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Biological Parents Escalate Legal Battle Against Surrogate Who Defied Their Wishes To End Pregnancy

Dinara Luz — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 23:04:11 +0000

McKenna West, a 28-year-old nurse and mother of two from Alaska, agreed in 2025 to carry a child for California couple Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed through Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists.

The agreement contained provisions addressing termination of the pregnancy if serious fetal abnormalities were discovered.

Months later, an ultrasound revealed that the unborn child had hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a rare congenital defect in which the left side of the heart does not develop properly.

The biological parents wanted West to abort the child, but she traveled to Texas and began fighting to save his life and to be recognized as his legal mother.

However, Gilkar and Ahmed obtained custody as per a court ruling after West gave birth on August 12. They insist the boy’s name is Rumi, while West and her supporters call him Gabriel.

Now the biological parents have escalated the dispute even further.

The biological parents are seeking $100,000 in a lawsuit accusing West of breaching the surrogacy contract

Live Action

A countersuit was filed by Gilkar and Ahmed weeks before the birth became public on August 19.

According to TMZ, the couple is asking a judge to award them more than $100,000 for West’s alleged breach of the surrogacy agreement.

They are reportedly also seeking unspecified additional damages for what they characterize as her “malicious, outrageous conduct.”

They say they had already paid West $60,000 during the pregnancy and argue that her previous pregnancies meant she understood the obligations she was accepting when she signed the contract.

LilaGraceRose

The couple also claims West’s actions caused them emotional distress and have denied threatening West to undergo abortion.

West, meanwhile, continues to deny wrongdoing.

Her attorney, Lincoln Wilson, has claimed Gilkar and Ahmed “haven’t given [West] anything” since she refused to terminate the pregnancy, leaving her facing major travel and legal expenses while she pursues her own claims.

West’s supporters subsequently turned to online fundraising to help cover her expenses.

West felt “trapped” by the surrogacy contract she had signed with the biological parents

Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)

West was originally supposed to give birth on September 2, but went into labor two weeks early.

The baby received immediate medical care and surgery for HLHS, and has been “recuperating under the loving care of his parents,” said the biological parents’ attorney, Lee Budner.

According to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, with surgical treatment, the survival rate to age 5 is 72%, and the survival rate to age 18 is approximately 90%. The oldest person to survive HLHS is in their 30s, the hospital says.

West previously told Live Action News that when she learned about the intended parents’ wish to terminate the pregnancy, she felt “really scared” and devastated: “I felt I had no other option, no way out. It was just a horrible feeling.”

That is when she decided to take legal action to save the baby’s life, fully aware of the clause that was in the agreement she had signed.

“Going into this, we had talked about it when we first met, and I asked them their views on termination, and it was a reassuring conversation that they really wanted a baby,” West said.

The Megyn Kelly Show

“They weren’t exactly sure what decision they would make if something came up, but they ultimately just wanted to be parents, so I felt confident moving forward with them that termination would not be their first choice.”

She added that she felt “trapped” due to this contract and felt she “had no voice,” but she knew in her heart that she wanted to protect the baby.

West has plans to keep fighting for the child’s custody despite legal setbacks

Aditya Romansa/Unsplash (not the actual photo)

As Bored Panda previously reported, the case took on a political dimension when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened shortly before the birth.

Paxton accused Gilkar and Ahmed of refusing to authorize life-saving surgery and sought assurances that hospitals would treat the newborn.

The parents disputed the broader portrayal of their intentions, and their attorney accused both Paxton and West of turning an intensely personal medical crisis into “political theater.”

McKenna West

A Dallas judge ordered that the child receive life-sustaining treatment after birth and remain in Texas pending further proceedings.

But West did not obtain the parental authority she was seeking.

In a separate order, the judge granted Gilkar and Ahmed’s request to prevent West from making medical decisions for the child or representing herself as his mother.

A California court had already recognized the couple as the child’s legal parents, and an appellate court rejected West’s effort to prevent that judgment from taking effect.

McKenna West

Despite those setbacks, Wilson said West intended to continue fighting.

“She is seeking parentage of the child because she gave birth in Texas, and in Texas, if you give birth to a child, it’s your child,” he said.

“We think that once that California judgment is removed … that basically she is the mother under Texas law.”

“She should refund any and all payments.” The internet has been debating over the fate of the baby for weeks

Feminist Posts That Call Out The Patriarchy With Zero Mercy

Asli Akalin — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:06:02 +0000

Feminism has helped women gain things that once seemed impossible, or were treated like a luxury. The right to vote, access to education, the ability to open a bank account without a husband’s permission, the freedom to build a career and be your own boss. The list goes on.

But even after all that progress, there’s still a long way to go. Seriously, why are people still fighting over women’s bodily autonomy in 2026? And that’s just one piece of the daily sexism women still run into. It’s exhausting. It’s infuriating.

That’s why sometimes the best response is to vent online and say the quiet part out loud. The Facebook group Heroic Girls does exactly that, calling out the patriarchy with zero mercy. Scroll down for some of their best posts, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments.

Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.

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Today, we’re lucky to have countless platforms where women can speak up and share their experiences. Whether it’s an online group or a protest that makes headlines, women have more ways than ever to make their voices heard. That kind of visibility makes it harder to brush real issues off as “no big deal.” And that matters more than you might think.

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American memoirist, essayist, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said, “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”

Every post calling out workplace inequality or story about unfair treatment chips away at the idea that these issues are normal or acceptable. It reminds other women they’re not alone.

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But this ability to speak freely and publicly is shockingly recent. For most of history, women didn’t have these platforms. They didn’t have the vote or the education to make their voices count. Speaking up often meant risking everything, from social ostracism to actual violence.

Before feminism became an organized movement, women’s roles were largely confined to what men decided they should be. In many Western societies, women were considered the property of their fathers and then their husbands. They couldn’t own property or sign contracts in most places.

Education was reserved almost exclusively for men, and women who dared to speak publicly about politics or rights were often ridiculed or worse.

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Yet even in these restrictive conditions, individual women pushed back. Writers like Mary Wollstonecraft published ground-breaking works such as “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” in 1792, arguing that women weren’t naturally inferior to men but appeared so because they lacked education and opportunities.

Wollstonecraft’s work laid important groundwork for what would eventually become the feminist movement, even though the term “feminism” itself wouldn’t appear for another century.

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The word “feminism” has French origins. French philosopher Charles Fourier is credited with coining the term “féminisme” in 1837. While it originally referred to “feminine qualities or character,” that meaning has long since faded.

The term didn’t gain widespread use in English until the 1890s. By then, women on both sides of the Atlantic were organizing in earnest, demanding the right to vote and own property. This became known as first-wave feminism, focused primarily on legal inequalities and suffrage.

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The suffrage movement brought women together in unprecedented numbers. In the United States, the Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848 marked the official beginning of organized efforts for women’s suffrage.

Around 300 women and men came together to discuss the status of women and wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, which boldly stated: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.”

From there, the campaign grew. Activists marched and protested, and some were imprisoned or lost their lives for their activism. Women gained the right to vote in 1920 with the 19th Amendment, while in the UK, all women over 21 could finally vote by 1928. These victories came after decades of relentless campaigning.

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Second-wave feminism emerged in the 1960s and 70s, broadening the conversation beyond legal rights to cultural inequalities. This wave tackled workplace inequality and reproductive rights alongside questions of sexuality and family dynamics.

Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” and Gloria Steinem’s activism helped galvanize a generation of women to question the limited roles society expected them to fill. The movement achieved significant legal victories, including the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title IX in 1972.

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Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, responding to what some saw as the failures and limitations of second-wave feminism. This wave embraced individualism and diversity, challenging the idea that there was a single way to be a feminist.

It focused heavily on intersectionality, a term coined by scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, recognizing that women’s experiences differ based on factors like race and class. Third-wave feminists also reclaimed terms and symbols that had previously been used to demean women, turning them into sources of power.

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Fourth-wave feminism, emerging around 2012, is largely defined by technology and social media activism. The #MeToo movement showed how quickly women could organize online to expose systemic problems in workplaces and institutions. This wave continues to emphasize intersectionality while using digital platforms to call out inequality in real time.

Yet progress remains frustratingly uneven. Women still earn less than men for the same work and face ongoing battles over reproductive rights. The fight continues, just with different tools than previous generations had.

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You might also like: When people thought they’d get away with it: 42 acts of bad behavior

29 Unethical Things Doctors Have Seen During Their Careers

Asli Akalin — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:08:02 +0000

No one really likes going to a hospital, but, generally you know that the person looking after you has spent many long years in training. But someone asked “Doctors, what is the most unethical thing you have done or you have heard of a fellow doctor doing involving a patient?” and people shared what they’d seen.

Despite what you might read here, remember, the vast majority of medical professionals are just that, professional and well trained. Still, hopefully you’re not reading this while waiting at a hospital, get as comfortable as you can, upvote your favorites and be sure to add your own stories to the comments down below.

Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.

#1

Not unethical exactly, but frowned upon by the hospital if they found out. When I was a junior doctor, I had an elderly patient on our specialist cardiology ward who'd had to travel 100 miles for a really specialist treatment. She didn't have any family, and all her friends were similarly elderly and couldn't drive far, let alone a 200 mile round trip to visit her. She confided in me that she was running out of clean nightdresses and was embarrassed as she didn't know what to do, so I took them home and washed them for her in my machine. Looking back, I'm sure there was some procedure I should have followed - we're not supposed to get personally involved - but she was so sweet and it was late and all the admin people had gone home.

#2

It's gotta be this guy: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Courtney He diluted cancer chemotherapy drugs for years to make profit. Countless d***s, countless needless treatments, countless cancer study data rendered useless. By one man.

#3

My best friend's mother, Roulla, is from Lebanon. When Roulla was a young girl she got pretty badly injured and went to the hospital. The doctor then proceeded to tell Roulla's mother that she had passed away due to the injuries. She did not believe her and soon discovered Roulla locked in a closet, waiting to be presumably be sold.

#4

My step dad is a dentist had a boss, who was a fellow dentist, that was doing fillings on teeth that did not have cavities to generate more money. My step dad blew the whistle and started his own practice.

#5

Not a doctor, but a (male) nurse at a hospital I worked at was caught sodomizing (male) patients as they were recovering from surgery.

#6

I'm not a doctor (yet), but when I was shadowing a doctor I went with her to an "malpractice risk management" meeting. The entire meeting was about how to cover up malpractice by shifting the blame on each other so no one can get sued, how to avoid testifying against each other in court, and how to use messy handwriting when filling out documents so if it does go to court, the evidence is hard to interpret. It even used dozens of examples of cases from the hospital that were actual malpractice, but the patient never got compensated because of the risk management techniques used to avoid being sued. That meeting absolutely horrified me. The funny thing is most people think its easy to sue a doctor for even genuine malpractice. It isn't.

#7

I am currently a medicine student in Mexico. One of my professors told us that during his residency he worked in hospital on a fairly poor area. In these sorts of places birth control is a relatively unused practice, leading to poor families of 6+ children. In effort to stop this, they began to sterilise women during their children's birth regardless of their wishes. Its still a fairly common practice in the hospital.

#8

My mother says that while she was an intern at a hospital, a doctor didn't deliver a baby properly, and ended up breaking the baby's neck. He, and his supervisor tried to get my mother to take the blame, since she would only be reprimanded while he would lose his license. She refused.

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On a daily basis in most every hospital in North America, 90-something year old demented people with every disease under the sun - abandoned by their family (or worse, overly attached) - are brought to the operating room for 'emergency surgery' and are cut open by surgeons telling themselves they're doing the right thing by prolonging these people's miserable existences.

I think one of the biggest social changes in my lifetime will have to be how we care for the elderly at end of life.. Our resources simply can't handle the default 'do everything' attitude in North America.

Source: I'm an anesthesia resident.

#10

I once knew an OB who didn't like to work after about 5pm, so at the end of office hours, if they had someone in labor they would swing by labor and delivery and find a reason to do a c-section on them. Sometimes they blamed the baby's heart rate tracing (justified or not), but the classic one would be that they would check the patient's cervix and lie about how dilated it was so it seemed as if labor wasn't progressing rapidly enough, and say "I just don't think this is going to work", cut her, and be home for dinner. Now in OB we love TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) and one of the real indications for cesarean is CPD (cephalo-pelvic disproportion), which is where the baby's head is too big for the pelvis. But for this particular doc we always said that they cut patients for CPD (Cesarean Prior to Dinner).

#11

A doctor prescribed chemo for patients who didn't actually have cancer

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My mums co-worker stitched his initials into a patient because he was so proud of his work.

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Emergency physician here. More than once I've called a surgeon for a patient needing to go to the OR, because they were incredibly ill with some intra-abdominal process or other, and they say "they're really sick, and they're gonna die anyway, if I open them up and they die in the next 30 days that goes against my numbers...so why don't you admit to medicine?" I'm still livid about these cases because while it is true that the patients were likely going to die regardless, the only way they would have any chance at all of making it was by going to the OR. Those surgeons condemned the patients to die because it would hurt their precious statistics. I once, as an intern, was practically screaming at a surgical chief over the phone (if you're in medicine, you know this doesn't happen).

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My roommate in dental school was a medical student. There was some big scandal at the hospital he was doing a rotation at because an anesthesiologist left the OR with the nurse anesthetist and left the patient alone. Something went wrong and the patient passed away on the table. Where were the two of them? Getting down in a nearby unused room thinking that nothing could happen in just a few minutes...

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So a few years ago I went to the walk in doctor because I thought I had chlamydia. Doctor took a quick look and came to the same diagnosis and wrote me a prescription for some sort of antibiotic. Then he's like "actually I might have some left over from another patient" and proceeds to go into his drawer pull out a bottle full of the right pills and hands them to me. "Take one a day for the next week." I walk out and look at the Orange bottle and see that it still has the previous patients label on it including their full name. That walk in clinic was closed down about a year later, I can't imagine why...

#16

I work in a pharmacy and a doctor was just recently blacklisted from our pharmacy because he was prescribing his "attractive" female patients high doses of opioids to get them a******d. Apparently he was doing it for years before anyone said anything.
Since being black listed he has also been arrested and charged with 13 felonies.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/metro-detroit-doctor-charged-in-prescription-pill-scheme/31079776

#17

Not a doctor, but I work in a nursing home. Once I had a patient whose son was a doctor friend of a doctor associated with the nursing home. When her health started to decline, the primary doctor called and ordered sublingual morphine solution 40mg Q1 hour. A normal dose for someone who is opiate-naive (which this woman was) is 5mg Q2-4 hours.

I refused to take this order from the MD and called my supervisor who also refused to take the order. We had to involve the medical director for the facility who decided that 40mg was an unethical dose.

#18

I briefly worked at the front desk clerk for an ER at a local hospital. The rule was the anyone that came in complaining of chest pains had to be back and on a machine within 10 minutes of arrival. Once I entered their name into the system a clock started. So I was told not to enter their name until they had already been taken back to essentially make our numbers look better and make it appear as though they were receiving care within the prescribed 10 minutes.

Edit: People complaining of chest pains were typically brought back quickly, just not always within the 10 minute guideline, although generally faster than anyone else. This mostly seemed to be just about producing better stats. Although keeping it off the system gave them the ability to delay.

MY OPINION: never trust an individual stat, they're almost always manipulated and if you have chest pains take aspirin.

#19

As a specialist who sees a lot of referrals, I see incompetence and laziness (which can be just as devastating) much more than outright unethical behavior.

#20

I'm a physician and used to work twelve hour night shifts at this hospital in California. My co-worker (who was also a doctor and admittedly, a young and good looking fellow) and I covered pages from different floors. If there was nothing going on, I would usually be in my call room reading/sleeping/watching TV until a nurse would page me for a problem. My colleague's on call room shared the same wall with mine.

One night, i was reading in my room, when i started hearing my colleague and another woman having s*x. The noises started getting louder and fairly difficult to ignore (sorry but she was pretty loud). Then, in the middle of this charade, I heard his pager go off several times without him answering it.

Eventually, I left the room and called the hospital operator. I asked her who had paged doctor (my colleague's name) and then called the nurse who was trying to get in touch with him.

Turns out, the page was for a patient that was in a serious condition and had to be taken to the ICU. I took care of everything and went back to my room. Later on, I told him that they were paging him for a critically ill patient overhead and that he must have fallen asleep (I didn't say anything about hearing his allegro chamber s*x orchestra). But I think he knew that I knew because he got red and thanked me for covering for him.

#21

Things I've seen in the medical field:

* A patient removed from hospice for a hip replacement. She coded hours after leaving the OR, again, and again, and again. The sad part is that on hospice they agreed to forgo resusitation efforts. Since there was no paperwork confirming their wishes they "went out" in the exact way they had hoped to prevent.

* Different hospital, another surgeon decides to replace one of the major joints on a patient who had no realistic chance of walking either before, or after the surgery. For weeks I would have to go visit them nearly daily for blood draws, as I was the only person around who was able to collect a specimen from them without gross hemolysis. One day after a long weekend of other staff members attempting blood draws unsuccessfully I went in one more time. They thanked me through tears for not tormenting them like the others. Not long after the patient had to be transferred to a more intensive facility as a result of an infection acquired in our hospital. I do not believe they made it home ever again.

* A doctor asking a patient being admitted into the ER how they attempted to k**l them self. The patient pointed to a series of deep horizontal gashes in the arm. The doctor responded in an uproarious laughter, telling the patient that they must not be serious(down the road not across the street) and that they were only here for attention.

I've got more too, and I only worked in the medical field for 3 years.

#22

I worked at a company that made X-Ray machines. Doctors who didn't want to change the developer chemicals at the regularly scheduled times (to save money) would just crank up the rads when they X-Rayed patients.

#23

I made an account just for this thread. I've never told anyone else this, but I thought it would be appropriate for self-therapy purposes (ie, getting it off my chest). My brother and I both have practices in separate states - he confessed to me about several months ago that he convinced a mother and son to have s*x with each other for "therapeutic purposes" purely to fulfill his own surreptitious desires. I believe, ethically, he is struggling to come to terms with it. More so than I, I can only hope. I haven't told anyone else until now, but it has been something I've thought about for days on end.

#24

When trauma alerts come in during the middle of the night... there is general sense of relief if the patient is d**d on arrive or inoperable. You can tell everyone is hoping the worst just to go back to bed.

#25

This happened when I was a medical student working in the ER. This 20 something male was drunk driving and crashed his car into an elderly couple causing them to require emergent surgery. He was belligerent and walking around naked in the trauma bay. Nurses were trying to get him to calm down and stay in his room and stop yelling. He was calling the nurses b*****s and asking to go to the bathroom so they gave him a urinal. As he was urinating, my attending went up to him and said "I want you on that bed right now." He said "f*** you" so my attending knocked the urinal out of his hand, [urinate] went flying all over the room. He picked him up and threw him on the bed and pushed some rocuronium through his IV to paralyze him. Then he seemed to take his time with intubating him, letting his O2 sat get down into the 40's before finally letting him breath again. I don't know what ended up happening to the guy in the long run. Turns out he had just broken up with his girlfriend and went on a drinking binge. He deserved to be punished for what he did, but I don't think he deserved to be forcibly intubated for no reason other than causing a scene.

#26

My father is a psychiatric nurse and he will openly say how jaded he is by the incompetent people he works with. He has been employed as a registered nurse since the 1970s. But in recent decades the government has slashed the mental health budget, so instead of hiring qualified nurses who command a higher wage, they hire what are essentially babysitters with no experience.

His patients are seriously mentally disabled, not the type who need to be put in a straitjacket and sedated but grown men with the intelligence of 4-year-olds. These babysitters know nothing about restraining them when they get violent, they just cower in the corner and wait for the 1 or 2 nurses in the building.
There's also a lot to be said about the character of these 'babysitters.' My Dad told me about one patient who had a phobia of cicadas, so this [j***] colleague thought is would be funny to catch a cicada and chase the poor patient around the grounds with it.

The worse case of incompetence he told me about happened at this hospital that was located within walking distance from a major 6-lane motorway. Two nurses came in for their night shift. Patients are sleeping so workers on the night shift will watch tv or do anything else to keep themselves awake during quiet periods. These guys had brought in computer equipment with the intention of repairing or building a computer, I don't know. The fact was that they were so engrossed in their task that they failed to notice one patient who had woken up and left the premises. It wasn't until emergency services showed up and told them that there had been a fatal accident on the motorway, that k****d this patient, that these nurses realised anything was amiss.

Neither of them got sacked thanks to the strength of the Nurses Union.

#27

When I was pregnant for the first time I went the hospital because I was having cramps and was worried about miscarriage. I had blood tests for a few days to make sure my hormone levels were rising and a scan.

During the scan the nurse doing it said "you're not pregnant". I explained about the blood tests conforming I was and she sighed and said "well the baby is probably ectopic". My ex asked what that meant and her exact response was "it means your baby is dead and your wife could rupture and bleed to death in her sleep." Then she turned off the equipment and walked off.

It turned out I just wasn't as far along as I thought, but I did lose the baby anyway three weeks later. It was a missed miscarriage. When they told me I was left in a room for five hours, eventually given a tablet and told to come back in two days with no explanation of what was going to happen.

My mum was also given a crash c section with unsterilsed instruments and ended up with an infection. Her heart stopped and she was advised to not try for anymore children.

#28

Med4 student here.
During one of my internal medicine clerkship in a small hospital, i get paged to a cardiorespiratory arrest in the cath lab. I arrive there and a whole team is already working (a way outdated) ACLS protocol on a patient that was undergoing PTCA earlier. Apparently the interventional cardiologist has just placed a stent and was withdrawing when the patient had the arrest. After 40-45 minutes of resuscitation the patient did not pick up so I was expecting them to just announce the time of death. That's when it gets "unethical". The whole staff agreed to just send the patient to CCU (knowing he's dead), intubated on ambubag, with a monitor showing a nurse's pulse and oxymetry, and to tell the parents that the intervention was successful and that he needs observation before being discharged to regular floor. The patient was kept in the CCU and the staff would tell the family gradually that he was getting worse, and 2 hours later, they told them that he just died because couldn't tolerate the procedure. All this to protect the cardiologist and so that he keeps a good reputation and record.
After I asked around, they were apparently doing this for every arrest that would happen during catheterization in this hospital...

#29

An interesting moral quandary my father, an oncologist, encountered. He had just given a patient a very bad diagnosis, something very much terminal, and not much time left to live. The guy said he was going to go on a spending spree with all his credit cards and gift away a lot of the stuff to loved ones. My dad confides that he technically had an obligation to report such information to credit bureaus or whatever, but after a little thought figured what the h**l, let the dying guy have his day. What does reddit think of this?

You might also like: Doctors share 51 ridiculous lies they have heard from their patients

She Survived A Violent Kidnapping And Made It Home — Days Later She Lost Her Life And Her Husband Was Arrested

Rocio Corsi — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 22:19:28 +0000

In May 2002, teacher Leslie Buck survived a violent kidnapping, escaped her attacker, and returned to her elementary-school classroom the very next morning.

Less than 48 hours later, she lost her life inside her Connecticut home.

What followed became one of the most haunting unresolved cases in the state’s modern criminal history.

The man who kidnapped her, Russell Kirby, was arrested and eventually convicted. Leslie’s husband, Charles Buck, soon came under suspicion for something far worse.

Investigators uncovered allegations of an affair, financial conflict, and statements that suggested he knew more about his wife’s injuries than he should have.

Seven years after Leslie’s passing, police arrested him. He would, however, be released only a year later.

To this day, no one has answered for the crime.

A devoted school teacher survived a violent kidnapping, only to lose her life inside her own home

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Leslie was born in Maine around 1944 or 1945 and grew up with her brother, Dick Edmonston. Her father worked for the state, while her mother was a secretary at the Farmers’ Almanac.

Relatives remembered Leslie as an introverted, bookish child who preferred reading to sports and remained deeply attached to her family. She was also described as compassionate and particularly protective of children, traits that later defined her career.

Leslie initially attended Boston College before transferring to Saint Joseph’s College in Maine, partly because it allowed her to remain closer to home.

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In the late 1960s, encouraged by friends who were teachers, she moved to Connecticut and eventually settled in the Mystic-Stonington area. She began teaching at Deans Mill School in Stonington, where she would spend years working with young children, generally in first or second grade.

Former pupils and colleagues later remembered her as nurturing, attentive, and unusually good at remembering individual students long after they had left her classroom.

It was through the school that Leslie’s personal life also changed.

In 1975, she attended the wedding of one of Charlie Buck’s cousins, who worked with her at Deans Mill. There she met Charlie, a Stonington native from a financially comfortable family with connections to the electrical business.

Charlie had previously been married and had a daughter and a son, although accounts later said he disputed the boy’s paternity. Leslie initially turned him down, but he continued pursuing her with flowers and candy.

They married in 1979 at St. Mary’s Church, Leslie’s church. She was 33, while Charlie was around 32.

The couple never had children together.

The marriage began to fall apart when Charlie started living a double life with another woman

The Drawbridge Inn/TikTok

By the winter of 2001 and 2002, Charlie had become extremely close to Carol Perez, a bartender at the Draw Bridge Inne in Mystic. His electrical company had initially performed work at the bar, but employees recalled that he continued returning after the job was finished.

“He would eat her with his eyes,” former employee Jennifer Wolcin later recalled of Charlie watching Perez. “But she was eating it up at the same time.”

cottonbro studio/Pexels (Not the actual image), ai-assisted image

The relationship soon became financial as well. Records and testimony indicated that Charlie gave Perez roughly $235,000 toward a house, helped with a car, paid bills, and bought her clothing, shoes, electronics, and other items. Prosecutors later placed his total spending on her above $300,000.

Leslie found out.

According to fellow teacher Barbara Hatch, Leslie spoke openly about the situation shortly before the tragedy.

“Charlie’s got himself a girlfriend,” Leslie told her.

She then made an ominous remark about what would happen to her savings if she passed away: “If I should d*e in the next couple of days, I want to be buried with all my money. That b*tch is not getting anything of mine.”

Friends also told investigators that Leslie had recently asked about divorce and obtaining a restraining order.

Those claims later became important to prosecutors, but at the time, an entirely different man was about to enter the final days of her life.

Russell Kirby attacked Leslie as she returned home from a teachers’ meeting

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On the evening of May 2, Leslie attended an Alpha Delta Kappa meeting at the Mystic Hilton. The group celebrated a member’s 90th birthday, and Leslie took some dessert to bring to her elderly mother.

She left shortly after 8 pm and returned to the Bucks’ home at 77 Masons Island Road.

When she entered the garage at around 8:30 pm, Russell Kirby, a 64-year-old handyman and longtime friend of Charlie’s, was waiting there.

cottonbro studio/Pexels (Not the actual image), ai-assisted image

According to Leslie’s account, Kirby attacked her, shocked her on the neck with a stun weapon, punched her, forced her to the ground, bound her hands and feet, and put her inside her own Buick.

Kirby then drove her around the area for roughly two hours while demanding money.

Russell Kirby kidnapped Leslie Buck on May 2. A true badass, Leslie managed to escape her husband’s handyman using a set of spare keys in her purse. pic.twitter.com/6Wo568kkPj

— Brenna Ehrlich (@BrennaEhrlich) July 21, 2026

Police later recovered a duffel bag from the Buick containing a Colt .45 firearm with ammunition, ropes, gloves, bandannas, a hickory log, and bottles containing a martini.

Prosecutors considered the collection evidence that the kidnapping was planned. Kirby would later insist the objects had innocent explanations, including claiming that some were intended to protect him from aggressive dogs while working.

Leslie eventually got her opportunity when Kirby stopped after hearing a problem with the Buick. As he got out to inspect the vehicle, Leslie used a spare key and drove away.

She made it back home shortly after 11 pm.

Leslie identified her kidnapper while Charlie called 911

Sami Abdullah/Pexels (Not the actual image)

Charlie had already reported Leslie missing after she failed to return home. At 11:07 pm, he called the police again to announce that she had come back.

Leslie could be heard in the background, upset and furious.

“He’s so sick!” she shouted as Charlie told the dispatcher that she had been kidnapped by his friend.

“I told you I never liked him. He punched me in the stomach. He has our house keys.”

RDNE Stock project/Pexels (Not the actual image)

Leslie was particularly worried because her mother’s key was on the same ring Kirby had taken.

Police and emergency personnel arrived and transported her to Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London. Medical staff documented bruising, abrasions, injuries to her hands and legs, and marks around her neck.

It was difficult to investigate the death of someone I knew. Digging through boxes of evidence in courthouses and police stations, I often struggled to look at photos of Leslie Buck’s kidnap and death. It was the poems about her student that she kept in her desk that made me cry. pic.twitter.com/kBbj1b09q8

— Brenna Ehrlich (@BrennaEhrlich) July 21, 2026

Staff members later gave investigators conflicting impressions of Charlie’s behavior. Some thought he seemed surprisingly unemotional. Yet when Leslie was taken away for X-rays, Charlie told employees, “Take care of her. She’s my whole world.”

Away from Charlie, Leslie reportedly became more animated while recounting what Kirby had done. While handling a gold bracelet, she asked an X-ray technician, “Why would someone give something like this if they’re going to do this?”

Leslie and Charlie returned home at around 4 am.

Police reached Kirby’s house about half an hour later. When officers asked whether he had tied Leslie up and driven her around, Kirby acknowledged doing so. Asked why, he said he “needed the money.”

He apologized, said he had not meant to hurt Leslie, and told officers he “believed that he had a problem.”

He was arrested.

Even sore and exhausted, Leslie went back to her students hours after escaping

RDNE Stock project/Pexels (Not the actual image)

Despite spending much of the night in the hospital, Leslie went to Deans Mill School on May 3.

“She wanted people to know that she was kidnapped, and she was showing me the bruises,” Hatch later recalled.

Leslie was sore and exhausted, but being with her students mattered enough that she completed the school day.

The following afternoon, her life came to an abrupt end.

TREEDEO.ST/Pexels (Not the actual image)

At approximately 5:38 pm on May 4, Charlie called 911. He said he had found Leslie cold at the bottom of the staircase inside their home and described injuries including a bruise around her neck and a cut on her forehead.

Paramedics announced Leslie had passed away shortly after 6 pm.

Leslie Buck was a kind, beautiful soul who many kids remember even decades later. She always remembered my name and asked about what belt I was up to in karate when I ran into her around town. pic.twitter.com/R4ktNjAsFA

— Brenna Ehrlich (@BrennaEhrlich) July 21, 2026

There were no obvious signs of forced entry, and an accidental fall initially appeared plausible. But her injuries quickly complicated that explanation.

Leslie had a laceration on her forehead, a fracture at the back of her skull, and a subdural hematoma.

Investigators also noticed injuries around her neck, while some wounds seemed different from those documented after the kidnapping.

The medical examiner could not determine whether the tragedy was accidental or homicidal, leaving the manner officially undetermined.

Investigators began wondering whether Leslie’s passing had been staged

RDNE Stock project/Pexels (Not the actual image)

Suspicion increasingly moved toward Charlie.

One issue involved a heavy piece of electrical cable he reportedly kept in the house for protection and referred to as an “Equalizer.”

A former employee told investigators Charlie would hold up similar wire and say, “If you wanted to hurt someone, you hit them in the head with this.”

SHOX ART/Pexels (Not the actual image)

The cable Charlie supposedly kept at home was never found after Leslie’s passing. Medical experts later concluded that the forehead injury could have been caused by something resembling that type of cable.

Detective Cody Floyd was also troubled by Charlie’s 911 description of the cut.

“You can’t tell that there’s a cut to her forehead, initially,” Floyd later explained. “Between her hair and the blood, there’s no way. So there’s no way he would have known that, right? Unless he put the cut there.”

Police also identified inconsistencies in Charlie’s account of where he had spent the day. Witnesses placed him at the Draw Bridge Inne, where Perez worked, at times that conflicted with portions of his story.

According to court documents, Perez told investigators Charlie had asked her to run away with him less than five hours before Leslie was found lifeless.

She also said he later told her he would need to “mourn for about a year for appearances’ sake” before they could leave together and that they needed to keep their accounts consistent. These remained allegations and were contested by Charlie.

At Leslie’s funeral reception, Charlie allegedly handed a friend his attorney’s card and said it was “in case you need to bail me out,” before adding, “M*rder cases are expensive.”

Investigators could never prove that Charlie and Kirby were working together

darkdowneast

Kirby’s involvement made the case even stranger.

Detectives found a note in his truck containing times and dates they believed corresponded with Leslie and Charlie’s movements before the kidnapping.

However, investigators had not obtained a warrant allowing them to search the truck for that evidence, so the note could not become a central part of the prosecution’s case against Charlie.

thewesterlysun

Kirby’s brother was also reported to have overheard a phone call between Kirby and someone who sounded like Charlie discussing dates and times, though years later he could no longer remember the conversation clearly.

No legally usable evidence ever proved that Charlie hired Kirby.

Kirby himself repeatedly refused to give investigators information connecting Charlie to Leslie’s homicide.

His first kidnapping conviction came in 2004, but the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned it in 2006 because Leslie’s statements to police after she had reached safety were considered testimonial, and Kirby had no opportunity to cross-examine her.

Prosecutors retried him, and in February 2010, he was again convicted of kidnapping and assault.

New forensic opinions eventually led police to arrest Charlie

thewesterlysun

Meanwhile, investigators sought new medical opinions.

In 2004, forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden reviewed the autopsy and scene evidence and concluded that Leslie was the victim of a homicide, focusing on asphyxiation and neck compression.

Dr. Barbara Wolf later reached a similar conclusion during civil litigation, writing that Leslie passed away from “blunt head trauma and asphyxia due to neck compression.”

Leslie’s estate filed a wrongful-d*ath action alleging that Charlie had arranged for Kirby to attack her. Police searched Charlie’s home and business, and Connecticut’s Cold Case Unit became involved.

On January 22, 2009, officers arrested Charlie outside a Tim Hortons in Mystic during his regular morning coffee stop.

As he sat in the police car, he reportedly told officers, “You know, this case is just based on innuendo.”

His bond was set at $2.5 million.

The homicide case ultimately came down to two incompatible explanations

Dr. Phil/YouTube

Charlie spent approximately 20 months in custody before securing release on a reduced $1.5 million bond in September 2010.

His trial began later that year before three judges rather than a jury.

Prosecutors argued that Charlie had struck Leslie with a heavy cable and strangled her, pointing to the missing “Equalizer,” his financial relationship with Perez, disputed statements and alibi problems, and expert testimony that Leslie’s injuries did not match an accidental fall.

The defense countered that Leslie suffered from myocarditis, an undiagnosed heart condition that could have caused her to lose consciousness at the top of the stairs and fall. Several defense experts supported the theory she had passed away of “natural causes.”

Even prosecutor Lawrence Tytla later acknowledged how stark the disagreement was.

“That shocked me that two people at the very top of their profession could have such diametrically opposed conclusions,” he said of the competing medical experts.

The state also had no homicide weapon, no eyewitness and no confession.

Dr. Phil/YouTube

Prosecutor Paul Narducci later said one of the things that bothered him most was “the fact that we were never able to find what we considered to be the weapon that inflicted the injury.”

On December 15, 2010, the panel acquitted Charlie.

“I got my life back. I haven’t done anything,” he said afterward. “They kept saying I did, I did, I did. Well today I was vindicated.”

The verdict meant prosecutors had failed to prove homicide beyond a reasonable doubt. It did not determine conclusively how Leslie lost her life.

Charlie publicly revisited Leslie’s case on Dr. Phil mere months before he lost his life

findagrave

The remaining civil litigation was eventually resolved, and in 2011 Charlie and Leslie’s family reached a settlement concerning her estate. The Masons Island home where Leslie lost her life was demolished in 2015, seemingly closing another physical chapter of the case.

Charlie, however, was not finished discussing what had happened.

On March 2, 2016, more than five years after his acquittal, he appeared on Dr. Phil alongside Carol Perez as the show revisited Leslie’s tragedy, Charlie’s homicide trial, and the relationship prosecutors had portrayed as a possible motive.

The episode centered largely on Perez, who said being publicly branded Charlie’s mistress had followed her for years.

“Carol was never my mistress,” Charlie said during the program.

Only months later, in October 2016, Charlie fell from the roof of his childhood home. In a cruel coincidence, he was transported to the same hospital where Leslie had been treated after escaping her kidnapping and died shortly afterward.

Russell Kirby remained imprisoned until 2020, when he was released after serving approximately 18 years.

As of August 2026, no new evidence has resolved what happened inside 77 Masons Island Road on May 4, 2002.ç

“Unusually unemotional.” Charlie’s innocence remains a topic of debate to this day

Life In Finland: Memes About The World’s Happiest Country

Asli Akalin — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:03:03 +0000

Welcome to Finland, the happiest country in the world. With lots of beautiful nature, a wonderful education system, a passionately burning love of saunas, and deep respect for their fellow human beings, Finns are truly great. And you’ll know that if you have any Finnish people in your social circles, dear Pandas.

However, the Finnish can also seem mysterious, even peculiar. For one, they stereotypically love being left alone and social interactions allegedly scare them more than the local wildlife, the biting cold, and the fairytale creatures that lurk in the dark. However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what it means to be a Finn, as presented by the ‘Finland Jokes’ Instagram page.

As you’re scrolling down and upvoting your favorite Finnish memes, don’t forget to read through Bored Panda’s interview about introversion and extroversion with Dr. Andrew Spark from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.

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The ‘Finland Jokes’ page has been posting memes about what it’s like to be Finnish since way back in 2017. In the half-a-decade since then, the page has carved out a comfortable niche for itself on Instagram, having drawn in 73.1k followers.

Make sure to follow the account on Instagram if the jokes they post made you chuckle, dear Readers.

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Most of the memes showcase a slice of Finnish life. From their love of the cold and the great outdoors to learning to embrace the calm, the silence.

It is perhaps this stereotype about Finland, the deep introversion the country’s citizens supposedly live by, that is best known around the world. That and the sweet tooth they have for licorice in all of its forms.

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Bored Panda reached out to Dr. Spark from the Queensland University of Technology to have a chat about introversion and extroversion. We asked him about the upsides of extroversion and how introverts feel when pressured to act in a different way than their instincts tell them to.

The expert told us that there are several options that introverts can take to reduce the stress they feel when outside forces are pressuring them to act extroverted.

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“We can simply force ourselves to push through it and act out of character (i.e., to act more extroverted),” the expert suggested that powering through an uncomfortable situation is one way to deal with things.

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According to Dr. Spark, there are scientifically proven benefits to being extroverted rather than introverted. It’s something that some people might not like hearing, of course. However, there’s also absolutely nothing wrong with being introverted either. Though, at the end of the day, different situations call for different behaviors and mindsets. In short, sometimes it’s very advantageous to act extroverted even if you want to be alone in the middle of a snowy forest.

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“Many introverts don’t like hearing this—and I can understand that—but the science is quite clear. When we act extroverted, we experience more positive emotion,” he said, adding that this can, actually, make us feel more tired later on.

“However, if this idea [of pushing through] does not appeal to you (and there has been some research looking at why introverts don’t like the idea of acting extroverted), it may be a better idea to remove yourself from the situation or to reframe how you are thinking about yourself,” the expert told Bored Panda.

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According to Dr. Spark, even being aware of the research on extroversion and introversion can help alleviate some of the stress that some people feel in situations they’re uncomfortable being in.

“As part of any such reframing effort, try to keep in mind that there is nothing inherently wrong with being an introvert, but you also have to be realistic and accept that there are certain situations that are better suited to either extroverted or introverted behavior,” the expert noted.

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“Take heart in knowing that we all have a lot more agency to act out of character if we really want to—and introverts have shown to be quite adaptable when it suits them,” Dr. Spark explained that we are far more flexible than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. Human beings are incredibly adaptable. Whether or not we’re comfortable with change is another question entirely.

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Despite the Finnish having a reputation for enjoying being all by their lonesome, their country is actually widely known for its strong feelings of communal support. In fact, it’s one of the things that helped Finland rank as the happiest country in the world in 2021.

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Some other factors that contributed to Finland’s overall happiness index include a thoroughly transparent government with very little corruption, as well as the level of autonomy given to the country’s citizens. The Finns felt like they were free to make their own choices at all times.

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You might also like: 43 absurdly funny memes shared online that make little sense

American Tourists Face Backlash After Breaking A Bizarre Italian Rule They Had No Idea Existed

Anwesha Nag — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 22:04:49 +0000

A harmless, everyday routine in one country can easily become a punishable offense in another, landing tourists in serious hot water.

A New York couple learned that the hard way when they narrowly avoided a hefty fine during a trip to Italy.

Dietitian Julia Latoff and runner Mike Naccarella broke a local law while running and were forced into hiding as a family member helped them sort it out.

The pair’s actions sparked significant backlash online, with many blasting the two for not following the laws of the country they were visiting.

“Tell me you are American without telling me you are American,” one user said.

A New York couple got yelled at by locals after running shirtless in Italy

eats.by.julia

On July 8, 2026, Julia shared a video on her Instagram, informing her 8,500-plus followers how she and her boyfriend, Mike, nearly got fined on their family vacation.

The two were in Venice, Italy, celebrating Mike’s grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary, when a running session quickly turned south.

eats.by.julia

As fitness enthusiasts and active runners who started running right after college, they decided to go for an early morning run to get ready for the day ahead.

Julia stepped out in black shorts and a white tank top, while Mike wore black shorts and went shirtless. Halfway through their run, things got awkward as the locals gave them disapproving glances.

eats.by.julia

“We noticed people were shaking their heads at us, looking disgusted and angry,” she said in the video. “Someone yelled at Mike.”

“We stopped and looked it up, and found out that it is actually illegal to run here without a shirt.”

The Venetian city council’s website clearly states that walking around “bare-chested or in a swimsuit” in public places is strictly forbidden since 2018, and offenders would be fined €250 ($290).

Julia admitted they felt “embarrassed” about the mistake and apologized

eats.by.julia

After learning about the law, the couple immediately sought to correct the situation.

“We’re hiding in a back alley, while his sister tries to find a shirt, so that we can make it home without getting a ticket,” she said, as Mike sat on his haunches against a wall.

The clip then cuts to a woman, presumably Mike’s sister, handing him a white Aperol Spritz T-shirt, which he then wore.

“Sorry, Venetian people, we didn’t know,” Julia concluded in the video.

eats.by.julia

In an August interview with Newsweek, she explained why Mike had decided to go shirtless in the first place.

“Both of us are runners, and we make an effort to run in almost every city we travel to,” she said.

“It was early July and very hot, so my boyfriend was running without a shirt, which is the norm in NYC in the summer where we live,” she continued. “We had also run in Florence (another Italian city) earlier that week and saw other shirtless runners, so we didn’t think anything of it!”

Julia called it an “honest mistake,” and said that they felt “bad and embarrassed.”

Netizens blasted the two for being “disrespectful” towards Venetians

eats.by.julia

Despite the couple’s apology, they got trolled online for their “uncivilized” behavior.

“Why are Americans so obsessed with being shirtless in public? I am so embarrassed,” one said. Another wrote, “And then Americans wonder why everybody hates them.”

“Literally who doesn’t know it’s inappropriate to run in a town or city shirtless?” said a third.

A fourth said, “Who goes jogging in the historical narrow streets of Venice? That in and of itself is disrespectful.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Julia Latoff, RD (@eats.by.julia)

However, many thought the rule was “pointless,” while others defended Julia and Mike, saying they made an unintentional mistake.

“Dumbest law in existence,” one said. Another commented, “Wait, don’t they have full n**e beaches over there, but you can’t run shirtless?”

“At least they admitted their mistake and corrected it,” said a third.

“As an actual Italian, you guys need to get a grip. They realized it was wrong and then stopped doing it. What more would you expect?” a fourth said, addressing the critics.

Europe has reportedly raised fines for shirtless visitors in recent months

Andrea Merola/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Beyond being bare-chested, tourists can also be fined in Venice for several other violations.

Consuming food or drink on the ground, or sitting or lying at river banks, monuments, bridges, steps, puteals, and high-water walkways, comes with a fine of €100 to €200 ($116 to $233) and a ban from the location where the offense was committed.

Bathing or swimming in Venice’s famous canals or public littering can get one fined €300 ($350), while camping in public areas carries a €200 ($233) fine.

Other European countries, such as Spain and Portugal, have also introduced local rules in recent years that penalize visitors for walking through public streets and squares with their upper body bared.

myLoupe/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Several of France’s tourist towns, including Les Sables d’Olonne and Arcachon, also have a fine of about €130 to €150 ($150 to $175)for walking uncovered or in a swimsuit in public.

In June 2026, The Times reported that a handful of resort towns, such as Narbonne in the Languedoc and the Beaux-Arts Deauville in Normandy, had increased fines from €17 ($20) to 150 ($175) for wandering shirtless.

In Asian locations, being shirtless is widely considered culturally disrespectful, especially at religious sites, with specific legal bans or fines applying in certain locations and contexts.

Thailand, where it is already illegal to drive a vehicle shirtless, is reportedly planning to levy a fine of about 300-500 Baht ($9-$15) for shirtless tourists in central areas.

“At least they admitted their mistake.” Netizens debated over the New Yorker couple breaking local law by running shirtless in Italy

Things People Said That Indicated They Don’t Realize How The World Works

Asli Akalin — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:04:03 +0000

People have the best knowledge of what they have experienced and to be more aware of what is going on outside their life’s bubble, they have to interact with people who are different from them and to actively search for that information.

Otherwise, they might make themselves oblivious and out of touch with reality, which could make them look stupid in front of others. Ignorance is not bad in itself as it is impossible to know everything, but sometimes it is hard to believe how certain knowledge has not reached a person.

Not realizing that there are people who can’t afford a house or having gaps in general education are some things Redditors considered to be common knowledge that doesn’t belong just to a single society group, but they were wrong and told some funny and frustrating stories answering the question “What did somebody say that made you think: ‘This person is out of touch with reality?’”

More info: Reddit

Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.

#1

I’m a nanny and I’ve worked for some rich clients. Old money. These people know nothing about reality. The best one I heard was this family I was working 12 hour days for. Good pay, terrible schedule. At one point I was bouncing their baby on my knee and the Mom goes “Being a mom isn’t that hard. I don’t know why other women complain about it so much”. While her nanny is literally caring for the baby.

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Pretty much any time I see someone yelling at a Starbucks or other service employee. They come into a crowded shop, wave their big $5 bill around like a high roller, then yell at a 16 year old for making their coffee incorrectly. Lame. If you find yourself to be one of the people yelling at service workers, fix your own problems before telling other people what to do.

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There are a lot of older fugly apartment buildings near the house I grew up in. My friend at the time that lived a very privileged lifestyle, $200-300+ weekly weekend dinners with the family, timeshares over the place, skiing and snowboarding trips, etc. She was like why would anyone want to live in these apartments? I would never I was like, people that live there don't have a choice...

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Showed a parent the security footage of her 8th grader hitting a teacher. She claimed the footage had been edited. Sigh…..

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Me: telling someone I’m a type 1 diabetic Rando: “you shouldn’t have eaten so much sugar as a child” Also: “Are you still diabetic” - P.A. At a checkup Plus the limitless amount of “cures” people have for this incurable disease.

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Billionaires and multimillionaires singing 'Imagine' while sitting in their gigantic mansions largely unaffected by the pandemic.

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Had someone today tell me they are anti vaxx because 2 days after thier daughter got the covid shot she turned gay

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Went to a super rich girls house, she had had a baby 2 months prior, she had nannies coming in and out maids and a literal house manager plus PAs etc. and she was bragging about how she was back at work so soon and how she doesn’t know how people can stand doing ‘nothing’ for so long.

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"I'm entitled to my opinion" when presented with facts showing they were wrong.

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"Nobody has ever died from rationing their insulin, nobody" - My FIL. That was an odd take of his, I'm still kinda puzzled over it. People have died doing almost anything. He didn't think they died from rationing something that costs hundreds of dollars per week though.

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Sophomore year of high school, in my biology class, this one girl got into a conversation about what causes the winter season with the teacher. And she goes, “winter happens because the sun turns cold, right?” Honestly, I’m still having trouble processing that one, and it’s been eight years.

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Wharton students were interviewed asking what they though the average income was. 25% said 6 figures. The same question was asked at a local community college and the collective agreement was $15k

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My aunt was bragging that her knee surgery cost her zero dollars because of Medicare. I said “yeah, that kind of socialized medicine is nice”. She the threatened to “take me out back and beat my a**” for saying that.

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Whenever a disabled person shares their experience and a non-disabled person tells them how they can "fix" all of those problems.

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Working for a super wealthy client who lived in the most expensive gated neighbourhood in the country... A Walled community, filled with old money and old political families, and he was complaining about "the elites" who the f*** do you think you are ? Joe F*****g 6 pack?

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my sister, who traveled from the US to europe for the first time when she was 15 and has now lived there for over 5 years. We were talking about reasons people join the military and I mentioned a friend of mine who grew up on a reservation with very little and joined because he wanted to travel and get out of the rez. She looked at me and said “why can’t he just save up if he wants to travel?” I’m 27 years old, grew up with most of the same privileges as her, and have never had the time or resources to leave the country. But she thought it was reasonable for a historically disenfranchised community member, growing up with nothing, to save up his money in order to leave home and travel.

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When my boss said “My word is better than getting it in writing.” I can think of several instances where they’ve promised something or given their word on only to later renege on the deal.

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I'm a 911 operator and had a man call 911 because the internet at the hotel he was staying at got disconnected. I told him it was not a police issue and he would have to talk to the hotel staff and/or just wait for it to reboot. He responded, "Not a police issue? This is criminal. If I unplugged someone's life support, isn't that a crime?"

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Me, homeless at the time and working my way out of it. Coworker: I don't know why people go on game shows for money, winning 100,000 dollars wouldn't be life-changing, anyway.

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Had a coworker that noticed an item’s tag said Made in Vietnam. She’s said “ Made in Vietnam? That’s a place? I thought it was a war !! “

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My husband's friend insisted on taking us to the 'best, most authentic' Chinese restaurant in town. I'm Chinese. He's a Jewish guy who has never been to any Chinese speaking country. The food wasn't good, nor was it authentic. He had the most smug look on his face when he sat back and quirked his eyebrow at me as if expecting me to heap praise onto him. Anyway, I didn't. Best part is that they aren't friends anymore (I had nothing to do with that, I promise), so now I don't have to pretend that crab rangoons are the peak of Chinese cuisine.

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I heard someone yesterday suggest that children should operate heavy machinery to address supply shortages. Turns out that guy happened to be the fricken prime minister.

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People wonder why there isn't more eyewitness accounts of 9/11 because surely everyone just pulled out their phones? B***h please. Back in 2001 most people were still using 35mm film cameras, camcorders were usually VHS and digital ones were not cheap in the slightest, and the US was behind the curve on cellular technology anyway. I was in the US a few months before 9/11 and even in New York people didn't understand what SMS was let alone had a phone compatible or were using it.

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A friend of mine in college was absolutely shocked when I and several other friends pulled out our childhood/hometown public library cards at dinner one night. She could not fathom that all of our families went to the library regularly when we were growing up and that this is an extremely common experience for a lot of people. When I asked her what she did when she wanted to read books growing up, she said "My family just bought them all."

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Former roommate declared, "I'm an only child, that means I don't have to be nice if I don't want to."

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I was 16 years old, in Driver's Ed, and the teacher asks us an extra credit question. "Why are there interstates in Hawaii? You can't drive there from any other state." A girl in my class raised her hand and asked, "Was it because they were built before Hawaii broke off?"....This girl thought it was a possibility that Hawaii broke off, and drifted to the middle of the Pacific ocean, all in the last 50 years. Also, Hawaii has interstates because, if a highway is funded by the federal government, it's simply called an interstate.

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My old boss was railing on me for placing an order late and getting charged more after missing the ‘early bird special’, when I had been reminding her consistently for at least two months (gradually increasing my urgency that she needed to make up her mind). She was yelling at me and then said, “$$$ might not seem like a lot to you but it is to me!” This coming from the person who set my wage, signed my checks, owned 4 substantial homes, had MILLIONS of dollars worth of artwork, designer everything, etc… While I was living in a 250sq foot garden studio apartment with my partner, which flooded when it rained longer than two days, making her hundreds of thousands of dollars from sales, with no commission.

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My aunt is a bit into that. She's done really well for herself but has forgotten that not all of us are retired engineers who play the stock market for funsies part time. She suggested Thanksgiving at my place one year, and I had to remind her that I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment and inviting around 15 people there wasn't going to work.

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I was involved in a nonprofit for women in my last city maybe 2 years back. My ex (we were 27 at the time) was from a rich area of the state, and the mean income for this area was $31k. A teacher talked about how 500+ kids in her school were homeless, abs how seniors would pool their money together to get a hotel for days or weeks at a time. I remember telling my ex about it, and how awful that’s gotta be to be 17 and living with 10 others in a hotel. He said “they’re stupid. If they had any brains, they’d buy a house so they could get equity; the hotel is just them throwing their money away and not getting anything from it.” He was 100% stuck that these 17 year olds, with no addresses, who are MINORS, can apply and qualify for a mortgage. I fussed at him and don’t regret it, because he is so out of touch with reality. Eventually he went on months later to say he talks down about other people and acts like he’s better than everyone because he is better than everyone. Edit to add: to clarify, he suggested the high schoolers should all buy a house, not my organization. Household income was about 10k higher than individual. His parents were loaded, so he never had to really pay for anything until after college, and even then he didn’t have to pay for housing for the first 3 years of his career, and even still, 95% of his (nice) furniture and everything was given to him. It’s very easy to brag about your 401k when you NEVER had to allocate money towards rent, loans, etc.

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i’ve genuinely heard someone comment on a homeless person asking why they “don’t just get a home”…

#31

Some guy whose parents paid for his college tuition mentioned to a coworker who has $107,000 in student loans say he should be able to pay it off in 5 years. Coworker makes $23 an hour on 5-8s.

#32

Classmate in college kept throwing his Starbucks cups on the ground and other garbage. "They pay people to pick it up" He was the son of a guy who owned multiple resorts in South America.

#33

A coworker believes the US Military employs the use of Lightsabers.

#34

Older coworkers asking me why poor people keep spending/borrowing money when they know they'll never pay it back.. Lol, like to live? What's the difference in $2k or $20k in debt when you know you'll only ever be paying back $0?

#35

One of my relatives "Joined the illuminati" on facebook.... On. Facebook. He was really serious too and excited about it.

#36

If you don't like your job, quit and get a better one

#37

My fiance is a doctor, I'm an engineer her and I grew up VERY blue collar. We still have tons of student debt to pay off before we can reap the benefits of a good salary. Her friend, a doctor who was a resident when she was in med school, was talking to us about the new house she bought, and kept asking us when we planned on moving out of our s****y apartment and getting a nice big town house. She couldn't comprehend that unlike her, our parents aren't rich, and they can't buy a house for us in CASH, and let us pay them back interest free. I love her to death, she's a sweet friend we have known for a long time. She has done so much for us in terms of friendship and emotional support. But her mom was a successful surgeon, her dad retired early after selling his successful business.

#38

Nasa can land on the sun at night time

#39

Had a girl ask what happened to the Mongolians in history class. She said “there’s not like a present day Mongolia or anything”. She sat under the ten foot wide world map, Mongolia was about two feet above her head.

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44 Online Shopping Fails That Were Nothing Like The Photos

Asli Akalin — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:02:03 +0000

The worldwide pandemic fueled a surge in online shopping across the world, as the year 2022 is expected to be the first trillion-dollar year for online sales. The surge first hit back in 2020 when online consumer spending hit a record $813 billion, which was a 42% increase from only a year earlier, 2019.

Before the pandemic, online shopping was just another way to shop. If you hadn't found what you were looking for in a physical store, online shopping would have been your last resource. Now, we have become used to buying groceries, home improvement products, and sporting goods, which have become especially popular, with a single click. So no wonder the e-shopping world has turned its other side on us and we also face many more shopping fails than ever before.

So today, we wrapped up some of the funniest, weirdest and most frustrating examples of what happens when online shopping goes awry, and presents us with a good old “expectation” vs “reality” experience. Let us know if you have also been betrayed by an item you bought online in the comments! More cruel online shopping fails can be found in our previous posts here, here, here and here.

Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.

#1 This Is How Amazon Delivered My Body Wash. I Wonder What Are They Expect Me To Do

With more and more people switching to online shopping, there’s still not enough talk about the dangers lurking behind it. Turns out, online shopping is a perfect place for scams, whether it’s browsing unsafe e-commerce sites, shopping on lookalike pages, or unknowingly disclosing your bank details. So today, Bored Panda spoke with a cybersecurity expert at NordVPN, Daniel Markuson.

“Criminals usually find their victims through online pop-ups, banners, or emails. They rely on advertising engines like Facebook and Google to push their banners on users. Although these companies have strong safeguards in place, some banners still slip in,” he explained.

#2 I Keep Trying To Order Zatarain's Cajun Injector Creole Butter, But I Keep Getting Soaps

#3 We Ordered Toothbrushes On Ebay From China But Received Eye Masks Instead. I’m Not Mad About This Error, And Will Use Them Wisely

“Alternatively, some scammers study their potential future victims and analyze their online behavior, which can be easily done if the victim is browsing the web unprotected,” Markuson added. That’s why it’s important to remember that secure websites have HTTPS in their address.

The cybersecurity expert listed six major scam scenarios you may encounter while online shopping. The first one is “your order has been canceled.” Markuson explained: “These scams can go as far as to say, ‘Sorry, we are out of stock, and your order has been canceled. To claim your refund, please click here.’ Once the victim clicks on the link, they are asked to enter the details of the credit card to which they want to receive the refund and end up with their bank account being wiped out.”

#4 My Family Recently Moved To Florida So I Wanted To Protect Them From The Sun

#5 Sometimes You Don’t Expect A Lot From Aliexpress But [darn it]

#6 Thanks To This Woman’s Amazon Review I Promptly Removed This Dress From My Cart

Another threat is lookalike pages. “Amazoŋ.com, eday.com, googIe.comv — most users do not spot the discrepancies in the address bar as long as the website design looks legitimate,” he warned and added that they process the payment for the items in their shopping cart and end up being robbed.

Renewing your membership for the purchases you’ve made is another common scam online buyers should be aware of. “Once you’ve finished with your purchases, scammers will send you an email claiming that your Amazon Prime subscription payment is due and the discount cannot be applied. So if you want your items to get delivered, you have to renew the subscription. Ultimately, the victim gets tricked into disclosing their bank details,” Markuson explained.

#7 Ordered A Gromit Coffee Mug Online

#8 My Son Turned 1 Yesterday. This Was The Topper To His Space Themed Cake. Left Is What We Ordered, Right Is What We Got

#9 For My Son’s 1st Birthday, I Give You The Cake We Ordered And The Cake We Got

If a website requires you to download an app, you are likely getting scammed. Imagine you're about to make an online purchase. “Suddenly you're informed that the only way you can grab this ‘exclusive deal’ is to purchase through the app. In reality, you're being directed to download a fraudulent app run by hackers that has been primed to steal your payment information. Interestingly, most of these fake apps also appear in legitimate app stores, according to research by RiskIQ.

Also, watch out if an e-commerce website claims that there’s a delivery issue with your purchase. “Scammers will send bulk emails to Amazon users that claim to be from UPS, FedEx, or Amazon itself. They might read something like this: ‘We're sorry, but your p****** couldn't be shipped. Please click here to re-arrange delivery or update your method of payment.’” But as soon as you enter payment details, well, you can guess who'll be cashing in, Markuson warned.

#10 Op Ordered The Left Painting From An Instagram "Artist" Who Then Blocked Them After Delivery

#11 It's A Scam

#12 (Found) This Mask From Wish

“Another common scam involves free gift cards, winning a loaded gift card from big retailers. The terms often require you to enter a grab bag or text a random code to 7792, for example. To a bargain shopper, it's too good to pass up. In reality, your details will be collected, your device could be infected with malware, and the scam could be sent to your entire address book.”

#13 I Paid $65 For A Cake That Wasn't Even Worth It

I hate to even have to do this but I want to warn people.

She refused to do anything about it. They don't even look close or anything.

#14 So My Mom Ordered A Memorial Day Wreath For My Grandpa, Who Is A Vietnam Vet

#15 My Friend Ordered This Rug Online. She Got This Instead, Whatever It Is

There are a few things everyone who’s shopping online should know before making a purchase. “An address of a safe website should start with “https://.” The letter S stands for “secure,” Markuson said. “Also, look for a padlock symbol in the address bar next to the website address. It means the connection is secure and no one can read or modify the data that travels between you and the website you’re visiting,” he added.

#16 Oh, The Joys Of Ordering Online

Two different colors, two different sizes, and both are left shoes. Lovely!

#17 Ordered A Tool From Amazon. They Sent Me A Bag With Nothing In It. Wish I Could Make This Up

#18 TIL To Check Gifts I Order Online Before Giving Them Away - I Ordered A Game Of Thrones Scarf

The most common signs of an unsafe online shop or a website are the following: “The website has grammar mistakes; The design looks odd and the website structure is messy; The visuals are not high-quality; The deals are too good to be true; The website URL begins with HTTP, not HTTPS.”

The first thing you should do if you suspect you have just been scammed after paying money for an item on a scam website is to contact your bank, Markuson says. “If you made a payment with a debit or credit card, you may be able to ask your bank to help get your money back through what's called a chargeback. You can also try contacting the police if the amount of money you lost to a scam is significant,” he said.

#19 My Sister Ordered A Face Mask From Amazon (Left) And The Photo On The Right Is What She Received

#20 What Was Ordered Versus What I Just Received In The Mail Today

#21 So I Ordered Feminine Products Off Amazon And Received Inflatable Basketballs Instead

#22 Amazon Shipped Me An Empty Stick Of Deodorant

#23 Ordered 100 "Empty" Nintendo DS Cases And Got 100 Copies Of Jonas

#24 So I Ordered Some Popcorn From Amazon. Always Check The Size First

#25 I Ordered 3 Hard Drives From Amazon And They Sent Me 3 Cases Instead

#26 I Can’t Believe It

#27 I Ordered 1 Lbs Of Green Beans Online And Got 1 Very Lonely Green Bean

#28 Amazon Sent Me 4 Copies Of The Aristocats. I Ordered 0

#29 I Cannot Stop Laughing At This Amazon Review

#30 £76 Bouquet

They said they had accidentally sent the "small" version of the bouquet (which doesn't exist on their website). They offered a re-delivery of the "correct large size" or q voucher for the cost plus £10 extra. I asked for a full refund. Why would I want the bigger version of a terrible bouquet and why would I trust them for future purchases. They didn't argue.

#31 Ordered A “Rose Apothecary” Sweater From Etsy For My Fiancé. This Came Instead. We’re Both Double Vaxxed And Healthcare Workers

#32 Ordered A Pot/Pan Set Off Amazon After Recently Moving. Beware Super Low Prices On Kitchenware

#33 It’s -35 Today Here In Canada. I Needed Warm Winter Boots. What I Ordered vs. What I Got

#34 Whiskey Advent Calendar

#35 My Wife Just Got This Huge Banner For Work. Perfect

She’s ordered from the same place before and sent them the same file type as before.

#36 Heavy-Duty Combat Boots

#37 Customer Bought Wheels And Tires Online, After Advising Multiple Times That The Tires Are Too Small For His SUV He Insisted For Us To Put Them On

TireSize: 225/45/17

#38 The Cat Tree My Mum Ordered vs. What She Received

#39 Was Super Excited For This Replica Glove (You Can Take It Out & Wear It). What I Got. Even In A Broken Frame

#40 My Buddy Ordered Some New Dice And Forgot To Check The Size

#41 Axolotl Arrived In The Mail

#42 The New Bathroom Rug I Ordered Online vs. The Actual Rug I Received In The Mail. I'd Say Something Is Wrong Here

#43 I Ordered Three Collars From An Online Seller For My Cat, But When The p****** Finally Arrived It Contained Two Bottles Of Ivermectin

#44 First Time I Ordered Shoes Online

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39 Absurd Questions That People Actually Asked Seriously

Asli Akalin — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:01:02 +0000

They say there are no stupid questions. Well, that depends on the setting. If it's a classroom full of eager-to-learn minds, then it might be true. But if we're talking about a conversation between two colleagues in front of the coffee machine...

So in an attempt to disprove this old saying, a now-deleted Reddit user asked everyone on the platform to share the dumbest things people have asked them. And they succeeded: the comment section was flooded with ridiculous submissions, stemming from ignorance in subjects like geography, religion, and the human body. Continue scrolling to see our hand-picked selection of the funniest ones!

Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.

#1

About 25 years ago I was explaining time zones to a 20ish year old intern at a large scientific agency. She wasn't getting it, so i got an orange I brought for lunch and used it as the Earth. Me: Ok, pretend this is the Earth. The sun only shines on one side, so it's day on approximately half at any given time. Now since the Earth rotates (as i spin the orange)... Intern: So wait. Hold on. So you're saying the Earth is round? I wish i was joking.

#2

"If you're an atheist, why don't you go around killing people?" I'm worried now that there are people out there who would just casually [end], but don't because they're scared of h**l.

#3

Why are you spying on me? I was working in a call center for Dish Network and a guy called in, very upset. He wanted to know why Dish Network was spying on him. I tried to let him know that we were not in fact spying on him. Which he countered with, "if you are not spying on me then why is there a camera in the [darn] box?" "Sir, a camera? There is no camera in the receiver" I respond. "Yes there is" he screams "I know there is because I can see everything happening in my room on the TV right now." I sat there and pondered that statement, trying to figure out what was happening. I asked, "sir, is your TV off right now?" In the background I hear the clear sound of a TV being turned on. I then said, "sir, that is called a reflection. Is there anything else I can help you with?" He hung up.

#4

Why do we need farmers when we have supermarkets. Heard this in real life and blew my mind

#5

Before I got married my doctor asked me... Doctor: Are you sexually active? Me: yes Doctor: Are you married? Me: no Doctor: Then how can you be sexually active?

#6

I used to be a tour guide in a cave and one summer we had a running contest among the guides to see who could get the dumbest question. Keep in mind, we only accepted questions from adults for entry into the contest. Some of the finalists were: "Is this cave underground?" "Will the stalagmites bite me?" "Are the steps natural?" "What time is the 4.30 tour?" And the winner: "Does the water go all the way around the island?"

#7

Are you sure that's how you spell your name

#8

one of my best friends came to visit me in the hospital when i had my baby. i was laying there with my newborn and there was a banana on a tray next to the bed. he asked, “has he had lunch yet? is that for him?” everyone in the room just cackled so hard that i almost felt bad

#9

I'm half Inuit. In 6th grade I did a social studies project on Inuit people/lifestyles. During my presentation, I brought up the fact that I'm half Inuit and pointed out different things my grandmother was teaching me. A boy in the class the goes "how can you be an indian?? I thought they were like.. extinct"

#10

Someone asked me why I have a dark skinned baby if I'm white and couldn't comprehend how it is possible that my daughter is mixed race

#11

Was in a maternity class with my wife. One of the husbands was an endless source of amazing comments. My favorite was while on the topic of breastfeeding. “So do you just poke holes in them or what?” There was a very long, very shocked pause from the instructor before she explained it to him.

#12

"Do you work here?" No, ma'am, I just... felt like stealing a work vest and working this shoe pallet for giggles.

#13

"What's that yellow stuff?" Fire. It was fire.

#14

Is the blue part on a map the sky or the water?

#15

Repairing the scanner scale at a grocery store. I have the scale out of the checkstand, on it's side, bottom removed from the scale, one of the circuit boards removed from the scale and placed on the conveyor belt, I have JUST removed the board that the spinner part connects to (that spinning mirror thing in the bottom of the scanner scale), and someone walks up to the checkstand, places items onto the conveyor and asks "Are you open?" I should be allowed to throw things at people this dumb.

#16

Working on a tourist sightseeing boat on the ocean in Alaska. Person asks me what elevation we are at. I look down at the ocean and back to them and say, about 10 feet

#17

“Who is the man and who is the woman”in regards to a relationship between two gay men.

#18

Holding my cat while outside. “Is that a cat?” “Why yes, yes it is”

#19

I had the neighbors by for a quick chat a few years ago, and we happened to be standing by our goat pen, we had three at the time. For whatever reason, people don't really see goats as pets, and I'm often asked about their purpose, are they meat, etc. Well, this guy asked if I milked them. I explained that they're all retired breeding males. He followed that up by asking again if we milk them, and was so affronted by the look I could not help giving him that he left in a huff. I didn't mean to be rude, but I definitely looked at him as if he were an idiot and he was smart enough, at least, to figure that out.

#20

I was having a disagreement with a customer in the workplace. At one point she said “why would I be arguing with you if I was wrong?”. I mean….what do you say after that?

#21

When people notice one of my tattoos "You know they are permanent Right?" Like s*** I had no idea, if only I had known you before I got it

#22

Context I’m a lesbian: So do you like get turned on looking in a mirror?

#23

In retail "Where is the paint in this stupid store? I was sent down here and they lied! " "Right behind you (literally dozens of paint cans 8 feet behind her) " "No they're not!" I walk past her and put my hand on the can, took her a good 10 seconds of ranting to accept the paint was infact there.

#24

"Where does wood come from?" This person was 19

#25

This is second hand from a diving guide in Bermuda: "how far do you have to dive to get under the island?"

#26

What can I take for internal bleeding? Answer: Hospital man. We’re just a f****** pharmacy, not a trauma unit.

#27

I have been asked and witnessed stupid questions but I am struggling to think of a good gem. All I can remember is, "how does the paper get to the other fax machine?" I tried explaining fax machines merely scan a copy and the image travels through wires and it prints a copy but they weren't getting it. Another one, a girl was offering me soy sauce and I reminded her I am allergic to soy. "Oh. There's soy in soy sauce?"

#28

“Do the chicken lettuce wraps have chicken in them?”

#29

A friend of a friend found out during a party that I was serving in the US Army Reserve asked me if I had ever killed anyone. Sigh No, I'm not combat arms and I've never even deployed. Seriously stop asking ANY service member this stupid [butt] question unless you want a stupid [butt] answer back.

#30

Once my mom had to have part of a lung removed due to cancer. Afterwards, the doctor showed us the imaging that showed the remaining cancer spread through the rest of her lungs, which we already knew about. My dad asked him why they didn't remove all of her lungs.

#31

“What was it like to grow up in a third world country?” My step grandmother the first time I met her after moving to the the US from Canada...

#32

”Why don’t they schedule New Year’s Eve so that it’ll always be on a Monday?”

#33

"Continents would float away if they weren't anchored down, right?" Edit: This was asked by an 18 y/o girl in a top-level secondary school.

#34

Is Thailand in alaska.

#35

How my son was conceived. I'm in a wheelchair.

#36

I worked at an ice cream store and someone came in, looked at the ice cream cone I was handing to someone then looked at me and asked "what kind of soups do you have"

#37

“Is that your baby?” I was breastfeeding at the time.

#38

Why does apple juice taste like apples?

#39

A lady asked if the bubble lights on the Christmas tree were "filled with colored champagne."

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Clever Life Hacks People Have Added To Their Daily Routines

Asli Akalin — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:00:04 +0000

The internet is great for a lot of things. From looking at endless cat pics during your coffee breaks to finding some heartwarming stories to keep your spirits up during difficult times. However, one thing that we truly love the internet for is its role in educating us while entertaining us.

Reddit user u/Accomplished-Rough36 asked their fellow r/AskReddit users to share the life hacks that they loved so much, that they integrated them into their daily routines. And the answers were eye-opening, touching on a bit of everything.

We know that we’ll be ‘borrowing’ a few of these hacks, for sure. Scroll down, upvote the responses that caught your attention the most, and let us know in the comments which of these life hacks you think are the most useful, dear Pandas. Oh, and if you’ve got any of your own daily hacks to share with us, you can do so in the comments.

Bored Panda reached out to Steven Wooding, a member of the Institute of Physics in the UK and part of the Omni Calculator Project, having helped create the Weird Units Converter.

He told us about the pros of life hacks as a way of sharing information. "I'm a fan of distilling information down to its core essential components. An idea made simple will be quickly understood by more people and then shared," he said that simplicity and brevity are very useful tools when it comes to reaching more people. "If the life hack really helps someone in their daily life, that also increases the sharing, reaching a broader audience."

Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.

#1

Saying "thank you" instead of apologizing for things that dont need apologies. I'm a chronic apologizer and it's helped a lot. For example, if I have a bad day and vent to my husband, instead of saying "sorry for venting and bringing down the mood" I'll say "thank you for listening and being supportive." It puts a much more appreciative and positive light on your relationships!

However, Steven suggested that people should actually verify what works and what doesn't instead of trusting advice on the internet blindly. "Absolutely always test if the life hack actually works. Ideally, it would be best to do this before getting excited about the new idea and sharing it with your friends," he told Bored Panda.

He also noted that everyone should be a bit skeptical with any new idea that they come across.

#2

The second I walk into my house when I'm done for the day, I go straight to my room and change into my comfy/ugly clothes. Now all of my good clothes last 3x longer.

#3

You dont have to follow the rules. Doing half the dishes is better than doing none. Having a clean hamper and a dirty hamper is completely acceptable. Nobody said the socks in your drawer had to be paired up, either. Focus on one thing in general and apply it to the whole house that day, like just do floors or surfaces. There's nothing wrong with your kids being bored sometimes, that's their problem. Let them figure it out, but don't limit what they're able to do. You don't have to "pick" what to have for dinner every night, we rotate through staples every week. If we get bored, we just eat what we feel like. Nothing wrong with a bowl of cereal and a sandwich for dinner, as long as everyone's fed and the rest of the day wasn't j***.

Steven gave some tips on evaluating new info and life hacks as you become aware of them. "Can you see how it would work based on your existing knowledge? If it's in a field you know nothing about, do some basic research in that area," he said.

"Another good option is to look for independent sources of the information (though it can be difficult as news sites tend to reflect each other). However, in the end, your best bet is to test the life hack and see if it works for you"

#4

not quite literally daily, but everytime it comes up, I say to myself "righty tighty lefty loosey". Even if english is not my primary language lol

#5

I stopped doing any kind of work in my dorm room at college and only did it at the libraries. Not only did I become way more productive, but I enjoyed being in my room a lot more. It’s way more comfortable (and easier) to fall asleep when you’ve taken a 15 minute walk home then when you’ve been working at your desk in the same room for 4 hours.

#6

Posting this too late for anyone to see, but I brush my teeth as part of my daughter's bedtime routine. This keeps me from snacking late at night since my teeth already feel clean and I don't want to mess them up before bed. I've lost about 5" from my waist, and it keeps me accountable to brush my teeth before I'm too tired to care.

Previously, Bored Panda spoke about house cleaning and chore life hacks with parenting blogger Samantha Scroggin. She told us all about how to keep on top of things when you have a family and kids.

"Keeping the house clean is a moving target in my experience. But for me personally, an at least somewhat clean house is tremendously important to my mental health," she said.

"A tidy house helps me feel more in control of my life, and able to handle the curveballs that often come our way as busy parents,” Samantha told Bored Panda.

#7

Washing dishes while cooking. Now it’s at a point where I just do it because I want a clean kitchen.

#8

Getting all the sleep I need. I noticed a while back how literally everything is better when I am well rested and I don't care if people make fun of me for sleeping 9h every night. I have never pulled an all nighter in college and when I do hikes that start really early I just go to bed for the night in the late afternoon the day before and still get my sleep. Nothing standing between me and my bed lol

#9

Preparing/getting stuff ready the night before. For example: Getting my shoes and putting them by the front of the door Packing my backpack with all the things I'll need for that day Getting my underwear, shirt, pants, etc. out and folding them in a pile Packing lunch(es) for that day No more running around in the mornings looking for stuff on a time crunch! It’s become so much less stressful when I know where everything is and I can just get everything (on) and leave.

The parenting blogger said that she keeps small mental task lists every single day. "The tasks could be as simple as emptying the dishwasher or putting away a load of laundry. Maybe most importantly, I invest in a professional housekeeping service once a month," she revealed.

"That helps keep the house in a manageable state to the point that I can keep the house from getting totally out of control in-between visits. That said, I think parenting comes with a certain degree of clutter to be expected."

#10

I flip my pill bottles after taking them so I remember if I took them or not. really helps if you take the same pill in morning and at night.

#11

My alarm clock is across the room, requiring me to get out of bed to turn it off. Prevents me from falling back asleep.

#12

Every time I leave a room I spend less than thirty seconds tidying or doing one task. Pickup a pillow off the floor. Return a glass to the kitchen. Going to the bathroom, carry up some laundry. Literally every time I leave a room. It’s such a habit now that I don’t even think about it but I do notice that my home is always tidy. I also have a home for everything in my house. I literally never lose anything. You have to take a step back occasionally and think about the location of things logically. When an item is very economical to buy, I own multiples for sake of ease. Scissors in the kitchen, office and bathroom. Makes life easier and saves so much time. The flip side of that is always storing like things in one location. Batteries, no matter the type all in one location with battery chargers. I never throw them in a random drawer.

For Samantha, a happy and warm home should have kindness as the core family value. "My house is always a little bit chaotic because we all have big personalities and are a loud and busy bunch. But I stress to my kids the importance of us being kind to one another. Kindness and love are at the root of a happy home for me, even when things get crazy and we slip up and say things we don't mean,” she said.

#13

If you have long hair, brush it before you get into the shower. It really reduces the amount of hair in the drain, and it makes it easier to shampoo and condition more thoroughly.

#14

If it takes less than a minute, just do it

#15

Making my bed and straightening my room every morning. It started when I was trying to cope with major depression. Good tool.

#16

Drink. Water. It's something so simple yet so often ignored. Yeah, it can get annoying at times. I never really want to get up at 3:30am to [urinate]. I don't really want to have to stop on, say, a six-hour drive because I have to pee. But, staying well hydrated helps me feel better, look better, rest better (yeah, there's the 3:30am [urinate], but that's after three hours of sleep. I didn't toss and turn for three hours before then,) etc. And it will help you live longer. Your organs will thank you.

#17

Make a list. I have severe anxiety, and I used to stress all day about all the things I need to do. Making a list gives you an easy way to keep track of your accomplishments, but more importantly, it just gets all of that out of your head. I don’t need to keep going over what I need to do today because it’s all on the board in front of me. Then I can choose the thing I feel like I can handle at the moment and keep checking things off little by little.

#18

I bought 24 pairs of the same socks and threw the rest of miss matching ones away. I have a couple “winter socks” and that’s it.

#19

Empathizing with someone when they're angry. This has saved me countless times in my customer service career.

#20

“Don’t put it down, put it away” Edit: thanks for the awards and badges etc everyone! I truly don’t know what they mean but appreciate it lol. A lot of ppl here saying “please tell my wife” or “please tell my husband”; Funny enough, my WIFE is the one that made me live by this. She saw it on an ADHD subreddit she frequents (to get a better idea of what goes on in my head lol). She’s an amazing person. Thanks again everyone.

#21

If you have to put something down for a bit, like say your phone or glass of water, say out loud, "I'm putting this ____ here." I guess that by doing that you engage different parts of you brain and makes it more likely for you to remember where you put something when you need it again.

#22

If I'm feeling depressed I just tell myself " I'm depressed for now." It helps me look forward to when I'm not feeling down.

#23

Drinking one cup of water for every two alcoholic beverages. I keep a bottle of water by my bedside before I go to bed. When I wake up to go pee I chug as much as I can and pass back out. End up with far less of a hangover

#24

Thinking of different scenarios for bad drivers. If there’s a truck going 90mph on the highway and weaving through lanes without a turn signal, I just imagine that he’s on the verge of c******* his pants and that’s why he’s in a rush. I find it funny and usually improves my mood.

#25

Don’t yuck someone’s yum. Try out their flavor of food once

#26

The chef who taught me to cook said at the get go, 90% of cooking is cleaning

#27

Shopping a list. Putting things on a list when they need to be replaced and the sticking to the list when I go shopping. It's probably saved me many thousands of dollars by now.

#28

Minding my own business.

#29

Getting out of bed immediately when the alarm goes off.

#30

Deep stretching right before bed or right when waking up. makes a world of difference

#31

Glass of water in the microwave to cook food that isn't already frozen. Works really well with things like pasta that you want to reheat and not get that really bad rubberized texture. The temp of the water is also usually a good tell on how hot your food is, so you don't need to go and taste it cold.

#32

That moment trick from Deadpool. I have a bad temper, not going to lie. It felt uncontrollable for a while, but it was just because I was always so quick to react. Like as a kid, if my brother said something that rubbed me the wrong way, the next moment, I was trying to fight my brother without even thinking. Now, if something [go away] me off, I catch myself and think about why that thing [angry] me off. 9 times out of 10, I'm just being dumb and allowing something dumb to upset me. This helps a lot if you rage in video games. Most of the time if you're raging in a game at someone on your team, you're the problem.

#33

Resting my feet on a small booster stool for optimal pooing position

#34

Carrying a bag with me that folds into a tiny thing. I love it and people always smile at it when I say i don't need a bag at the store

#35

When I'm trying to sleep in bed at night I go over what I did that day and think of everything I did in a positive light or as if it's part of a goal I'm working towards. I've never been depressed (or at least diagnosed with it!) but this helps feeling like I've accomplished something and I can feel better about what I've done. Celebrate every little thing you did, and also it helps me fall asleep a little bit faster too.

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