r/PointlessStories

I grew up in small town Canad in the 1980s. My dad owned his own company doing a physically difficult job and my mom was a stay at home mom.

With four kids to raise, my parents were pretty frugal. We had a vegetable garden and mom made a huge amount of food from scratch. She canned fruits and made pickles and jams. Pies, cakes, bread and pasta all came from her hand.

The thing I'm most nostalgic about is her bread. Coming home from school to the smell of bread, fresh from the oven and getting a still warm slice spread with butter and honey is a memory held forever in my mind. I've shared that memory with many people over the years, its that powerful.

Last week I was talking with my mom and the subject of bread came up. And that's when she said the thing that changed everything about how I see my childhood. She casually said "I never liked baking bread anyway."

Whhhaaaa?! But her bread was so beautiful! It was white and fluffy and springy and I can still remember the smell of our house full of bread. All this time, the bread that I've fondly remembered and talked about was a burden to her. She baked bread out of need, not joy. The nostalgia's kind of ruined for me now.

Edit: The guilt for taking my mom's bread for granted for so long is why the nostalgia is ruined. Knowing how entitled and bratty I was isn't pleasant.

I feel old after what just happened. I checked my email last night and noticed several missed video calls from a stranger and google wasn't helping.

I've been expecting people to reach out to me, so I emailed them back asking what it was about and some time later they sent another video call request.

I accepted it and got loaded into a group voice call (none of the cameras were on) where a bunch of ~12yo children were calling me a hacker.

I told them I've had this email for like 20 years, that they sent me an invite to join and I wasn't hacking them, then one of them mentioned a president from before my time (I didn't let them hear me laugh).

It seems as though their friend has the same first and last name as me, and thought their email was our first name then last name. This isn't the first time I've had interaction with others with my name cus of my email being that too.

It made me feel like an old man yelling at kids to not play on his lawn, cus they were spamming up my inbox.

This is pointless enough right?

I am a 32 yo lady who runs every morning before work. It’s sunday today and I decided to run a half marathon.

This morning, I saw a group of kids (around 12-16yo) walking ahead and having fun. I guessed that they are basketball players because of different colored jerseys. By that time, I was on 5km.

When I ran passed by the group, I noticed the 3 kids: one with curly hair, one small, one thin running behind my back and they’re following my pace.

They didn’t overtake me. Just run.

After 500m, I stopped and the small kid crashed on me haha

They walked ahead and when I passed by them, they ran again.

It’s like they made me their pacer 😂

I intentionally stopped on the side to check if they’ll stop and they did!

I can hear them breathing so fast trying to catch up

I asked the smallest kid while running if they’re basketball players or runners. He said basketball and he asked what I do. I said, I just run for fun.

After 2km, I stopped by a small vendor selling bread and bought 20 breads.

I looked at the back and the curly haired kid was on the other lane of me catching his breath and the 2 kids are still running towards us 😂

I ate one bread and gave the 19 breads to the curly haired kid and told them it’s their snacks.

They are soooo happy

I continued my run and when I turned back my route to go to another road, I saw the 3 kids eating bread while walking and when they passed by me they waved at me and called me “ATEEEEE” which means Big sister in our dialect.

I waved back and continued my run.

I was in the kitchen talking to my mom about makeup, more specifically a new lip combo I tried and just like long-form YouTube style monologue about color theory and undertones and different brands.

My dad was in the living room on the same floor (not even part of the conversation) and walked up to us to say like “nobody cares about your lipstick or makeup, people are just listening to be polite. Your mom doesn’t even wear makeup, she doesn’t care.”

Which was funny to me because my mom is also a certified yapper. She’ll tell me long stories about things I don’t personally care about and I still listen because I like talking to her. My mom even defended me and said like telling him to leave, because like we, we were not even talking to him.

I was like damn, I can’t even give my lipstick TED Talk in my own kitchen? 😭 I didn't know that he couldn't even tolerate me speaking on the same floor as him for like more than a minute.

So. July 4th. Park near my apartment decides to have fireworks. For context, I'm autistic and VERY sensitive to loud noises because of that. So when the fireworks nearby began I scowled, annoyed, and threw on a pair of headphones.

I then think something to myself. A small intrusive thought that I verbally say to myself as I'm scrolling through my playlist of music:

'Imagine if there was a horrific downpour right now that'd be so fucking funny'.

Mostly joking of course. I smile to myself. As if that'd happen, there wasn't any rain in the forecast.

Then, ten minutes later I begin to hear distant thunder.

And then the windows flash. Not with far of rainbow colors but the white glare of lightning.

At last, the rain began. And when I say it rain I mean it was a fucking deluge. A downpour. Forget just cats and dogs, it's raining every goddamn household pet and farm animal out there.

In an instant the fireworks stop. Loud ass explosions are now replaced with even louder thunder and lighting as Poseidon himself unleashes his full fury upon my sorry state of a city. I walked to my screen door and look down to see the roads now piled up in a crawling traffic jam as everyone who was at the park for the fireworks attempts to escape.

I check my phone. The chance of rain was only 15%. Then in real time the weather app updates this from 15% to 100%. The traffic below is only getting worse. Mass panic and hysteria. As a reminder, I'm sensitive to loud noises too, so this is no victory for me. In fact, this is even worse than where I started.

And now I'm here chronicling this horrific event that will go down in history to families as the worst Fourth of July to ever occur, both impressed and horrified at my seemingly untapped superpower to ruin holidays with a single intrusive thought.

Also I probably owe Poseidon a favor. Fuck.

Every weekday I'd see the same guy walking in the opposite direction.

For the first week we ignored each other.

Then one morning we accidentally made eye contact.

The next day there was a tiny nod.

Eventually it became this silent routine. We'd nod, sometimes smile, and continue walking without ever saying a word.

Then I didn't see him for almost two weeks.

I actually found myself wondering if he'd changed jobs or moved.

Yesterday he showed up again.

We nodded.

Life returned to normal.

I worked for a company that created hotel management software. Maintain inventory of rooms and rates, create reservations, ensure housekeeping knows which rooms to clean, guest billing, CRM, accounts receivable, General Ledger accounting, we did it all. We installed our software all over the world and one day I was sent to Riga, Latvia to oversee the installation at an upscale hotel. As all eastern European hotels, their accounting followed the rules of retail and I needed to convince them of the benefits of daily revenue recording and reporting. It was the 90s and they were sceptical. After yet another long session of back and forths with their financial director, I went outside to smoke a cigarette.

I smoked roll ups at the time and a local man came up to me and asked if he could have one. I handed him my pouch of tobacco, but he asked me if I could roll it for him and then he showed me his hands. He was missing a few fingers on each hand. He spoke Latvian but no English. I had picked up a few words Latvian, but not enough to have a conversation. We somehow managed to communicate using Latvian, German and Russian. As I was rolling his cigarette I asked him what happened; how did he lose his fingers?

He told me that when he was 18, the Russians invaded his country. (You can still see some of the damage that was done to buildings at the time and bullet holes have been kept as a reminder). All men between the ages of 18 and 55 were rounded up and shipped off to Siberia. He spent 35 years in work camps and lost his finger to frostbite. Now that the Russian occupation was over, he was allowed to return to his native Latvia. He was one of the lucky ones, who survived. Many of his fellow prisoners died.

Now back in Riga, his parents had passed away, his brothers were missing and his sisters were married and he didn't know their new names. He was 18 when he was shipped off, so he had no wife to return to. He had no children, let alone grand children.

His was a life thrown away. No career, no family, no happy memories. And now he was back in his home country, where he didn't know anyone anymore and had zero prospects.

I found it very hard to listen to. How do you react to something like that? Where does someone find the gall to do this to another human being? The level of unfairness is incomprehensible. And this is not an isolated case. Unfathomable things are done to people by other people in very conflict around the world. I really hope I never have to experience any of that. I often think about this conversation and realise that so far, I have been very lucky.

Kinda feeling like a huge loser lol. But really I was just thinking about my cat hiding under the bed scared and how much I'd rather be home with him playing some Alien: Fireteam Elite.

My soulmate was a cat who I named Etcetera (a tribute to my favourite actor Yul Brynner). He was pure white with blue eyed and deaf. I had him for 10 years and we adored each other.

One night I was in bed reading a book and he was in his usual spot on my pillow. I felt him paw at my face so I turned my head to see what he wanted.

And then he SNEEZED directly in my face!! I swear dude knew what he doing! It wasn't funny and it was hilarious at the same time. He's been gone 7 years and I still remember it and have to laugh.

"Can I ask you something seriously?"

"Sure."

"Do you ever feel like your brain keeps opening new tabs without closing the old ones?"

My coworker looked up from her work.

"Why?"

"This morning I opened the fridge and completely forgot why I opened it."

"Okay..."

"And yesterday I carried some paperwork across the house, then stopped and thought, 'Wait. Why am I holding this?'"

"That happens."

"No, listen."

I leaned closer.

"You know how you asked me to order medication this morning?"

"...Yes."

"I sat down to do it."

"..."

"And somehow ended up arguing in a pharmacist forum comment section."

"..."

"For almost thirty minutes."

"..."

"The medication order?"

"..."

"Never happened."

She slowly put down her pen.

"That doesn't sound great."

"Right? At this point it's looking pretty suspicious."

She thought for a moment.

"Maybe."

I sighed.

Then she pointed at my hands.

"What are you doing?"

"What?"

"With the pen."

I looked down.

Without realizing it, I had completely disassembled a ballpoint pen.

The spring chose that exact moment to launch itself across the desk.

ting

"..."

"..."

We both watched it disappear under a cabinet.

Then she looked at the pile of tiny paper scraps scattered around me.

"What's that?"

"What?"

"The paper."

I followed her gaze.

The medication order list.

Apparently while taking apart the pen, I had also shredded the note into dozens of tiny pieces.

"..."

"..."

"Well."

She nodded.

"Not saying it's ADHD, but..."

"..."

"You just destroyed the only copy of the thing you forgot to do."

Fair point.

I got down on my knees to look for the spring.

...

Wait.

...

Actually.

Tomorrow's my posting day.

Maybe the ending still needs work.

...

Hold on.

...

What was I looking for under here again?

When I was about 10 years old, my parents occasionally left in the evenings for special work functions or get-togethers with friends. I was told that children weren't allowed at these gatherings, so I'd have to stay at home with my older brother.

Usually we would rent a movie and order pizza, which was fun. But I always felt a tinge of jealousy when I thought about all of the spectacular, sophisticated, and mysterious things that my parents must be doing with their other adult friends.

I didn't want to miss out.

I eventually asked my parents if I could host my own "adult-style" party at home. My idea of what this party should be was based entirely on fleeting pop culture references from movies and cartoons, along with my own young imagination. They agreed, so long as all obvious rules were followed (no alcohol, etc.).

Surprisingly, I wasn't the least bit interested in doing any "forbidden" things with my friends. I had my own unique idea of what an "adult" party was, and I went all out to make it happen.

We lived around the corner from a wonderful gourmet food store, where I went with a notepad and started taking notes. I learned about things like sun-dried tomatoes and stuffed grape leaves, roasted garlic bagels and preserved apricots. I planned out a menu of "small plates," various sparkling waters and "artisan" sodas.

I typed out my menu on my mom's typewriter.

I was also fascinated by scented candles, so my mom let me pick out one of my own at the Hallmark store. It was called "Storm Watch."

I started listening to the nightly jazz program on the local radio station, and I set up my alarm clock radio in the dining room so there would be jazz music for my guests.

Finally, I sent out invitations. They included a suggestion that each guest bring a piece of original artwork or a poem if they wanted to share or display it. I prepared a special corner of the dining room where my friends could showcase their work.

Eventually the evening arrived, and it was an absolute blast. We strolled around my parents' house, listening to soft jazz music, admiring abstract artwork, reciting poetry, and enjoying my "Tuscan-inspired" snacks.

I realize this might sound quite pretentious, but it was so exciting for a child. I was very proud to host my very first "adult" party, and I loved every step of the planning process, from selecting the right tablecloth to dimming the lighting. I remember we all lingered on the steps before leaving and talked about what a wonderful time we had.

Now I'm middle-aged and most of those childhood friends have lost touch and moved away.

I still haven't been to any "adult" parties that were as fun, interesting, and pleasant as the one I had at age 10.

I was in Europe, there was a heatwave, our family friend didn’t want to turn on the A/C. Big surprise. I told her listen, I can do cold, but I cannot do heat. I’m not kidding.

My mom warned me about her before I went, saying she remembers her friend’s family was comically cheap growing up (they had money, they just didn’t like spending it).

Anyways im in this room and im boiling. Shes like “leave the door open let the natural air circulate in and out and it’ll cool you” MF. It’s 40° outside with humidity. So im like this is crazy im getting this AC on rn. I go searching throughout the house (it’s nighttime everyone is sleeping) and im rummaging through the drawers and everywhere to find the remote to the AC (it’s the mounted kind and this one had no buttons on it). Nowhere to be found. This lady hid it.

In my groggy state I opened her freezer and looked for something big and heavy and frozen. There was this big thing of meat. I took it out and brought it with me to my room and put it on my chest and fell asleep like that. It cooled me down alright.

I woke up to a wet slushy mess in the morning. The meat was flabby. The juices spilled all over me and the bedding. I couldn’t clean it up on my own and had to tell her. She was FURIOUS. In her fury, she opened her bedroom armoire and took out the remote and turned the AC on.

And it’s like… see?! See how *easy* that was? If you just took me seriously when I was sweating profusely and looked and sounded like I was dying when I said “please, I need the AC”, you’d still have your frozen meat. And now you have nothing/have to make it today. Sorry not sorry.

I didn't have anything planned today and friends have not invited me for anything besides the usual meme sharing over the group chat...

I was leisurely in bed and drifted in and out of sleep and mostly just scrolled online thinking I must be doing something important today. Then Reddit notified me that it's my 5th year here and that significantly improved my mood and even thought about making a post to commemorate it. Lo and behold I didn't have anything of importance to post lol. Good thing I remembered this sub and thought to myself, what could be more pointless than sharing this today?

Feeling hungry, might eat some sweets to celebrate

Three years ago I looked at my husband and said I wanted 3 human sized skeletons.

He looked at me and said no.

At that point I could probably convince him but instead I decided to make a deal that requires a great deal of patience from my side.

I would only buy one skeleton that year and then I could buy one more each of the following years.

My husband, happy that I would not buy three skeletons right then and there, said yes.

Last year with two skeletons in our front yard he realized his mistake.

This year I will have my initial ask of 3 skeletons.

And in 10 years I will have a football team of skeletons.

In 20 years a platoon.

And as I am still in my twenties I hope to be in my eighties and have an army of at least 50 skeletons.

Luckily they don't take too much space so I will keep adding skeletons to our attic and I will hold my husband to our deal and buy one skeleton a year.

I went to a Goth Night and it turned out to be a very small concert in some guy's yard. Overall it was a really bad experience and the local bands had a really rough time. They had lots of technical issues and more than anything, the crowd was full of teenagers who had no sense.... they had dressed up in all these outfits, and I'm not opposed to outfits... but it was really cold. This was in the early spring. They had a firepit as far away from the bands as possible, so everybody was basically ignoring the concert because they wanted to stay near the fire.

The first band had a guy in full goth makeup, white face paint, dyed black hair, he was screaming his heart out, falling over himself, to a crowd of almost nobody. I was sitting in the grass clapping enthusiastically like a nerd. I had brought a coat so I wasn't cold.

The entire time, there was just one woman dancing, and she was also dressed in total goth attire with a painted face. People kept complimenting her on her look. I really thought, "Well, it's great they have at least one fan."

At the end of the set, the woman ran up onto the little stage platform and went into an enthusiastic kiss with the singer in his full-goth makeup. He picked her up bridal-style and carried her off, and as they were leaving it was literally like a scene from a movie, where I suddenly saw they had matching black wedding bands. I also realized they were both a bit older than I thought (I have low vision) and they were a very devoted goth couple, who spent the rest of the night in each other's arms by the fire.

I left a little early and when I got an uber home, it was my first time riding in an electric car. I kept thinking about that devoted goth couple for a while.

The other day, someone was rude to me in a comment. Then another redditor took issue with that and told them off.

He specifically said "I am sick of these top 1% commenter nitpicking on everyone."

I replied, "I know how much time I spend on here, and it's already unhealthy. But I am so far from being top 1%."

The I went on to say, "I imagine to 1% commenters have dirty houses because they are online so much".

Well, it turned out I wasn't so far off being top 1% myself coz about an hour ago, I got the tag.

But it's since disappeared.

So, I was that person for a little bit.

I am going to clean my place now, coz it's indeed dirty and i have indeed been on here rather than doing my tasks...

So today I went to pay my rent. I looked at the bill and it was less than half my normal bill. I reread my statement and there was a line: overpaid last month's rent by ... I had no idea I had over paid that much.

When I went to my landlord I said thanks for being honest. He said I am his best tenant. Clean, never break anything, not noisy, that throwing fights, not making the cops come by. You never mess with the good tenants. They pay on time and you never have to spend money to upkeep their rooms or talk to them about complaints with other tenants. I figured you just had mind fog, since you are an adult woman. Also I once read really smart women tend to have the worst mind fog each month. I'm an architectural historian and a translator using six languages. Like to the point I will say stuff to people in a language they don't know because I don't need to think what language I am currently thinking in. And when you have tenants that try to fly off the roof because they are high off some drug I guess I look intelligent.

Just a nice and weird experience. I didn't know my landlord and his family liked me. I thought he probably I was just some weird introverted researcher who keeps really old books in multiple languagrs who gets around on a mountain bike. Which I guess I am all those things, it is just not negative. Also found out some really creepy stories about my neighbours so I guess I get and believe my landlord won't try to pull a fast one on me b/c if I leave he might get another crazy person.

I just got done with my 4th of July brisket. Low and slow they say. Ok fine. I started out in the smoker. Three and a half hours at 250ish. Things were looking ok but I was getting concerned about drying out, so I pulled it in order to braise it the rest of the way.

I set the oven at 225 and popped the brisket in with meat thermometer. The cool thing is the probe is app connected and it monitors the temperature inside the oven as well as inside the meat.

So imagine my surprise to see the temperature averaging almost 250F. In order to get the oven temp down to 225 I had to turn it all the way down to 210F.

And then it all started making sense why some of my previous chicken dishes had come out dry and over done. So now I know my oven is not accurately calibrated and I need to dial in a lower temperature.

My barber is a refugee from Iraq. He came to my country to escape from Sadam's regime. While he was being processed to ensure he was allowed to stay in the country, he stayed at a refugee centre. Although as a refugee, you are entitled to a small amount of pocket money, he refused that handout and said he preferred to work. He was a barber. He was born to cut hair. Hair grows everywhere, so he can cut hair anywhere. He found a job in a town about 20 minutes by train from the refugee centre. Every morning he would take the train, cut hair the entire day and then go back to his bunk, while waiting for the government to decide on his future.

One day, he came back from work and went to a supermarket to get some food. When he got to his room in the refugee centre he dumped the content of his pockets on his bed, just like he did every day. He noticed that he had too much money. That day, the barbershop had paid him €60 in three €20 notes. He had used one of them to pay for his groceries. But he saw €70 and change on his bed. He immediately figured out what had happened: the cashier at the supermarket had made change for a €50 note, in stead of for a €20 note. He was given €30 too much.

He expected that the cashier would have counted and recounted her float and takings at the end of her shift and had come up €30 short and probably ended up paying the €30 out of her own pocket.

The next morning he went back to the supermarket to return the money that wasn't his. He wanted to make sure that it would get to the correct cashier, the one that had helped him the night before, so he asked for the manager. "Why?" was the question of the person at the customer service counter. "A mistake was made last night and I would like to correct it," answered my barber. "No, we don't make mistakes," was the reaction. "I would still like to speak with the manager," my friend said.

After a long wait, the manager showed up, her arms folded over her chest betrayed her attitude; she was not going to have any of whatever this foreigner came to complain about. "What?" was her greeting.

My friend told her the exact same story as what you have read above and explained he was here to make sure that she, the manager, would see to it that the €30 got to the right cashier.

As he was telling her the story, she realised that her attitude and her assumptions had been completely off. He said he could see her stance change, her expression soften and her shame for how she reacted initially, take over. He handed her the money and all she could do was apologise for how she had reacted and thank him for his honesty and thank him on behalf of the cashier.

As if having to flee from your own government, your country and being afraid for your life isn't enough, once you get to safety, you now have to deal with looking different, with being feared by the locals, when all he did was work for a living and being a decent person.

I think about this often and try to treat everyone with respect.

i hope this doesn’t break the mental health rule, but i think of this a lot and i really wanna tell someone

i was only in 2nd grade i think, and i remember this girl from the grade below us was crying in the field at recess, everyone was kind of staring and confused and didn’t know what to do so i went to her and hugged her and i started crying too, and didn’t know why. she told me her grandfather passed and i said i was sorry. i remember not knowing why i was crying too. i never even knew grief yet. i was just sad because she was sad.

then my friend asked why i was crying, and was really really confused on why it made me cry. that friend ended up being a really toxic human who stole from me, and got held back in highschool, so i think that’s kind of interesting.🤷‍♀️