of the school knew about it. One day we were messing around, nothing too rowdy, just cracking dumb jokes the way 15yo kids do, and our French teacher singled him out and said: "Your father would be so disappointed by your behavior."

The class became completely quiet, my classmate froze staring at the teacher in utter disbelief. Then *every single one of us* started shouting at the teacher. She even went to get the principal, which turned out to be counterproductive for her, because we were the best class of our school, and the principal didn't doubt our word for a second.

Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

24. No speech necessary.

The President of our company got completely plastered at our Christmas party. His speech started off funny because he was slurring hard and he was playing on it. Then he started talking about how he came from nothing and became something. Then he proceeded to tell us how if it wasn't for us working so hard and keeping our clients happy, he wouldn't have been able to accomplish building his mega mansion for him and his family, nor would he have been able to afford his new benz. Awkward muttering, followed by him directing us to "drink up & enjoy, because due to budget cuts, the future Christmas party/bonus budget is cancelled from here on out." Many of my coworkers relied on that bonus. No one was impressed. Except for 1 person, the rest of us quit within the first few months into the new year.

Image by

23. Spreading the bad news around.

I worked as a contractor at a tech company, hoping to get hired on as a full timer. There is only one day left on my contract and the VP of Engineering calls me in. Oh, good! She tells me that she was really happy with my work, and thanks for putting in so much effort to make it work. And uh, good luck in the future! Bye!

So I was quite disappointed.

Then they had a big company meeting, and as I was heading to the conference room, the VP stopped me and said "Hey, sorry, this is for full timers only". OK, well not only was I disappointed, but I felt like some rejected outsider too, after two months there too.

So I'm sitting at my desk as my now-friend coworkers go into the conference room. 10 minutes later, they all walk out, loudly talking and I ask my buddy what's going on. The company ran out of money and is bankrupt. Going out of business as of today. Ah. So all my coworkers are suddenly unemployed and very unhappy. I, on the other hand, horribly, feel great. Not because they all lost their jobs, but that I know that I wasn't rejected for a full time job because my work sucked or they didn't like me. I felt grateful to have even had the contract at that point. Then we all went across the street to a bar and spent the rest of the afternoon there. It's amazing to see people in the morning working hard to hit deadlines and goals, trying to solve some technical issues, then in the afternoon, just say who cares now and go drinking.

Image by

22. That would put a stop to the party.

It was the 50th anniversary for my old rugby club. People were flying in from all around the world, 150+ people ranging from late teens to 70's. We went on a big pub crawl, combined with my dad's 60th birthday, the night before the big dinner. One of the old boys fell over outside the local pub, hit his head on the concrete and was knocked out. Ambulance was called and we helped him get into it, explained what happened to the medics and off he went with his brother to the hospital. We laughed it off and went back to drinking (by far not the first time a player has gone to hospital after a night out). The night after at the big suit and tie dinner, one of the old boys was wondering where him and his brother were, so he called the brother and asked if he was okay. He wasn't. He had a brain aneurysm and had little to no chance of surviving. A room full of 150+ tough as nails men and women went from having the time of their life, to pretty much dead silent. He died 4 days after.

Pixabay

21. No playing hooky.

In High school, we were told that if the power was out for more than 15 minutes, we could go home as it would be hazardous to have students in a poorly lit school.

Cut to us counting the minutes when power was out and packing our bags at the 15th minute mark happy as clams. As we we're emptying our lockers in the halls and getting jackets on power comes back and the Principal, blocking the exit, yells at everyone to get back to class. The collective groan and shouts of displeasure were something else.

Pexels

20. Maybe he should read a book.

I was in a local independently run bookshop in my home town and it was full of people happily searching the labyrinth of books, and the owner was taking to one particular shopper about World War Two history books. They seemed to be having a proper good chinwag and it was kind of obvious that most of the other shoppers were tuned into their conversation, after all it was a very interesting talk they were having about history. Right up until the shopper said something along the lines of.. "you know there's actually a lot of evidence to suggest that the holocaust didn't exactly happen."

The tension in that room went up so damn quick I could smell it, it felt like we were all walking underwater, then the shop owner exploded and threw the guy out of the shop. We all perused the shelves in silence after that.

Image by

19. Shouldn't have asked.

I used to work for this new performance hall in NYC and one morning during our morning meetings, one of our managers thought she was being unique and uplifting by ending our meeting with forcing us to say "one thing I'm grateful to the company for is...."

All 30 of us were pretty happy to just start the day since it was a beautiful day out but that soured our mood really quick. A bunch of people got hostile with answers like "the wonderful health care we are given" (we have none) and "the magnificent hours" (hours are crap and inconsiderate).

Image by

18. Stick to the weather.

I didn't personally witness it but I overhead a tour guide in Cuba discussing the worst day he'd ever had when the tour suddenly went sour. He was showing a group of American tourists around Havana and it was going well as usual until lunch when someone brought up politics and they realized half the group was strict Democrats and the other half was strict Republicans. Apparently in a split second it became a total gong show of them yelling at each other and the guide "didn't know whether to get in the middle or go get some popcorn." Guides there are forbidden from discussing politics for this reason.

Image by

17. Record screech.

My dad didn't show up to my wedding. I told the DJ to skip the father daughter dance. He did not. He announced "it's time for the father daughter dance". The whole crowd looks at me, shocked with their jaws dropped. Then he says on the microphone "Oh sorry - God. No one told me." I hid and took a shot of whiskey, dried my tears and faced the crowd. Worst. DJ. EVER.

Photo by Francesco Paggiaro from Pexels

16. The wrong kind of bonding experience.

That time at a family dinner my boozy aunt started getting on my teenaged cousin’s case about his pants sagging and gave him a wedgie “helping him” pull them up during a fairly formal holiday dinner.

He chased after her to give her a wedgie back.

She was wearing a skirt and nothing under it. My cousin managed to pull it up over her head while making contact with deeply disturbing parts of Aunt Janice.

Every fork in the place just froze while my aunt was standing there too plaster to understand why her skirt was over her head and my cousin stared in horror at his hand that was wet or dirty or God knows what, whispering audibly, “But... no.”

Pexels

15. Canine conversation.

Not my story, but a friend of mine was attending a Christian Pentecostal summer camp a few years ago with some high school students and other adult leaders. For anyone who is unfamiliar with Pentecostal youth camps, the evening church services can get pretty lively and charged with emotion. People being slain in the spirit, speaking in tongues, lots of worship and confessing sins. That sort of thing. There were probably a couple hundred students, so things may have gotten chaotic. Anyway, my friend and one of the other adult leaders get pulled on stage to confess sins to the audience. Not sure who thought this was a good idea, but maybe it wasn't planned. And the other adult leader, a nice guy in his 20s (newly married), confesses to the packed auditorium of high schoolers hyped up on Jesus that he used to have unsavory thoughts about his dog. The evening service pretty much ended after that.

Pexels

14. Leave pizza out of this.

My company had a pizza party meeting for a particular department. The scuttlebutt was it was a thank you for a 3rd quarter project completion.

The department of 35 people were excited for the atta-boys and the pizza. After the lunch the shoe dropped. They were all being laid off because even though they finished the project on time (for this long time customer), the customer had signed a contract with another company and were leaving.

Unbelievable crap move by management. But based on other stories I've heard, pizza seems to be the common way to give bad news to employees.

Photo by Fox from Pexels

13. Booed off the stage.

My wife and I went to go see a comedy show. About halfway in, the comedian seemed particularly annoyed with one woman in the crowd because she kept looking at her phone instead of paying attention to him.

At some point he essentially stops the entire show and starts to pick on her instead. It started out simple enough, "look at this woman; her life is so important, blah, blah, blah". Harmless enough at first and the crowd is on his side. At some point she decides to defend herself and starts jabbing back. Calling him a hack or whatever. Then he escalates his attacks by calling her a really bad name. It was so awkward, that the entire audience went quiet. Even worse, some people in the audience started taking her side. Got real ugly and he never really recovered.

The comedian apologized profusely and said he was out of line. But it was too late. Several groups of people outright walked out. We stayed until the end but it was really uncomfortable.

Photo by Monica Silvestre from Pexels

12. Adults don't get snow days.

So one day weather was getting bad and staff working were asking about it and if we were closing early. They said they were monitoring the weather and so far nothing. Come time for some people to leave and they had to come back inside because the snow for to high and rough and they couldn't get out of the parking lot. I'm freaking out cause I still haven't left. So I leave lucky I have an SUV so I'm able to leave. I get home and an hour later supervisor is calling me to come into work because others can't make it. I tell him no and I'll show up tomorrow at my regular time. When others show up we find out staff have been working over 24 hours because they couldn't leave and the management couldn't have the phones go unanswered. I worked at a company's internal help desk. About 10 people had to stay.

Image by

11. Bad joke at a bad time.

I was doing an all-day seminar at a First Nations high school, and at the end of the day they had everyone file into the gym where an entertainer was going to do a 45-minute show. It turned out to be an Austin Powers impersonator, and much to my surprise he was winning over the kids with his stage patter and cheesy jokes.

However, about ten minutes into his show he did the James Bond 'walk out and fire at the audience with a gun' thing. He used a realistic-looking Walther PPK replica. Now, for context, this was only weeks after a young First Nations man named Colten Boushie was shot to death by a white farmer in Saskatchewan.

As soon as the guy produced the gun, you could feel the shiver go through the crowd, and when the BANG! went off, he lost the crowd completely. For the rest of the show, everyone was murmuring to each other and shifting in their seats. It didn't get ugly, but it felt like it could have. I was happy when the day was over.

Image by

10. No one likes a joke chicken.

In college a few of my pals and I tried to start a fraternity just for laughs. We had a friend who was very junior in a local hotel's catering/sales dept and she got us a good price for something of a formal. We were told we'd be sharing the bar with a wedding party. All of us young and none of us familiar with wedding receptions, we assumed she meant private room, same time as a wedding reception. We bought this giant plastic lawn chicken and wrapped it in aluminum foil as a wedding gift. When we got to the hotel it was explained that the wedding was dry and she meant if we went to the hotel bar, there would likely also be wedding guests there. Duh. Of course. So a handful of us, stupid haircuts and punky clothes, went into the reception to present the bride with our plastic lawn chicken and explain the funny (to us) near mix-up and wish them well. She was very confused, thought a gang of hooligans was crashing her wedding. Then she unwrapped the chicken at our urging AND FREAKED OUT, screaming for her daddy, that we were crashing/ruining her wedding. Dad and uncles came over, the more we explained the worse it got, tempers flared, some grabbing and shoving. They threatened to call the police. We stopped talking, agreed to leave, and let her keep the plastic lawn chicken. This was about 1995. I wonder if she still tells that story.

Image by

9. The opposite of a standing ovation.

It was a party for the cast of a musical I was in during my senior year. We were all having a great time and we decided to watch a video of the performance that the host's mom managed to record (she had permission to record the show.) In the middle of the recording, you could hear the host's mom whispering while recording. It was obvious she wasn’t aware the phone picked up her voice. She was talking about how her son deserved the leading role, not the guy who was actually casts. She was basically heckling his every move during the show. The party ended pretty quickly after that. The poor lead guy was really hurt. He wanted to go to school for theatre but that event really discouraged him.

Image by

8. A roomful of angry employees.

I worked for a big company. My whole office was an experimental operation and we were hired as hourly workers. Not temps, exactly, but I can't remember the exact designation. 3-year contracts. Further, we were contracted out to clients with the vast majority of us on contracts with extra hours, so we billed and got paid OT. Anyway, the company decided the experiment was a wild success and the exec in charge told us in a meeting that we were all getting big raises.

Over a month later, we had an off-site meeting for all of us, a couple hundred in total. We were then told that we'd be transitioned to regular employees and salaried at a rate of whatever we were paid currently for 42 hours (like 2 OT hours), meaning no more big OT for us while the company could still bill OT from the clients. The "regular" designation meant nothing other than no 3-year mark to worry about. Benefits were unchanged. About 95% of us ended up losing money, a fact we all realized immediately while sitting there.

There was a lot of noise in the auditorium. It got really rowdy.

This meeting led to the mass exodus of people seeking better pay, including myself. It was a shit show for over a year and they lost a couple clients. However, they continued to hire at a feverish pace, with the noobz having lower and lower skills and then even getting paid less, like 2/3 the norm! They could do this because economic conditions strongly favored employers. Eventually, about a year or so after I left, and economic conditions improved, the situation became unsustainable as people started to revolt and they were forced to give actual raises. Still crap pay but not terrible.

Image by

7. Walking mood killer.

In college I took a P.E. class. Since the first day there was a guy, he looked to be in his late 30s to early 40s, that would complain about the rules/syllabus of the class. Nobody liked sitting with him before class, because he would begin to rant about some mundane thing that happened in his writing class or whatever it was he chose to be angry about that day, and he'd go on to say "all these college kids don't know how good they have it..." I was usually the one sitting with him because I didn't want him to feel left out, and I figured if he let it out on me he would leave the others alone. That class was really shy because this guy was overly competitive/opinionated so nobody really wanted to pass/take the ball to/from him. One day he didn't show up and the chemistry in the class was so amazing. Everybody was happy, and encouraging. Sportsmanship and fun ruled the court. People were talking and laughing until the end of class where almost everybody left in a group to the lockers and even after that they still hung out by the gym. The next day, he didn't show up and the chemistry started to build to even higher heights than the day before. Suddenly, he arrived. He was about 15 minutes late and the atmosphere completely disappeared. Everything got awkward and people weren't playing, they were just participating. No more shouting or laughing, no "good try" or "great shot!" It was just quiet. It really made me realize the impact a person can have with a sour attitude. I always wished the teacher would have a talk with the guy, but what would they say? I saw the guy once more during winter term but never again after that.

sport_hand_basketball_ball_person-138125-1544820938275-300x200.jpg Pixabay

6. It's a popular event.

Final year of BronyCon, closing ceremonies. Everyone was excited for a big finish performance on-stage during the closing ceremonies as the final send-off to the big event. As well, we always had the policy to clear out a room prior to the next event, that way we don't get "room campers" that will sit in a room and play on their Switch all day until the one panel they want to attend comes up. Well, the convention center security overrode us on literally the highest-attended event we've ever had, forcing us to not clear the room. Not even any time to argue it, as they delivered the call to us about 5 minutes before the prior event ended. This news was delivered to the audience that was preparing to head out, and to the huge line of people waiting in the next room over, watching on remote monitors: "Okay everyone, we've got a lot of people to fit in here. I need you all just to scoot on over just a bit. Thanks!"

That one innocuous statement turned into a riot in the next room over when the people that had been waiting in line for an hour realized that the room wasn't going to be cleared and that they probably weren't going to fit into the room that was already nearly full. There were literally groups of people that tried to attack our security team and cause absolute pandemonium. It's the effect of what happens when you have your highest attendance, ever, in your smallest space you've had in 6 years. So much happened that we wish we could have done better, but by the time it all came together and we realized what was going on, it was too late to change anything and we had to do the best with what we had.

Pixabay

5. Who invited the cops to the party?

A couple of friends and myself were having a low-key get together in high school. We were all drinking and having a good time playing beer pong and what not. Next thing we know, we hear a loud bang outside. The proximity of the sound and direction was right where all of our cars were parked.

We all went out there to check and see what happened. My car had its tire blown up and mirror ripped off. My buddy's car parked next to mine also had the mirror ripped off. So now a bunch of underage kids who had been drinking had to apprehensively call the police to file a report. While the cops are on their way, we discover a cell phone that belonged to the girl's ex-boyfriend whose house were were at. My car looked very similar to the guys who she had been hooking up with, so that's why my vehicle received the bulk of the damage. I had absolutely nothing to do with their love triangle.

The cops show up and were super rude to me. I casually cursed a couple of times just being upset, ya know, since my car's tire just blew up and mirror got ripped off for no reason. The cop said if I kept cursing he was going to write me a ticket... had to deal with all of this while pretty inebriated.

Everyone was pretty upset by the whole thing.

Image by

4. Greedy guts gets guff.

My dad's family did a family white elephant for years. His youngest brother, a "happy accident", was probably 30 when I was 15. He was notorious for always contributing not just dumb white elephant gifts, but actively bad and cheap gifts. This particular year was no different. It was my first year contributing, and I can't quite remember what I put in, but it was a solid gift despite my meager minimum wage fast food job pay.

As the white elephant rolls along, everyone is laughing and hee-hawing at the gifts. We always made a rule that a gift could be stolen no more than three times. Being the broke, hungry high schooler I was, I had been targeting a Chipotle gift card. Obviously a high profile gift. I stole it the second time in the second to last round. My uncle stole it from me in the last round, and it was like a record scratch moment in a movie... since it was a whole family affair, it was typical custom that the older folks take the bad gifts, and especially a faux pas to take a good gift when you contributed a bad gift.

That is literally the only time I've seen my dad (and two of my other uncles) ever yell at someone else in their family.

Pretty sure that was our last family white elephant.

christmas_leica_family_portrait_game_holland_netherlands_dutch-441005-1550554817070-300x200.jpg Pixabay

3. Reckless endangerment.

Bad snowstorm started about 4am a few years ago. My co-workers and I were texting each other thinking no way would they make us come into our job today (we are non-essential workers). We're all home waiting for the email to go out regarding whether or not our boss would give us the day off. Email finally goes out around 7:30am saying that we would have a shorter day but everyone must show up for work by 9. So I layered up, cleaned off my car, shoveled out of my parking spot and headed to work on VERY precarious roads. I got to work on time and was greeted by my co-workers who were all pretty happy just to not have gotten into an accident on the way over. All of the clients and meetings had been cancelled so there was a party like atmosphere. Just as we were talking about playing charades, we get another email from the boss saying because road conditions were so bad they were closing the agency after all and everyone had to go home. This was 20 minutes after we had all gotten there. I have never seen 20+ people all scream ARE YOU KIDDING ME at the same time before. It was absurd and everyone was mad.

Image by

2. Caught red-handed.

When I was a kid, there were about 6/8 families in our area who were a good group of friends. Regular holidays together, kids all close friends too and in the same classes at school etc. The backstory was that one of the families kept noticing money going missing from a drawer in the master bedroom. They had an older son who was getting the blame but was denying it.

Fast forward a few weeks and it’s their younger kid’s birthday, and everyone is at their house. Usual script was the kids party would be late afternoon, then in the evening the kids would end up playing games in some bedroom as the adults had a few drinks. Kids were happy because we got to stay up late with all our friends, parents got to have a few guilt free drinks. This night was going as normal until we’re all shuffled out and home earlier than usual. We got the full story the next day.

Once the kids were out of the way, the owners of the house had turned on their tv and pressed play on a video. On screen there was cctv of the bedroom where the money had been going missing. Clearly in the video you could see the wife of one of the other couples, sitting in that very room, going into the drawer and taking money. Apparently the switched off the video, said “what you saw is exactly what it looked like” and asked that couple to leave. Everyone else left shortly after.

Image by HeatherPaque from Pixabay

1. Here's the good news.

I didn't witness this; my pops did when he was a teenager. It's just one of the funniest stories I've ever heard in my entire life, so I tell it with his blessing at every opportunity.

My dad is mixed: his father (Opa) is the big white dude (and an atheist), and his mother (Mimi) is Indian from a Muslim family. My Mimi was apparently treated like utter crap by her whole family growing up except for her youngest brother. This got worse when she got older, and they started trying to foist her off on this other guy. Long story short, my Mimi ended up meeting my Opa, and they ran off together without anybody knowing about it. Pops says it was due to romance only, but I can also do the math on his birthdate versus what it says on the marriage certificate, if you get my drift.

Anyway, years go by and the only one from Mimi's family who even acknowledges she's alive is my great-uncle. That is until Mimi's father gets cancer. He starts talking about family and making amends and all that jazz, and basically invites Mimi and Opa, and all their kids together (my dad's half brother and half-sisters from Opa's previous marriage weren't invited) over for his birthday.

But things are apparently going well. They are sort of tensely accepting my Opa. Finally dinner winds down and while the ladies are taking care of things, my great-grandfather invites Opa and my dad into a room with the other guys to have coffee and stuff. At some point, coffee turns into stealth booze, which like? I thought was a thing religious people didn't do, but oh well, this story would not exist without a few illicit nips, and the fact that everyone in there, thought it was brilliant to give my 15 year old absolute mess of a dad a drink.

Anyway, the jokes start getting bawdier and bawdier, and at one point someone basically implies my Mimi was easy who never discriminated against a male, and without missing a beat while everyone but my dad, Opa, and younger great-uncle are laughing, my dad just looks at his dad and says:

"And all these years I thought I got that from you."

And then he apparently instantaneously sobered up and realized that that would be how his mother's entire, religious family found out he was gay.

Absolute legend.

Photo by graham wizardo from Pexels