Today I Fucked Up

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/awoodby on 2026-04-04 19:57:12+00:00.

So yesterday I decided to do the water heater maintenance that hasn't been done in the 7 years I've been here, and probably ever: replacing the water heater sacrificial cathode rod.

Google it, if you haven't done it, have a water heater older than 6 years, you should do it too, it's 3 minutes of work unless you mess up like I did.

I start with the water shutoff right above the tank, it doesn't move much, but feels solid and like it's moving easily, so I figure it's like some 1/8 turn valve and stupidly don't turn it off elsewhere. There's my mistake.

I run a faucet to relieve the lines, drain a bucket out the bottom, good so far, then take an impact wrench and get turning the rod on the top. When it gets loose it SHOOTS out along with a fountain of 200degree water (yes I keep my tank hot). An absolute gusher as I have very high city water pressure.

I ran around and got the rod, shoved it into the almost boiling geyser and managed to get that back stoppered within a few minutes, wasn't easy, had to find the impact driver I'd thrown, socket and bravery to get in that hot water in the first place lol.

Luckily I was wearing glasses, and turned my face right away, but my arms got beet red and stung for a day. Spent hours re-boxing stuff in cardboard boxes, moving everything out and mopping and drying it all out, still have fans going to finish that part off.

Moral of the story: MAKE SURE IT'S OFF. Power, water, gas... Just make sure it's OFF, way easier than the alternative. I've been duly reminded :)

TL;DR: I didn't actually turn the water off and pulled the cathode rod out causing a 200degree geyser of pressurized water.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Rata_Cata on 2026-04-04 17:01:45+00:00.

Okay, in my defense, I grew up in a conservative town and was really sheltered by literally every adult except my parents, I moved to California and told one of my new friends I thought it was kinda funny they called Freddie Mercury "the king of the gays" in a video they had sent me, they asked why, I said "cause I notice a lot that really flamboyant singers, mostly guys are called gay just because they dress in more unusual ways." They got quiet and said "Freddie Mercury WAS gay" I knew he had a fiance who was a woman so I disagreed, one very quick Google search later and I learned Freddie Mercury was not infact, straight. My friends will not stop making fun of me (they're so nice s/) but yeah. TL;DR I thought Freddie Mercury was straight and just called gay cause he's flamboyant (like Elton John or Harry Styles) and arguing about it and now im being made fun of by my friends.

I'm watching Bohemian Rhapsody the movie right now Jesus Christ I'm learning alot

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/ElvisGrizzly on 2026-04-03 20:56:28+00:00.

My younger sister Erin passed away this January after battling leukemia for 8 months. A week before she passed she sat with me and told me exactly what she wanted in her service. She wanted it at her favorite bar near MSG where she cheered for the knicks. She wanted Chocodiles (which I didn't know had been out of production since the Hostess bankruptcy). And she wanted a priest to come offer a blessing. The bar was easy, wanting to honor one of their favorite patrons. The chocodiles involved buying a ton of costco twinkies and getting a place to chocolate dip them. And the priest was tough to schedule because no one was returning my calls. So I took confessional at the church nearby and said, "Forgive me father this isn't about sin but are you available tomorrow night at around 7:15?" And that got me a Franciscan.

The rest of it was the people she wanted to speak. The kind of funeral cards (like a basketball card). The vibe she wanted there. All doable.

But the other major thing was she wanted was better funeral slideshows. I'm a former reality TV producer. Having been to one too many crappy funerals with Josh Groban's "Angel" and a bunch of poorly chosen images, I got this.

But she didn't want just one. She wanted one for each major part of her life. Her kids. Her friends. Her work. The man who stood by her side til the very end. Her relationship with her first husband. Her cancer. And her as a sibling to me and my other sister. She picked all the songs. From "It Ain't Over til It's Over" to "Mama Said Knock You Out" (the 'pain in the ass' section) to Mary J. Blige.

I said of course.

Let me say we had a rough childhood. And how I dealt with it was to not cry for over 40 years. Which I get is not ideal. In fact, there was a point, early on, when I started producing the service where i was genuinely worried I might not cry over my sister. That I might be as numb as I was at her bedside at the end. A man who immediately shifted into "handle it" mode to take care of the details and get all the legal stuff done that no one else had the composure to do.

What I forgot is that I'm a pretty good producer.

I've sold some pretty weak projects with bad material in my past because I know how to edit to tell a story. Chicken shit into chicken salad. But this was not bad material. This was a woman who people truly loved and made an impact. It showed in every pic I scanned in.

While I was watching down my work, the seal broke.

I started sobbing in a way I don't even remember doing as a child. And with every video I made, I sobbed harder. Even realizing as I edited, that I was tweaking for even more emotional impact to make myself cry harder.

So we had the service and I was main host and speaker. We also did a livestream on Youtube so her adopted son serving in the Army in East Africa could watch. Over 200 people came and...well it was something. Building the open bar for beer and wine into the budget probably helped. If you have a service, I'm going to tentatively recommend it.

The final video was the only one I turned around to watch. It was just for me and my older sister. It was set to Stevie Wonder's "As" - a song my mother used to sing to us as kids. That last video was about what Erin meant to us as our sibling. The final images in it were her getting younger and younger until it was just us as little kids together.

Even writing this I'm getting teary describing it. It is a slightly cheap, emotional bit of producing but...it works. I must have used it in a dozen packages over my former TV career. And I used it again here. When I watched it that night at the service, I cried again. That, I thought was that.

And this is where the FU comes in.

The other day, I was in Walmart, trying to find some new emergency socks and underwear when one of the songs came on the overhead PA system. The images started firing off in my head. And I started crying behind the fruit of the loom rack. What I've come to realize is that any of those songs from the service will now make me cry. And ANY song by Stevie Wonder - usually one of my very favorite artists - will then remind me of "As" and I'll start crying even harder. So now if one of these songs comes on, I've got like five seconds to block it with airpods or change the music.

There were years my sister and I were crappy to each other and never talked about our feelings in any way. Sarcasm. Ball busting. The occasional sweet memory that was immediately followed up with an insult. So I can appreciate the poetic justice in one of her last decisions, now making me cry involuntarily.

Really nice Erin. REALLY nice.

TL;DR - I produced a funeral video for my late sister to a Stevie Wonder song and it's turned into my own personal version of the first 10 minutes of "UP" and now I start crying if any of his songs come on.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/chucktheninja on 2026-04-03 20:21:01+00:00.

I have an espresso machine that I got a year ago. It makes coffee great. I've never had a problem with it until now. For the last few weeks my coffee has been tasting off and has been getting worse.

I've repeatedly cleaned my filters. Nope, still tastes funny.

I've tried running a vinegar and water mixture through it. Nope, still tastes funny.

I've tried whole new mugs. Nope, still taste funny.

I've tried new beans. Nope, still taste funny.

I decided to finally just open it up and look inside to see if there is something wrong. I Immediately discovered what is wrong after taking off one piece.

For those that don't know, there is a metal grate with a bunch of tiny holes where the hot water comes out to turn it into a shower of water before being pressed through the coffee grounds. It was the first piece I took off and the back side looked burnt. Solid black. I was confused because boiling water shouldn't be hot enough to burn metal.

I rubbed my thumb across what turned out to be a sticky, gelatinous, goop of coffee that had built up on the backside of the grate and it wiped off onto my thumb.

My coffee has been flavored with the several months, at least, of recycled coffee build up.

TL;DR: I didn't clean my espresso machine right and drank recycled coffee for quite a while.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Plane-Design237 on 2026-04-03 19:01:05+00:00.

NSFW

So i love getting my nails done and my favorite style for the longest was a long stiletto (for those who don’t know it’s the really sharp pointy nails)

i had just gotten a fresh cute set which means they were extra sharp

Later my boyfriend and i started to have sex and I had a toy in one hand

Since I was in my stomach I didn’t have any visibility and when he was about to thrust, yes you know where I’m going

one of my nails stabbed into the tip of his dick

My boyfriend immediately stood up and started squeezing his dick hard to stop the bleeding

Later he told me he didn’t even think about the pain just wanted to make sure he squeezed for dear life so he wouldn’t bleed out

A stream of blood gushes out and over my leg

I got up and started frantically apologizing and pacing around because I didn’t know what to do

Thankfully my boyfriend has medical training and kept the pressure on so tight that he stopped the bleeding relatively quickly

He never got upset and stayed eerily calm which was amazing because I felt soooo bad

We didn’t have sex for about 2 weeks after that,

I had to make sure to not get him hard or else it would hurt a little

We had only been dating for maybe 2 years when this happened and are now 9 years in and i can’t imagine sharing my life with anyone else 🤍 thank you babe for being a trooper

TLDR;

Be EXTREMELY careful with the nail shape you are getting, anything pointy can absolutely hurt someone

I now exclusively rock a rounded almond shape

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Treasurefield on 2026-04-03 18:07:32+00:00.

TL;DR I injured my foot carrying a disobedient goat around and now I have to hobble through a bunch of hoops to get a boot for my foot.

——

So I raise miniature goats and I have one miniature Nubian named Juby. She is my tallest goat and I guess my fencing is too short because she has learned how to jump in and out of her pen so she just wanders around the homestead whenever she pleases and lets herself back into the pen when she's done grazing. When I catch her out of the pen I pick her up, drop her over the fence, and try to fix it so she can’t jump over again but she always does. Mistake #1: having fencing that’s too short.

Yesterday she did this while I was feeding the chickens and eating too much chicken food can kill goats so I closed the gate to the chicken run, then I picked her up and tried to cary her over to her pen. That was mistake #2. She just wanted to follow me around so she would have probably just followed me to the pen if I had let her, no need to carry her the whole way. Unfortunately while I was turning the corner I twisted my ankle and fell. I dropped Juby and didn’t even have adequate time to wallow in the ground in self pity because she kept trying to climb on me as I laid there.

Later in the day I noticed my foot hurt a lot when I walked so I made an appointment with the local appointment-only urgent care and tried to wrap up my (remote) work quickly so I'd be on time. Mistake #3: Of course I was late because I always am and I live far away from town, so I missed my appointment and had to drive another hour and 20 minutes to the nearest urgent care on my insurances in-network list, which was in the “Big City”.

I got there 1/2 an hour before they closed so they wouldn't see me. I called the next clinic on the list and found out they were permanently closed, the next one had a disconnected phone line. The others on the list were either in different cities or already closed.

Finally I found an open clinic that was out of network and grabbed their last appointment of the day. I hobbled in and my foot is killing me after all this driving and walking in and out of the other clinic. They tell me it's a $250 copay, and that that covers anything I get done in-clinic (including x-rays). They take a look at the foot and say I probably don't need an x-ray but I can still have one if I want. I tell them yeah I want the X-ray because

1. It took a lot of time and trouble to get my foot seen at all and
2. I wanted my moneys worth

They X-rayed the foot and let me know they didn’t see anything so it's probably a soft tissue injury but they'll have a radiologist look at it. They offered me some Tylenol and sent me home without a boot or anything for my foot. Mistake #4: I didn’t ask for one.

A few hours later I get a notification from MyChart saying they found a small fracture. Of course they were closed by then. This morning I called my local hospital and asked what to do, they were shocked the urgent care hadn't followed up with me or given me anything for my foot. After some back and forth between them and the urgent care (who wanted me to drive all the way back to the big city for a boot and crutches) I have an appointment for later today at the local hospital and the urgent care will send my X-rays over to them.

In the meantime I’ve been hobbling around trying to do chores without a boot and of course Juby was out grazing this morning. This time I just made sure the chicken run gate was latched and just let her be. When I went to check on her later she was back in her pen, sunbathing without a care in the world.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/cherry_fairyx on 2026-04-03 11:48:07+00:00.

The ceiling light in my home office stopped working properly a long time ago. Like five years ago. It would barely put out any light at all. Just this faint glow that was basically useless.

I tried replacing the bulb and the new one did the same thing so I figured the fixture was shot. The thing is I really liked this light. It was one of those nice modern fixtures my partner picked out when we moved in and it wasnt cheap.

I didnt want to replace it and also didnt want to deal with calling an electrician.

So for years I just made do. I bought a couple desk lamps. I positioned my desk near the window to get natural light during the day. At night I would use the hallway light and crack the door. I even kept a flashlight in my desk drawer for when I needed to find something in the darker corners of the room.

My partner thought I was being dramatic about not fixing it. I kept saying I would get around to it eventually. It became one of those things you just learn to live with.

Last week I finally decided enough was enough. I was going to replace the whole fixture. But before I did I figured I would mess with it one more time just in case.

I grabbed the wall switch and for some reason twisted it instead of just flipping it.

The light got brighter.

Its a dimmer switch. It has always been a dimmer switch. For five years the switch was just turned almost all the way down.

I stood there in my now fully lit office and just stared at the wall. Five years of desk lamps and flashlights and positioning my desk for natural light. Five years of my partner asking when I was going to fix it. And the whole time I just needed to turn a knob.

tldr: thought my ceiling light was broken for five years and worked around it with lamps and flashlights. Turns out it was on a dimmer switch that was turned almost all the way down the entire time

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Kernel_49Pulse on 2026-04-03 10:34:41+00:00.

This happened three Sundays ago and I am still living with the consequences. Some context: my morning routine before this was about 25 minutes. Wake up, make coffee, shower, get dressed, leave. It was fine. Nothing was wrong with it. I don't know why I felt the need to improve something that was working.

I had seen a few videos about morning routines and productivity and I made the mistake of watching them on a Saturday night when I had nothing to do and was in a receptive mood. The videos were very convincing. The basic argument was that your morning sets the tone for your whole day and that most people are leaving significant potential on the table by not being intentional about the first hour. I found this plausible. I should not have found this plausible.

I spent the following Sunday building my optimized morning routine. I added journaling, which I had never done before. I added a ten minute meditation. I added a specific sequence of stretches I found online that were supposed to activate something. I added reading for twenty minutes. I added a cold water face rinse at a specific point in the sequence because apparently this does something to your cortisol. I wrote all of this out in order and timed each component and the total came to one hour and forty minutes, which meant I would need to wake up at 5:15am to complete it before work.

I did this for four days. On the fifth day I woke up at 5:15, stared at my journal for a few minutes, wrote the word "tired" and a small drawing of a frowning face, skipped the meditation, did half the stretches, and went to make coffee. My original routine was twenty five minutes and nothing was wrong with it. I now wake up at 5:15 out of habit and just sit in the kitchen in the dark for a while before my actual routine starts. This is somehow worse than where i began. TL;DR watched productivity videos, built a 100 minute morning routine to replace my 25 minute one, lasted four days, now just sit in the dark at 5am for no reason.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/TAredditor89 on 2026-04-02 21:02:08+00:00.

Didn't happen today, but its something I can't stop thinking about.

I was at Olive Garden with my wife, son, and a lot of her extended family from her dad's side. We were all having lunch together, and a bunch of our kids were being loud and obnoxious, and very obviously making things difficult for the waiter. Combined with serving a large party of probably 20 people, waiting this table was not a position to be envious of. I think it was one of my wife's cousins that said something along the lines of "I'd hate to be waiting this table right now" and I awkwardly pitched in "Omg, I'd shoot myself"

That was the faux pas that has me wanting to die/never see any of those family members again...

The reason we were all gathered at Olive Garden was we were attending my wife's dad's funeral that morning. He had committed suicide by shooting himself.

I absolutely wanted to crawl under the table as soon as the words left my mouth. I felt a wash of panic come over me, and I avoided eye contact with everyone for pretty much the rest of the day. The moment still haunts me.

TL;DR: Wife's father shot himself, and after attending his funeral while at lunch, I told her family that "I'd shoot myself" as an expression trying to make conversation about the unfortunate situation the waiter was in.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/FelixwArch on 2026-04-02 10:56:29+00:00.

I started this job last spring and my manager's name is Krisztof.

Not Christopher. Not Kristoff. Krisztof. Hungarian spelling.

My phone decided from day one that this was not a real word and kept changing it to "Kristoff" every single time I typed it. I didn't notice because I was new and busy and genuinely thought that was just how he spelled it.

For eight months I emailed him, cc'd him, referenced him in documents and sent him meeting invites all with the wrong name.

He never said anything. Not once.

At my performance review last week he told me my work had been strong and that he only had one small piece of feedback.

He then very calmly explained that his name is spelled with a Z and a T and that he had noticed it in my emails and wanted to mention it before it came up with a client.

I wanted to leave my body.

I apologized probably six times in a row and he was completely gracious about it which somehow made it worse.

I went home and scrolled back through eight months of emails and found forty three instances of the wrong name.

Forty three.

He responded warmly to every single one and never said a word.

I have corrected my phone's dictionary. I have also not fully recovered.

TL;DR autocorrect changed my manager's name for eight months, he waited until my performance review to mention it, there were forty three emails, he was very nice about it, i am not okay

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Qules_LP on 2026-04-02 07:32:57+00:00.

My laptop's LCD gave out around two months ago, so we had to replace it. It was wonderfully replaced. The issue is that it also changed the options in the Display Scale settings to a bigger one. I liked my scale to be smaller than the options, but replacing the screen seems to have removed the smaller option.

I tried updating my drivers to have my display smaller again, and IT DID WORK... only when it was installing. After the installation process, my screen would become bigger again. I tried looking at Intel's and Nvidia's control panels, but to no avail; the settings aren't just there, especially for Nvidia, showing I can only control 3D processing. Right there, I decided to just wait till we go back to the repair shop to add the protective filament.

Well, we got back yesterday (a month late due to being busy), and I asked about the scaling issue. They told me to just download new drivers. So last night I tinkered again, found a guide on Elevenforum, and tried their Registry Editor method.

Using the Registry Editor, I accessed the desktop pane, selected LogPixels, and modified its decimal value to 480 as a test... For those who are knowledgeable about computers, you can now see the issue. Well, I continued following the direction, selecting Win8DpiScaling, and modified its hexadecimal base to 1. Signing out and in, instead of the result of a smaller-scale display, I got an unworkable large-scale display, where the taskbar envelops half of the screen, and the apps are enormously large.

Due to the clunkiness of the controls, it took a while before I managed to undo my mistake, making me sleep at 4 am.

TL;DR: Replaced laptop LCD → lost smaller display scale option → drivers didn’t fix it → tried registry hack → accidentally made everything comically huge → spent hours undoing it at 4 AM.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Even_Syrup_2779 on 2026-04-03 03:11:51+00:00.

recently was asking about raises because I’ve been due for one with my promotion, but finance has been stopping everyone on raises. Boss then asked if I was actively looking for a new job.

thought about not answering, but a non-answer would have been an answer. I’m big on honesty (but I read the room first, and craft my words wisely). I’ve been looking in recent weeks, but haven’t applied…. Ive had that feeling for weeks the company is being ultra cheap.

did I mess up by telling my boss I’m looking for a new job? he’s very understanding, and knows the position I’ve been put in. plus I know it’s not his fault, he’s been trying to get me a raise.

TLDR; i started a discussion with my boss about a raise for my promotion almost a year ago. He asked if I’ve been looking for a new job and I said yes.

edit: adding boss’ lead-up to question. He mentioned the impact I’ve been making and how everybody is saying good things about my work. He was worried about me getting burnt out and wanting to leave. Then he asked if that was true, and if I’d been looking for a New job.

I said yes, due to cost of living

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Prism909_Atlas on 2026-04-03 00:01:01+00:00.

This happened two weeks ago and my friend has forgiven me but I am still thinking about it so I need to put it somewhere. Some context: I work in data analysis and I have a slightly embarrassing habit of looking things up that I probably don't need to look up. My friend just bought her first house, she was very excited, she threw a small housewarming party. I was genuinely happy for her.

About a week before the party I thought it would be nice to show up knowing something useful about her new area. Thoughtful guest stuff. So I looked up some local information and in the process ended up on one of those neighborhood data sites that aggregates crime statistics. Her area had some numbers that were moderately above average for certain property crimes. I noted this, thought nothing more of it, and did not plan to mention it.

At the party, someone asked the group what we thought of the neighborhood. I said I thought it seemed nice, which was true. Another guest said they loved how quiet the streets were. And then, I genuinely do not know why my brain did this, I said "yeah it seems great, though I did notice the property crime stats are a bit elevated compared to the city average, worth keeping an eye on." Just volunteered this. At a housewarming party. For a house my friend just bought and cannot return. The table went quiet for about two seconds which felt like significantly longer. My friend laughed it off and said she'd looked into it and felt comfortable with the area. But I watched her expression for the rest of the evening and I think I genuinly stressed her out about a thing she had been completely happy about before I arrived. I have since looked up the neighborhood again and honestly the numbers are fine. I dont know why I said it. TL;DR I ruined approximately fifteen minutes of my friend's housewarming by volunteering unsolicited mildly alarming crime statistics that were not even that alarming in retrospect.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Fabulous_Lettuce3655 on 2026-04-02 00:12:56+00:00.

This still randomly pops into my head and makes me feel like a complete asshole.

I’m at Walmart with my wife, just shopping, and this girl walks up to me all excited like she knows me. Smiling, asking if I remember her, all that.

And I’m standing there like… I have absolutely no idea who this is.

I tried to play it off, talked to her for a minute, but nothing clicked. Not even a little. I basically just faked my way through the whole interaction and went on with my day.

Later on, I’m telling my mom about it, like “yeah some girl came up to me acting like she knew me,” and she’s like… you don’t remember her?

Turns out she was the daughter of my mom’s friend/coworker, and they literally lived with us for a couple years when we were younger. We were close in age too, so it’s not like we barely crossed paths—I saw her all the time back then.

And I just completely blanked on her in public like she was a total stranger.

Every now and then I think about it and feel like a huge jerk. Like she was genuinely happy to see me, and I’m over there running on zero recognition.

At the same time, it’s kind of funny how hard my brain failed in that moment.

Still… yeah. I should’ve done better.

TL;DR: Completely blanked on someone who lived with me growing up and didn’t realize until my mom told me later. Felt like a straight-up asshole.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Tasty-Bee-8339 on 2026-04-01 16:41:38+00:00.

I (52f) work at a resource center/food pantry. I’ve only been with the organization for a couple months. We get regular donations from the public, and people are constantly walking through the doors, either for help or bringing in donated items.

Today a man walked in with four cases of baby wipes. I was standing by the door talking with my boss when he came in and placed them on the floor. I thanked him saying, “four case? This is perfect! We’ve been out of wipes for a couple weeks. Thank you for your generosity, it’s very appreciated! Wow!”

The man nods at me like I’m a weirdo and leaves. My boss starts laughing and says, “That was a delivery driver. I ordered those wipes from Walmart this morning.”

TL;DR I mistook a delivery driver for a generous donor, and thanked him profusely.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/wants-to-know-it-all on 2026-04-01 16:06:19+00:00.

My brother died suddenly 18 months ago. He was divorced with two teenage daughters. The six months after his passing were devastating — we were completely locked out of his world.

He was obsessively private. and I messed up by never asking him about his will and emergency passwords. Changed passwords constantly, nothing written down, no shared logins. We couldn't get into his Mac, iPhone, or a single account. We didn't know all his friends or where to begin.

TL;DR His will is on his computer. We never found it. His daughters are teenagers who lost their dad — He was the family photographer - they deserve his photos, 25 years of them, and they deserve to know what he wanted for them.

Apple has been completely useless. We've hit walls at every turn. Has anyone navigated this? Are there legitimate professionals who help families recover digital estates? Any guidance is welcome.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/RowTimely4769 on 2026-04-01 15:06:49+00:00.

Okay so this happened this past Sunday and I am still finding evidence of it around my apartment.

It started innocently. I was doing that thing where you're not really doing anything but you feel like you should be doing something, so you pick a completely unnecessary task and attack it with the energy of someone who has been given a deadline by God himself. My chosen task was: organizing my skincare.

I do not have a skincare problem. My skincare situation was, by any reasonable metric, completely fine. Four products. A shelf. Everything on the shelf. The system worked perfectly for two years without a single incident.

But I had read something online the night before about skincare routines as a form of self care ritual, on this lip balm website called Jesse lip balm website which I found at 11pm while looking for something completely unrelated and then stayed on for forty five minutes because it is run by an AI that has never had skin and has extremely strong opinions about skincare as a human ritual. This should have been a warning sign. I treated it as inspiration.

So Sunday morning I woke up with a vision.

I was going to optimize.

I went to three stores. THREE. I bought two new shelves, a set of matching containers, some small labels, and a little tray specifically for lip balms because the website had mentioned lip balm approximately seven times and my brain had quietly decided this was a product category I was severely underinvesting in. I bought four lip balms. I did not need four lip balms. I own two already. They were fine. They were right there on the shelf doing their job without complaint.

I came home at 1pm with two tote bags full of organizational supplies for a problem that did not exist.

I started reorganizing at 1:15pm.

Here is where I fucked up.

I took everything off the shelf to start fresh. All of it. And then I got a text from a friend and sat down for what I thought was five minutes and was actually forty five minutes, during which every single one of my skincare products was sitting in a pile on the bathroom floor like a small cosmetic disaster zone.

I came back to the bathroom. I looked at the pile. I looked at the two new shelves I had not yet assembled. I looked at the labels I had bought with such confidence three hours earlier.

I assembled the first shelf wrong. I realized this when I put things on it and it leaned approximately fifteen degrees to the left like it was trying to tell me something. I disassembled it. I reassembled it. It now leaned twelve degrees to the left. This is technically an improvement but not a solution.

I spent forty minutes on a shelf that came with four steps of instructions.

By 4pm I had one shelf at a slight angle, one shelf still in the box, every product I own in a configuration that is objectively worse than where they started, and four new lip balms that I now needed to find homes for in a system that was currently mid-collapse.

I put one lip balm on the desk. One on the bedside table. One by the door. One stayed in the bathroom with the leaning shelf as a kind of tribute.

My original two lip balms are somewhere in the pile. I have not located them. I have not looked very hard because I now have four new ones and also some complicated feelings about the whole situation.

The shelf is still leaning. I have decided it has character. The labels I bought are in a drawer unused. The matching containers have one thing in them. The little tray is holding three hair ties and a coin I found on the floor during the reorganization because I lost momentum and started cleaning other things instead of finishing the original task.

My skincare was fine on Saturday. On Sunday I intervened. It is now Tuesday and I am moisturizing from a pile.

I blame the lip balm website. The lip balm website did not ask me to reorganize my bathroom. The lip balm website simply existed and had opinions and I took that as a personal challenge. This is entirely my fault. The AI that runs it has never had a bathroom and probably could not have predicted this outcome.

The lip balm is good though. All six of them, wherever they currently are.

TL;DR: Read a lip balm website at 11pm, woke up Sunday convinced I needed to reorganize my entire bathroom, bought two shelves and four lip balms for a problem that did not exist, assembled one shelf incorrectly, lost my original products in the chaos, and now live in a worse situation than I started with. The shelf leans. The lip balms are scattered. I have learned nothing.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Dovahkiin_73 on 2026-04-01 13:34:30+00:00.

This was a few years back, I was living in a different state in an apartment. The walls are practically like paper. You could hear some parts of conversations and any other sounds. Especially from above. So one night, I was bored and couldn't sleep, so I decided to watch Silent Hill. (One of my favorite movies that helps me sleep sometimes. Strange, I know.)

When I watch a movie, I always put subtitles on, but I also tend to raise the volume. My room had plenty of space, and the distance between my bed and TV was warranted enough to have the volume a little high. The issue is that I had it higher than I imagined due to certain scenes that can be loud af than most of the film. For example, the scene with the grey children that Rose encounters. I forgot just how loud their screams and wails are and immediately went to turn down the volume. I decided to keep it to that volume and started to doze off.

I woke up from the sound of pounding at the door and saw flashing lights from my window. I start to freak out, wondering what the hell was going on and hurry to answer it. I was dumbfounded when there were two officers at the door, and a few people were at the staircase and another standing outside. I asked what was wrong, and apparently, someone called the police because they believed there was a child in danger! When the police explained, I went 'oh fuck!' and told them that I was actually watching a movie with the volume on too loud. After clearing up the misunderstanding, the police also informed others about it since their arrival and relentlessly pounding at the door caused curious neighbors to come and see what was up. Thankfully, I wasn't in any trouble, but I was told to make sure my volume wasn't loud when watching movies. At that point, I felt like such a dumbass and was embarrassed by this experience.

Lesson learned: Don't have the volume on loud when watching horror movies.

TL;DR: Police were called on me cause someone thought a child was dying. I explained it was from the grey children scene from Silent Hill but had the volume on too loud.

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Paz_Tasmin on 2026-03-31 02:05:15+00:00.

The year was 1993. I was 16. (F) An incredible year for radio. Two Princes by The Spin Doctors was loved by pretty much everyone, whether you’ll

admit it or not. Creep by Radiohead was being played constantly, just like it is today. Many had that bass turned way up for Gin and Juice and Rump Shaker, while others were out line dancing to Chattahoochee by Alan Jackson. (Did you like that intro?) 😉.

My aunts (my dad’s sisters) owned a small cleaning business, and they used to pay me a few bucks an hour to help them clean a couple of different offices. We always had fun together. I was particularly close with one of my aunts that we’ll call the “Cool Auntie.” She is 15 years older than me, and she took me under her wing when I was 13 to study the Bible with me. The Bible studies turned into babysitting almost daily. I was at her house all the time. At some point she served me shots of alcohol for the first time when I was 14. I had been intoxicated several times with my Cool Auntie before I was 16. We used to do this dumb shit where we’d call each other on the phone, and one of us would be breathing heavily and whisper, “I’m in your house, I’m going to kill you.” Or, “I’m hiding under your bed.” I’d leave notes on her car in the church parking lot that said, “you’re next.” Shit like that.

On this one particular evening, I was helping my aunts clean this HUGE office. Pretty sure I slammed 2-3 wine coolers within 30 minutes. I’m having a great time. Emptying garbage cans. Spinning around in these big fancy office chairs. Wiping fingerprints off of the shiny desks. $5 an hour wasn’t bad for a 16 year old in 1993 that spent every dime she made on CDs and clothes from the resale shop. Parents wouldn’t let me buy a car yet.

I’m sitting at this desk. I see a stack of post-its and a pen. And for reasons that will never make sense to me, I wrote: “I’m in the building. I’m going to kill you.”

I have no memory of what my true plan was for this note. I’m almost certain I was going to stick the note somewhere my Cool Auntie would see it, then dispose of it. Possibly, discreetly bring the entire little stack of post-its with me, since I likely didn’t have any post-its of my own. Buuut noooope. The note was left on the desk.

We finished cleaning and left like everything was completely normal.

The next day, I get a call from Cool Auntie. She was PISSED!!! She yells, “Did you leave a note on someone’s desk last night?!?!”

Immediately, I lie. “Oh my God, no! What note??”

She then tells me the building had been evacuated, the fire department showed up, and the police were involved.

Apparently the person arrived at work, found the note, and reacted in what I now understand to be a perfectly reasonable manner.

We were asked to come to the police station.

To provide handwriting samples.

HANDWRITING SAMPLES.

And rewrite the words,

“I’m in the building. I’m going to kill you.”

So there I am, sitting at a table trying to casually alter my handwriting. Cool Auntie giving me the side-eye the entire time.

After about an hour, we were allowed to leave. No dramatic interrogation. No charges. Nothing.

A few days later, I confessed to my aunts that I did it. They already knew. Of course they knew.

And in case this story isn’t already bad enough…

This place wasn’t a doctor’s office.

Not a real estate office.

Not an insurance office.

Not a temp agency.

No.

This was one of the most prominent LAW FIRMS in the county.

At age 16, after 3 wine coolers, I accidentally triggered an emergency response at a major law firm, because I thought a death threat on a Post-it note was funny.

My aunts lost the cleaning account.

My sincere apologies to whoever found that note 33 years ago.

When I told my parents what happened, I thought for sure my mom would absolutely destroy me and ransack my bedroom with a baseball bat. (Again)

My mom (who was not much of a fan of her sister-in-laws) said,

“Well!!! That’s what happens when you let kids drink alcohol!!”

And that was the end of the conversation. To this day Cool Auntie will try to convince anyone that I was sneaking alcohol when she wasn’t looking.

33 years later and a recovering alcoholic, (sober for 1 year and 9 months) I’ve been wanting to share this story for a long time. I was a dumbass. Please don’t let teenagers drink alcohol. Especially if EVERY member of your family is a freakin’ alcoholic. Doesn’t exactly put them on a path to succeed. Rock on everyone! ✌️

TL;DR: At 16 I drank a few wine coolers while helping my aunts clean an office, thought it would be funny to leave a fake death threat on a Post-it, accidentally triggered a building evacuation, had to give handwriting samples to police, and the office turned out to be a major law firm.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Junior_Letterhead524 on 2026-04-01 00:41:32+00:00.

So this didn’t happen today, or even this decade.

This is a 20‑year‑long slow‑burn internet accident that started when I was young, bored, and armed with the chaotic confidence only the mid‑2000s could produce.

Back in 2005, Wikipedia was basically the Wild West. You could edit a page, hit save, and boom — you were now the world’s leading expert on whatever you just lied about. No citations, no moderators breathing down your neck, no bots screaming “SOURCE?” Just vibes.

So one night, for absolutely no reason other than being a little gremlin with dial‑up internet, a friend and I opened Chevy Chase’s Wikipedia page and added a new line under “Children”:

“Bryan Perkins (son)”

That’s it. No backstory. No explanation. No attempt to make it believable. I didn’t even give myself a middle name. I just dropped myself into the Chase family tree like a Sims character and went to bed.

And here’s the part where the universe said, “Yeah, sure, why not.”

Search engines scraped it.

Celebrity‑bio sites copied it.

Fan wikis repeated it.

And suddenly the entire internet was like, “Ah yes, Chevy Chase’s mysterious fourth child, Bryan. Of course.”

I forgot about it.

The internet did not.

Years passed.

Then a decade.

Then two.

Every so often someone would message me like, “Dude, Google says you’re Chevy Chase’s son???” And I’d have to explain that no, I’m not a secret Hollywood baby — I’m just an idiot who edited Wikipedia in 2005.

The funniest part?

Siri still believes it.

Ask her who Chevy Chase’s kids are and she’ll confidently list me like I’m showing up for Thanksgiving at the Chase estate.

At this point, the lie has lasted longer than some marriages.

I’ve become a ghost in the algorithm — a digital Bigfoot. Somewhere out there, a confused Chevy Chase fan is wondering why his “son” looks like a guy who buys gas station coffee and argues with his dad about the thermostat.

So yeah.

TIFU by accidentally becoming Chevy Chase’s secret son for 20 years.

And honestly?

I think the internet wants to keep me.

• Bryan Perkins

March 2026

Surviving ESRD

PS The parade magazine article about his daughter, Emily Chase references me in it as the “fake brother”

TL;DR:

In 2005 I jokingly added myself as Chevy Chase’s son on Wikipedia, forgot about it, and the entire internet spent the next 20 years confidently insisting I was his secret child. Siri still believes it.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/bad-at-everything- on 2026-04-01 00:05:09+00:00.

My friend’s 8 yo daughter was commenting on how she wished she had a figure like mine. I’m lean and athletic.

I suggested she find an activity she enjoys doing- dance, a sport, even just a game like tag. I’m said that because I enjoy the sport I do I don’t even think about exercise because I’m just having fun with my friends. That without thinking I was gaining muscle and losing fat. That it was funny because I ate twice as much because my body needed the fuel but because of the activity I never had to think about how much I eat.

Turn out the kid was starting to develop body image issues and her parents wanted these conversations to stay at “you are beautiful the way you are”. I crossed a line. They said it was not an appropriate discussion.

Tl;dr my friend’s 8 yo daughter was wishing she was lean like me and I suggested she find an activity to get her moving instead of affirming that she is beautiful the way she is

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/DrinkPresent7311 on 2026-03-31 23:43:42+00:00.

So I have a coworker who I've worked with for about 6 months and she's pretty chill but I wouldn't say we're friends. A couple of days ago she texted me saying she was running late because of a family emergengy and asked if I wouldn't mind clocking her in since she didn't want to be in trouble for being late. I really contemplated doing it since I know I could get in trouble for it, but I figured it was a family emergency which I sympathized with, and she's never asked for anything like this before. So I waited a few minutes and clocked her in about 5 minutes after her shift was supposed to start, but she ended up being over 30 minutes late which really had me regretting my decision to help her. Once she got in she was very apologetic and appreciated me helping her. I said no worries and we moved on. Today my manager pulled me aside to talk about some inconsistencies with the time logs. Apparently our system actually tracks when we log into our workstation on top of clocking in, and the manager noticed there was quite a descrepency on that day. My manager asked if I had clocked in for her, and I admitted I did and explained the situation. This ended up with my coworker getting written up, and myself getting a warning for clocking her in. My coworker is upset with me for outing her which is ridiculous becuase she should have just been honest and shown up late, and I did a huge favour for her which sacrificied my job on top of things. Safe to say I won't be helping her ever again.

TL;DR: TIFU by clocking in my coworker when she was running late, now she got written up and I got a warning

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/posay_ on 2026-03-31 22:38:11+00:00.

Long story short, I was pregnant and signed up for my benefits. Completely forgot about it bc I had the baby a few days after signing up for said benefits and FSA, I went into maternity leave and stopped having 8 hours of sleep. Anyways, I had to leave my job and today is my last day of benefits, which means today is my last day to use the FSA as well. Today is when I remembered I had the account. 500 dollars. So as anyone would do, I started filling up my Amazon cart with FSA eligible items, all good right? I caught it early right? WRONG Amazon post charges as pre authorization until they ship items. Which even tho I ordered today, my FSA won’t see it as a purchased until the day Amazon decides to ship the items. I could have bought it from the FSA store and it would’ve shown it was bought today. Why won’t they just charge when I placed the order?

TLDR: forgot I had a FSA account and could’ve used/saved 500 dollars for FSA eligible items if I didn’t buy thru Amazon.

Update: Amazon order got shipped and paid by FSA, and I was able to claim a few things I had receipts for! 🥹 the downvotes lol I know it’s my fault, sorry I took yall thru this with me

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Common-Sandwich70 on 2026-03-31 14:19:43+00:00.

Today started out like any regular day, waking up, getting ready, and out the door for work with a cup of coffee in hand. I was leading an early meeting and I was ready to go.

Before the meeting, I stop by the restroom because, ya know, coffee. I finish my business and head to the meeting. I present, facilitate a great conversation, and generally feel like I’ve got some great momentum going into the rest of my day.

On the way back to my office, I stop by the restroom again to empty my bladder. As I’m walking by the mirror I notice something irregular. I can clearly see my waistband over the top of my pants. It’s immediately clear to me that in the process of gathering myself after my first pit stop, I accidentally tucked my shirt into my underwear instead of over them and into my pants. It dawns on me that I’ve just facilitated an entire meeting with “Hanes” peeking over my belt. Needless to say, all the good vibes from the meeting are gone. Who knows how many colleagues noticed. Contemplating going home for the day or just putting in my two weeks now. 😂

TL;DR I accidentally tucked my shirt into my underwear and my entire team probably saw my tighty whities during a meeting.

Edit: No, I didn’t go home early, and no I didn’t quit. It was hyperbole! I’m embarrassed but it’s not the end of the world. Folks taking this way too seriously.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/tifu24 on 2026-03-31 01:35:36+00:00.

this didn’t happen today but yesterday and i’m still thinking about it

i went for a long walk because the weather was nice and about halfway through i suddenly had to pee way more urgently than expected. like went from fine to not fine very fast. there was a park bathroom nearby so i went in without really thinking about it. inside there were stalls and everything looked normal at first but then i realized none of them had doors. not broken doors just no doors at all, i thought about leaving but it was kind of an emergency at that point so i picked a stall near the end and hoped for the best.

at first it was completely empty so i was like ok maybe this won’t be that bad but then two girls came in. the second i heard the door i basically froze mid pee and just sat there completely still hoping they’d be quick and not really look over. they were talking and joking and immediately noticed the no door situation and started laughing about it. to get to the open stall they had to walk past mine so one by one they both did that quick awkward glance and then kept going

one of them was waiting off to the side while the other went first since there were only 2 stalls and the whole time they were still joking about how weird the bathroom was. at one point the girl who was waiting kind of looked over and went “this is so awkward, sorry” and i just did that awkward half laugh because what else do you even do in that situation. then for some reason she tried to make small talk for a second like asking if the bathrooms were all like this in the park and i just gave very short answers while staring straight at the wall and trying to just get through it

at that point i kind of gave up on waiting them out and just restarted my stream all while this girl is talking to be and im pretending this was somehow a normal conversation to be having. i guess the sound of my pee was loud enough that she realized what was going on because she kind of paused and then was like “ok yeah i’ll stop talking so you can have some privacy” which honestly i appreciated but also made me more aware of the whole situation. she wasnt being mean but it just somehow made the whole thing more uncomfortable.

i just tried to finish as quickly as possible while pretending i wasn’t fully aware of everything going on around me. after that i started to wipe, and the waiting girl glanced over quickly while im mid wipe, realized she’d seen too much, and immediately apologized before looking away

as if it couldn’t get any more awkward, i flush and she immediately goes for the toilet, squeezing past me while saying something to her friend like “ugh i don’t even want to use it but im about to piss my panties,” and then sits down. anyway i got out of there as fast as i could and left immediately

lesson learned i guess not all stalls come with doors and i should probably check first next time

tldr; had to pee in a park bathroom with no doors, 2 girls come in and 1 of them tries to make small talk while i pee