Today I Fucked Up

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r/TIFU means Today I Fucked Up.

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51
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/not_your_sister_ on 2025-08-07 12:41:30+00:00.


For backstory, I got my ears pierced for the first time around 2009. I haven't had any trouble with those piercings. So more recently, I think in early 2024, I got my 2nd ear piercings on both sides, so just behind the first ones. They didn't really get infected and healed well. A little more backstory, I was using box dye to colour my hair a couple of days ago, and took out all earrings to avoid infections. The fuck up happened about 20 minutes ago. I had cleaned my earrings and the piercings and knew I needed to put them all back in so they didn't close up. First 3 earrings and holes went fine, no problem. Then came the second one on my right. I got the stud about halfway in when I figured I might have to re-pierce towards the back of the hole. So I used a bit more force to follow it through. The earring followed a path, I thought, so it would be fine. Of course, I was wrong. My ear suddenly started stinging more than it hurts when you've just gotten it pierced with a gun. My ear was suddenly quite inflamed and really red. I asked my dad to take a look at my ear and he informed me that the front was fine, but the back of the earring was coming out about 4mm away from the hole. Holy shit. I took it out right away and it has bled quite a lot.

TL;DR: I accidentally pierced my ear and now have a risk of infection.

52
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Face_Of_Blue on 2025-08-05 14:19:35+00:00.


Earlier this year I decided it was time for me to finally get my first tattoo, and in a bit of a rush I booked an appointment with the first tattoo artist whose work really spoke to me. Honestly I was not in a good mindset to be getting this done but that's a different story. I saw someone say you should tell your artist if you have a budget, and in hindsight that's probably more for if you're penny pinching and just cannot afford too much at the time. I'm just slightly thrifty, but also new to the tattoo scene. I know now that you don't typically offer a budget, you just ask for the quote and let them tell you. Anyway, I was getting my tattoo in a large city, saw that rates in the largest cities can go up to $350/hr, and did the math for how long I thought my design would take. So I told the artist my budget was $3,000, and they said they'd do it for $3,200. Yes, I fell for the whole "gee it's only $200 over" bit, not the brightest crayon in the box. I realize now they saw how much I was willing to pay and ran with it. Of course they're not going to tell me "we actually charge only half as much thanks though." I did the math, and for the time spent I realized that I had essentially paid this man $500/hr. Yeah yeah I know, you don't cheap out on tattoos, you pay for quality, art is subjective and as such so is its worth, I get it. But this was not a big celebrity artist, I didn't get hyperrealism or complex stippling etc. It was black and grey linework with minimal shading, almost 3/4 sleeve on the top side of the arm only. He is relatively well-known in parts of the world, but not enough to be making $500/hr. Obviously I could afford it, and offered the price myself. But I was naively offering what I thought was typical, and I wouldn't have offered as much if I'd known it wasn't the normal range for something like this. Oh well. You live and you learn, I guess.

EDIT: I knew the price was pretty high going in, and I understood this was a unique artist with a large following coming to an expensive city. I started questioning whether I overpaid because when I told people the price they looked shock. You can look and judge for yourself if it seems worth the tag: Tattoo by Fredao Oliveira.

TL;DR: I told the artist my budget was $3k and he ran with it. Realized later that may not have been the typical price.

53
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/These_Avocado_Bombs on 2025-08-06 22:22:50+00:00.


I am a ghost white lady unless I get frequent sunlight. Only recently has my body learned to tan. Most of my life it was burnt red right back to white.

I fucked up by not paying attention enough to where the sunscreen was going, maybe not applying it liberally enough? Maybe I just need shorter periods in the sun to work up to a beach day...

I generally wear jeans all day for work. I got no pigment of my own. Sigh.

We were at the beach for less than four hours and I applied it four times!

But alas I am a uneven, patchy burnt girly. My toes are even half burnt and swollen for some reason.

Never again! I will buy the rub in lotion kind and apply it like my life depends on the barrier being perfection!

TL;DR I was inconsistent with applying sunscreen and am a patchy lobster now because of it.

54
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/SL1PTedit on 2025-08-06 21:13:29+00:00.


Hello! :) First time posting here, so here goes nothing. Pictures can be found here.

This happened about 2 years ago when me (25 M) and my girlfriend at the time (21 F) decided to do a small trip to the south of Portugal and go to a water-slide park. The plan was to drive there on a Saturday at night, go to the water-slide park on Sunday morning and drive back in the afternoon.

For context, on Saturday we had quite a busy and tiring day: we went to have lunch with her folks (it was a 1h drive from where I live), spend the rest of afternoon with my friends, had dinner with them and only left at about 10pm. From here to the south of Portugal it's about a 3h drive, so needless to say we arrived very late.

This is where the "fun" begins: when we got there, the receptionist was either high or they spent the previous night rearranging their letter-spaghetti bowl in alphabetic order... hard to tell. After a very tedious conversation, they finally managed to confirm our reservation and we made our way to our room. I booked the cheapest room for 2 people (which wasn't cheap at all :') ), so we were surprised to see it had *drum roll please* a bath with a hydro-massage system! Just what we needed after a tiring day.

Like any other hotel, they had those little bottles with soap, quite a few of them actually (about 6), and my ex asked me how many we should put in: "one, two or three?". Now, I don't know about you but if I pay for a service, I'll use everything I paid for (like Ross from Friends), soap bottles included. Thus, without a second thought, I told her "all of them!". We started filling up the tub and dropped the soap bottles in there and my genius of an ex-girlfriend (hence the "ex") suggested we should put really hot water, because by the time we get in, it would've cooled down and it would be at the right temperature. My naive brain didn't think twice and went along with it.

While we waited for it to fill up, we were really curious as to how the hydro-massage function worked, because there were two inputs: a tactile button and a knob. I pressed the button and voilà: it started working, with a very distinct "BRRRRRRRRRR" sound. We noticed the bubbles started growing too quickly, so we decided to shut it off until we got in. I pressed to button to shut it off.... except it didn't. Tried two times... three times... nothing. We mildly panicked but we thought it shouldn't be that big of a problem.... right?

Two minutes later, the tower of bubbles reached the height of my waist. The water and soap were growing unlike my will to live and the tactile button was neither tactile or even a button for that matter - just a trap we fell into. I tried turning the knob but it just came off and wasn't attached to anything (the person who installed this has a wicked sense of humor). We thought about turning the water off, but as soon as I put my foot in the tub it feels like I stepped into the surface of the sun, which turned my foot bright red for the rest of the night, because someone had a bright idea earlier. There was a glass wall next to the faucet so we couldn't reach it without getting in. My ex gave it a go and managed to close the tap. The hydro-massage system kept going and the bubbles, however, did not seem to stop growing anyway.

We were laughing loudly during the entire process, so much the neighbors started slamming the walls (sorry!), but we couldn't help it. We tried transferring the bubbles to the sink and bidet, which worked until they were full of bubbles too. We had no more ideas, so I just got dressed and went down to the reception to ask for help.

I didn't want to get kicked out of the hotel, so I didn't want to make a big deal out of it when I explained the situation. Remember the receptionist I told about earlier? Well, when I asked to speak with them, they replied another couple was checking and told me to wait, as they moved and talked in slow-mo, sloth-like. I was screaming inside, panicking, but the nonchalant look on my face didn't give it away. Finally, I explained the situation to them and another person came upstairs to look at the... uhm... "slightly" troublesome situation.

As soon as they opened the door, well, they started laughing. The bubbles had spread all the way into the bedroom while the bathtub had a waterfall of bubbles coming down from the inside of it into the ground. The man managed to open the electric panel, turned off the electricity and gave us some towels to try and pick up mess, since the cleaning crew would only come in the morning. Although we were very tired, not taking a bath wasn't an option so we cleaned it up. it was already about 5 a.m. when we finally managed to take a bath.

We went to the water-park the day after, I got sick and we came back to my house quite early. Was it worth it? I dunno if I can recommend a bubble bath like this one but amidst the chaos and pain from the long day, it was one of the funniest nights I've ever had.

Feel free to leave a question!

TL;DR: Had a long day with ex-gf, went to hotel with her, wanted to take a bath in a tub with hydro-massage, put too much soap, many bubbles started to appear, hydro-massage wouldn't turn off which made even more bubbles, hotel man came to the rescue, we cleaned it up, took a bath at 5 am, went to the water-park the next morning, got sick and came back home early.

EDIT: added the useless knob, just like its brother, the button

55
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/BrittNaby on 2025-08-06 20:15:50+00:00.


Today, running on maybe three hours of broken sleep thanks to a teething baby and a toddler who thinks 4 a.m. is morning, I dropped my daughter off at preschool. I hadn’t brushed my hair, I was wearing coffee-stained leggings, and I was barely functional.

As I handed off my toddler, her teacher smiled kindly and handed me the travel mug I’d left behind last week. It felt like an act of divine mercy. Without thinking, I mean truly without a single brain cell firing, I looked her straight in the eye and said: “Thanks… I love you.”

She paused, then smiled and said, “Aww, I love you too, sweetie,” like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Then I got in my car, shut the door, and screamed into the steering wheel.

Motherhood is humbling.

TL;DR: I told my kids teacher that I love them!

56
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/ferretf on 2025-08-06 16:57:23+00:00.


So this FU starts a few weeks ago but it only came to light this past Sunday.

I decided to check out a local river to see if anything was biting. My son had gone fishing for panfish recently and had some worms leftover. I figured I would give worms a shot to see what happens (normally I strictly use lures as I find it more of a challenge).

Got to the river and fished for several hours. At the end I packed up all my stuff and headed home. When I got home, I thought that I had left the container of worms at the river. Figured I'd go back the next day and retrieve them even if it's just throwing away the container (I HATE litter and will not be a part of it!). Headed back the next evening and they were gone. Figured someone picked them up and used/disposed of them. Problem solved right? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Over the last couple of weeks, I was noticing a bad smell in my garage near where I store my gear but couldn't figure out what it was. You can probably see where this is going but my brain didn't connect anything until last Sunday when I grabbed my gear to go fishing again. As soon as the bag came down I realized what I had done. I had put the worms in the top of my bag to bring home and completely forgot. They died and rotted in there and stunk up my tackle bag pretty good. Even the stuff in the bag stinks. I was out on my kayak on Sunday with the putrid smell of death from my gear following me across the lake!

I've now had my bag and gear out in the sun since Sunday and it STILL smells!

TL;DR Left a container of worms in my tackle bag which died, rotted and left my gear with a horrible stench!

57
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/superjosh420 on 2025-08-06 05:03:21+00:00.


I was doing yard work and had a huge burn pile after it. I usually use diesel as an accelerant for my brush piles but I was out of diesel and figured if I was careful it would be fine to just use regular gasoline.

I poured about 1/4 gallon on there and grabbed a little dab torch.

Here’s where things went awry. I got a small bit set on fire and turned around to move away. That’s when the boom happened. I was basically engulfed in flame. My legs got the worst of it. But my entire right side is burned all the way to my head.

I stopped, dropped, and rolled. Skin was falling off my calf muscles as I stood up.

Ambulance took me to the helipad and took me to medical city Plano burn unit. I have these special things stapled into my legs now and we are about to do 6 skin grafts

TLDR: I set myself on fire and my legs are fucked now

58
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/jerryinva on 2025-08-06 02:20:10+00:00.


I’ve known her since we were in elementary school.

When I was living in another part of the state, we talked a few times on the phone. Then we just didn’t talk for a few years. We were Facebook friends, but really didn’t interact. She called me drunk the other night, and we had a hour conversation. After she hung up, I texted her and told her voice was sexy as hell. She said “yours too.” Then I told her by text, “I’ve always wanted you, but I was too much of f**king nerd to do anything about it.” Since then, silence. I even texted her tonight, asked if I said too much and apologized. No response. I’ve made this kind of mistake once before in my life, but I was much younger, and I thought much less wise.

Honestly, I’m no good at this. This isn’t the first time I’ve said the wrong thing to a woman. No wonder I’m still single.

TL;DR thought we connected, told her how I felt. Now silence.

59
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Relaxocet on 2025-08-05 21:37:46+00:00.


Let me start by saying I am terrible at judging my own physical health. I never recognize the level of illness I suffer, partly because I am retired military and only the "sick, lame and lazy" seek medical treatment and the mindset that pain is a sign you are still alive,

I have a type of blood cancer called Amyloidosis. I have been under treatment for a year and a half and will be doing chemotherapy for the rest of my life. I am fortunate in that the biggest side effect I suffer is fatigue. I also have COPD which has never affected me, it seemed a remote worry.

I am considered immuno-compromised and am careful about washing my hands and lately I have been wearing a mask when I expect to be in proximity to crowds. I have never been overly cautious in general and am taken by surprise by illness. My cancer makes my blood produce too many proteins which then lodge in organs. In my case they are affecting my heart, specifically my left ventricle which is like a crusty old baseball mitt, thickened and cannot function as needed instead of being a flexible, smooth muscle.

The fuck up begins with having a three year old grandchild visit on Saturday, two weeks ago, she had quite an impressive cough which alarmed me for her, I didn't think of how it may affect me. That very night, I awoke with post nasal drip and thought nothing much of it.

Over the course of the week I developed congestion, a cough and felt worse day by day. What is important was another granddaughter's first birthday on the Friday following the visit I mentioned earlier, This birthday was a family event, I would have four children, their wives husbands and six grandchildren in attendance. Every one was camping together in a multi family site with its own beach.

It was extremely important for me to attend this event, Friday was the first birthday of Evelyn whose Mom is my step daughter. I have been in Mom's life since she was 12 or so, and she had resisted allowing me to be the father I wanted to be to her, although I think we are over that. This made me determined however to attend her birthday, Her blood grandfather said he couldn't get time off work to attend, but manages multiple trips to Disneyland, Vegas and Palm Springs yearly.

I live 12 hours and a ferry ride away from where the party was. Feeling like crap, I traveled with another of my daughters and had her drive the entire distance. She tells me now, she didn't think I was going to be alive to make a return trip home. I thought I just needed rest,

We arrive Thursday evening, meet up with my wife who was on a business trip and travelling separately, She is alarmed at how I look, feel and breathe. I insist I'll be fine. By Friday morning, 4 AM or so, I cry uncle and consent to going to the ER.

They admit me, start me on IV antibiotics. Over the weekend I begin to feel better, I am wearing a monitor with six leads tracking my heart, getting an EKG twice a day, blood tests twice a day, had a chest x-ray.

Then Afib (atrial fibrillation) begins. Monday morning the doctors decide to do a cardioversion on me. I had never heard of this, they put you out and use electrical shock to stop the fibrillation. Sweet Propofol slumber ensues while they do the procedure. I go under while they apply a mask to my face. At some point they put an airway in my mouth, I awake, tasting blood with an ice pack on my lips.

My skin is fragile, I bruise easily. When they removed the airway, both my upper and lower lips were torn, I ingested and inhaled blood. So for the next four days I hack out clots of blood, first bright red, then darker red, gradually going to brown and then to normal phlegm colour. I of course am not going to be released from the hospital, which was the original plan.

Finally Tuesday I convince the doctors to release me in time to get a ferry home that won't put me arriving at midnight.

Bottom line is I was so determined to attend this birthday I might have risked my life to do it. I spent four days in the hospital instead of celebrating with my children, their spouses and my grandchildren.

TL;DR: Ignoring good judgement possessed by the majority of humankind, I travelled to attend a party and instead spent four days in hospital while my loved ones thought I was dying.

60
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/ShotokanZH on 2025-08-05 20:55:42+00:00.


Everything I'm about to write is true. For months, several people have told me I absolutely had to write this story down, so today, I finally decided to do it.

Technically, this isn't a "Today I Fucked Up," it's more of a "Last October I Fucked Up," but I hope you'll forgive me. This might not be the perfect subreddit, but honestly, I had no idea where else to post a story this long and bizarre. I'll try to be as precise as possible with the context. Let's begin.

After dreaming of visiting Japan for years, last year I finally bought the tickets, booked my vacation months in advance, and started planning the trip of a lifetime.

I arrived in Milan the night before our departure (October 16th). To celebrate, I took two of my three friends (the third was at a concert) to a Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant. The idea was to see how the best Japanese food back home compared to the real deal. After dinner, we returned to an incredibly noisy B&B and barely slept a wink.

The next morning, running on fumes, we got to the airport four hours early and calmly boarded flight CA950 from Milan to Beijing. The flight was uneventful. The layover in Beijing, however, was not. The atmosphere was incredibly tense. A Chinese security officer started screaming at me because he thought I had something suspicious in my pocket. It was a candy wrapper.

After clearing security, we finally made it to our gate and boarded the next flight, CA925, to Tokyo. That flight was also smooth, and finally, after about 18 hours of travel, we landed at Narita Airport around 1:40 PM local time on October 18th.

We made our way to our hotel in Shibuya to drop off our bags and take a shower. I was completely wiped out from the long journey and the lack of sleep. I suggested we meet up for dinner later to get a few hours of rest, but my friends protested: "No! We're in Japan! Let's go for a walk right now!" Fine. Apparently, I'm an old man on the inside. I agreed, and an hour later, I found myself wandering through Shibuya with nearly 36 hours of sleep debt weighing me down.

We met up with a friend who had moved to Japan years ago. She acted as our guide, showing us around the area. We had dinner at a local spot where, as she put it, "gaijin don't usually go," and everything was absolutely incredible.

After dinner, we decided to grab a drink. Our friend took us to a bar tucked away on a Shibuya side street, packed with locals drinking and dancing. I had a couple of Gin & Tonics, which were mostly ice, and I danced enough that I felt pretty sober, but I was still seriously messed up from the exhaustion. At one point, I managed to de-escalate a fight between two huge Russian guys who were about to come to blows, and I even ended up making friends with them. (I'm a 100kg powerlifter, so I'm not a small guy. This detail will be relevant later.)

We left the bar, and since it was late (around 1:30 AM), our friend decided to take a taxi home. Our hotel was relatively close, so we planned to walk.

As she was saying goodbye, I glanced up at the building across the street and saw a strange, "ghostly" figure staring at me from one of the upper floors. To this day, I'm not sure what it was—I assume it was just a creepy mannequin, but it was unsettling. (I have photos if you want to see it)

I turned to look at the street and saw a taxi stopped at the intersection on the other side. Our friend had mentioned that finding a taxi in that area at that hour was tough, so we decided to make a dash for it. The street was deserted. The pedestrian light was still red, but it was on its last sliver—the traffic light for cars was already red.

We looked left and right and, in true Beatles fashion, started crossing the street. My friend, who was right behind me, heard a strange noise. Neither I nor my other friend saw anything, but he screamed, "WATCH OUT!" Not knowing what was happening, I tried to sprint forward, as I was only about half a meter from the other side.

I never made it.

The world started spinning. In my head, I saw the city lights rotating as if I were inside a washing machine. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground. I had no idea what had happened, but I pushed myself up into a sitting position with my left arm. I felt no pain, no discomfort, just confusion. I saw pieces of a motorcycle's bodywork scattered around me.

My friend rushed over to check on me. As I tried to make sense of it all, I realized that when I tried to move my left leg, only the top part of my femur moved. The rest of my leg stayed put. Broken leg? Yep.

I started to feel a dull ache in the arm I was using to prop myself up. Something was probably broken there, too. I switched to my other arm and looked at my left side. I didn't see anything unusual, but I felt a sharp pain around my collarbone. Broken clavicle? Yep. My hand was also bleeding heavily from a deep gash between my middle and ring fingers, likely from where I hit the motorcycle.

That's right. I had been hit by a black motorcycle that, according to my friend and other bystanders, was traveling at around 70 km/h (45 mph) at night with its headlights off. (Or at least, no one saw them, and they were off when the bike was on the ground. It's still unclear.)

I immediately asked how the rider was. At first, no one answered. A minute later, they told me he had been knocked unconscious by the impact but had come to almost immediately and was okay. His bike, an 800cc Yamaha, was destroyed.

A passerby called an ambulance, which arrived within minutes. The paramedics loaded me in. Thankfully, they understood some English, but my friend was able to translate in japanese anyway what had happened and explain my condition. A police officer arrived shortly after, got into the ambulance, and asked me what happened. He asked if I had been drinking. I answered honestly: "One beer, two Gin & Tonics."

The officer stepped away and made a call. My friend overheard him tell the dispatcher: "A drunk gaijin caused an accident. He has insurance, he'll sort it out." My friends had to hold her back from screaming at him. No official report was filed. No statement was taken. When I got to the hospital, I realized the local police had simply made "the problem" disappear. The foreigner would deal with his insurance, and the local rider would deal with his bike.

At Shibuya Hospital, I was admitted to the emergency room. They ran full CT scans to assess the damage and stitched up my hand.

The diagnosis? A compound fracture of the femur and a compound fracture of theclavicle.

By now, it was the morning of October 19th. I sent two of my friends to continue their vacation while one stayed behind to help me, crashing at our local friend's place. The hospital scheduled my femur surgery for two days later, on Monday the 21st, and the clavicle surgery for the following week.

The nurses were incredibly sweet and tried to communicate with me using some kind of Asian translation app—not Google Translate. This one had K-Pop ads in the middle of the screen and translated everything horribly. One time, a nurse said something, and the app cut her off, translating it as "KELLY IS DRUNK," which sent my friend and me into a fit of laughter. Another hilarious quirk was that Japanese often omits the subject of a sentence, so the app always defaulted to "I." Phrases like "[I] have to take your pants off" became "I have to take MY pants off," which, I admit, made me smile. (I didn't realize it was that kind of hospital! /jk)

Monday arrived, and at 1:00 PM, they wheeled me into the operating room. Nine hours of surgery. Four bags of blood. A 38cm titanium rod, six screws, and a metal clamp to put my femur back together.

I came out of it at 10:00 PM, completely zonked out from the anesthesia, but by the next day, I was feeling generally okay. My foot, however, was paralyzed post-op—apparently, a nerve was being compressed by swelling. Thankfully, it started to move again a couple of days later, which was a huge relief.

The week after, the day before my clavicle surgery, they took me to the "shower room" to get washed. I could barely sit in a wheelchair, and my foot was screaming in pain—strangely, my leg didn't hurt much, but the shooting pains in my foot felt like fiery needles.

The nurse gestured for me to sit on a tiny stool that was probably the width of one of my thighs. I was barely perched on it. The room was just a hard floor with a bathtub in the middle. The nurse then motioned that she was going to remove the IV from my left arm. I pointed out that I had surgery the next day, but she insisted.

She yanked it out. Just pulled it straight out, without applying pressure or even putting a cotton ball over it. Blood went everywhere.

She panicked and just froze, holding the needle, murmuring "oh-oh..." as a red pool formed on the floor. I looked at her, saw she was still holding the spongy elastic netting that had kept the IV in place, took it from her hand, and pressed down hard on the wound to stop the bleeding myself. It worked. She looked at me and said, "Oh! Ok! Ok!" I just stared back, saying nothing. To make matters worse, while moving me from the bed to the wheelchair earlier, one of the two pieces of my broken clavicle had popped out of place and was now visibly protruding, completely locking my left arm.

The nurse proceeded to grab the showerhead, rinse me, and apply soap to my arms and legs and sham...


Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1mil4e4/tifu_by_being_sleepdeprived_in_japan_leading_to_a/

61
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/97987474 on 2025-08-05 16:00:14+00:00.


So I feel pretty damn guilty… but I think I might still ask her to pay. Need to know if I’m in the wrong.

This older woman hired me to water her garden. We agreed on 10 dollars per visit for 3 visits. She does live decently far. It took me about 30-40 minutes by bus to get there (unless I was already in the area.

She barely gave me any instructions so I watered the plants for around 20-30 mins per time.

She came home today and told me her garden looked horrible! Some of the plants dead, the grass super dry. Now she never mentioned watering the grass but I guess that’s common sense. I only started watering it on the 2nd visit.

So do I collect the 30$? Would that be immoral? My gut is telling me to soak it and forget the money. I need some common sense and moral guidance.

TL;DR: Killed woman’s garden who hired me should she still pay me for my time?

62
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/lolagemsbunny23 on 2025-08-05 15:13:41+00:00.


So I made a sandwich. Didn’t want to dirty a dish, so I was walking around eating it like a caveman. Then I suddenly had to pee worse than ever.

My brilliant idea? Shove the whole sandwich in my mouth so I wouldn’t have to eat while peeing because that feels gross and also avoid setting it on some random surface. So I’m sprinting to the bathroom with an entire sandwich crammed in my face.

Mid run, I start choking. Full on, can’t breathe, seeing the light choking. I make it to the bathroom, coughing like crazy, and the coughing is so hard that I pee. A lot.

Now I’m choking, peeing, and panicking all at once. Then, like some weird divine intervention, I slip in my own pee, slam the floor so hard that it knocks the sandwich out of my throat basically giving myself a DIY Heimlich via blunt force trauma.

So yeah. I’m alive. My dignity isn’t.

TL;DR Tried to avoid eating while peeing by stuffing a whole sandwich in my mouth, choked, peed, slipped in my pee, and accidentally saved my own life.

63
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/kate-ev on 2025-08-05 14:58:33+00:00.


(Fair warning: this involves something unexpectedly unpleasant)

While on holiday in Ireland, my friend and I stumbled upon a small, secluded beach - quiet, surrounded by cliffs, really beautiful. We'd brought lunch and were looking for a spot with a decent view of the sea.

At one end of the beach, there was a low pile of large stones, arranged in a way that practically invited you to climb up and get a better vantage point. So, naturally, I went for it.

The moment my boot landed on the first "stone", it gave way beneath me - not like stepping into sand, but something softer, unnatural. I froze and slowly looked down, caught between shock and the horror of that unexpected softness. Slowly, I saw the truth: this wasn’t a rock at all.

It was the head of a long-dead seal.

As I shifted my weight, small creatures began emerging from beneath my boot. I shouted, leapt back and spent several minutes running around the beach, trying to wash away what had just happened, as if rinsing my boot in the sea would somehow undo it all.

Needless to say, we didn’t have lunch there.

Since then, the whole thing's become something of a legend among friends. If I miss something obvious, I get: "You didn’t notice the seal, either." Accidentally touch something unexpectedly soft - an overripe bit of fruit, for example? "Proper seal moment." And any seal video or meme? Sent to me without fail. The puns are relentless.

Apparently, it's now the defining event of my life. Not quite what I had in mind - but fair enough, I suppose. And yes, I still hesitate before stepping on rocks.

TL;DR: Thought I was stepping onto a rock for a better view on a quiet Irish beach. Turned out to be a long-dead seal. Regret, running and relentless seal jokes ensued.

64
 
 
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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Affectionate_Bag1827 on 2025-08-05 10:11:01+00:00.


I'm staying out of town, and the place I'm staying in hasn't got the greatest sound insulation, and there is someone else directly through the wall. I can hear them watching TV. I could even hear them using an app I use, because I recognized the notification sounds.

Today I've had an little bit of an upset stomach from eating food I'm not used to, which well.. makes me a bit gassy. I've been trying to sneak out quiet toots ( blow offs, passing wind, letting one rip - you get it), because I was pretty sure my neighbor would hear any out loud ones.

I felt a good one brewing and tried to let it out without trumpeting its presence. Unfortunately, I failed. It was so loud and long it would have made a pattern on one of those cymatics sound resonance plates.

there was a short pause, and then..coming from the other side of the wall I heard what sounded like a very intentional, loooong toot, with a wee extra toot at the end.

I'm dying....

I f@#ked up, embarrassing myself by tooting so loudly my neighbor definitely heard. What am I going to do when I eventually get to meet them?

I didn't expect a sympathy toot. Or maybe it was a challenge? should I do one back...?

TLDR I announced my upset tummy to my Airbnb host by tooting so loud they heard me through the wall. But at least they did toot back.

65
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/tanglelover on 2025-08-04 21:20:53+00:00.


Sounds silly, right? How can one fuck up by just petting their dog?

Let me take you to last month. I was going to have dental surgery so I boarded my dog. This place in particular has fenced in acreage where dogs that are friendly can romp to their hearts content.

Well my dog spent 4 days there and had an absolute blast. He was playing and running around and having fun. He came back damp and covered in slobber, panting like he had the time of his life.

I noticed he was stinky and a bit dirty so I made a mental note to get him washed as I have dog allergies. Well life happened and I forgot to wash him. He's a border collie so most of the stink and nastiness just kinda rolled off him. They have a wash and wear coat.

Well today I was petting my dog absentmindedly as I was watching YouTube. I was sleep deprived while he was letting me pick some of his fluff out. I go to rub my eyes because I'm tired and sick. And within 5 minutes my eyes swell shut and they're runny and weepy.

I didn't connect the dots until after I took an antihistamine and the swelling went down. My dog was running around with labradors. I am allergic to dogs. Usually if I rub my eyes after petting him it's 5 minutes of discomfort and then it subsides. I am very allergic to labradors. Something in the oils that make their coats water-repellant sticks to a lot of stuff and causes me allergic reactions. My dog got slobbered on by labradors.

Tl;dr: TIFU by petting my dog, forgetting that he was running around with labradors and not washing him. My eyes burned so intensely I couldn't open them fully for 15 minutes until I took an antihistamine.

66
 
 
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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/-ShikariFerrari- on 2025-08-04 17:23:13+00:00.


Technically, it happened yesterday. But I found out today and it will probably haunt me forever.

My wife and I are currently trying for a baby. I love her a lot and am very attracted to her, but sometimes sex can feel like a bit of a chore when you’re trying to conceive. Last night was one of those times. This is where I fucked up…

Neither of us could really be bothered to do the deed, so I jokingly suggested booking her in for tomorrow instead. To carry on the joke, I sent her a calendar invite subject titled “Sex”, location “bedroom” and time from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. I expected her to see it, laugh it off, and that would be that.

That didn’t happen—and I forgot all about it.

I turned up to work today, and it turns out the reason my wife didn’t mention it is because I’d sent the invite to my boss instead. Who is also a man.

Luckily, I have a good relationship with him—he brought it up straight away, and I told him the reason why.

We both got a good laugh out of it, and so did my wife when I told her, so I guess the joke kind of worked… just not as intended.

TL;DR: sent a meeting invite for sex to my boss instead of my wife.

67
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Next-Wrap-7449 on 2025-08-04 10:27:55+00:00.


Last week, my wife, our 5-year-old son, and I went on our summer vacation - 6 days at the seaside, about 380 km (240 miles) from home. Since the our route go around my hometown, we decided to spend one evening with my parents before continuing to a small village by the sea.

On the way to my hometown, the car's AC stopped working, and it was around 38°C (~100°F) outside. My father called a friend who’s a mechanic, and he said, "No problem, come tomorrow morning, and we’ll fix it."

The next morning, we go to his shop. Four hours later, the AC is fixed, and we head out. But as we approach a large seaside city, the car starts overheating on the highway. I find a safe place to park and call my best friend - conveniently, he lives in that city and is a car mechanic.

He comes with his roadside assistance truck, tows us to his shop, and after inspection, says the car is too damaged to be usable...

He offers to drive us the remaining 80 km (~50 miles) to our final destination. Meanwhile, my wife calls her uncle. He offers to drive his old backup car to us, leave it for us to use, and take the train back (he's cool guy and he often makes such big favors without hesitation) - he's at work the next morning at 7 AM.

So my friend drives us to the village, then I go back to the big city to meet the uncle. He hands over the car and gets on the train. But then the train gets delayed by two hours - one hour of that is just sitting 15 km from his hometown due to an electrical failure on the tracks. He finally gets home at 3 AM, just in time for a nap before work.

The next day (Tuesday), we finally go to the beach (about 5 km / 2 miles from the village), and I notice... the brakes don’t work. I manage to stop using the handbrake and gear shifting, then limp the car back to our place.

I find a (very expensive) mechanic 20 km away. I call, and he says, "Yeah, drive it here in the morning." So I carefully crawl over there with minimal braking. The car is ready that afternoon.

The next three days were miraculously uneventful.

We return home at the end of the vacation, and I decide to move my wife’s small city car to make it easier to unload the luggage. But I can’t find the key. The car only has one key - which is always with me, since my wife doesn’t drive much.

I start panicking. I check Facebook (people here often post lost-and-found items), and the first post I see is... a photo of my car key. Found by the landlord of the vacation place 380 km away.

I call them, and they say they’ll send it by mail - no courier services in that village - which means it’ll take about 10 days to arrive. Meanwhile, I still have the uncle’s car and need to return it, so I’ll be relying on the incredibly unreliable intercity transport system.

So yeah the vacation was... eventful.

TL;DR:

Went on a beach vacation - car AC failed, engine overheated, got towed, borrowed an old car with no brakes, and lost the key to my wife’s car. Now I’m stuck waiting 10 days for the key to arrive by mail while relying on public transport.

68
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/StellaStars222 on 2025-08-04 00:13:27+00:00.


Well, I won’t get too much into the backstory. My stepfather is a POS, he cheats on my mom and treats my family like shit. I recently caught him peeing in the kitchen sink, on the dishes we eat on. Which is what caused the massive fight we’ve been having for months that’s lead me to this point.

So last week I saw this prank on TikTok where this girl poured a small amount of water next to the washing machine to make her husband think it was leaking. It was funny, he tried to fix it, and no harm was done. Well I decided to do that to the refrigerator (that we’ve had about 1 year), figuring he would just waste a few hours trying to fix it. I only poured the smallest amount of water. I did it exactly two times, no more. Just a couple days apart. And I went in the kitchen today and saw… a whole new refrigerator. Like a brand new, several thousand dollar refrigerator. The previous one is gone. I’m assuming they sold or disposed of it, it’s too late to reveal that it was a prank.

We’ve had problems with the freezer going out randomly and ruining peoples groceries, so I guess this was the last straw. I wasn’t expecting him yo fall for the prank so hard, he’s literally an engine mechanic so I figured he would figure out that it’s not leaking. I guess I overestimated him. And now I have to keep this secret to the grave.

TL;DR: I poured water next to the refrigerator as a prank to waste my stepdads time, and he spent thousands of dollars to replace it.

69
 
 
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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Specialist-Alps6478 on 2025-08-03 21:59:25+00:00.


Today I hit a milestone I have been mentally hiking towards for about six months. I have a daughter (3) who is selective mute or non verbal, currently awaiting a full assessment, and I’ve started speech training her. I didn’t know the first thing about it until I had to, but I’ve thrown myself into it. It is worth every moment, but can be quite fruitless a lot of the time, so I have been celebrating every small win (waving hello when I say it, pronouncing half a word when prompted, or making an animal noise kind of thing) while hoping for a breakthrough moment.

This afternoon during learning time I sat her at her little desk and gave her some number blocks. We stack them and say the numbers. She wanted me to put one on, and tried to grab my hand. I held back and routinely said ‘say please’ before going to do what she asked. Out of nowhere peeped a little ‘plis’ clearly as day and music to my ears. I was so surprised I just stared at her and asked her to say it again. She did. Cue celebrating and dancing and spending the next half an hour back and forth with her passing me blocks and saying please every time.

I was in my element. At dinner time, she said please when she wanted me to pass her the juice. She said please at bath time when she wanted the towel to wipe her eye. What could be better? There was no downside!

Until bedtime. She can be a fickle one, most nights she goes to bed really well but if she decides to fight the sleep we can be in for an hour or two of dramatics before she finally passes out like a drunk. Tonight however she was armed with a new arrow in her bow. I have just had to explain to the two different concerned neighbours who knocked on my door together that while there is a child in my home screaming ’PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NO NO PLEASE’ like they’re being murdered, it will stop soon. It is in fact just bedtime, and actually a positive thing because we learnt a new word. Yay.

this parenting thing is wild

TL;DR: I taught my daughter to say ‘please’ today. At bedtime she threw a tantrum and started screaming it like she was a child about to be fed to a bear, causing both of my nearest neighbours to come knock and check I wasn’t committing a crime.

70
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/pomalochamp on 2025-08-03 12:10:00+00:00.


Im in a three year relationship with my girlfriend(both 20yrs old), all is well. As you expect there have been some saved in chat snaps that are explicit in nature including a recent video. (Not really recent but a scroll or two up in snap memories).

My gf was sleeping over last night and we wake up to emails saying attempted login at 12am, two factor authentication removed and successful login into her Snapchat. We start going, well shit who ever has hacked you, can blackmail us or whatever. After changing passwords and setting up 2fa we realise that it's impossible to login into the account, without the text message sent to her number.

The only other device with her number / iCloud connected is her iPad. She asks her brother if he went on it and he says no - maybe she's been robbed or something. She tells him well the iPads been dead for months so if it has charge she'll know someone's been on it. He then changes his story, to he went on it two days ago for her email (it's linked to his clash royal or some shit).

We go to her house and look at the screen time, and funny enough two days ago there was no active screen time, however last night there was 40 minutes worth.

10mins on messages, 10 on photos. Snapchat isn't there as it was deleted.

Fast forwarding to when her brother comes home, and my gf confronts him, he denies but then admits yes he went onto messages, but only to check if her and their dad have said anything about him. (We opened the messages app onto our chat meaning he read it)

My gf then asks why did he login into her Snapchat account and he said he got carried away and it was spontaneous.

(Snapchat was never downloaded on the iPad to begin with so it wasnt spontaneous)

Which is just wrong, as he tried to login two times and was successful on the third. She asked if he saw anything, he said nothing loaded when he clicked on memories.

He’s been acting weird to her and myself, for example talking to her more, like what a kid does to their parents when they’ve done something wrong. And for me he’s not looking at me nor did he say one word to me - and looks star struck. I think the guy saw some explicit photos and a video of me and his sister having sex.

Im traumatised that he’s traumatised of what he’s seen of myself and his sister. I can’t look at him the same.

(Still confused on whether it was on purpose to see some stuff or just an accident and wanted to stalk to find out about something else)

TL;DR

My girlfriend and I had explicit photos and a video on our saved in chats to which her brother logged into her account for whatever reason, stalked our text messages and then witnessed a video of me raw dogging her sister. I can’t see him the same anymore after knowing what he’s seen of me.

Moral of the story dont have explicit photos on Snapchat there’s no point. Or you’ll traumatise a nosy teen.

Update:

After reading some comments I genuinely feel sick, makes me want to take like 5 showers. Surely it can’t be what you guys are saying.

71
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Traditional_Clock303 on 2025-08-03 11:28:34+00:00.


Today I f***ed up by mistaking a very friendly insurance agent for someone who was into me.

So a few weeks ago, I was at a coffee shop just minding my own business when this girl approached me. She was super friendly, asked if she could sit at my table (it was a crowded place), and we ended up talking for a while. She was laughing at my jokes, complimented my watch, even said something like, “You have a really calm energy. It’s refreshing.”

My brain: This is it. This is how Netflix romances begin.

We exchanged numbers ,or rather, she took mine and said she’d love to "catch up again soon." The next day, she texts me: “Hey! So nice chatting yesterday 😊 Let’s connect sometime this week.”

I’m already planning what shirt I’ll wear.

We set up a “catch-up” at a quiet lounge-y place. I show up, slightly overdressed. She’s already seated with a laptop, folder, and what I now realize was not a flirty smile — it was a sales smile.

She starts the convo with:

“So I don’t know if you’ve ever considered a long-term investment plan that also protects your loved ones…”

I died a little inside.

I sat there for 40 minutes while she pitched me life insurance like I was a 50-year-old family man with mortgage anxiety. The compliments? Rapport-building. The number exchange? Lead capture. The "refreshing calm energy"? Probably code for “this guy looks too polite to leave mid-pitch.”

To make it worse, I nodded through the whole thing like I was still trying to impress her.

TL;DR: Thought I was being flirted with by a girl at a café. Turned out she was just a very charming insurance agent. I went to what I thought was a date, and got pitched life insurance instead.

72
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Funerals4Life on 2025-08-03 07:07:49+00:00.


I originally posted this on r/overheard, but I think it might be appropriate here as well.

I gave one of my coworkers a ride home from work when I overheard a phone conversation between my coworker and his bf, who called during the drive. My dashcam recorded everything my coworker was saying, so what you're about to read is verbatim, minus my real name. For the record, I never heard what the bf said, but this is what I heard less than 30 seconds into the phone call:

Coworker: I cancelled the Uber. Kyle offered to take me home.

Bf: Blah blah blah.

Coworker: We work together.

Bf: Blah blah blah.

Coworker: Why are you being weird right now?

Bf: Blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Coworker: Okay, fine, whatever. You're not being weird. You're being insecure as fuck.

Bf: Blah blah blah.

Coworker: Can we please not do this on the phone while I'm in the car with someone?

Bf: BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Coworker: Wow. Okay. In other words, I should've spent money on an Uber driver instead of accepting a free ride from a guy at work because apparently you made up your mind that I'm working at a sausage factory where everyone is heteroflexible.

Bf: Blah blah blah.

Coworker: Baby, you know I love you, but just because you decided to literally stop being straight after meeting me, doesn't mean Kyle is low key going gay because he's got another guy in his car. Leave room for logic, my love.

Bf: Blah blah blah.

Coworker: Yes, thank you, to be continued. Okay, bye.

Bf: Blah.

Needless to say, it was an uncomfortable drive for everyone involved, but especially for me, the driver, who just wanted to do a good deed and go on with my life without getting caught in the middle of an argument between two angry twinks about my sexuality and the possibility of me being a side dick. What made the situation even more complicated for no reason was what happened the following day when my coworker sent me a message to inform me that his jealous bf wanted to know what I looked like so he decided to look me up on social media and discovered that we actually knew each other. Based on the information the bf shared with my coworker, we were apparently in high school together. For the record, I've seen my coworker's bf before because I follow my coworker on IG, and he frequently tags his bf in his posts, but I still had no idea who the bf was or where he belonged in my high school history.

It all became clear to me when I eventually looked up the bf. It was true, we knew each other, but we were never friends. He was literally one of the biggest bullies in my school. I didn't know who he was at first because he was now no longer as big as he was during his teen years. The amount of weight he lost since school made a massive difference to his appearance. I sent my coworker a message to confirm that I did in fact know his bf from high school, but not as friends, we were not even in the same grade, and because of how he looked then vs how he looked now, I would never have known it was him, if it wasn't for whatever the fuck was happening. My coworker ended up calling me moments later. It was a long phone call. My coworker said his bf came clean about being a bully in high school and kind of implied that I might be attempting to get back at him for bullying me all those years ago by getting close to my coworker, aka his lover.

In the wise words of Mr Miyagi, what the fuck. My coworker said he had to talk his bf out of contacting me to try to "clear the air" between us. I made my coworker promise me that he would keep his bf out of my life because I've moved on. It's not that deep. It was just a car ride. Nothing more. The end. My coworker said he was gonna take care of it, but he just wanted to keep me updated so that I'm not caught off guard if his bf did "anything weird." I'm done driving coworkers home.

Tl:dr Offered to drive my coworker home, but then got caught in the middle of an argument on the phone between my coworker and his bf, who apparently believed I wanted to get close to his coworker to get back at him for bullying me in high school.

73
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Cautious_Proof9608 on 2025-08-02 20:42:58+00:00.


So I have tics. Harmless, right? WRONG.

I’m sitting on the city bus, minding my business, when Shaggy’s Mr. Bombastic starts playing on repeat in my head. Harmless, right? Suddenly, my mouth goes “MR. BOMBASTIC!” Guy behind me: “Mr. Lomba Lomba.” Me: ???! My soul left my body.

I was visiting this guy I was dating in the psych ward yes, I know, red flag factory He asks me sweetly, Can you grab me a hot cocoa from the café downstairs? Me, thinking I’m hilarious Sure, I’ll bring you back a big Black male stripper. We laugh. Ha ha. I walk off to get the cocoa like nothing happened. On my way back? BIGGEST Black male nurse I have ever seen. My brain don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it My mouth “OOOOH, THERE’S the HOT COCOA stripper!” To. His. Face. I could feel Satan laughing from hell.

Someone once told me this dark joke about musicians fingering a minor. My brain stored it for later Fast f orward to Walmart. I’m in the baking aisle. An elderly Catholic lady is right next to me. My brain: hey remember that joke? My mouth: “Finger a minor.” At full conversational tone. The lady glares at me like I just confessed to a felony. I SPRINTED out of that store so fast

TL;DR: TIFU by having tics that turned me into a public menace: sang Shaggy on a bus, hit on a nurse by accident, and scared a old lady in Walmart

74
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/hi-again-i-guess on 2025-08-02 19:22:49+00:00.


Today I wanted to do something big for my husband, so I ordered 200$ of paper flowers (he loves flowers and I wanted a lifelong option)

Instead of ordering a nice and coherent bouquet like people would usually do, I asked to get exactly one of each kind of flower that the shop has, so that we could make our own small bouquet compositions at home.

The seller was quite surprised. "...Only one of each ?". She asked for my Instagram account, I wasn't comfortable with giving mine but I followed her the exact same day and it's my name + first name so it really wasn't hard to find.

I followed a lot of random other accounts making paper flowers as it's my current hyperfixation

She shipped my order, then made an Instagram story to complain how some people (especially women she said, like me) were observing her hard work and stealing her art.

I'm 90% sure she was talking about me, plus she ignored my last messages on the marketplace she uses.

TL;DR : ordered exactly one of each product of an artisanal store which is suspicious, the store owner immediately made an Instagram story to complain about an art thief

75
 
 
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/MayNotBeALawyer4Long on 2025-08-01 18:43:58+00:00.


This happened a couple months back, but I saw a skit online that was scarily similar to what actually happened to me IRL.

For context, I’m a divorce attorney. Been practicing for about 8 years now, mostly family law stuff. Generally pretty routine work - people want to untangle their lives, I help them do it legally, everyone moves on.

Let’s flash back to last March…

I took on what seemed like a straightforward dissolution case. Client I’ll call Dave - nice enough guy, been seperated from his wife for over a year, just wanted to make it official. Nothing complicated, decent retainer, figured we’d have it wrapped up in a few months. Dave seemed reasonable, not one of those vindictive types trying to burn everything down out of spite.

Around the same time, I’d been seeing this woman Sarah for a couple months. Met her at a coffee shop near my office, really hit it off. She mentioned going through a divorce but I didn’t pry - not exactly first date conversation, you know? She had a different last name from what was in my client files, so when I ran my conflict checks, nothing flagged.

Everything was going great with Sarah. Really great, actually. We were taking things slow but it was heading in a good direction…

Until we scheduled the first four-way settlement meeting.

I walk into the conference room with Dave, chatting about keeping things amicable, and there’s Sarah sitting across the table with her attorney.

I literally just stopped mid-sentence. My briefcase slipped right out of my hands and hit the floor with this loud thud. Sarah went completely white. Dave looked back and forth between us for what felt like an eternity, and I could see the exact moment it clicked for him.

“Are you fucking serious right now?” he says. Not shouting, but definitely not pleased.

Sarah started tearing up. Her lawyer looked like he wanted to crawl under the table. I’m standing there feeling like the biggest moron in legal history.

Had to immediately excuse myself with Dave. Guy was understandably pissed. Started grilling me - how long had this been going on, did I know who she was, was this some kind of setup to screw him over. I’m trying to explain that I’d been dating his wife for a couple months without having any clue who she was. He didn’t buy it at first.

“What kind of lawyer doesn’t ask basic questions?” he keeps saying. Had to pull out my intake notes to prove the name thing, show him how the conflict check works, basically convince an angry client that I’m incompetent rather than malicious.

Took about twenty minutes before he finally believed it was just spectacularly bad luck. Even then he’s shaking his head, muttering about how fucked up this whole situation is.

I explained I’d have to withdraw from his case and help him find new counsel. There’s no getting around it - I’ve got a personal relationship with the opposing party, which makes it impossible for me to represent him properly.

By the end he’d calmed down enough to say “This is the weirdest goddamn thing that’s ever happened to me.” Still wasn’t happy about starting over with a new lawyer, but he understood why it had to happen.

The paperwork was a nightmare. Had to file a motion to withdraw since we were already in litigation, transfer all his files, deal with refunding unused fees. Sarah and I didn’t speak for two weeks after that meeting - we were both mortified. Her attorney spent forever trying to convince himself this wasn’t some elaborate scheme.

Even though nobody intended for this to happen, it was still my screwup. Should have had better procedures to catch conflicts like this. Doesn’t matter that it was an accident - you mess up the conflict check, you deal with the consequences.

Dave texted me a few weeks later, but it wasn’t friendly. More like “hope you realize this completely fucked up my timeline.” Can’t say I blame him.

And just to add insult to injury, my malpractice insurance premium went up when I had to report the conflict.

TL;DR: Been dating a woman for months, then unknowingly took her husband’s divorce case. Found out during our first settlement meeting when we all ended up in the same room. Had to withdraw from representation, everyone was pissed, professional disaster all around.

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