r/tifu

Yesterday was my (25M) best friend’s (30F) birthday. I bought her a typewriter because she’s a hobbyist writer and I know it’s something she always wanted. We’ve known each other for quite some time. We gas each other up when the other is feeling self-conscious , jab at each other for fun and laughs, but most importantly we’ve always been there for the other when we’re going through a tough time. We typically hang out by playing video games and watching stuff on YouTube and TV, so since yesterday was really snowy and most of our friends live outside of town that is exactly what we did.

We’ve been talking about two things for a while: starting to stream together, and starting to make a game together. We’ve talked about the game a lot and even started jotting down ideas and ways to develop the game. Yesterday I was talking to her about how to start streaming with Twitch and OBS.

She said something along the line of “we should stream ‘X’ game for fun!” I don’t remember verbatim what I said but I replied with something along the lines of “why would I stream ‘X’ game with you when you’re bad at ‘X’ game.” and my smart ass even referenced her stats in said game when we played it together.

Almost instantly I noticed her demeanor change and she got really quiet and distant, and I realized that what I said was really mean. I meant it as a small jab, but in hindsight I’m realizing she’s probably interpreting this as “why would I stream anything with you when you’re bad at everything.” I very quickly apologized and let her know that what I said was uncalled for but what I said had already been said. For the rest of the night she completely shutdown. When I tried to talk to her about it and let her know that I’m a jackass, she got really down on herself and basically reiterated what I said in that she’s bad at every game and we shouldn’t stream it together, and I saw her start to cry. I tried to change the subject and talk about something else and cracked jokes to try to cheer her up but with no results.

I don’t actually think she’s bad at the game in question, I just meant it as a lighthearted jab, but I realize now that it meant much more than that to her and I feel awful. I cooked her dinner and we watched some TV the rest of the night mostly in silence. After I left I messaged her and apologized again but i know she’s not going to talk to me for a while.

Its the morning after and I feel absolutely awful. I didn’t mean for this to happen, especially on her birthday. I aimed to make her birthday as relaxing as possible but I said something that I shouldn’t have and completely ruined the day for her and I don’t know what to do.

TL;DR: Said something I shouldn’t have that made my best friend cry on her birthday and I feel awful for it.

First, I fukd up by not knowing that a trailer hitch that has 3 balls on it are actually 3 different sizes. I thought the one on top is big and the two on the sides were smaller but the same size. I'm an idiot. Pretty sure it says on top of the ball what the size is. Anyway, I was told to get the small trailer, so I flipped the hitch to the side and threw the trailer on it. Pulled up to the shop, dropped the trailer gate and went to get the Turf Storm. It's a Scag machine that spreads granular fertilizer, grass seed, sprays chemicals, etc.

So, there I go, start it up, back out of the shop, and pull over to the trailer gate. Now, the gate isn't in the greatest of shape, so I was trying to be careful. My wife was up by the truck hitch watching and directing me so I went up the good side of the gate. I start pulling up, going slow, front wheels make it to the bed of the trailer, back wheels getting there. Boom, back wheels crest the top of the gate and beginning of the trailer bed, and all hell breaks loose. The ass end of the trailer (where I currently am) slams to the ground, hitch flies upwards off the ball, I see the trailer almost standing straight up in front of me. That's when I realize the machine is about straight up as well - the machine that I'm standing on, and is coming backwards on to me. I freaked and hopped off just in time to watch the machine keep rolling and land upside down right in front of me.

I was beyond embarrassed, disappointed, and freaked out. For a split second, I thought about putting my hands up to try and push it back forwards in hopes it wouldn't flip, but quickly realized that's dumb, and didn't wanna die. This machine weighs about 900lbs dry, both 15 gallon water tanks were full, and the spreader bin was also full of fertilizer, so no, I wasn't gonna be able to stop this thing. I felt (and still feel) so bad. We got it flipped back right side up after a bit. Hope she still runs tomorrow. He bought it a few years ago new @ $14k. Brand new today is about $17k. Fuck me.

He was so calm and tried to help me not feel so embarrassed because he knew I was really beating myself up over it. I'm genuinely really lucky to have him as my boss and grateful that he didn't start screaming or worse - fire me. I learned my lesson. Put it on the right ball and lift on that trailer before ever trying to put equipment on it. (It is a really light trailer that you can pull to the truck by hand.)

TL;DR I put a trailer on the wrong size hitch ball, went to load a $14k fertilizer machine, trailer flew off the ball, sent me and the machine backwards and it flipped upside down.

This actually happened a long time ago, but I saw a post that reminded me of it and wanted to share.

The title is a slight exaggeration, but not much. My wife and I had a fairly non-traditional wedding ceremony. Our officiants were a husband and wife couple. We wrote the main vows together, but there was also a part of the ceremony that they asked us to write separately. They gave us both a prompt and told us they were going to take a few excerpts from what we wrote and use it as inspiration to write their own sort of “tribute”, and we would hear it first in the ceremony itself.

I ended up writing pages and pages covering my own qualms and hesitations about the historical institution of marriage, the inequality in marriage laws (this was pre-gay-marriage anywhere in the US), and its history as a vehicle for the subjugation of women, but also about how marriage was changing and taking on new meanings to many people, and about how much I loved my wife and how important this was as a symbol of our joining our lives to each other, and how we needed to cherish our marriage but also use it to strive toward greater equality and justice.

They didn’t excerpt it.

They didn’t use it as inspiration.

They READ. THE WHOLE. THING.

It took a good ten minutes, with all of our family sitting outside in the intense (high-elevation) sun. Halfway through my wife exclaimed “this is an entire sociology paper!” and everyone laughed. I wanted to curl up and hide, and it just kept going.

In the end we got through it all and said our vows and went on to champagne brunch. Lots of people remarked on how… unique our ceremony was. I spent most of that morning embarrassed and trying to explain that I didn’t know they were going to read it all out. It definitely felt like a major FU that morning.

After our family brunch reception, we threw a rockin dance party with friends in an underground prohibition-era speakeasy (mostly so we could have our no-children open-bar reception without pissing off our families). Everyone there had f’ing loved my “sociology paper,” and I decided that those were the opinions I cared most about. So in the end it’s a FU I’m fine with 😊

Twenty years later we’re still together and love each other more than ever, and still make the occasional sociology paper joke :)

TL;DR I sent a long rant about marriage inequality to our officiant and ended up having it read as part of our wedding ceremony.