Latest news with #Costco-size
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
My husband and I forgot how to be a team after having kids. These 4 steps saved our marriage.
The founders of the popular parenting platform Big Little Feelings — moms and real-life best friends Deena Margolin, a child therapist specializing in interpersonal neurobiology, and Kristin Gallant, a parenting coach with a background in maternal and child education — are back with more parenting wisdom in Yahoo's new column called , a companion to their podcast, After Bedtime With Big Little Feelings. In the third episode of their show, Margolin and her husband open up about how communication, or a lack thereof, played a role in their marital challenges, including leading to feelings of resentment. Margolin reveals that she felt alone and unheard while her husband tended to overthink in isolation rather than talk things through. Margolin explains how their different communication styles set up roadblocks in their relationship and shares the four strategies that saved their marriage. Before kids, my husband and I rarely fought. We had different personalities, sure — me, more internal and emotional; him, more logical and reserved. But we clicked. We were in love. We knew how to laugh. We were a team. And then we had a baby. And then we quickly had another baby. Then somewhere between the 2 a.m. feeds, the cracked nipples, the mounting work deadlines and the Costco-size packs of diapers, we forgot how to be that team. We didn't yell. We didn't throw plates. But we didn't connect at all. In fact, we barely talked, at least not in a way that made either of us feel seen. I felt so alone in our relationship, and he felt like he couldn't win. And neither of us knew how to say or get what we really needed from each other. Here's the dangerous lie many couples fall into: 'If they really loved me, they'd just know what I need.' But here's the truth, both personally and professionally: Your partner is not a mind reader. And they never will be! I spent so much time feeling invisible, unheard and unsupported. I was carrying the entire mental load of parenting and managing our household, while also building a business and trying not to completely lose myself in motherhood. Meanwhile, my husband was doing all his problem-solving and decision making in his own head. So by the time he brought something to me, it was already fully formed: 'This is what I think we should do.' And I was sitting there, like: Wait. What about me? What about what I think? We weren't screaming at each other — we were slowly drifting. And what grew in that silence wasn't peace, it was resentment. Psychologist John Gottman refers to the 'four horsemen of the apocalypse' in relationships — criticism, contempt, stonewalling and defensiveness — and resentment can be a part of that. Once it's there, it poisons everything, which definitely was true for my relationship. When we're not talking openly and vulnerably and truly hearing each other, we make assumptions. We project stories. We stop being partners and start becoming adversaries. So, what actually helped us? Here's what finally started to shift things in our marriage — not overnight, but over time: Emotional intelligence is the ability to notice, name and regulate emotions, and it's one of the strongest predictors of relationship satisfaction (and yes, it can be learned!). My husband couldn't communicate because he didn't have the tools or even the language to do so. That's not a flaw. It's how a lot of men (and people) are raised. Emotions were never modeled or named in his home. He had to learn how to feel and speak. And well, I am a therapist, who had also been in therapy myself, so we had different skill sets. That had never really been a major issue for us until now, in this new chapter as parents. Therapy gave my husband that ability, and that gave us a starting place. I'm an external processor, so I like to 'walk the parking lot,' meaning talk it out in real time. My husband is an internal processor, so he loops through everything in his own mind before sharing. This used to make us clash, but now we name it and work with it. We know we need more check-ins, more intentional time and more conversations that are just about us. (Not the grocery list. Not the school calendar. Us.) We started being explicit and made invisible expectations visible. Here's what that looks like: 'I need you to tell me you see how hard I'm working right now.' 'I'm overwhelmed. Can we talk through who's doing what this week?' 'I don't want you to solve this. I just want you to listen.' And yes, it was awkward at first. But it was better than the guessing game. And research shows that couples who clearly state their needs and check in about expectations regularly have better conflict recovery and stronger emotional bonds. When we'd relied on spontaneity and hope that it would just 'figure itself out' when it came to chores, communication and more, we failed. We learned that when we had more structure, we succeeded more. We started a shared Google calendar. We wrote down the weekly division of labor. We scheduled time to actually talk without distractions and without phones. One of the biggest steps for us: We also gave each other alone time on purpose, so we could fill our own tanks and show up as a more grounded version of ourselves when together. Sure, scheduling isn't romantic, but it definitely saved us!
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘You Think We're Afraid of America?'
The sewing machines had been switched off at Kang Yang Apparel, a women's-clothing manufacturer in the southeastern-Chinese city of Yiwu, so it was easy to hear the word ricocheting across the factory floor: Chuanpu, a Mandarin nickname for Trump. When I visited, the United States had just raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 percent. The workers at Kang Yang did not seem intimidated. When I approached a group of idle factory men, their replies were bellicose: 'Hold strong!' one shouted. 'You think we're afraid of America?' barked another. Later, one man offered a steadier assessment: 'The truth is, it will have an impact, but we will be fine.' Yiwu is the world's largest wholesale market. Products as varied as padlocks, luggage tags, and inflatable pools each get a dedicated Costco-size zone. Roughly half a trillion dollars' worth of Chinese goods, or 15 percent of China's total annual exports, are imperiled by the trade war, but Chinese President Xi Jinping has shown no signs of backing down. Beijing has retaliated with 125 percent tariffs on U.S. imports, endangering more than $140 billion worth of goods a year. Unlike Donald Trump, Xi is not beholden to elections. He has styled himself as a leader who can endure short-term pain and has said that he expects his citizens to 'eat bitterness'—the Chinese equivalent of 'tough it out.' Based on the spirited pronouncements of Yiwu sellers, those on the front lines of this international game of chicken are very much prepared to do so. Trump's whirlwind policies have already throttled Yiwu's supply chains. Purchase orders have dried up, and shipments have been postponed. On average, the merchants I spoke with have somewhere from 10 to 20 percent of their business tied up with the United States. Yet even as their future prospects looked bleak, there was little appetite for détente. [Derek Thompson: A trade war with China is a very bad idea] For more than 20 years, Yang Langhua has operated a factory that makes Christmas-themed plush toys. Around Trump's 'Liberation Day' announcement, a longtime customer in the United States, where Yang conducts 20 percent of her business, asked Yang if she could lower her prices by 10 percent. The customer had ordered $3,000 worth of goods in February, and Yang was ready to ship it. 'I said, 'I can't accept that,'' Yang told me. 'I only make 10 percent profit total—if I cut it, I'd have no profit at all.' 'I say the whole world should unite and stop doing business with the United States,' Yang went on. 'Let them fend for themselves.' Her son-in-law is earning a Ph.D. in computer science in America. Now she hopes he returns home. 'We're already the second-biggest power,' she said. 'And in many technology areas, we've caught up.' In some ways, Trump's tariffs might already be helping China. Many Chinese businesses are applying lessons learned from the previous trade war. (Toward the end of Trump's first term, American tariffs on Chinese goods reached about 20 percent, on average.) David Xu works for an auto-parts company based in Shanghai that used to export mainly to the Los Angeles area. Over the past three years, he told me, he's dropped his U.S. exports by 40 percent and replaced them with a roster of Latin American clients. 'China isn't afraid of tariffs anymore,' Xu said. His fellow exporters have 'gone global,' doing business in the Middle East, South America, and Eastern Europe. China was once the factory of the world. Gradually, it has become the factory of the developing world. Xu's company was inoculated from Trump's tariffs for another reason: It had offshored manufacturing to Mexico in 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Many Yiwu sellers described similar work-arounds. One manufacturer of stationery items told me that she has moved production to Vietnam. Others have gone to Cambodia or Japan. Yang, for her part, has rerouted some of her Christmas supplies through Mexico, where her customers were recently investigated by Mexican authorities. The Trump administration has leaned on countries such as Mexico and Vietnam to curb the rerouting of shipments, but such efforts resemble a game of whack-a-mole. The broad message I heard in Yiwu was this: Trump had overestimated America's leverage. At the end of this standoff, China, not America, would come out stronger: more self-reliant at home and more respected abroad. Trump's tariffs present China with the long-anticipated opportunity to pivot its economic engine from exports to consumption. For more than a decade, Beijing has postponed the transition from a fast-growing export-based economy to a developed, consumption-based one. It has suppressed wages, devalued its currency, and driven its stimulus plans to infrastructure projects and high-tech manufacturing. Chinese exports have ballooned as a result, escalating tensions with trading countries who wish to on-shore manufacturing. The trade war 'might have given China the urgency to rebalance its economy,' Cui Zhiyuan, a political economist at Tsinghua University, in Beijing, and a longtime proponent of a robust stimulus plan to boost consumption, told me. [Rogé Karma: The tariff damage that can't be undone] In the abstract, a Chinese rebalancing should be welcome to the Trump administration. One irony of Trump's tariff crusade is that it might get China to make the types of reforms that American trade hawks have long sought, but on terms that are suddenly more favorable to Beijing—and less favorable to the United States. In light of Trump's haphazard and destructive tariffs, countries in Europe may see a consumption-oriented China as a more attractive trading partner. A balanced economy means balanced trade: Chinese consumers buying European goods, and European consumers buying Chinese goods. The future choice for America's allies is whether they want to trade with an erratic and abusive America or a China that—however imperfect—could improve as a trading partner. The answer is not obvious. As Cui reminded me, the Chinese word for crisis consists of the characters for danger and opportunity. In this trade war, China's economic reformists see an opportunity to drive through changes that will rebalance its economy. Its leaders see an opportunity to better position China as a less capricious partner to the Middle East, the global South, and even Europe. While the White House sees the tariff war as a referendum on China's exploitation of global trade, Chinese officials are making it a referendum on American egotism and hypocrisy. The rest of the world will decide which message is more compelling. Washington thinks it's isolating Beijing, but it could very well be isolating itself. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
21-04-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
‘You Think We're Afraid of America?'
The sewing machines had been switched off at Kang Yang Apparel, a women's-clothing manufacturer in the southeastern-Chinese city of Yiwu, so it was easy to hear the word ricocheting across the factory floor: Chuanpu, a Mandarin nickname for Trump. When I visited, the United States had just raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 percent. The workers at Kang Yang did not seem intimidated. When I approached a group of idle factory men, their replies were bellicose: 'Hold strong!' one shouted. 'You think we're afraid of America?' barked another. Later, one man offered a steadier assessment: 'The truth is, it will have an impact, but we will be fine.' Yiwu is the world's largest wholesale market. Products as varied as padlocks, luggage tags, and inflatable pools each get a dedicated Costco-size zone. Roughly half a trillion dollars' worth of Chinese goods, or 15 percent of China's total annual exports, are imperiled by the trade war, but Chinese President Xi Jinping has shown no signs of backing down. Beijing has retaliated with 125 percent tariffs on U.S. imports, endangering more than $140 billion worth of goods a year. Unlike Donald Trump, Xi is not beholden to elections. He has styled himself as a leader who can endure short-term pain and has said that he expects his citizens to 'eat bitterness' —the Chinese equivalent of 'tough it out.' Based on the spirited pronouncements of Yiwu sellers, those on the front lines of this international game of chicken are very much prepared to do so. Trump's whirlwind policies have already throttled Yiwu's supply chains. Purchase orders have dried up, and shipments have been postponed. On average, the merchants I spoke with have somewhere from 10 to 20 percent of their business tied up with the United States. Yet even as their future prospects looked bleak, there was little appetite for détente. Derek Thompson: A trade war with China is a very bad idea For more than 20 years, Yang Langhua has operated a factory that makes Christmas-themed plush toys. Around Trump's 'Liberation Day' announcement, a longtime customer in the United States, where Yang conducts 20 percent of her business, asked Yang if she could lower her prices by 10 percent. The customer had ordered $3,000 worth of goods in February, and Yang was ready to ship it. 'I said, 'I can't accept that,'' Yang told me. 'I only make 10 percent profit total—if I cut it, I'd have no profit at all.' 'I say the whole world should unite and stop doing business with the United States,' Yang went on. 'Let them fend for themselves.' Her son-in-law is earning a Ph.D. in computer science in America. Now she hopes he returns home. 'We're already the second-biggest power,' she said. 'And in many technology areas, we've caught up.' In some ways, Trump's tariffs might already be helping China. Many Chinese businesses are applying lessons learned from the previous trade war. (Toward the end of Trump's first term, American tariffs on Chinese goods reached about 20 percent, on average.) David Xu works for an auto-parts company based in Shanghai that used to export mainly to the Los Angeles area. Over the past three years, he told me, he's dropped his U.S. exports by 40 percent and replaced them with a roster of Latin American clients. 'China isn't afraid of tariffs anymore,' Xu said. His fellow exporters have 'gone global,' doing business in the Middle East, South America, and Eastern Europe. China was once the factory of the world. Gradually, it has become the factory of the developing world. Xu's company was inoculated from Trump's tariffs for another reason: It had offshored manufacturing to Mexico in 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Many Yiwu sellers described similar work-arounds. One manufacturer of stationery items told me that she has moved production to Vietnam. Others have gone to Cambodia or Japan. Yang, for her part, has rerouted some of her Christmas supplies through Mexico, where her customers were recently investigated by Mexican authorities. The Trump administration has leaned on countries such as Mexico and Vietnam to curb the rerouting of shipments, but such efforts resemble a game of whack-a-mole. The broad message I heard in Yiwu was this: Trump had overestimated America's leverage. At the end of this standoff, China, not America, would come out stronger: more self-reliant at home and more respected abroad. Trump's tariffs present China with the long-anticipated opportunity to pivot its economic engine from exports to consumption. For more than a decade, Beijing has postponed the transition from a fast-growing export-based economy to a developed, consumption-based one. It has suppressed wages, devalued its currency, and driven its stimulus plans to infrastructure projects and high-tech manufacturing. Chinese exports have ballooned as a result, escalating tensions with trading countries who wish to on-shore manufacturing. The trade war 'might have given China the urgency to rebalance its economy,' Cui Zhiyuan, a political economist at Tsinghua University, in Beijing, and a longtime proponent of a robust stimulus plan to boost consumption, told me. Rogé Karma: The tariff damage that can't be undone In the abstract, a Chinese rebalancing should be welcome to the Trump administration. One irony of Trump's tariff crusade is that it might get China to make the types of reforms that American trade hawks have long sought, but on terms that are suddenly more favorable to Beijing—and less favorable to the United States. In light of Trump's haphazard and destructive tariffs, countries in Europe may see a consumption-oriented China as a more attractive trading partner. A balanced economy means balanced trade: Chinese consumers buying European goods, and European consumers buying Chinese goods. The future choice for America's allies is whether they want to trade with an erratic and abusive America or a China that—however imperfect—could improve as a trading partner. The answer is not obvious. As Cui reminded me, the Chinese word for crisis consists of the characters for danger and opportunity. In this trade war, China's economic reformists see an opportunity to drive through changes that will rebalance its economy. Its leaders see an opportunity to better position China as a less capricious partner to the Middle East, the global South, and even Europe. While the White House sees the tariff war as a referendum on China's exploitation of global trade, Chinese officials are making it a referendum on American egotism and hypocrisy. The rest of the world will decide which message is more compelling. Washington thinks it's isolating Beijing, but it could very well be isolating itself.
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
29 "Effed Around And Found Out" Stories That Range From Horrifying To Absolutely Hilarious
Recently, Reddit user iwanttheworldnow turned to the popular r/AskReddit page to ask people, "What's your 'fucked around and found out' story?" and the answers are very entertaining. Let's cut straight to the chase — here are 30 of the best! 1."Walking down the sidewalk in NYC with my wife, I saw a banana peel on the ground and was like, 'Why do they always show people slipping on these? How slippery can they be?'" "I then proceeded to put all my weight on it, and totally did the legs flying up in the air, landing on my butt thing like you see in cartoons. I looked up and my wife was rolling her eyes to the point that I think she was seriously wondering how she married me." —u/Plug_5 2."When I was 13, a friend and I hopped onto a slow-moving freight train reasons. Then we took a seven-hour ride through nowhere before it slowed down again." "Mom was pissed about that phone call." —u/Meet_the_Meat "How far away from home did you end up?" —u/phillymjs "About a four-hour drive." —u/Meet_the_Meat 3."When I was in middle school my parents used to buy granola bars to have around as quick snacks for us kids. Well, one day they came home with a Costco-size box of Fiber One bars." "I had no clue what fiber did; all I knew was those bars were tasty, and I had an insatiable appetite, so I went to town. The next day at school, my stomach was absolutely killing me. I mean it felt like steel wool was ripping around my intestines. It was so bad I had to have the school nurse call my parents to pick me up." "When my dad arrived he asked if I had eaten anything unusual, so I fessed up to mowing through Fiber One bars." NBC / Via "Dad: Do you know what fiber does? Me: No. Dad: How many did you eat? Me: ...Six. Cue the absolutely maniacal laughter from my father. That was about 20 years ago, and I still haven't lived that one down." —u/d-dinosaur 4."When I was a welder, we had a lot of people who thought using any kind of PPE was feminine, from old guys to brand new 18-year-olds." "One day a guy was using the squint method to do a vertical weld and managed to splash some of the molten metal into his eyes. He's blind now, and due to not using the PPE provided he wasn't able to get worker's compensation or sue the corporation." —u/LordofDonuts 5."When I was a bouncer, there was a small scuffle at the bar, and I went to go steaming in. My workmate told me to slow down. I didn't listen." "Ended up fighting a guy who played for the Leicester Tigers (rugby) and he absolutely manhandled me like I was a small child! I found out." —u/CalCalDZ 6."I put my finger on a hot car cigarette lighter. I didn't think it was hot because it wasn't red, it was white. Btw, this was like 45 years ago." —u/CashWideCock 7."My neighbor was remodeling her attic into a game room. She had stacks of beautiful old furniture, including a Tiffany-esque lamp. She asked me if I wanted it but warned me it would probably need to be rewired because it was from 1910 or something." "I got it home, cleaned it thoroughly, and plugged it in to admire the glass panels. Great, worked fine. Then I went to move it and touched the bottom while it was plugged in (the metal base was missing a part). The resulting shock gave me a glimpse of the afterlife, and I sat there stunned for about 20 seconds checking if my heart was still beating. Yes, it did need to be rewired." —u/EmmelineTx 8."I got my finger stuck in a bottle trying to get more cream out. My finger quickly became swollen and purple, and I had to go to the ER." —u/Sims2Enjoy "I had the rubber part of an earbud come off in my ear because I pushed it in too far. Couldn't get it out after like an hour of trying with a pair of big tweezers I have. My girlfriend couldn't either. So I sheepishly walked into the ER and told the person working the desk what I did. She sort of rolled her eyes and called a nurse or something over. He laughed and grabbed a small forceps and removed it immediately. I think they took pity on my stupidity because they didn't take down my info or charge me. An expensive stupid tax would have been somewhat justified." —u/bg-j38 9."Stuck my laptop charger to my tongue out of curiosity. Don't do that." —u/xcoalminerscanaryx 10."Went bowling as a kid. Wanted to know why stepping across the foul line was such a big deal. That was how I learned bowling lanes were lubricated. And probably what a pulled groin felt like." —u/OptimusPhillip 11."At 18, I had a real grown-up job and decided to splurge a bit when I got my first check. I bought a party tray of two dozen chocolate chip cookies from the local Safeway (if you know, you know) and decided to eat some. 'Some' turned into 24." Kieran Stone / Getty Images, NBC "I shit my pants on the way to work, turned around and left, shit my pants again on the way home. Shit for two days straight. I can't look at a chocolate chip cookie without feeling my butthole quiver." —u/BagelwithQueefcheese 12."I was hitting a rock with a hammer as a kid. Well, the rock eventually flew up right into my eyeball. Took my family an hour to convince me that my eye didn't pop." —u/Meckles94 13."My uncle gave me some M-80s. I thought it would be a good idea to light them up and put them in a large fire ant nest to get rid of the ants. Turns out, all it does is piss them off and make them airborne. I ended up getting a nice hot shower of fire ants. I don't recommend it." —u/GoliathPrime 14."I took part in an orgy and got chlamydia. So yeah, quite literally fucked around and found out." ABC —u/JustinAllison56 15."I worked in a nightclub. Someone attacked the bouncer and was ejected with a bop on the head and a, 'Don't fuckin' come back.'" "The guy came back; he grabbed a lady inappropriately. Two bouncers grabbed him and took him out the back door and beat the crap out of him and took his wallet. (they took it into the police station the next day.)" —u/Desperate_Dingo_1998 16."At work, I decided to jump over a rolled-up carpet that was blocking the aisle. Instead of carefully navigating over or around it, I decided to jump over it." "My toe caught on the stretch wrap and I went knee-first onto the concrete at high speed. Split my knee to the bone and I was out of work for a month." —u/SolarOrigami 17."My father told me not to cut toward myself with a pocket knife. I said that I was fine. I got four stitches in my hand that day." Pop TV / CBC Television —u/yameyeonthissite 18."I started bullying the only kid who was geekier and smaller than me in high school for one reason, and one reason only — to impress the one girl who lived next door to both of us. On day one, he kicked my ass in front of the girl." —u/TA-SP 19."I went to a haunted house with three people who my dad said not to go with in a neighborhood he said not to go to." "They started a fight with four locals. Two of them and three of us required an ambulance. I drove home alone and hurt without having any fun at all." —u/CryAffectionate7814 20."Went on a hike with my family as a kid. I found an old metal bar and was hitting random things with it. When we got back to the car, lo and behold I found an old WD-40 can. My old man was very specific about me not hitting it with the bar. Well, I did." "The explosion was immediate and intense and I was covered in old wd40. I ended up riding home in the truck bed." —u/nekflyfishing 21."I ate an entire ghost pepper on a dare. Spent the next hour crying in the bathroom with milk and yogurt. My taste buds filed for divorce that day." —u/PureEstimate3836 22."I wondered if the ice was thick enough to cross the river. It wasn't." "I'll tell you, being on the wrong side of the ice can really motivate you to move fast. Luckily, it was not a big river — I was able to get close to the bank and break back through there." —Squigglepig52 23."When I was 8, my parents wouldn't let me have a bike. I borrowed my friend's bike, fell off, and fractured my skull. 💀" —u/Horror_Reader1973 24."I was 4. My brother had the flu and was getting so much attention. Attention I wanted." "4-year-old me proceeds to run out in the middle of winter, all but(t) naked, screaming that I wanted the flu. I got the flu. I did NOT want the flu." —u/Unhappy_Mountain9032 25."I didn't do well in school. Was pushing 30 and have only worked dead-end minimum wage jobs." —u/satisfiedschools "I went back to school at night at 30. I'm 45 now and things are so much better because I didn't fuck it up the second time." —u/cbftw 26."The first week Pokemon Go came out, it was rumored that ghost Pokemon could only be found in cemeteries. 'The biggest one In LA should work,' I thought, so I drove myself there. "As I was driving through, there were several funerals taking place, and I just thought about how morally wrong this was, and I shouldn't be doing it. But I pressed on…" "I found a hillside to park with no one around, got out of the car, and started roaming around with my phone. About 20 seconds into looking, I heard some pound horns blowing and witnessed half the hillside explode, like giant explosions triggered one after another, 100 yards away." "A giant wall of dirt and dust almost got me as I jumped back into my car. A few guys in construction outfits came up to me a minute later, asking how I got there. I pointed out the roadway, which they realized they hadn't blocked off. Nothing more was said, and I left. Needless to say, fucked around looking for ghost Pokemon and almost became one." —u/CantAffordzUsername 27."I was roughly 14 years old, and this was before cell phones/smartphones. I was shooting a BB gun in the desert, plinking cans and bottles in triple-digit weather. About a mile away, there was always a line of old freight cars on a set of tracks." "I walked over and shot at them for a bit, and eventually climbed into one of the cars. The interior was shaped like a 'W' with the center crest only about half the height of the walls, and a dead coyote was chillin' at the bottom of one of the bays. I didn't realize I fucked up until after jumping in." "There was no ladder inside the car. Just steep inclines and vertical metal. I spent the next two hours repeatedly trying to run up the incline and grab the ledge to no avail." "Sweltering hot and exhausted, I kinda resigned myself to my fate, same as the coyote. I tried again after another hour or so, and FINALLY managed to frantically grab the ledge and climb out. DO NOT FUCK WITH TRAINS." —u/deleted 28."Got a cut on my finger working in a warehouse about a decade ago. One particular coworker made fun of me for cleaning it and putting a bandaid on. Not one hour later, he got almost exactly the same cut, but just kept working to 'show me how a man does it.'" "The next day I come into work with a fully healed finger. He comes in with a sore red finger. After a couple days of it getting worse, he eventually goes to see a doctor. Turns out his finger got infected. He almost got part of his finger amputated, missed time at work, and had to (mostly) pay out of pocket for antibiotics. That is apparently the 'manly' way to deal with a small cut." —u/nitrobskt finally: "I was a 7-year-old at a kid's party and we all walked down to the bodega on the corner for slushies. I finished mine, and while we were all hanging out at the pool, I noticed another girl's unattended slushie." "I was still thirsty and being a greedy little shit, so I put the straw to my lips for a sip. I just didn't realize a bee was stuck upside down in the straw, stinger first. Stinger meets lip. Swollen for days. Greatest story of karma I've ever encountered." —u/Eveningwisteria1 "Almost the exact same thing happened to me! But it was a can of Coca-Cola I left unwatched for a few minutes..." Nurphoto / NurPhoto via Getty Images, Bsip / Universal Images Group via Getty Images "...The whole bee went in my mouth when I came back for a swig. I distinctly remember the sensation of wings brushing the roof of my mouth before it stung me inside my lip. Still have Bee-TSD to this day." —u/baaaaaaaeeeeeee I want to know all your thoughts down below! If you have your own FAFO stories, even better — feel free to share! If you have a great story you want to share but prefer to stay anonymous, feel free to check out this anonymous Google form. Who knows — your story could be included in an upcoming BuzzFeed article! Some comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Buzz Feed
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
29 "Effed Around And Found Out" Stories That Range From Horrifying To Absolutely Hilarious
Recently, Reddit user iwanttheworldnow turned to the popular r/AskReddit page to ask people, "What's your 'fucked around and found out' story?" and the answers are very entertaining. Let's cut straight to the chase — here are 30 of the best! 1. "Walking down the sidewalk in NYC with my wife, I saw a banana peel on the ground and was like, 'Why do they always show people slipping on these? How slippery can they be?'" "I then proceeded to put all my weight on it, and totally did the legs flying up in the air, landing on my butt thing like you see in cartoons. I looked up and my wife was rolling her eyes to the point that I think she was seriously wondering how she married me." — u/Plug_5 2. "When I was 13, a friend and I hopped onto a slow-moving freight train reasons. Then we took a seven-hour ride through nowhere before it slowed down again." Sergey Kucherov / Getty Images "Mom was pissed about that phone call." — u/Meet_the_Meat "How far away from home did you end up?" — u/phillymjs "About a four-hour drive." — u/Meet_the_Meat 3. "When I was in middle school my parents used to buy granola bars to have around as quick snacks for us kids. Well, one day they came home with a Costco-size box of Fiber One bars." "I had no clue what fiber did; all I knew was those bars were tasty, and I had an insatiable appetite, so I went to town. The next day at school, my stomach was absolutely killing me. I mean it felt like steel wool was ripping around my intestines. It was so bad I had to have the school nurse call my parents to pick me up." "When my dad arrived he asked if I had eaten anything unusual, so I fessed up to mowing through Fiber One bars." NBC / Via "Dad: Do you know what fiber does? Me: No. Dad: How many did you eat? Me: ...Six. Cue the absolutely maniacal laughter from my father. That was about 20 years ago, and I still haven't lived that one down." — u/d-dinosaur 4. "When I was a welder, we had a lot of people who thought using any kind of PPE was feminine, from old guys to brand new 18-year-olds." "One day a guy was using the squint method to do a vertical weld and managed to splash some of the molten metal into his eyes. He's blind now, and due to not using the PPE provided he wasn't able to get worker's compensation or sue the corporation." — u/LordofDonuts 5. "When I was a bouncer, there was a small scuffle at the bar, and I went to go steaming in. My workmate told me to slow down. I didn't listen." "Ended up fighting a guy who played for the Leicester Tigers (rugby) and he absolutely manhandled me like I was a small child! I found out." — u/CalCalDZ 6. "I put my finger on a hot car cigarette lighter. I didn't think it was hot because it wasn't red, it was white. Btw, this was like 45 years ago." 7. "My neighbor was remodeling her attic into a game room. She had stacks of beautiful old furniture, including a Tiffany-esque lamp. She asked me if I wanted it but warned me it would probably need to be rewired because it was from 1910 or something." "I got it home, cleaned it thoroughly, and plugged it in to admire the glass panels. Great, worked fine. Then I went to move it and touched the bottom while it was plugged in (the metal base was missing a part). The resulting shock gave me a glimpse of the afterlife, and I sat there stunned for about 20 seconds checking if my heart was still beating. Yes, it did need to be rewired." — u/EmmelineTx 8. "I got my finger stuck in a bottle trying to get more cream out. My finger quickly became swollen and purple, and I had to go to the ER." — u/Sims2Enjoy "I had the rubber part of an earbud come off in my ear because I pushed it in too far. Couldn't get it out after like an hour of trying with a pair of big tweezers I have. My girlfriend couldn't either. So I sheepishly walked into the ER and told the person working the desk what I did. She sort of rolled her eyes and called a nurse or something over. He laughed and grabbed a small forceps and removed it immediately. I think they took pity on my stupidity because they didn't take down my info or charge me. An expensive stupid tax would have been somewhat justified." — u/bg-j38 10. "Went bowling as a kid. Wanted to know why stepping across the foul line was such a big deal. That was how I learned bowling lanes were lubricated. And probably what a pulled groin felt like." 11. "At 18, I had a real grown-up job and decided to splurge a bit when I got my first check. I bought a party tray of two dozen chocolate chip cookies from the local Safeway (if you know, you know) and decided to eat some. 'Some' turned into 24." Kieran Stone / Getty Images, NBC "I shit my pants on the way to work, turned around and left, shit my pants again on the way home. Shit for two days straight. I can't look at a chocolate chip cookie without feeling my butthole quiver." — u/BagelwithQueefcheese 12. "I was hitting a rock with a hammer as a kid. Well, the rock eventually flew up right into my eyeball. Took my family an hour to convince me that my eye didn't pop." — u/Meckles94 13. "My uncle gave me some M-80s. I thought it would be a good idea to light them up and put them in a large fire ant nest to get rid of the ants. Turns out, all it does is piss them off and make them airborne. I ended up getting a nice hot shower of fire ants. I don't recommend it." Iwak Lumba / Getty Images/500px 14. "I took part in an orgy and got chlamydia. So yeah, quite literally fucked around and found out." 15. "I worked in a nightclub. Someone attacked the bouncer and was ejected with a bop on the head and a, 'Don't fuckin' come back.'" í�© Nina Dietzel / Getty Images "The guy came back; he grabbed a lady inappropriately. Two bouncers grabbed him and took him out the back door and beat the crap out of him and took his wallet. (they took it into the police station the next day.)" — u/Desperate_Dingo_1998 16. "At work, I decided to jump over a rolled-up carpet that was blocking the aisle. Instead of carefully navigating over or around it, I decided to jump over it." Jose A. Bernat Bacete / Getty Images "My toe caught on the stretch wrap and I went knee-first onto the concrete at high speed. Split my knee to the bone and I was out of work for a month." — u/SolarOrigami 17. "My father told me not to cut toward myself with a pocket knife. I said that I was fine. I got four stitches in my hand that day." — u/yameyeonthissite 18. "I started bullying the only kid who was geekier and smaller than me in high school for one reason, and one reason only — to impress the one girl who lived next door to both of us. On day one, he kicked my ass in front of the girl." — u/TA-SP 19. "I went to a haunted house with three people who my dad said not to go with in a neighborhood he said not to go to." "They started a fight with four locals. Two of them and three of us required an ambulance. I drove home alone and hurt without having any fun at all." — u/CryAffectionate7814 20. "Went on a hike with my family as a kid. I found an old metal bar and was hitting random things with it. When we got back to the car, lo and behold I found an old WD-40 can. My old man was very specific about me not hitting it with the bar. Well, I did." NBC / Via 21. "I ate an entire ghost pepper on a dare. Spent the next hour crying in the bathroom with milk and yogurt. My taste buds filed for divorce that day." — u/PureEstimate3836 22. "I wondered if the ice was thick enough to cross the river. It wasn't." Boy_anupong / Getty Images "I'll tell you, being on the wrong side of the ice can really motivate you to move fast. Luckily, it was not a big river — I was able to get close to the bank and break back through there." — Squigglepig52 23. "When I was 8, my parents wouldn't let me have a bike. I borrowed my friend's bike, fell off, and fractured my skull. 💀" 24. "I was 4. My brother had the flu and was getting so much attention. Attention I wanted." Vera Livchak / Getty Images "4-year-old me proceeds to run out in the middle of winter, all but(t) naked, screaming that I wanted the flu. I got the flu. I did NOT want the flu." — u/Unhappy_Mountain9032 25. "I didn't do well in school. Was pushing 30 and have only worked dead-end minimum wage jobs." — u/satisfiedschools "I went back to school at night at 30. I'm 45 now and things are so much better because I didn't fuck it up the second time." — u/cbftw 26. "The first week Pokemon Go came out, it was rumored that ghost Pokemon could only be found in cemeteries. 'The biggest one In LA should work,' I thought, so I drove myself there. Photitos2016 / Getty Images "As I was driving through, there were several funerals taking place, and I just thought about how morally wrong this was, and I shouldn't be doing it. But I pressed on…" "I found a hillside to park with no one around, got out of the car, and started roaming around with my phone. About 20 seconds into looking, I heard some pound horns blowing and witnessed half the hillside explode, like giant explosions triggered one after another, 100 yards away." Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images "A giant wall of dirt and dust almost got me as I jumped back into my car. A few guys in construction outfits came up to me a minute later, asking how I got there. I pointed out the roadway, which they realized they hadn't blocked off. Nothing more was said, and I left. Needless to say, fucked around looking for ghost Pokemon and almost became one." — u/CantAffordzUsername 27. "I was roughly 14 years old, and this was before cell phones/smartphones. I was shooting a BB gun in the desert, plinking cans and bottles in triple-digit weather. About a mile away, there was always a line of old freight cars on a set of tracks." Artur Debat / Getty Images "I walked over and shot at them for a bit, and eventually climbed into one of the cars. The interior was shaped like a 'W' with the center crest only about half the height of the walls, and a dead coyote was chillin' at the bottom of one of the bays. I didn't realize I fucked up until after jumping in." "There was no ladder inside the car. Just steep inclines and vertical metal. I spent the next two hours repeatedly trying to run up the incline and grab the ledge to no avail." "Sweltering hot and exhausted, I kinda resigned myself to my fate, same as the coyote. I tried again after another hour or so, and FINALLY managed to frantically grab the ledge and climb out. DO NOT FUCK WITH TRAINS." 28. "Got a cut on my finger working in a warehouse about a decade ago. One particular coworker made fun of me for cleaning it and putting a bandaid on. Not one hour later, he got almost exactly the same cut, but just kept working to 'show me how a man does it.'" Lingqi Xie / Getty Images "The next day I come into work with a fully healed finger. He comes in with a sore red finger. After a couple days of it getting worse, he eventually goes to see a doctor. Turns out his finger got infected. He almost got part of his finger amputated, missed time at work, and had to (mostly) pay out of pocket for antibiotics. That is apparently the 'manly' way to deal with a small cut." — u/nitrobskt 29. And finally: "I was a 7-year-old at a kid's party and we all walked down to the bodega on the corner for slushies. I finished mine, and while we were all hanging out at the pool, I noticed another girl's unattended slushie." Chatchai Tuppavasu / Getty Images "I was still thirsty and being a greedy little shit, so I put the straw to my lips for a sip. I just didn't realize a bee was stuck upside down in the straw, stinger first. Stinger meets lip. Swollen for days. Greatest story of karma I've ever encountered." — u/Eveningwisteria1 "Almost the exact same thing happened to me! But it was a can of Coca-Cola I left unwatched for a few minutes..." Nurphoto / NurPhoto via Getty Images, Bsip / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
