Sometimes in life you find yourself in situations where there’s no coming back from a bad decision. We call those times “being screwed.” Here are the best stories from the Quora community of the best times they found themselves in a pickle.
Comments have been edited for clarity. The source can be found the end of the article.
Second quarter of freshman year as an economics major, and my Intro to Microeconomics class was daily at 8am. Even at my current age — having gained lots of experience in waking up early, drinking coffee, owning responsibility, etc — I would struggle with a daily 8am call time.
The 18 year-old me was not equipped, and found it easy and permissible to sleep in and skip those classes. Pretty much all of them.
One day I do somehow manage to roll out of bed and cross the street (yes, Im now remembering that the lecture hall was only about 100 yards from my dorm!), make it into the hall and take a seat. I get out my notebook and a pen and expect a lecture to begin but instead notice that the professor is handing out a midterm.
A midterm I was not expecting. A midterm for which I was in no way prepared.
I WAS SO SCREWED.
Scott Jones
So, I am an owner of a drone, specifically a DJI Mavic.
Im generally pretty responsible with it, and I try not to get myself into stupid situations. I actually havent crashed it once in all of the one hundred and fifteen miles I have flown it so far.
One day however, I decided it would be a good to idea to fly it at one of my high schools football games. I kept it on one of the adjacent practice fields that they had, on the other side of the fence from the game. It was completely dark out. I was flying it around and went over the fence toward the game a little bit.
I didnt really think it was a big deal. I went back and was going to land it due to low battery when I heard the announcer for the game say: The drone in right field has to come down now!. I freaked out, and landed the drone before any officials got there.
Running away crossed my mind, but I decided to stay there and try to talk my way out of it. I am pretty well known for having this drone at my school, so Im pretty much done either way.
I actually made it out without punishment, but I had to talk to principal of the school and promise that I would had learned my lesson and would never do anything like that again.
Daniel Piper
Last summer, well, at the beginning of last summer, the lovely climate of New England decided to change its mind every day.
One day it would be in the high eighties or nineties (Fahrenheit), the next it would be sixties or fifties.
On one fine morning, it was just the perfect temperature, maybe in the seventies, my mother came in my room to suggest that I take my air conditioner out of my window. There was no need to waste electricity on such a fine day.
I thought it was a good idea. It was just warm enough, there was a slight breeze, and my room desperately needed air.
After breakfast I decided to do it.
I mean, I’d done it a few times before, it hadn’t been that hard the last time, right?
The only problem, was that my dad had recently re-sided the house, and had taken my storm window out. So nothing was holding it in but the interior part.
I struggled to open the window and hold it at the same time, and in my struggle, my hand slipped.
I thought it was the end.
I looked down and saw the air conditioner dangling only a few feet below me. The cord was caught between my desk and the wall.
There were only two ways I could end this: I could pull it up, or let it fall several feet to the ground below.
I tried to pull it up by the cord. Needles to say my arms were far to weak for that.
I let it down slowly and gently, and made sure I was holding on to the very last inch of the cord before I let It go. In the end, it really only fell two or three feet.
It was still broken.
My parents were laughing too hard to be mad. It became the subject of every conversation with friends and relatives for the next few weeks.
I’ll never live this one down.
Abigail Rose
It was a high time for us to study as our exams were approaching. After 12 months of complete session, we were eagerly waiting for university to issue our exam forms so that we can look forward to our exams preparation and plan our study pattern.
Even though we had already started preparations but you can understand effectiveness of studying.
So waiting, waiting… Waiting for quite 3 months, University finally issued our exam form. University stinks!
Huh! Finally we are going to give exams. It may sound pretty strange that how passionate we were to give exams.
From next day onwards, we all had started preparing. Days and nights, pretty each minute, we studied and studied. I guess, this is what happens with each student.
Exams date and time table had also notified and only few days were left for exams. We all were preparing hard and had made clear view and mindset following exam preparation.
Just 2 days before the exams,we were informed that exams had been postponed!
Postponed for 15 days.
As u know there are always two sets of students.
Happy – Got more time to study. ( 80%)
Sad- Needed no more time and were prepared. ( 20%)
Alas! We waited for 13 more days and this time we were expecting that we will be able to finally give exams as we were frustrated with 5 months of waiting and studying..
Believe me, going to college regularly never seemed so tiresome as waiting 5 months in hope that exams are just approaching. It made us do nothing but only worry that we have to study.
Forgetting everything again, we again set ourselves to give exam. And then again to my surprise,just two days before we are informed that our exams has been postponed again!!
Postponed for another 15 days.
Now every single student was feeling horrible and that was the moment I felt I m so screwed!
We felt of rebelling against University. But as we knew how our education system goes! So we came over our frustration and helplessly went over studies again.
And still finally we are looking forward to our exams. Hope this time it does not get postponed.
Fatema Mandleshwarwala
One of the greatest enjoyments of my youth were the nights I got to spend at my grandmother’s house.
I loved spending time at her home mainly because she wasn’t as strict as my parents. Whenever I would spend the night there I had no bedtime, and I could watch almost anything I wanted on television; she was also a good cook.
On the day of the incident, I was lying down on my grandmother’s couch watching television, when something on the screen caught my attention.
It showed a person flushing random objects down the toilet, and the toilet didnt get clogged!
Watching what that person was doing intrigued me. My parents had always told me that the only thing that gets flushed down the toilet is human waste and toilet paper; so watching all this made me want to find the nearest toilet and start flushing.
My flushing experiment started off pretty well, everything I flushed seemed to go down: pretzels, fruit slices, cotton balls, dental floss; it was pretty cool watching everything swish around the toilet bowl and disappear.
You would think that after my early bouts of success, I would lie back down on the couch content on all that I had accomplished; I did not. Instead I wanted to see what else I could flush. I decided, at that moment, that the next place I was going to search, would be the cabinet under the sink.
After searching through the cabinet, I came across a square pad encased in plastic. I was too young to know what a sanitary pad was or its intended use. Even if I had known, it probably wouldn’t have deterred me from what I was going to do next.
I ripped off the plastic and threw it in the toilet, then I looked at the pad for a minute, threw it in the toilet also, and then pressed the handle down to flush.
Flushing a sanitary pad down the toilet went as well as you would expect, not very good, and as a result, the toilet started to flood.
As it started flooding, I took that as my opportunity to leave the bathroom quickly hoping that nobody noticed.
1 hour passes no yelling
2 hours pass still no yelling
It had taken about 4 hours before I heard my grandmother comment about the overflowing toilet in her guest bathroom. She asked me if I knew what happened to her toilet, and I lied and said I didn’t.
She ends up calling the plumbing and drainage people, and when they appear I’m scared, but I settle down when I hear the plumber say:
we have a machine that will suck up and destroy the clog
Once I heard that I start smiling and celebrating, internally, like I just got away with murder; but then he ruins it by saying:
…except diapers and tampons
My heart dropped; he just said except, even though I didnt know what a tampon was, I still had a bad feeling that whatever I flushed down the toilet would not be destroyed by the machine.
My grandmother responds so if anything unnatural clogged my toilet, we’d know?
That is correct
At this moment my heart is in my throat, and I knew that the only thing I could do was sit down and watch television.
I couldnt sit down for long, so like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime, I went back to the bathroom to start a conversation with the plumber
so how does this process work?
Well; I’m going to push the clog out from the toilet, where a special hose is waiting outside to clean everything from the pipes.
so everything will be destroyed?”
Everything except—
I didnt need him to finish that statement; I knew officially at that moment that I was going to be in trouble.
Maam can you come outside?
I pop my head out of the family room and look outside to see the plumber holding something in his hand. Even though it didn’t look the same way it went down, I knew exactly what it was.
I ended up getting grounded for not only lying to my grandmother but also for costing her a couple of hundred dollars in damages.
That was the last time I flushed foreign objects down the toilet.
Markee Jackson
Back in the late 80s a friend of mine stole a bunch of blank absence notes from the guidance office that he forged the vice principal’s signature on. You would present these notes to teachers to show that your absence from the previous day was school approved. Freedom! Dont want to go to a class? Skip it! Blow off the whole day? DO IT! No repercussions! I skipped a Monday class to be with my girlfriend, and planned to skip Wednesday entirely to go to Great Flags or something. Tuesday the teacher whose class I skipped asked for my note and I gave him the note FOR THE FOLLOWING DAY. I was told to have a seat while the teacher called the vice principle who supposedly signed the absence slip from the future. “I am so screwed.”
Mike Feldenor
While taking out my beer pint and deplaning on couch and simultaneously texting my colleague to intimate boss that I would be taking my weekly off tomorrow .
Next morning, my phone beeped 8 in the morning; NOTED AND MEET ME IN MY OFFICE TOMORROW MORNING my boss replied.
I regained my senses and found that I happened to text my boss Tell Santa I am going to take my weekly off; need to f*** around a bit.
Nevertheless next day was embarrassing (for ME) and hilarious (for OTHERS) at work as respected boss was now acquainted with his epithet.
Sameer Kher
(My boyfriend, his parents, and I are at a resturant, waiting for the chef to finish the food. Somehow we get to the topic of Disney princesses and their body figures.)
Me: I just think a lot of them have unrealistic waists, like Jasmine. I wish they looked more like actual women.
Boyfriend: Women could achieve those waistlines though.
Me: Not like the princesses; thats impossible. Yeah, I do wish my waist was like that, but its not likely.
Boyfriend: Yeah, your waist is HUGE!
(Silence. His mother turns to us.)
Mother: In the process of thinking that and saying it out loud, did you ever realize that maybe that was stupid?
Boyfriend: I just meant… you know… you both have large waists…
(His brother groans and the chef winces.)
Chef: Now both women are mad. God have mercy on you.
Aayushi Iyer
It was halfway through the semester and we all knew our professors quite well. Our physics lecturer, Ms X, was in her late 20s and was quite friendly.
It was quite a common sight to see everyone in the last row asleep. But one fine day, Ms X decided not to be banal and wanted all of us to involve in some healthy discussion. I dont remember the exact topic but it was definitely something which would interest that chaatu, complaisant, hungry for term-work student.
The last row obviously didnt care and continued to be in their ascetic state until the roll-call started. She was pretty happy and asked a final question before leaving- Aaj kisi ko neend kyu nahi aya (Why wasnt anyone sleepy today?)
I had an immediate reaction – kyuki aapne kuch padaya nahi (because you didnt teach anything). It was an artless response. Needless to say, whole class started to laugh. She somehow managed to act like she didnt hear anything.
With a forced smile on her face, she left the hall, but not before a quick stare. My roommate Roshith Nair, after having all the fun, asked me Chu***a hai kya. Uske hath me 25 marks hai (Are you insane? She has 25 marks in her kitty).
I was so screwed.
Nithin Tkv
So, I was going back to home for summer vacations after my semester exams. It was an early morning flight from Delhi airport.
I was staying at some relative’s place at night in Delhi.This was the first time I went to their home. So, I couldn’t figure out the exact travel time from their place to the airport.
I booked a cab from their place at 3:30 in the morning (flight was at 5:20 am) thinking I will reach airport within half an hour. But the cab driver had some other plans.
He drove slowly and when we were about to reach the airport, he decided to get CNG refilled in his cab at some nearby station.
It was already 4:20 am when we left the CNG station. I was calm but was consoling myself again and again that I will reach on time (though I asked him many times to refill after dropping me) as I thought there won’t be much rush in the morning hour.
Finally, we reached airport by 4:35 am (only 45 minutes prior to departure).
All heck broke when I saw the boarding pass counter was much more crowded than I anticipated and there were already 4050 persons ahead of me (It would take at least 45 minutes to take my boarding pass if I followed the queue).
So,I directly went to the counter and asked for the boarding pass to which the lady on the counter became furious and scolded me for my late arrival. She finally issued my boarding pass and asked to carry the luggage along with me to the cabin and at this point of time I knew I was literally screwed.
I proceeded towards the security gate as fast as I could. When I left the security gate, it was already around 5:10 am (I had to break the queue here too).
Now comes the main part. Walking at a normal speed was going to take at least 25 minutes to reach the departure gate from the security gate. So, I wasn’t left any other option than to carry the luggage (approximately 15kgs) on my head and run as fast as I could.
During my journey from the security gate to the departure gate,I was all thinking about how to increase my running speed and then suddenly thoughts of missing the flight came in my mind and I started running more faster like this.I didn’t stop until I reached the gate.
Finally,I reached the departure gate and after that proceeded towards the flight through air bridge.I was the last person to enter the flight and as soon as I boarded,the gates were closed.
Nikhil Anand
I was just chilling on the couch watching TV when I said well, I’m gonna go do my homework.
WHAT? My mother bellowed.
I was confused as to why my mom would get mad at me for trying to be a good noodle. Then after me trying to choke up I was gonna do my homework, she interrupts.
You said you already did your homework. Did you lie to me?
Uh oh.
I forgot I lied about it to watch some TV.
I sheepishly said yes and began listening to a very short and loud lecture on how lying is bad, I’m grounded, yadda yadda.
Oh well.
Sergio Cosic
One time, I indirectly broke my brothers cello.
To give some background, I have two brothers who are twins. One brother (Jordan) plays the violin and viola, while the other (Arnon) plays the cello.
At the time, I was around 11 years-old, while my brothers were 9.
Arnon was taking a break from his afternoon cello practice, while Jordan and I were fooling around near him. When Arnon finished his cello—and this is important—he left his cello facing up towards the ceiling in our house.
After a while, I started teasing Jordan and chasing him, and I caused him to back up all the way that…
…He fell backwards, in slow motion, right onto Arnons cello when Arnon wasn’t looking.
There was a crunch sound, and when I extricated Jordan from Arnons cello, there was a visible crack right under the cellos bridge.
At that point, I had this sinking feeling in my stomach that I was completely screwed.
Our mom immediately rushed to the scene, and after she had surveyed the damage, she furiously scolded Jordan and I for breaking Arnons cello.
We also received a few well-earned slaps on the butt.
All in all, we had caused about 2 thousand dollars of damage.
We gave Arnon and our mom a million apologies that day.
Esther Guo
There was a time when my mother used to single-handedly juggle work, us and the house. The rest of us could only do so much to help her.
I remember I was really small, but could somehow sense her exhaustion. One fine day I decided to help her out, secretly of course. Secrecy is not always the way to go, I eventually realised.
She had chopped all the vegetables for dinner and kept them aside, to be cooked later. As she got busy with a phone call, an idea struck me, Why not secretly wash the already cut ladyfinger and make my mother proud?
I happily took the utensil full of freshly cut ladyfingers, put them under running water and rinsed them. Everything became really slimy and sticky, but what did I know. Maybe they were supposed to be like that.
I was ecstatic with my achievement, and could barely control my emotions.
I sheepishly kept the utensil back, covered it and waited for my mother to discover my extraordinary help. I expected a hug and tears of joy. There were tears for sure. But, neither of happiness, nor hers.
She kept the phone, went to the kitchen, discovered the amazing feat and screamed my name. I was hiding behind the door to see the wave of pride and joy on her face. But the expression I was greeted with made me run for my life.
At a very small age I learnt that there is a reason uncut ladyfinger are washed and dried out on a newspaper.
Sakshi Pandey
I was working for contractor, remodeling the living room of a home that was on the National Register of Historic Landmarks, here in Honolulu. I was the only actual worker; James, the contractor would show up intermittently, for the 2 months it took me to finish the job. I had replaced the old living room carpet with a very expensive, 100% wool, custom made Berber low pile. This handmade pattern had been preordered several years earlier; cost around $65 a square foot, and covered approx. 400sq. feet. This carpet had to be stitched together, instead of hot-ironing the seams together, like most carpeting. Took me 3 weeks to install. It looked as elegant as it was costly.
During the entire installation, the owners wife and her dog were there to keep me company (Oh Goodie!). Mrs. Cooke was a very sweet host…the little dog; not so much. That little hyperactive, constantly yapping Pekingese got on my nerves; always yapping at me, running all over the carpeting Id just installed. Mrs. Cooke had asked James if he could have the solid koa wood beams in vaulted ceiling of the living room refinished. That was the job I was finishing when it happened.
I was on top a 12-foot ladder with a large bucket of lacquer, refinishing the last beam when James poked his head into the room and caught my attention. He pointed at his watch as he gave me the look. I had worked 5+ years with James, so I knew the look. He wanted me to finish up that day, so I had to hustle up, finish, and clean up before the Federal Judge returned home. James left, and I started applying the lacquer as quickly as I could, up on that ladder.
Bad idea!
Now I had a drop-cloth for any smattering of drips that were cast off my brush…but being in a hurry, I lost balance and tumbled to that freshly installed Berber carpeting…along with 3 gallons of lacquer! The drop cloth was no match for that amount of lacquer!
Is everything alright?, asked Mrs. Cooke, from downstairs.
OH NO!, my inner voice screamed, I just ruined an irreplaceable artifact; I am sooo fired!
Just then, the little dog ran up to me and started licking my face.
Thank you Jesus! A forgiving God has sent me a redeemer!
I grabbed the mutt, rolled him around in the lacquer, and let him go…
…uhh, Mrs. Cooke…your dog just…
Lorrin Rodrigues
Five months after I join college.
Mom: *holding my bank statement* what’s this Elevate? You spend 89k per month there.
Me:oh Elevate! Great family restaurant. Best butter chicken. I love their food.
Mom: Try not to be so nitpicky and eat food prepared in the mess.
Me: Sure. Whatever.
Fast forward 2 years a junior from my school joins college.
Me: *picks up call* welcome to the college! (Sitting with family)
Tushar: thanks! bro I am craving butter chicken! Where should I go? Is elevate good enough?
Me: Don’t go to Elevate! Food is substandard. Only good for alcohol! Go to this xyz place for food.
Tushar: thanks bro! See you soon!
Me: See you *hangs up*
Mom: *staring at me* So.. about your favorite family restaurant..
Narrator: At that moment.. Ishan knew he screwed up.
Me:*runs for life*
Ishan Kumar
Remember when the cinnamon challenge was famous? Well I almost killed my brother when I dared him to do it.
(The cinnamon challenge is basically when a human voluntarily eats a full spoon of cinnamon powder. Not fun lol.)
I was around fourteen years old at the time, and my brother was 12, I remember watching a ton of videos of people doing this challenge( glozells was the most prominent one lol). During that day my parents were out of the house and I was alone with my brother and our little sister, and I somehow convinced my brother to do the cinnamon challenge by pulling the oh you’re just too scared to do it trick, it was disastrous.
My brother started choking like crazy, blowing cinnamon powder out his mouth(maybe even his nose too) and he threw up all over the kitchen, and all I could think about at the moment was the news headline Girl kills her brother trying to do the cinnamon challenge.
Luckily I managed to clean everything up before my parents got home..oh and my brother is perfectly fine and currently doing what’s important in life.. stealing and buying cars in GTA 5.
Farah Alkurdi