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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/x058394446 on 2026-01-17 05:36:49+00:00.
This story culminates with the welfare check which happened yesterday. I’m great at verbally telling stories, but beyond awful at writing out things that happened plus I’m far from being 100% so sorry for the lenght and thanks to anyone who reads this.
A little over year ago a simple visit to my doctor to get my blood work results ended up in the worst news I've ever received. Let's just say I'm living on borrowed time.
A few weeks after my doctor’s visit I’m sitting at home and thinking about the past. Even though I’ve suffered two TIAs, which are ‘minor strokes’ I still have a great memory. I could remember certain memories in such vivid detail. A lot of these memories were with my closest friend from middle school and high school. While we hadn’t spoke in a very long time I decided to reach out to him via LinkedIn. To my surprise he responded fairly quickly. A while passed and I took him out to dinner when he was visiting his parents. We were reminiscing and he mentioned how he still had the audio files of prank calls we used to make as kids. This was back in the late 90s/early 2000s and I had a voice recorder that we’d tape them on and then I’d essentially play it back and record it to my computer. I asked him if he could send them to me and he said he would when he got back home. I also begged him to send any photos he still had of us in high school. Well… A few days after we went out for dinner I found out that this friend, his brother, and his aunt were the ones who robbed our house back in 2000 while we were in middle school. This story itself is actually much more interesting that the story I’m writing about, but I don’t think it’d fall under a ’TIFU’.
I debated telling bringing this up. With everything I was going through I just decided to not do anything. It did reaffirm that deciding to cut ties with him about 15 years ago was the right choice.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I can’t explain why, but I had this yearning to look through those photos and listen to those calls. All I wanted was to flip through these pictures in hopes of reliving the past as I couldn't find much happiness in the now and thinking about the past was one of the few things that could bring a smile to my face. I was even tempted to reach back out to this ‘friend’ and simply plead with him to share those photos and prank calls, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but I regretted not waiting for him to send them and then cutting him off. This topic came up while talking to my neighbor - I didn’t mention the robbery and just that I stopped talking to him and felt awkward reaching out to essentially beg him to share those photos and calls - who even offered to reach out to him or another friend whom I hadn’t spoken with since high school who was the person who took all the photos, although I am certain he’d just ignore me and her. I was going to take her up on it and she never brought it up again and I felt weird asking her to do it.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I was looking for some old documents and came across these miniDV tapes. They were tapes that I recorded from a high school trip to Europe. I was ecstatic. To add to it I never even had a chance to see them even back then. Long story about why that was. I at least had something… I’m embarressed to admit that I was so excited to have found these tapes that I couldn’t sleep and stayed up searching for places that could convert them for me. I went down as soon as they opened, paid $100 per tape, and was told it could take a few weeks and they’d send me an email with a link when it was available.
Then yesterday around 2pm I get an email from the company. I felt like a kid on Christmas. I open the email only to be told that they weren’t able to convert the tapes. These tapes were about 22 years old and I hadn’t kept them in the best place.
I felt devastated. I’m sure most will read this and with everything I’ve shared about my health will ask why I was able to come to terms with the news I received so quickly yet this was what devastated me. Honestly, I wish I had an answer. All I know is that I would give almost anything to flip through these photos one last time…
I then broke down in tears. It was bad… And my windows were open as they almost always are and I'm sure you could hear me weeping and crying.
After maybe half an hour I hopped in the shower and when I got out I was making myself something to eat before going to bed as it was almost midnight at this point. I then hear a knock on my door. I freak out and was hesitant to even check to see who it was. I look out the peephole and see two cops. I was confused, worried, so naturally I started chuckling while opening the door. They seemed nice enough. I say hi, they ask me my name, and then tell me that someone in the building was concerned for me and they wanted to check in on me. Besides actually crying, I always tend to get red eyes for a while after showering, plus I use eyewipes and eye drops after showering which make it look like I just cried or hit a bong…
I apologize if I had made any noise or bothered anyone, even though I was sure I hadn’t, and tell them I’m okay. Now they were very kind when they said this, but they asked if I had been crying. I said yes and they asked why and I just start laughing and telling them how embarrassing this is. Doesn’t help that most of the people in my building are incredibly nosey and besides my one neighbor I don’t speak with any of them. And two had opened their doors while I was speaking with the cops. I wouldn’t put it pass them to have had their ears up to the door trying to listen. I also didn’t think of asking the cops to come in and they hadn’t asked if they could speak with me inside either.
I finally told them that yes I had been crying and that I was fine now. They, again very politely, asked if I was thinking of harming myself or if I wanted to speak with someone. I let out another awkward laugh and then told them how this had all stemmed from the tapes I was looking forward to watching. I wish you could have seen their faces. Thankfully they left soon after saving me of further embarrassing myself.
Maybe I’ll just be thankful that I have a decent memory and stick to reminiscing instead…
TL;DR: I'm going through health issues and not sure how much longer I have. In the midst of everything, what I've wanted the most for months is to be able to look through old photos. Came across old miniDV tapes and went to digitize them only to find out that they were damaged and proceeded to breakdown crying which led to someone in my building calling the cops to do a welfare check on me which was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.