Back when I was studying film, I had a teacher tell me “Good storytelling isn’t about what’s happening right now, it’s about what’s going to happen next.”
The best stories are the ones that give you just enough that you have to know where it goes from there. Everyone has at least a few of these stories, ranging from the banal to the gigantic.
And thanks to one thread on r/AskReddit, we’ve got access to a huge treasure trove of them.
What’s that story you’ve never been able to tell?
byu/BelvitaBiscuitz inAskReddit
There are over 11,000 comments to pick from, but we’ve narrowed them down to 10 selections for your reading enjoyment. Get ready for story time.
10. “The King’s Birthday Party”
I flew to Thailand on a whim with 2 coworkers in late 2001. We stayed at the Oriental (5 star hotel) for a single night on a whim.
Turned out the hotel was hosting the king’s birthday party.
We managed to secure tickets and tuxes due to the kindness of the staff.
While the king wasn’t in attendance, we got to meet the queen and one of the princesses. Helluva night.
– esteban_the_merciful
9. “I Wish I Could Thank Her”
This is probably going to get lost, but I just want to put it out into the void. I’m a recovering drug addict. I dropped out of school but would still show up on campus to pick up drugs or meet people. I was sitting outside the cafe one night waiting on some pills. I weighed 100 lbs soaking wet and hadn’t eaten in days.
There was this girl in the honors program with me when I was still enrolled, and we had many classes in that program together. She was a unique young lady. My friend and I bullied her in the past and didn’t try to hide it. She walked by and asked me how I was, and I was so clearly sick. There was an awkward silence and she asked me if she could buy me some food. She took me into the cafe and bought me a cookie. I said thank you and we parted ways. I cried so hard that night. I was overwhelmed with guilt and gratitude and shame. I never saw her again.
That was about 8 years ago and I remember it clearly, down to what I was wearing. I don’t remember her name, but I will never forget her kindness. It was a bright moment in an otherwise sad time in my life. Wherever she is, I wish I could thank her.
– _leastofthese_
8. “Gobsmacked”
I work at a cinema and while doing a general check that everything is operating smoothly, a peculiar movement caught my eye. This particular session was a father’s Day session for Pixels back in 2015. The entire crowd consisted entirely of fathers and their young children…. Except for the young couple f*cking in the back row.
Poor, innocent 16 year old me, fresh on the job, was gobsmacked and I froze much like a deer in the headlights. I couldn’t bring myself to give them the old “Hey please stop f*cking thanks” so the manager gave them the awkward tap on the shoulder.
Cut to the end of the film, the manager and I are at the exit waiting to see the faces of the culprits.
Straight out the door, operating at some serious pace is my sister’s best friend and her boyfriend.
– Ethanopian
7. “It Looked Like I Was Going to Fall”
In elementary school, we had a program called D.A.R.E. where a police officer would come into our class and teach us about the dangers of substance and alcohol abuse. At the end of the year, he prompted us to write an essay about what we learned over the course of the year in D.A.R.E. He also advised us that the author of the best essay in the class would receive a stuffed lion, appropriately named Darren. Now I really wanted this lion, but the problem with that was my writing skills were those of a typical third grader. There was no way that anything I wrote about my time in D.A.R.E. would stand out enough from my fellow classmates to win Darren. So I did what any desperate 10 year old would do…
Googled “D.A.R.E. essay contest winners,” and then plagiarized the first one that came up in my searches. Now this was done diligently, carefully proofreading to ensure that I wasn’t going to turn in an essay with somebody else’s name in it somewhere. I went through and changed phrasing or a word here and there, but by no means would it pass through turnitin.com with less than 90% plagiarized. Confident in my chances of winning Darren, I turned in the essay to Mr. Officer, and what do you know?! A week later we had our end of year reception, at the municipal building which also contained the police station. He listed the top three essays, third place, second place, and then he said holding Darren, “The best D.A.R.E. essay submitted this year was written by yosoycory! Come on up here, get your Darren stuffed animal, and read your essay to us please.”
I was so excited I won the animal it was never even a thought that crossed my mind that I would have to deliver this speech. So I reluctantly walked up, took my stuffed animal, and all I can remember at this point is shaking so bad, it looked like I was going to fall over at the mic. All of my classmates, all of their parents, and the entire local municipality’s worth of police officers with their full attention on me, a 10 year old little fraud of a student.
To this day, it’s one of my most shameful moments, and I still have Darren sitting on my desk for discouragement from copying other’s work.
– yosoycory
6. “The Sky Continues to Strobe”
Remember when the world was supposed to end in December 21, 2012?
That night a bunch of my friends and I were hanging out in my apartment, smoking a LOT of weed and playing games. We made a bunch of jokes about the world not having ended. I was pretty young (and dumb) so I actually had had some anxiety about that. It felt good to laugh it off.
We go on my balcony to have a cigarette and watch the sunset. Out of nowhere there’s an ENORMOUS explosion, and the sky flashes lime green. We all stop talking and stare as the sky flashes green, pink, yellow, and there are these crazy indescribable crackling noises. I’m stoned as a bit*h and I decide this is it: it’s happening. I go into emergency preparedness mode for the alien invasion and for some reason start filling my bathtub with water (I think it was so we’d have water to drink if we were hiding from aliens and the water lines got interrupted? I’m stupid). We all run around yelling and fre*king the f*ck out for about five minutes while the sky continues to strobe neon colors.
So what had happened was a transformer blew somewhere nearby. No idea that this was what happened in that circumstance but due to the date, I was not the only one to lose it. My mother was out and one of her companions fell to her knees and started praying the rosary for the second coming when the sky started changing colors.
– maudlinmary
5. “Right Outside His Door”
My mother told me this… because I honestly don’t remember (I was around the age of 5-7).
We were at my grandfather’s apartment and right outside of his door, I stopped and turned around and said in very serious voice “Grandfather’s dead.”
Turns out I was correct. Died in his sleep.
I didn’t understand the concept of mortality at the time so this understandably fre*ked out both my parents.
– MilkTeaSwirl
4. “A Quick Way to Get Rid of the Lady”
Back when I was in highschool, I wanted to approach this girl on a bus on my way to school. She was really hot and I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t approach her.
There was one big problem: there was a middle-aged lady seated next to her and I couldn’t talk to this girl with the lady right next to her.
I had to think of a quick way to get rid of the lady.
I then woke up from my seat, slowly walked to the row they were seated and calmly asked the lady “excuse me ma’am could you please let me sit next to my sister?”
Turns out the lady was the girl’s mom.
– Nanjero76
3. “Even a Horse Guard Came to See”
I moved to the UK from zimbabwe when I was 4. The first few years my parents spent their whole time trying to settle down, by the time I was 8 they realised we had never been to london. So on a hot june day we went into london. We went to the aquarium, Covent garden to see all the performers, on the london eye, it was a good day.
To end the day we went to buckingham palace, I was tired so I was resting my head against the bars asking all the questions youd expect from an 8 year old. After a while my parents said it was time to go, i pushed away from the bars and then felt the cold steel against the back of my ears. I hadn’t noticed my head has slipped through. I panicked, a crowd gathered (I’m probably in many a family photo album) even a horse guard came to see what the commission was about.
Bet he wasnt expecting a child with his head stuck. By then I had accepted this as my new home, but I couldn’t figure out how I’d go to sleep with a spike on the floor. Luckily an old lady had a tub of vaseline in her handbag and my dad was able to pull me out with my head smothered in vaseline.
– JGT420
2. “My Family Listens Closely”
I grew up in a very conservative household, s^x was never talked about at all, and you knew if you got caught with something you shouldn’t you’d be in giant trouble. When I was seventeen I bought a vibrator (I had literally no experience, even alone, but was super curious). The way it worked was you had to screw the bottom off it onto keep the batteries in and to turn it on. I put it underneath my bed, and thought I had it unscrewed enough that it would stay off until later.
Well, I’m downstairs listening to a CD player with my headphones on, and suddenly I hear my two young sisters yelling about something and running around the house. I take my headphones off and I hear ‘BZZZZZZ’, echoing through the house. My room was directly above the living room, and my floor was wooden. They’re feeling out, thinking there’s a wasp in the house or something electrical is about to explode. Thank God my parents weren’t home, they probably would have figured it out a lot easier.
One sister runs upstairs, realizes it’s coming from my room, and I dash ahead of her and just throw myself over the bed to feel underneath it. I turn off the vibrator and then tell them my old phone was under there and must have had an alarm on it (which made no sense, it’d been months since I changed phones). They don’t believe me and think it must be the pipes under my room. They tell my parents when they get home that ‘the pipes fre*ked out’. My family listens closely for MONTHS to see if we need to call a plumber.
I decided to take my terrible secret to the grave, and then ten years later post it on reddit.
The end.
– Bandannab93
1. “To Get a Scarf”
The time my mum needed to go back into the house to get a scarf.
Because of this we were held back and missed a bus by 10 seconds.
That bus then crashed into a bridge at very high speed because the bus driver had mental health problems.
It is the closest I have ever been to death.
I will never complain about my mum going back to get a scarf in my life again.
– zebbojojo
Reading through these, it makes you realize that you’ve got some stories you’ve been holding on to as well. Maybe now’s a good time to share them with the world, even if it needs to be anonymous.
Maybe share one here?
You can put it in the comments below.