She Thought The Call Was Over, But Then She Heard A Voice
“I had been on the phone with my best friend, she said bye and I thought she hung up. I was cleaning my room at the time and my phone was on speakerphone. I didn’t walk over to my phone to end the call since it would have automatically ended when she hung up. A few seconds after she said bye, I heard her mom’s voice in the background.
‘I don’t know why you spend so much time talking to her. There’s just…nothing special about her. She’s not like your other friends. She’s not funny or smart or even interesting. What do you even talk about for so many hours? What could she even have to say? I just think she’s one of those friends you have in high school, then she’ll go on to become a nobody and you’ll forget about her.”
At that point, I started crying so I hung up. Between all the insults, my friend would say things like ‘MOM!’ and ‘You don’t know her, you’ve only met her twice.’ She and I still talk every day, despite living states apart. Her mom is a very toxic person and my friend refuses to talk to her anymore. I never told her I overheard what her mom said, but it did a lot of damage to my self-conscious teenage self.”
They Weren’t Such A Happy Family After All
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“I was around 10 vacationing with some family friends at a local summer resort. The family was trying desperately to have a baby, and after 10 plus years decided to adopt a toddler. A year later the woman got pregnant (ended up having 2 more biological kids) and still loved her adopted son the same. The husband, however, became indifferent to their adopted child and spoiled the biological baby rotten while taking pleasure in making sure the adopted son knew it. He made a lot of jokes about returning the kid since he wasn’t blood-related, and other comments that were hurtful and out of line.
Soon, cousins of the kid started to taunt the poor 4-year-old, who was confused as to why he was being teased (mind you this happened in a one-day span). His mom tried to shield him as much as she could, but the husband made a serious faux pas by saying, ‘We don’t need to care about him since he’s adopted,’ in front of 10 other people from church. He tried to back pedal fast, but not before my scary mother (and leader of the friend group) ripped him a new one. He never came to another gathering and eventually, the whole family moved to another town.”
He Was A Sketchy Convict But The Ladies Loved Him
“When I worked at Waffle House, the location I worked at was part of the prison work release program. Our grill guy was a convict who got busted for burglary among other things. I’d say he worked there for maybe 6-8 months. Over the course of that 6-8 months, he became romantically involved with a customer. Also, behind her back, he was going up to the motel behind us for some steamy times with a few other servers.
He was stringing a whole bunch of girls along, but the girl who was his ‘girlfriend’ wouldn’t believe anything bad about him. She was a very young, sweet, naive girl, and I felt bad for her to be honest. The older ‘seen it all’ lady servers and I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen.
One night, the girlfriend was there, and the two of them went in the stock room to do whatever it was they did in there. I was on my way out the back door to throw some trash in the dumpster and I heard her say, ‘You mean just LEAVE?’ so I started to listen. He was trying to talk her into hopping in her van, grabbing her 2-year-old, and taking off to Alabama with him. Troubled, I headed out front to mull over what I should do. Deep down I thought, ‘Surely she’s not that stupid.’
We got slammed right after that and one of the other complicit servers filled in for him on the grill so he could spend time with her in the closet. I had no time to think about what to do after that. I didn’t realize they’d actually done it until the correctional officer that came to pick him up was there, asking where he was. Everyone had disappeared at that point, knowing what was coming, leaving me to be the one to have to tell the guy he escaped. And I was ticked. Beyond ticked. I just stood there, jaw clenched, staring at the prison guard angrily. He knew what I was about to say before I even said it, ‘Eff me, they took off.’
And I knew what was coming after that. I knew the freaking news would be there. I knew I was going to be questioned. Oh my God, I was so incredibly mad I could’ve turned into the sun. I was mad at them, too. Him for being such an incredible idiot doing that when he only had THREE MONTHS left on his sentence, and her for being so stupid as to torpedo her life and get her kid taken away. I liked both of them somewhat, the pair of imbeciles.
So I got questioned and avoided being put on TV (thank GOD) and the manhunt ensued. All the second shift servers but me got fired or sent to other locations after it was found out what they’d all been doing. Some other things came out about them too, so it wasn’t just for the escape incident. As for the pair of idiots, she was found about a week later in Alabama, alone in a park, because he’d abandoned her. Then a few days later, he was found at his dad’s house. He got six more years added to his sentence. She got her kid taken, lost her job, and had to do two years in prison, which she only had to serve about six months of. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Everybody in this story was stupid, including me.”
It Was Gesture Both Heart-Warming and Heart-Wrenching
“When I was a kid, it was just my single mom and I living in a house together. She had late-stage ovarian cancer that was getting worse. One afternoon, she told me she was tired and needed to go lay down in her room. Totally common with her condition, so nothing struck me as odd. I went to her room with a glass of water to put by her bed for when she woke up, but right as I was about to turn the knob to get into her room, I heard her voice and it sounded like she was incredibly emotional and sad.
There was no phone in her room and I knew nobody was over at our house visiting. It took me a minute of eavesdropping to realize that she was using a tape recorder to record her last goodbyes to me to listen to after she died.
She died two weeks later and I found the tape. This was years ago and I still haven’t been able to get myself to listen to it. The memory of being there while she was recording it, and the memory of my naive adolescent self finally realizing that my mom was about to die is just too overwhelming for me still. But I’m glad to know that one day when I’m ready, I will have a recording of her voice to listen to.”
She Made Assumption After Assumption, All Of Them Deeply Insulting
“My landlord sometimes comes into my apartment without notice, for reasons I do not know. I’ve caught it on tape, but there’s not much to be done about it, apparently. The acoustics of the hallway are such that if people are talking in a normal voice out there, you can clearly hear their conversation from inside the apartment. I’ve been laid off of work for 9 months now, so I’ve not plated my car and instead ride my bike around while the car just sits there. Granted, I am home most of the time, but my car is no indication.
I suffer from bipolar disorder, OCD, and a lot of anxiety, so I’ve got a bunch of self-affirming quotes pinned up on my wall. ‘You don’t wanna hurt yourself.’ ‘You don’t hate your life, you hate the way you feel sometimes.’ ‘You are a good person.’ ‘Just stop and breathe.’ This all seems like random information, but let me put it together.
A couple of months ago someone, was viewing the place across the hall from me and the landlord was talking with him. I heard her make comments about how I never leave the house or have people over because I am mentally ill (she had obviously seen my quote wall and my prescriptions on the counter), and she specifically made a comment to the effect of, ‘I have a feeling that one might off himself and leave me with a huge mess to clean up.’ She said that I was ‘weak,’ ‘unwilling to try,’ etc, and that she was so strong because she ‘was depressed for a couple weeks before, then went for a walk every day and started feeling great.’ She said that if I would leave the apartment once in a while, I wouldn’t have problems.
She went on about how I don’t work and I’m probably on welfare to pay rent, then spewed a bunch about how welfare should change so lazy people like me are forced to take charge of their lives. It was like five full minutes of making the worst possible assumptions about me with no real information, insulting me, and airing my secrets to this stranger whom she’d known all of 10 minutes. It was probably also heard by everyone on the floor who was at home and paying any type of attention to the talk from the hallway.
I also learned from that conversation that the child of the young lady down the hall from me had no father. Her boyfriend beat her and went to jail, so she was trying to raise the kid on her own.
While she was talking about me, I REALLY wanted to open my door and say something, and she was just two feet away on the other side. I had no idea what to say though, and quite frankly all the things she said had upset me to the point that I didn’t trust myself to act appropriately. A couple of minutes after, she quit talking about me and started talking about the lady down the hall, so I backed away from my door 10 feet, pretended I was talking on a phone, and loudly said, ‘You wouldn’t believe how loud the hallway can get. You should hear this fat ogre landlord and the way she talks about people.’ I very quickly summed up what she said about me, then pretended to change topic while moving back deeper into my apartment. Once I started talking, they stopped, so I’m sure that she heard me. What she said really hurt, but at least I got to rightfully call her an ogre ‘to her face’ without any repercussions.”
She Was His First Love And Heartbreak
“In high school, I dated this girl for three years (first love, first everything). The end of senior year came about, and as my two and only close friends were saying their goodbyes before I came down the stairs, I heard them talk about how great my girl was at giving head and being on top, and that I was ‘very lucky’ to have her. They noticed me standing there shortly after saying what they did, but I couldn’t say anything back. I was trying to hold back tears and I knew if I had opened my mouth there would have been some ugly wailing.
So I just ran the opposite way, got in my car, and left. I called my girl and asked if what they were saying was true, and after a silent pause, all she said was, ‘I guess I’m not a good person,’ and hung up.
I trusted those three with my life and they knew everything about me. They were my best friends and she was my first everything, as I was for her. It still hurts to think about after almost five years, and it really left a mark on me. I’m different now; more closed off, less trusting of others, and more careful about who I let into my life and who I tell things to. I also now have a beautiful wife and a beautiful 5-month-old boy, and things honestly couldn’t be better. My story just goes to show that even when times seem really tough, things will get better and the storm will pass. I promise.”
They Had A Deal, But His Mother Liked To Play Favorites
“My mother once pocket dialed me and I overheard her and my stepfather talking about the house I was living in. I was living in her house and we had an agreement that I would pay the mortgage and all the bills so when it was paid off, she would sign it over to me. It wasn’t anything spectacular because the house was in dire need of major repair and she hadn’t lived there for years. Also, we’d found out that she hadn’t been paying the mortgage for over a year even though I’d been giving her money for it since I was 17.
Well, my wife and I had offered her $10k for the house (it had $3k left on the mortgage and was about to be foreclosed) just to try and get her to live up to her side of the bargain we had reached years before. I heard my stepdad ask what she was going to do about the house and she said, ‘I don’t know.’ My stepdad reminded her that we offered more than was owed, and her exact words were, ‘I’ll give it to his sister before I sell it to him.’ So we found a different house and my sister was given that one. She dumped $40k worth of repairs and sold it for $100k. I still can’t believe my mom didn’t stay true to her word like that.”
“I Don’t Want To Go Home”
“When I was in middle school, my friend and I had to stay late one day for our choir class and happened to stumble across a kid in the hall. He was crying and staggering around, so I asked him what was wrong and if he needed any help. I remember my friend telling me to let it go because he wasn’t saying anything and kept crying, so we left him and I told one of the teachers about it.
After we went to class, I left something in my locker so I went back and overheard one of the teachers talking to the kid. He was bawling and yelling about how he didn’t want to go home because his dad beat him. The teacher said she was gonna take him to the office to talk to the principals, but he said that he didn’t want to because if his dad found out that he told someone, he was actually going to kill him.
When I came back, he was gone, but I’ll never forget the pain in his face and the breaking of his voice as I walked by them. It breaks my heart and I still think about him. I’ve never seen him in school before or after that, so I can’t say I know what happened to him. I just wish I could go back and give him a hug. I hope he’s okay and doing better now.”
They Aired Their Family Drama For The World To Hear
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“My family and I were at a restaurant and there was a father and his daughter, we’ll call Dee, sitting in the booth right across the aisle from us. Dee looked to be no more than 20 years old. She talked the whole time about her ex, Chris.
Apparently, Chris was married and Dee did not give two craps. She said it was the wife’s fault for not being good enough to keep her husband faithful. Well, Chris was apparently still sleeping with his wife because she got pregnant. When Dee found out the wife was pregnant, she told Chris he had to choose between her and his wife. At first, Chris chose Dee. Then he found out his unborn child had congenital heart defects. So, he called off the divorce, broke up with Dee, and moved back in with his wife.
Dee sat there in silence looking slightly bewildered, then said, ‘I don’t know why he chose her and the dumb baby. So what if it dies? They can always make another one.’ But that’s not the worst part.
Her dad broke his silence and asked, ‘So, your mom and Chris aren’t getting divorced?’ YOUR MOM and Chris?! YOUR MOM?! This crazy witch was having a blatant affair with her much older stepfather, made him choose between her and her pregnant mother, and then made sociopathic comments about her unborn brother. Wow!”
She Thought They Were Best Friends
“I was in Girl Scouts and was going to dinner with my troop one evening. My mom and I arrived at the restaurant, parked, and stepped out of the car at the same time as the rest of the girls in my troop. I was already a little hurt that they had carpooled without me, but you know, whatever.
I ended up wearing identical outfits with one of the girls who I thought was my best friend at the time, as we had bought them together at the mall a few days earlier. I smiled and said, ‘Hey, we’re matching!’ She rolled her eyes, jumped back in the car to grab a hoodie, then zipped it up to hide her outfit before stomping past me without a word.
The other two girls caught up to her ahead of me and whispered, asking why she put on the jacket. Thinking I wasn’t behind them, she loudly complained, ‘I don’t want to be twinsies with her! I don’t want people thinking we’re like, friends or anything!’
It’s been seven or eight years since that happened, but wow it still hurts. From a moral perspective, it’s not the worst I’ve overheard, but emotionally, nothing stings as much.”
It Was Supposed To Be A Joke, But It Contained A Dark Truth
“My stepmother was horrible. I wasn’t an easy girl to raise and she was too young (26) to handle an introverted, clinically depressed teenager. But she was awful. The verbal abuse consisted of little jabs at my weight, clothes, and choice of friends (I had made friends with a girl two years younger when I was 13, and she mocked me for not being able to get any friends my own age).
It kept escalating because I was a mess. My hygiene was atrocious since I was being subjected to a different kind of abuse at my mom’s house. My stepmother would bust into the bathroom when I was showering and give me dirty looks. She forced me to take a part-time job despite my severe social anxiety and inability to cope with my schoolwork. My dad just let her control everything.
At one point, she was so ticked with me for being the failure of a kid that she thought I was, that she phoned my mother. It was a very venomous conversation. My stepmother said that someone as incapable of raising a child as my mother should’ve been sterilized years ago. My mother responded by telling my mostly infertile stepmom that ‘at least she could HAVE children.’ My stepmom hung up, sobbing. At that point, I had retreated to my room, but unbeknownst to them, I could still clearly hear the conversation. My dad was consoling my stepmom as she sobbed uncontrollably.
It wasn’t so much what my dad said, it was how my stepmom responded. In a sort of joking and incredulous tone, he went, ‘Well, what do you want me to do? Should I kill her?’
There was a lengthy pause that made me so scared, before she said, ‘No?’ The inflection was there, in her voice. She was considering it, somewhere deep down.
My dad surprised me the next day by packing my belongings in tiny grocery bags and putting them on my bed. I was to leave and live with my mom again immediately. I didn’t see my dad for a while after that.”
They Were Kin, But People Treated Them Much Differently
“I was 14 years old and it was the end of 8th grade. I really hated middle school and was picked on mercilessly. As the end of the year celebration, we went to one of those putt putt/driving range/batting cage places and my older brother came and visited for lunch. He was like 19 and home from college, so it was really sweet of him to do. I also have to note that my brother is objectively very attractive.
At the time, he was a college swimmer so he was in really good shape, and all my friends were gaga about him. When I was in line to get some more food, I heard these two witchy girls in front of me say, ‘How does she have such a hot brother when she turned out so bad!’ Oof, my poor fragile 14-year-old self-esteem took a big hit. I pretended I hadn’t heard them, left the line, and barely managed not to burst into tears. Teenage girls can be so cruel.”
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