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A subreddit where f*ckups are winners

Feeling bad about yourself? This community on social news site Reddit can help. 

 

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Society

Posted on Nov 15, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 7:21 am CDT

I sent a text to the wrong person. I accidentally hit the car next to me in the parking lot at the grocery store. I threw a baseball through my neighbor’s window. In short, today I fucked up.

As far as subreddits go, the concept behind this one is simple and to the point. r/TIFU is a showcase for a shared general experience (fucking up) that also allows for storytelling in that way only Reddit can pull off. We all know the feeling of having fucked up, but you cannot even begin to imagine some of the ways others have gotten themselves there. It makes for some delightful tl;dr’s.

Officically, r/TIFU refers to itself as:

A community for the dumbass in all of us. We all have those moments where we do something ridiculously stupid. Let us make each other feel better about ourselves.

I don’t know about the posters, but reading their stories for sure made me feel better about my fuck-ups. Nothing I’ve done in recent memory is quite on this level. Each week the top admissions are compiled into a “Fuck Up of the Week” list. If nothing else it’s nice to know that when it comes to fucking up, you’re the best.

Serena on Gossip Girl says 'I'm a fuckup'

Let’s begin with one of my absolute favorite submissions, from dirge702:

At my work if a plastic piece breaks or a screw is stripped on a computer we’re fixing, we use super glue. I was working with some today — the stuff is super clear and if it’s spread out thin enough, nearly impossible to notice. I unknowingly got a lot on my hand.

I went to the bathroom for some much needed relief, and I was stuck. To paint a picture, my whole palm was stuck to my junk. Balls and noodle. I zipped up with my hand down my pants, told the boss, and after about 5 minutes of straight laughing he let me go home.

On my way home since I have only one hand, I swerve a little bit every now and then. A cop decides to pull me over. He walks over and he says to me, “Sir, please take your hand off your crotch and show me your ID.” I explain what happened and he breaks out laughing. But I still get a ticket. Only 20 bucks though, “for being a good sport.” I also got escorted home.

Here I am now, sitting in my bathtub full of warm water and soap, typing on my phone. So reddit, how has your day been? Mine has been balls so far.

Tl;dr: superglued my hand to my crotch, got a ticket, and I’m sitting in a soapy bubble bath waiting for my hand to be freed.

Omgwhymewhy showed everyone in her lecture hall her lady parts:

Last night my friend told me that some vaginas are abnormal. I’ve never thought about this before and naturally sought to discover whether or not my vagina looks the ‘right way’. My next step was to take a photobooth photo down under and compare it to pictures I found online. Unfortunately I forgot to close photobooth before putting my computer to sleep and consequently, this morning I opened the laptop and flashed a massive photo of my vaj to all the students behind/beside me in the lecture hall. I tried to close it quickly and discreetly but the damage was done and frankly I’m too embarrassed to ever ask if people saw it.

TL;DR: Photobooth+Vagina+Forgetfulness=Bad News

Melatoninkickingin learned the hard way what ‘private’ means on Instagram:

I’m not huge on Instagram but I do use it every so often and have about 25 friends on there. I also like to send my boyfriend some dirty pictures here and there just for fun. Lately I’ve been feeling a little artistic and decided to Instagram them. I thought I had it figured out just “set the photos to private”, Instagram them, delete them and make my pictures normal again. As it turns out setting my photos to “private” just means the general public can’t see them but all my friends still can. I have no idea if anyone’s been seeing naked pictures pop up and get deleted a few minutes later but now I am freaking out!

Onideum was trying to learn more about spices:

I was cooking this morning and I used some red chili powder. I cupped some in my hand to dash around the wok and my dumbass curious self thought, “Hey, I’ve never known what chili powder smells like, why not find out now?” I take a big ol’ whiff, halfway through I realize what I’ve done and I sneeze, wheeze, and cough uncontrollably, spilling stir fry all over my dress shirt in agonizing pain. I called into work today and im still stinging and can’t sniff up my nose.

TL;DR I got curious of the scent of chili powder, three seconds later I was on the ground with stir fry on my white shirt.

Adeason realized that even if you have no running water, you should double-check the faucets:

This morning I turned the shower on and realized the water had been cut off due to roommates lack of knowledge on the cut-off date. I raged, not being able to shower before work SUCKS. I went to work, got a message from my roommate stating the water would be on shortly. Came home to a steaming HOT bathroom…It had been on for round about 9 hours.

Sharpie9000 got an unexpected protein boost in their vitamin water:

I was rushing this morning to get to work because I slept through my alarm, so I didn’t have time to grab a water bottle like I normally do. I thought I was saved when I got to my car and realized that I had left a vitamin water in there from the night before. It wasn’t until after I took a swig that I remembered the ant infestation that had recently taken hold of my car. It turns out dozens of ants had tried to drink the open sugary vitamin water and had drowned in the process. The bottle had a perfect layer of dead ants, and I had ingested them.

ConstableOdo learned that not all hair should be waxed:

I was waxing my eyebrows and upper lip today. I am a lucky woman, I don’t have dark body hair. It’s just dark enough I can see it if I get close. Anyway, I had some left over hot wax and decided “You know, I really have always hated my prominent widow’s peak.” It’s like a cartoon of Dracula’s hair grew on my forehead.

I trim the hair to about 3/4th inch, marking what I want gone. I smeared the wax on the hair I had cut, and RIP. It felt like I had been hit in the forehead with a brick. I bit my tongue and tasted blood. The damn cloth had slipped out of my fingers. I still had 2/3rds of the peak to go. I grab it again, set my jaw nice and strong and pulled. Slipped again, about 1/3rd to go.

In my pain and misery, I didn’t noticed that a sizeable portion of hair I wanted to keep was trapped in the top part. So now I have a lot of pain, a cut tongue, and a half-dollar sized indent in my hairline going up into my part.

Never wax your head hair. It’s really, really in there.

The throwaway username Burntballs really says it all on this one:

Yesterday my roommate met a girl, and today he decided to go over to her place. I was pretty happy, as anyone would if they had the house to his or herself. About an hour after he left, I was feeling a little horny. I decided it was time for a good ol’ fap session. I was sitting on the couch, watching Dr. Phil, and soon after, found myself stroking away to the moustache-clad man and the 400 pound lummox who was on the show & had just publicly confessed she had cheated on her husband. It was great. I didn’t have to worry about a thing. The house was empty, the curtains were drawn — indeed, it was a fapper’s dream.

Shortly after, I finished. It was evident I didn’t think things through. My seed was all over my hand, penis and boxers. So with my free hand, I reached for the nearest thing: napkins. Unfortunately, these napkins were the very same my roommate used to dry ghost pepper seeds. I cleaned up, and then the burn started. Oh my lord, this was WORSE than cutting jalapenos, WORSE than icy hot. My friends, you don’t know the pain that comes with ghost pepper cock.

I had no idea what to do, so for 6 HOURS I sat, writhing in pain, watching TV with my penis dipped in a glass of icy cold milk. My roommate came home and it was the most embarrassing thing I’d ever experienced. He couldn’t stop laughing. Thankfully, it (mostly) went away when I went to sleep.

The lesson here? DON’T CLEAN UP WITH MYSTERIOUS NAPKINS AROUND YOUR HOUSE!

IAmA_Fisted_Asshole “trusted a fart”:

Pretty self-explanatory. I’ve had diarrhea over the past few days, which included having a rather sore stomach so I was pleased to wake up this morning and enjoy a pain free breakfast. After that I sat down on the couch to use my laptop and felt a small fart coming along. I assumed that no sore stomach = no diarrhea so I made the decision to give the fart a little push and the next thing I know the insides of my undies had changed hue. I attempted to make a swift escape to the toilet but my brother had heard the all too wet-sounding fart.

TL;DR: I sharted and brought dishonour to my family.

By Sarah “Laughterkey” Davis, photo via Slacktory

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*First Published: Nov 15, 2012, 10:00 am CST