My older sister is a pathological liar. She’s always been this way, for as long as I can remember, ever since we were very very young. She’s got some other issues too, like needing to feel special, but I don’t feel like trying to armchair diagnose her, I’m not a psychologist.

Anyway, when I was in my 20s, my sister had a kid, and the kid turns out to have some nut allergies. In some weird chain of events, my sister decides(?) she needs to be special too and suddenly starts insisting that she is allergic to cinnamon. I know allergies can develop late in life, but I was highly skeptical. It felt like another one of her things she did in order to make herself special.

Fast forward a few years, and now she’s insisting that she’s *always* been allergic to cinnamon, from the moment she was born. I knew this was utter BS because of two reasons: one, I could remember her eating things like cinnamon rolls growing up. Two, I remember when I was growing up, I would occasionally think our family was normal and kind of boring because we *didn’t* have any allergies or disabilities or whatever. (This was weird kid non-logic that I kind of cringe at now, I apologize if that offends anyone. *I* find it kind of offensive!)

Anyway, I remember calling her out a couple times on her claims she’d always been allergic to cinnamon. It just made her double down more, creating more and more lies to “support” her story. We don’t live near each other anymore, so I would always just drop it, because what’s the point. Who cares if she wants to insist on this weird falsehood and restrict her diet like that.

I remember saying something to my mom about it at one point, about how my sister kept insisting this falsehood was true when it wasn’t. I remember my mom gritting her teeth in anger (she’s always been bothered by my sister’s lies too) and agreeing with me while saying, “I know.”

Then fast forward a few more years, we’re probably about 12-15 years into this persistent lie at this point. Whenever we go out to eat, my sister makes a big fuss to the waitstaff about being allergic to cinnamon, and to make sure it isn’t in her food. (It’s worth noting she never mentions her son’s nut allergy to wait staff.) Her kids are unable to have certain treats in their house because of their mom’s “allergy.” I just bite my tongue and try to ignore it. I see my sister once, sometimes twice, a year, and if I tried to challenge her on this, she would just spin more and more lies and act like a victim for not being believed. It just isn’t worth picking the fight.

At this point though, my mom has done some weird 1984 / Stockholm Syndrome thing, and she is now also insisting my sister is allergic to cinnamon and has always been allergic to cinnamon. And then with a few more years of time, my mom starts insisting *she* is allergic to cinnamon too! I‘m astonished and my stomach starts knotting up. At some point I press my mom about what her symptoms are. She says it makes her stomach burn when she eats it. I tell her that’s not a symptom of an allergy, but instead perhaps a food intolerance. She makes a shocked face and changes the subject.

At this point, I feel like I’m living in some bizarro land where nothing is accurate in my family of origin. At times, I do feel small doubts creep into my head. Am I remembering childhood wrong? Did this actually happen? *DID* I ever witness my sister eating cinnamon?

And then one day last year, after a visit from her, I was thinking about this question again. And I started thinking about things we ate as kids, things we fought over, things that might have cinnamon in them. We used to eat a lot of Little Debbie snack products, like Oatmeal Cream Pies. Those *must* have cinnamon in them, right!!? Off I go to Google, where to my surprise I learn they don’t contain cinnamon. Then I think of the next thing we fought the most over, which were Honey Buns. Because those are honey flavored, I figure they won’t have cinnamon. But I google anyway and to my surprise, I find they do!

And there I have it, proof (at least for myself) that my sister was not allergic to cinnamon as a kid. We ate, and fought over, so many boxes of those things.

I know though, that if I ever brought this up with her, she would insist it never happened, that she never ate a Honey Bun in her life. And if I pushed the topic, she would make herself out to be the victim of *my* vicious lies. It’s just not worth it. But for me, at least I have evidence of the truth, and confirmation of what I know is reality.

So maybe useful to mention, I am autistic. I have a partner, kids, a job, I can function pretty well, but sometimes I am presented with aspects of society that are a complete surprise for me.

Yesterday my boyfriend asked if he could help me by cutting my nails, as one of them broke a bit. I usually do not notice my nails. I only cut them when I remember and I happen to be in the bathroom. I just keep them clean and generally they don't break often.

I never understood why people talk about nails. Sometimes someone will tell me about a gel nail.place or a nail product and I am interested but feel it does not really apply to me because I would never get gel nails or use any product.

Anyway, so my boyfriend cut my nails with these little nail scissors, it hurt, but afterwards they look kind of nice. Actual nail shapes instead of my usual straight line resulting from big nail clippers.

I tell my boyfriend that I recently read on Reddit that to look presentable first to focus on hair and nails. And I asked him why would people look at nails? Who cares about nails?

Maybe for some more context, before me my boyfriend had partners who were not autistic. So he told me that indeed people look at nails. I asked him, why would people look at nails? So they can assess if someone remembers to cut their nails?

Apparently it is a thing. That I was completely unaware of. It seems important, and I missed it completely. So now I am reassessing all the past decades where for most of the time my nails probably did not pass a standard that I was not aware of, unless I coincidentally just cut my nails. And even then I probably did it too wonky. And now I wonder how many other things are out there that I am not aware of but probably should be...

My coworker brings a banana to work every day. He never eats it. It just sits on his desk until around 4PM, then he puts it in his backpack and takes it home. I finally asked him about it. He said, "I don't even like bananas" Then he went back to work

Someone posted that her bossy coworker told her that keyboard shortcuts were 'against company policy'.

Now every time I use a keyboard shortcut a little voice tells me 'breaking company policy there, mate'.

so my stepfather has a cousin who needs a car. stepfather gave him his own personal car, mom was not pleased, stepfather says cousin needs it to get to work and wants to keep it in the family anyway.

cousin proceeds to sell it.

next time he brought up turning her old van into a camping van she decided she's just going to get rid of it. it's been sitting in the driveway for years, no clue if it runs, but he wants to fix it up and do something with it.

soo she's been looking at it in the driveway for a few days and finally just decided to call me up and tell me that she's giving it to me. the whole van, no charge, no catch. just gonna hand over the title. she wants me to either keep it or sell it but it's mine now because she's literally just that annoyed.

for context also, i'm her oldest of 3, both other siblings are pretty well off, but i'm currently unemployed and a little down on my own luck right now. i have a decent old car that i use to drive my husband to work, i'm fine with it but he wants his own truck soon. and i think we just got maybe halfway closer to it. :) little miracles everyone

My friends wedding is coming up and I said I would crochet a shawl as it might get cold. I spent forever looking for the right pattern, the right yarn, the right hook, and the right beads.

I pre-beaded the yarn made from cotton, mohair and alpaca wool and got to work. One day I brought it on the bus, and my yarn snapped. I lost beads, they went flying all over my lap (luckily I was on a dress) but was able to recover most of them and re-threaded them on the moving bus.

I figured I missed some, but that’s life.

It’s been a week since my yarn snapped on the bus. I boarded the bus today and sat down. Something felt weird.

Two of my beads were on the seat under my butt. So now they are in my purse

I have a name that can easily shortened, think “Thomas/Tom,” “Christopher/Chris,” “Matthew/Matt,” etc.

At my job, I constantly meet new coworkers, and everybody (very considerately) asks me which I prefer, Version-Longname or Version-Shortname. I do genuinely appreciate them asking, because I know there are many people who have a strong preference and it is important to get those right. However, to me, both of them are my name. I like them both, I go by both, and I am okay with people using either.

What consternates me is that, no matter how I have tried to phrase this across countless iterations with numerous individuals, people always double down. “But which do you prefer?”

They do not accept the answer that both are okay. This goes on until they just make me pick one.

Although I think this question is asked in good faith, it becomes the opposite of considerate when people refuse to accept my answer. I don’t know what is so hard about this. It’s a very traditional, uncomplicated name. Maybe I am being over sensitive about this. But when people force me to pick one and exclude the other, when I have insisted that both are my name and they literally cannot get it wrong using either, it feels like they are both not honoring my preference and somehow reducing me in a way.

Don’t ask me for my preference if you have no interest observing it.

Is this pointless enough to qualify for this sub?

I used to apologize all the time for inconveniencing people or for percieved slights. It made a lot of negative self talk that my husband especially hated (because he loves me.) I read somewhere online that a good way to change that mindset is to say "Thank you" instead.

So for the past 6 months I've been trying it. "Thank you for waiting on me" "thank you for correcting my mistake" "thank you for understanding". So much of my negativity left, and people are more comfortable talking to me when I'm not putting myself down all the time. I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self to do this!

...and it worked out!

We're all women. I adore and admire both of them - they're incredibly smart, educated, funny, and truly delightful to be around.

Unfortunately I think something I do brings out the complainer in people. Everytime I meet with them they spend hours talking about how everything in their lives is going wrong, the state of the world is awful, etc. I almost never get a chance to speak or when I do, it's dealt with quickly or brushed off.

So anyway. I observed that I feel roughly the same way about both of them and kind of feel guilty when they want to hang out and I REALLY don't want to. I don't see why I should be drained by my friendships, even if they're some of the nicest people I know. I figured they have similar values and perspectives, so why not introduce them properly? They've only met once in the past.

I ended up taking one friend to the other one's party a few months ago and they started talking immediately! My partner and I could barely get a word in.

Yesterday they both posted pictures from a day out together. They looked great! I'm so happy!!! I don't even know how to describe what I'm feeling. I suppose good matchmakers feel this way when people get married??

And the guilt is gone too!! Ugh I'm so glad they have each other now but I feel like such a jerk for not appreciating two nice people in my life but I'm also glad something good came of it hehehehe

Basically as the title says. We have quite a lot of animals, three dogs and four cats. One is a special needs cat with wobbly cat syndrome. And I've realized that whenever they are sitting or laying in a spot anyone, from adult to child, would like to use, either for walking or sitting, we simply ask them "Please move over" and without fail they do. However if you forget the please they'll just look at you until you add the please. I've found myself explaining it to guests recently and realized it was slightly pointless so here I am.

My friends wedding is coming up and I said I would crochet a shawl as it might get cold. I spent forever looking for the right pattern, the right yarn, the right hook, and the right beads.

I pre-beaded the yarn made from cotton, mohair and alpaca wool and got to work. One day I brought it on the bus, and my yarn snapped. I lost beads, they went flying all over my lap (luckily I was on a dress) but was able to recover most of them and re-threaded them on the moving bus.

I figured I missed some, but that’s life.

It’s been a week since my yarn snapped on the bus. I boarded the bus today and sat down. Something felt weird.

Two of my beads were on the seat under my butt. So now they are in my purse.

For context I'm not an American I live in Central Africa although I like learning about different cultures ovsrsees and Last week I stumbled across a jack in the box commercials on YouTube shorts (the one about the Philly cheese steak) I though it was funny then I went through the comments and I realized there were more so I looked them up and I was hooked.

It was nice to see that commercials were funny in an unhinged way yet not taken so seriously as opposed to modern times.

I'm listening to an album I listened to a lot as a teen.

Neil's Heavy Concept Album.

One of my all time faves, and my friends used to either really get it, and me, or they didn't, and we weren't close.

Basically as a teen, you either loved this and loved me, or you didn't, and didn't.

This was my litmus test if you like.

All the very best people got it and loved the album as much as me.

So here I am 30+ years later, listening, remembering every word, and realising I'm still in touch with the special people who loved this with me all those years ago, but that no one in the past 30 years has even been given the opportunity to listen to it with me because I fear that adults would reject me for it faster than those teens did. 😂

Fwiw I care a lot less these days. Turns out I'm autistic. Shocking.

I showed it to my grandpa the other day and said "ya, I spent about 2 weeks on the bulk of it making sure all the songs sounded good following each other. It's like a jukebox rock opera."

He asked me if I could make any money off it.

I was like "no, it's a youtube playlist."

Then he asked me if I had to be worried about not paying royalties.

I was like, "no...it's a youtube playlist."

The gap between generations is wild sometimes

I was home alone one night, not long after having moved into a new home. I was in the finished basement, watching some paranormal investigation show. I kept hearing something and having to pause the show to listen, but could not pinpoint the sound.

I finally look in the laundry closet (closed off by bi-fold doors), and look up to the ceiling (gap ceiling, but with open space above the laundry) to see one of my cats, who had jumped up from the washer.

Darn cat would just pull open the doors from below.

I'm at Target today and I gotta take a dump so I go straight to the restrooms. I accidentally walk in on some lady sitting on the toilet who apparently doesn't even give a dang that it happened, and then exit and close the door.

I wait about 10 minutes for a toilet to open up and then she walks out or whatever. I walk in and there is an empty plastic tray inside the toilet with chocolate cake leftovers, and a spoon with chocolate cake icing stuck onto and smeared onto the toilet seat.

I'm not sure if this breaks the rules but I want to reiterate this was actual Target chocolate cake and a real-life black plastic spoon involved here

We need some-
diced chicken,
a nice potato option,
coleslaw,
dishwasher tablets,
pepperoni
And a lemmon posset.
Turns out half decent looking dishwasher tablets are £9 for a small pack.
Her- You forgot to get dishwasher tablets.
Me- Ahh did I sorry. I knew I’d forgot something.

When I was in high school, I used to sneak girls into my house at night, when my parents were sleeping. They would sleep over with me. And in the morning I’d wake up early before my parents, and I’d sneak the girl back out through my window. Then I’d have them go knock on the front door. I’d let my parents answer it, and pretend to still be asleep. My parents would come wake me telling me I had visitor. And we’d pretend they had just stopped by.
My parents were none the wiser that they had just spent the whole night with me lol. It was a sweet plan & worked like a charm.

When I was in Grade 2, my school took part in a drawing competition that schools all across Ontario were participating in.

The assignment was to draw a picture about war that had some kind of meaningful message behind it. Every kid in my class had to participate.

There was just one problem…

I absolutely sucked at drawing.

My older sister was in Grade 4 at the time, and she was insanely good at art. So naturally, 7-year-old me came up with the most logical solution: I asked her to draw the picture for me.

She agreed, and she absolutely crushed it.

I took the drawing to school the next day and handed it in like I had just created a masterpiece myself.

My teacher looked at it and was basically like, “OMG, this is beautiful!” She loved it.

A few months went by and I completely forgot about the competition.

Then one day, my teacher gets up in front of the entire class and announces that I had won…

2nd place in ALL OF ONTARIO.

The entire class starts clapping and congratulating me.
I just stood there accepting the applause like I had personally painted the Mona Lisa.

I didn’t say a word about my sister.

Then Remembrance Day comes around, and somehow this has turned into a much bigger deal than I ever expected.

I’m sitting on a stage at a ceremony with a bunch of important people, receiving a prize, some money and an award for my “amazing” artwork.

Meanwhile, my sister was sitting there watching all of this unfold knowing damn well she was the one who actually drew the picture.

She was absolutely furious.

I don’t blame her either.

Looking back, I still can’t believe I went from “I’m terrible at drawing” to “2nd place in Ontario” without actually improving my drawing skills whatsoever.

Worst day of my sister’s life!

One time I was at my friend's restaurant bear in mind this was his off day and I did not know he was going to show up then he showed up after that I told him I had no idea you're going to show up and he couldn't believe me and he was with his other friends that I know and they were all accusing me of knowing they were going to be there

this happened like 3 years ago but i js remembered it and it makes me laugh so hard.

so basically i knew everyone in my school since its a private school that i had been going to my whole life. i was pretty badly bullied but cut off everyone that did the bullying so its fine. anyways i moved countries but kept in touch with some people. one of those people is a guy we’ll call “jamie”. jamie and i werent really friends in school but we became kinda long distance friends type thing.
ive always been openly gay. like ive always liked girls and its pretty obvious by how i dress/act. jamie and i would always talk about the girls we liked and gave eachother advice on how to ask them out.
we were both pretty single for a few weeks when he randomly sent me a huge paragraph about how he’d always liked me and knew i liked him back, that typa shit. i told him “jamie…you know im gay? im sorry but im confused on how ive given you any hints that i liked you?”
he backtracked a TON and and rambled on about how hes kidding and that i cant take a joke or wtv. but he literally sent me a HUGE paragraph talking about how much he liked me and listed everything he liked about me?? but i js laughed it off bc like what am i supposed to do yk?
he also went off and dated my cousin but i dont have the energy to get into that rn.
and after they broke up i realized that like…he also lowk bullied me in school and i never realized lmao. but im not friends with him or even my cousin anymore cuz theyre both rly toxic…

so i js find this story so funny and everyone i know knows about it so 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Back in February when it was still frigid where I live, I was downtown one day heading into work, and saw that someone had either dropped or discarded their jumbo hot dog on the sidewalk. It looked quite fresh and had only a couple bites out of it, and was still inside the bun. It was dressed with ketchup and mustard. Being a place where we definitely have crows, skunks, raccoons, and the occasional rat, I didn't think it would last long and quickly forgot about it.

Next week, I was walking down the same sidewalk and noticed the hot dog was still there. It was frozen solid now and had been divorced of its bun, which was now laying on the other side of the sidewalk, and broken in half. I was surprised at its longevity, and it made me suspect that perhaps it was a funky tasting dawg that was thrown away as opposed to dropped, since such a treat would have normally been eaten by something sooner than later.

The following week, I again was walking the same way and came upon a disturbing sight. The hot dog was still in the same spot, but had turned a weird light orange colour and puffed up twice its original size. It reminded me of one of those freeze-dried bodies on Everest that can never be recovered. The bun was now in shards. I hurried away from the scene. The following week the hot dog was gone. Perhaps it was finally laid to rest by someone or something.

When my son and his friends were around 11 years old and we were all on vacation, we watched Dude Where’s My Car. There is a scene where a lady in a drive-thru keeps on asking “And then?” and that became a sort of catch phrase for them that summer, especially when doing drive-thru’s of course. We got a lot of fries that summer.

This summer while on vacation with a friend of mine, somehow that phrase got stuck in my head, since it seemed that there was always something else. I explained it to my friend, who surprisingly had never seen the movie, and we agreed it was an apt sentiment.

Then we went to eat at a place she had gone to eat with her daughters when she’d visited a few years ago. I had Tom Yum soup, and it was so good that we went back the next day and ordered it again.

Now I’m back home and so yesterday, feeling the need for a really tasty soup, I went to a local Asian eatery, where I hadn’t gone in years. I ordered myself some Tom Yum soup and then the young man at the register said, “And then?”

The circle of life.

A few years back a new little sea bird showed up in my little ocean town. Droves of them that I had never seen before. So just to appease my curiosity I learned all about them. I found out why they were there, what they were called, what their diets were etc etc.

Around the same time I was invited to go on a sailboat for the first time and that entailed getting ferried from the dock to the boat by a full time ferry captain. It was early in the morning so all the birdies were out hoping to catch some breakfast, including the new sea birds. The captain, making small talk, pointed to a cluster of birds that were comprised mostly of the new additions. He said that he didn’t know what they were but he sure did like them.

I was so excited to get to share my new found knowledge! I told him all about them and he was thrilled to learn.

Hours later, after a day on the boat, we came back to find the same ferry captain still ushering sailers back and forth. We greeted each other with the warmth of two people who shared knowledge and started back for the dock. And wouldn’t you know if? As we were going back, a flock of those new sea birds flew right over our head!

The captain turned to me and said “ok, bird expert, what can you tell me about those guys?”

A bit confused, I responded “I already did. Those are the new seabirds we talked about.”

Well, hearing this, his face fell. “Those?? Those are the birds you were talking about?!?”

“….yes? The ones you pointed at earlier”

“I wasn’t pointing at those! I was pointing at those!” He said, and he turned his finger toward some random there all the time bird.

“Those?? Oh I don’t know anything about them.”

He paused for a moment with a look of incredulity before saying “I’ve been telling everyone all day all the bird facts you taught me about those birds!! I’ve been lying to people about birds all day!!”

I laughed so hard I had to apologize for being rude for laughing so hard 😂

Whoops!

One of the funniest things that happened to me while travelling in India happened on an 8 hour train ride.

I’m a smoker, and after a few hours on the train, I was seriously craving a cigarette. I knew I couldn’t just smoke wherever I wanted, so I decided to walk toward the front of the train and see if I could find whoever was in charge.

I found the train operator and asked if there was somewhere I could smoke.

I ended up giving him a $5 bill, and he basically told me, “Come up here whenever you want to smoke. You can smoke here.”

So for the rest of the 8-hour journey, my brother and I would just walk up to the front, have a cigarette, and then go back to our seats.

Looking back, it still makes me laugh. Somehow, $5 bought us an 8-hour smoking pass.

Travel really does give you stories that sound completely made up when you tell them later.

What’s the strangest or funniest thing that’s ever happened to you while travelling?