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We all make mistakes, but some mistakes become more obvious in their idiocy after hindsight. Then there are the kinds of mistakes which you instantly realize were a blunder.
Here are some of the worst "I've made a huge mistake moments" people were willing to share.
Many thanks to the Redditors who posed this question. You can check out more answers from the sources at the end of this article!
1/30
“Having realized too late that I no longer possessed the upper body strength nor small feet I had when I was a child, at 18 I tried to scale a chain link fence, making it half way up before my arms gave out, feet slipped and I was left hanging by my shirt AND bra, tits waving in the breeze; shirt pulled up over my face, hooked on the top of the fence.
The kid walking by had the biggest eyes, mouth agape as he walked by, as I flailed, jumping, trying to free myself.
Good times.”
- Ashton42
2/30
“When I was in second grade, I came across a picture of a woman that was topless. In my young, adolescent mind, I thought it was a good idea to take it to school, and tell all my friends that the woman in the picture topless was my mother. I realized I made a huge mistake when I was in the principal’s office shortly after. Still cringe thinking about it to this day. However, my dad gets a good laugh out of it every time.”
- [anonymous]
3/30
“One of my roommates in my second year of college worked for Traffic and Parking, so he occasionally had to work an intersection. One time he ended up working an intersection for a whole day no sunscreen, came back and I’ve never seen someone more completely sunburnt. He thought that since he didn’t have Aloe Vera, the next best thing was icy hot.
He spent the next hour in the shower screaming in pain.”
- McLargepants
4/30
“I was swimming at a hotel pool with built-in tables and chairs attached to the bottom. I figured it would be awesome to swim in and out between them like a fish in a reef. Keep in mind, this is off-season, and nobody in the pool area was anywhere near me.
I zoom through a few chairs, and I’m feeling like some kind of underwater rock star like I’m Mic Jagger and these cement chairs are hot groupies trying to get a piece of me. Suddenly, my chest is on fire and I’m not moving. I wedged my chest between a chair and table, underneath the table so there are two inches of cement between me and sweet air.
I was pretty sure I was going to be on the Darwin Awards in about forty five seconds, so I thrashed and wiggled like my life depended on it, and managed to scrape a six by six inch patch of skin off both back and chest, but I got free.
The idea of drowning is terrifying, but the idea of drowning in a hotel pool of your own stupidity is both terrifying and humiliating. I think the humiliation is what gave me the burst of energy to get free.”
– mightycow
5/30
“So two weeks ago, my boss called me at my desk. And it went like this.
Boss: So, Mike, I’m in Greenville, NC.’
Me: ‘Yes.’
Boss: ‘You were supposed to send me to Greenville, SC.’
Me: ‘Uhhhh…I don’t know what to say right now except sorry.'”
–chimpanzeebutt
6/30
“The first time I changed oil on my motorcycle I drained the transmission oil pan and not the bigger engine oil pan. I noticed that I only drained a little oil but I figured that I was just running low on it. The next day my motorcycle starts pushing out the excess oil out and I ruin the pair of pants I’m wearing.
But it doesn’t stop there. I start draining the oil the right way this time but the container I’m using is made to hold only 5 quarts and there are 7+ quarts in my bike. The excess oil makes a mess of my garage and I had to spend a good hour cleaning it up and buying cat litter to cover it.
Then I left the cat litter overnight and stray cats did their business on it.”
- HomieBama_
7/30
“When I was young, like 8 or 9, I had a trike (not a big wheel, just a small plastic trike) that I was riding down my driveway into the street. After a few trips I decided I was unhappy with my speed.
To fix this, I put roller skates on my feet and got back on the trike. After all, more wheels = more speed, right? I realized my mistake about a second before I slammed right into a tree.”
- [anonymous]
8/30
“A friend was introducing me to a guy, and the guy reached out his hand a little. Instinctively I reached out and shook his hand. As I did that, I heard my friend say, ‘Oh no…’ under his breath, and that’s when I realized he didn’t reach his hand out to shake mine…..it was paralyzed that way.”
- RossLH
9/30
“I accidentally left an adult toy in the bathroom last night, since I live alone this is normally not a problem. Had unexpected guests today, one of them had to use the bathroom.”
–Perforex
10/30
“Ever since I was a small boy, I have enjoyed the taste of fresh apple juice. Knowing this, my mother bought gallon bottles of it even though she did not enjoy it.
One day, being the big boy (age 6) I thought I was, I decided I was going to have a glass of apple juice without asking her to pour the heavy bottle.
Miraculously, I poured myself a glass without incidence and proceeded to imbibe it.
“That was great!” I thought to myself. So I decided to have another…and another…and before I knew it, I had drank an entire gallon of sweet, acidic apple juice.
Within 10 minutes, the fire of an entire apple orchard erupted from within my gut.
“I’ve made a huge mistake,” I thought as I collapsed to the floor.
I was violently ill for almost 3 days with severe acidosis.
How a small child drank one gallon of apple juice, I will never know.”
- twelvis
11/30
“I ordered a pizza at 5 pm for it to arrive at 8 pm.
The pizza arrived at 6 pm, and I was very surprised since I was wanting to delay it. But I happily ate it anyway. 8 pm came and ANOTHER pizza guy turned up, and stupidly I told him I’d already had the delivery, so he left with a potential free pizza. As I closed the front door I realized what I’d done.. but it was too late…”
- ivegotgoodgenes
12/30
“I was at my beautiful wedding with all of my friends and family in attendance. Weeks before the wedding, my soon-to-be wife said, ‘You better not smear the cake in my face…’
Well on our wedding day, it came time, and I started shoving cake toward her face. As she leaned back to avoid it, her heel got caught in a crack in the concrete, and she began falling towards the ground. She grabbed me and pulled me down with her, causing the cake to get all over her nice white dress. As we got up off the ground, she began cussing me out.
She then threw a wine glass on the ground and yelled at her friends for a cigarette. I looked in the distance to see the preacher walking away. I knew then, that the marriage wouldn’t last…
It lasted 6 long months.”
- vanbenson_
13/30
“Third class of SCUBA certification. The instructor announces that we will be learning how to remove our wetsuits in case of an emergency while in the water (quite why you’d ever want to remove your wetsuit, I still don’t know).
So all of us in the class head to the locker room to put on our wet-suits before heading back to the pool. I, in my rather legendary foolishness, proceed to remove my swim-trunks before putting on my wetsuit. So, I get back to the pool, throw on my tank, and flop into the water.
The instructor is standing at the edge of the pool, announcing to the class, “Well, the first step in removing your wetsuit is…” when I realize… I AM A TOTAL F**KTARD. I have made a huge mistake.
I raised my hand ans admitted that I was naked under my suit. Silence ensued. I mean, total silence. I think the pool water stopped lapping. After a moment I was told by the teacher to either go back in and change, or be a man and…well… go for it.
I went for it.”
- ivegotgoodgenes
14/30
“In high school, I had these jeans where if I put my hands in my pocket, the zipper would automatically open. For some reason, I continued to wear these pants (mostly out of laziness). I was in one of my classes where the teacher was really cool (got along with her pretty well).
For some reason, I thought it would be funny to go up to her while she was sitting down, put my crotch area about half a foot away from her face, and go, ‘Watch this,’ as I put my hands in my pocket to unleash my zipper.
I didn’t realize that my boxers were opened and my you-know-what flopped out right in front of her. Even if they were closed and she didn’t see anything I have NO IDEA why I thought it was a good and funny idea.
Right when I noticed it I realized I made a huge mistake.”
–pumper911
15/30
“September 2008 is a GREAT time to start a business!” Spoiler: It wasn’t.”
- johnsmcjohn
16/30
“I had sex with this girl. Before things got too heated, I asked her if she was on birth control. She said she was, I took her word for it.
After we got done, she mentions that she needed to go take her antibiotics. I knew that antibiotics messed with birth control.
I now have a son on the way.”
–Anonymous
17/30
“One time, I think I was about 13 or 14, I came home from school and found the door locked, and I did not have the spare key. It was freaking cold, I live in NH and it was the middle of winter. So, I’m with my little brother and we talk it out, I decide the best thing do is to run up the stairs leading to the front door and kick the freaking door in.
It seemed reasonable. Then I walked back outside to inspect the damage from the front, and my brother points out a pair of boots on the front steps.
The key was in them. I then realized I had made a huge mistake.”
- Durfee
18/30
“Probably the first time I bought a boat.
It was a piece of trash that I almost killed myself in because I thought, “How hard can sailing be? People have been doing this for thousands of years. I got a B- in calculus, I think I can handle this.”
I skimmed through an eHow how to sail with the wind video, considered myself certified, then proceeded to go out with a buddy who had never even been on a boat before.
My “I’ve made a huge mistake” moment came after the mainsail broke loose and we couldn’t start the outboard. It was extremely windy and choppy out there and I really thought two of us were going to die. Didn’t even have life jackets. Ended up getting saved by a small coast guard vessel that just happened to be cruising by. Yea, I’m dumb.”
–sexytimedotgif
19/30
“I was curious as to the effects of Icy Hot when rubbed upon one’s nipples.
Instant regret.”
–Pidge92
20/30
“I discovered a huge gaping hole in the crotch of my favorite jeans. I decided to duct tape it together from the inside of the pants – and now the mixture of duct glue and sweat is creating one of the most uncomfortable walking experiences of my life.”
- MyofficialTAC
21/30
“This happened back in 1999 or 2000 at a pool hall.
My three friends and I were getting ready to leave and had settled up. While getting ready to go, my friend Tom and I noticed one of those first-generation “Internet Kiosks” by the door where you pay $1 to have x minutes of surfing time. The previous user had left the machine with some time on it. Our pranking selves become motivated, and we decide to pull up goatse on screen. We hit ENTER and start to run out the door. We were scared that a bartender or waitress would notice the goatse and “get us in trouble” so we were bolting out as quickly as possible. At this moment I noticed my friend’s purse on the side-table next to where we were playing pool. “CRAP!” I thought. So being the good friend that I was, I ran over, grabbed her purse, and started bolting towards the door again. This other girl starts chasing me with a huge rage-face. I start to run faster because I figured she was a waitress and wanted to ‘get me in trouble’ for the goatse. When I reach the front door she yells: “MY PURSE! MY PURSE!” for anyone to help her get her purse back from me.
I froze solid and realized immediately that I had made a huge mistake.
I handed it back to her and yelled, ‘I WASN’T STEALING IT! I WASN’T STEALING IT!’ then quickly bolted out the door after my friends.
‘Tiger, what happened? What took you so long!??!’
‘JUST GO! I accidentally stole a purse. Don’t worry about it just DRIVE!!!’
I still kick myself for almost-stealing that purse…'”
- tigereyeTO
22/30
“When I was much younger, around 7 or 8, I had the urge to pee very badly. At this time in my life, my family frequented the local community swimming pool and I had just passed the test to go into the deep end, I even got one of those sweet, stretchy anklets that signify my deep end baller status.
Anyway, I really had to pee. Like really bad. Bad enough that I achieved a prepubescent pee-rection. I ran as fast as I could towards the restrooms that were at the end of the pool, near the deep end. I made it to the urinal, but it was too tall for me and there were no kiddie ones. So I hopped onto my tippy toes and whipped it out, but since I was at full mast and angled slightly backwards, the stream went right into my eye. Like blam, a sure-shot right to the iris.
And I couldn’t very well correct my trajectory due to the circumstances at hand so I pulled my bathing suit back on, continued to pee my pants and ran straight into the deep end, opening and closing my eyes to get the pee out.”
- IThinkImFunny
23/30
“I was constipated for a week once. So at work, I ate a whole box of fiber one bars and drank a large hot coffee. I went 7 or 8 times before lunch. One was pure black and I swear to god one had veins. I had developed a “belly” over the course of that week from the build-up. So my skin felt loose for a while afterwards. Also, I could not stop farting, even after the “going” ended.
One was so bad I actually vomited from the smell. Also, have you ever smoked a cigarette and then blown the smoke through a napkin to see the tar? Well that’s what my pants looked like after farting for 10 hours straight.”
- Dadentum
24/30
“One time when I had the stomach flu, I thought I only had to fart.”
- StewieBanana
25/30
“A couple of years ago I sat down to relieve myself. Little did I know that somehow, and don’t ask me how because I just don’t know, the tip of my penis was not aimed into the bowl. When I started to pee I literally got it all over my shorts.
I had no idea what to do at that point.”
- Talibandito
26/30
“In middle school, I used to avoid peeing in school for no other reason than it was an inconvenience. Oh yeah, and the restrooms were disgusting. Anyways, I was also on the track team. One day at track practice I couldn’t hold it, but I was at the starting line getting ready to run. Before I started running, the urine did. I pretended I was stretching and got really close to the ground. It didn’t help much. I had pee all over my shorts. How no one found out I’ll never know.”
- imbadatthese
27/30
“What do you mean I can’t chew tinfoil? Of course I can, give me a little ball.”
- monkeytorture
28/30
“I went on a first date with a girl that I had been talking online to for awhile. We decided to go to a movie together one weekend so I met her at a theater an hour away. I let her pick whatever movie she wanted to see, so we saw Flicka, a stereotypical horse movie.
You can probably guess the plot better than I can remember. Girl finds wild horse, loves it, tries to tame it, no one thinks she can, blah blah blah. We get inside and there is not a single other person in the theater. The movie is pretty bad ,and at one point this GIANT mountain lion jumps out of a tree and tries to eat Flicka himself! It just seemed so random to me that this mountain lion either wanted to eat this giant horse or at least just kill him because he hated it for some off-screen reason. Also, it looked super cheesy.
So I accidentally started laughing a little. And then the girl that I was with slowly turned towards me with a face of such disgust, such venom that I immediately stopped all giggling. I then realized that she had tears streaming down her face and at that moment said to me in that completely empty theater loudly, “How can you be laughing at a time like THIS???”.
I slowly turned my attention back to the movie, finished watching it, said goodnight, and drove back to school. I will never forget those words.
Everything about that night just seems so ridiculous now. It was like it was destiny. That movie was made entirely to have that ridiculous scene in it so me and this girl could be in this empty theater together so I could chuckle and she could deliver the perfect line of, ‘HOW can YOU be LAUGHING at a time….like THIS?!'”
- Tortimer
29/30
Forgetting to wear a pad before my Karate class. High kicks and white pants, plus an older kid from my highschool as the blackbelt watching over us all mix in for a quite horrible memory.
-silletta
30/30
“I was the drum major of my college marching band. There were two of us, and I was junior, so I was assigned to conduct the band when they were facing backfield. We were hosting the state band competition – biggest crowd of the year by far, all the kids from every school around.
In rehearsal, I ran back across the field during a big crescendo as they were turning around, ran up the podium, and hit the downbeat just as they were hitting the big note at the top of the phrase – pretty awesome.
Except, it rained the night before the performance. And, marching band shoes are flat-soled, no tread at all. And, the uniform was all white. I started running, crossing the field, slipping just a little – and couldn’t stop. Wiped out completely, slipped right into the metal podium, climbed up, finished the song, slumped to the ground. Killed the applause as the crowd was wondering if I was dead. Which would have been better. Epilogue: the next morning, at the doctor’s office, the nurse asked, how did you get hurt? I told her, slipped while running on wet grass. She says, ‘Oh, my God, you’re the drum major for X State!'”
- [anonymous]