PixabayI learned the acronym “CYA” from a work college a couple of years ago: it stands for “Cover Your A*s.” We dealt with a high volume of many different kinds of people (homeowners, inspectors, agents, etc.). In order to keep track of “who said what”, we tried to have the vast majority of our communication via trackable means. This meant using things such as e-mail or text messages in order to relay information rather than phone calls.
Nine times out of ten, it wasn’t necessary because we had good back-and-forth communication with our clients. However, there were some who, due to their forgetful (and sometimes downright rude) nature, would try and blame us for their shortcomings. With the arrogance of a vengeful attorney, they would declare that things were not to their specifications, or weren’t done at all. However, due to the brilliance of “CYA”, catching them in the wrong was simple and as satisfying as eating cheese pizza after a marathon.
While my instances of covering my butt were purely professional, some need to have this exact mentality in other aspects of their lives. From safeguarding relationships to winning court cases, here are some of the most interesting ways that covering one’s butt really paid off.
41. Checking The Plane Cost The Company Thousands, But Saved His Life
“I was undergoing pilot training and was pretty new to the whole thing feeling the pressure to perform, etc.. I walked out to preflight a plane for a solo flight (you do this completely alone… instructor was back at flying school doing something else).
After doing my walk around it’s time to check the oil. Cessna 172’s have a dipstick that is attached to a cap that screws into the engine. You unscrew the cap and remove dipstick along with it and check the oil. Except, after I unscrew the cap there doesn’t seem to be a dipstick attached to it.
I have this thought: ‘Well, the engine is still warm from the dudes who just flew before me so … they flew it like this…. maybe they had a separate dipstick? They must have checked the oil than some other way ….’. Then I have the ‘well, to be safe, I should actually pack this up and go ask someone at the flight school exactly how to check the oil in this case’. Note: This takes quite a chunk of time out of my supposed flight and will cut my lesson for the day short by quite a margin, but I do it anyway.
Long story short (info gleaned from subsequent investigations): The dipstick had broken off during the previous flight, that had landed just minutes before, and had slid straight into the engine, where the crank-case had been chomping away metal from the tip, that metal now circulating in the engine. The aircraft was grounded, it was extremely dangerous to fly, and at massive cost had to be stripped down, the entire engine disassembled, and they actually had to find every bit of metal missing from the dipstick and re-assemble the dipstick before the plane could be re-assembled and made flight worthy again.
If, in a moment of stupidity, I’d taken off in that plane I’d probably be dead.” OfFiveNine
40. He Took Some Courses To Save Bucks, But He Also Saved His Own Life
“I took one of those extra driving classes you always hear about to get the discount on your car insurance.
I was in college and my premium was killing me. The one I signed up for was an 8-hour course that I knocked out in one day and the focus was maintaining control of your vehicle in bad weather. I took it over spring break which is still a pretty snowy/icy time of year around here. The big test at the end to determine if you got the certificate was to pass the ‘moose test’ though some places call it the elk test or the deer test. Either way, to pass the course you had to successfully swerve around some cones on an icy road and regain control of the car on the other side of the cones.
So my first day back at school from spring break, I’m driving myself and my roommate from the liquor store back to our dorm in some crummy conditions, I try to turn left into our parking lot and my car just slides straight past it, and down a hill. I try to turn the wheel right to get into a different parking lot and get closer, but not quite where I need it to be. I’m heading straight for a telephone pole. My roommate is panicking but I looked at it and I realized this is just the moose test. I managed to swerve around the pole, narrowly missing a wall of parked cars next to it, and regained control on the other side, finally bringing my car to a stop in an empty section of the parking lot.
Then we walked back to the dorm and drank our faces off.
So the moral of the story is, those extra driving classes you might take for the insurance discount may just save your life.” DanHam117
39. When All Else Fails, Lawyer Up: It Worked For This Disgruntled Employee
“I was offered a job in Europe, where I was promised a bonus that was x% of my salary, paid twice a year. When the offer was sent, there was no mention of the bonus and when I questioned why, I was told, ‘don’t worry, it’s in this email with my official company signature.’ I put that one into the saved folder, ‘just to be safe.’
Fast forward to moving, on the first payout period I was told I needed to be with the company for 90 days first before a bonus would be paid.
Ok, I was annoyed, but I guess that makes sense. On the second bonus payment, they mentioned that the company hadn’t had a great year and nobody would be getting bonuses. More annoyed, but if the company isn’t doing great, what are you going to do? I should add this was in 2008.
The following year rolls around and the company announces that things have really taken off and they will pay out the previous bonus period, in addition to the current bonus period. The only problem is, I literally handed in my resignation that day. I inquire to find out if I’ll be receiving my bonus from the previous bonus period, and they say, ‘Are you kidding? You just quit.’
I call a lawyer.
I dig up the email from the start of this post, hand that over, and the lawyer says it’s a slam dunk case. She goes after both bonus payments from the first year, and both bonus payments from the current year, even though one of them hasn’t happened yet. Company HQ calls me and tries to get me to drop it, and I refer them to my lawyer.
A week later, at my new job, the lawyer informs me that they’ve paid all 4 bonus payments, and she also went after her own fees, so it cost me nothing.
Glad I saved that email.
Cover your *ss, and do not let others push you around.” ninethirtyone
38. Re-Watching A Show Triggered This Homeowner To Buy The Appliance He Would Need A Few Weeks Later
“A couple of years ago I restarted The Sopranos from season 1. I think it’s in the first season where the water heater leaks and floods Tony’s basement. So there are these scenes where he’s wading around in a flooded basement, I was imagining what a nightmare that would be. It reminded me that when I bought my house, the inspector told me I would need to replace the water heater within five years.
I then realized that it was like 12 years prior, so I suddenly got nervous. I went and looked at the water heater, and it seemed fine but I couldn’t shake the feeling. I also did not have the money to pay to have a new water heater installed.
So, I decided to go ahead and buy a new water heater and then save up money to pay someone to install it.
The water heater arrived and I stored it in the laundry room. Just a few weeks after it arrived, I happened to look at the old water heater, and I noticed the catch pan under it had an inch of water in it.
It was leaking! Oh no! Emergency! Except wait a minute, I already have a plan for this.
So, instead of saving up money to hire a plumber, I went to Youtube and learned how to install my own water heater. It all worked out perfectly. All because The Sopranos made me anxious about the condition of my water heater, causing me to randomly purchase a water heater I had no immediate plan to install.” CaprainFeebheart
37. Saving Everything Saved This Father’s Relationship With His Resentful Son
“Got divorced 11 years ago from a horrible woman when my son was only 7 years old. Once I got my life together and settled in I tried to get him to visit me as often as I could (due to work I had to live in a different state).
Every single time I tried to make plans to fly him to see me or come see him, she would give me some horrible excuse about some medical thing he had, some event with school, or some emergency as to why he couldn’t spend time with me. Or even sometimes she would just tell me to f*ck off and straight up say no. She knew I didn’t live in town and I wasn’t just going to show up and see him, so that gave her some power.
After the 9th or 10th time of that happening I said to myself, ‘You know what, just to be safe I should keep a record of all of this.’ So I made sure I saved every text message as well as every email conversation between her and me.
Over the years my son started to resent me thinking that I did not want to spend time with him. He became more distant and I was not able to communicate to him what was actually happening. At the age of 15 or 16, he stopped talking to me because he said that his depression was due to me not wanting to see him. I couldn’t explain anything to him at all, so I emailed him and apologize and let him have his space.
Last year I was able to get through to him and convince him to let me come see him and spend the summer with me.
I had legal visitation to do so, and told him that he needed to tell his mother he wanted to spend the summer with me. She tried to come up with an excuse, but he was resilient in asking and told her it was his choice to spend his summer break with me. She wanted to seem like a good person so she said yes finally. I drove 1100 miles to go pick him up and take the drive back with me to my state. I cleared it with child services, his mother, his grandparents, and everybody was okay with it.
I was going to fly him back in 2 months when his break was over, a week before he started school again.
On the drive back he expressed to me how upset he was with me about not being around in his life and not wanting to see him. We had a difficult conversation and I just let him tell me everything he was feeling. It was hard to hear, but I wanted to know where his headspace and his heart was.
So when we stopped the first night at a hotel, I pulled out my laptop and told him I wanted to show him something.
I knew it would hurt, but he had to know how much I cared about him and how hard his mother made it for me to see him. So I showed him every message and every email his mother had ever said to me about the lies she told that kept me from seeing him. I also showed him the legal documents from when I hired a lawyer to try to get custody of him and how difficult she made things. I showed him the communications between her and I and how downright mean she used to get to me when we communicated.
I showed him the tweets from his now stepdad that was basically calling him a loser and saying how much he didn’t like him. I showed him a part of his family that he had no idea existed.
Immediately his attitude towards me changed. We spent the entire summer together and had the most amazing time rebuilding a relationship. He came to where I lived and saw the clean and responsible life that I lead, and the hard work that I do to make a living. He started to realize that life in the small town where he is at is very lacking and that his family there is toxic.
The entire summer he spent with me he had zero bouts with depression, and actually stopped taking his medication for it – his choice. He started to understand that his perceived depression was an environmental thing.
As a thank you for coming to see me, I canceled his flight home and gave him my old pickup truck as an early 18th birthday present and his first vehicle, and drove it back to his home state with him when the summer was over.
He graduates from high school this year and is going to be moving here where I live to go to college.
Thank God I saved all those messages.” Geezer_Glide
36. If It Doesn’t Look Right, It Probably Isn’t Right
Pixabay“I was tieing in a standpipe to an existing (fire) sprinkler system a couple of weeks ago at work. The standpipe fed four hose valves going up the stairwell, and if you don’t know anything about standpipes there is usually a grooved cap at the bottom and top held on with couplings to dead-end the pipe with hose valves on each landing for the fire dept. I was nervous already because the new pipe was not installed by me and I have trust issues with people in my field that I do not know personally.
Something was bugging the sh*t out of me all day as I was combining these systems together. Before filling after fighting with this tie-in for almost 10 hours I thought to myself ‘something just doesn’t look right with this pipe.’ Sure enough, whoever installed the caps at the top and bottom put them on backward, which would have blown apart and coated this entire four-floor antique storage unit with dirty black MIC water. The main valve was so far from the standpipe it would have taken at least 5 minutes for me to realize and make it back to shut the water off, and street pressure was 110 psi.
That simple mistake from someone else could have cost a lot of people their valuables, me my job, and my company a ton of money in lawsuits.” aerro955
35. Better Crazy Safe Than Sorry
Pixabay“I’ve had a handful of these in my life.
The one that popped in my head first was from a party when I was 16. It was in a small farm town about 20-25 minutes from my actual town and everyone was out partying in somebody’s parent’s barn and having a real good time.
I didn’t realize that our DD had been drinking all night. When it was time to go, I couldn’t even tell she was tipsy.
But something wasn’t right so I didn’t want to drive back with them. For whatever reason, I decided to get the verbal tongue-lashing from my mom when she came to pick me up.
Well, my friends in the first car were apparently veering across the road. Got picked up by the cops and all of them got to spend the night in jail.
Glad I opted for my mom.” Economy_Cactus
34. This Guy Knows How To Listen To Instructions
Pixabay“After enlisting in the Army recruits get a list of everything they must bring to boot camp. On this list was a padlock. During ‘processing,’ the five or so days before the real training starts, recruits are given their military equipment including duffel bags and told to put their things (they brought with them) in the duffel bag.
After finally getting everything in I was left with just the padlock. I had no idea what to do with it, but I noticed if I closed my duffel bag in a certain way, I could close the lock on the hook.
So when we get to the training unit and off the ‘cattle trucks’ and a few hundred drill sergeants are yelling and screaming and telling us to line up, which we do, with our duffel bags in front of us. The drill sergeants then proceed to check if the bags are locked and if not they grabbed them at the bottom and whirled them around flinging the entire contents on the ground.
Everyone in the entire company had their stuff dumped except for me and one other guy. Only because locking my duffel bag was the only thing I thought of doing. Putting it in my pocket was not an option because they were very clear about not having any ‘civilian’ items in our uniform pockets.” Berlin_Blues
33. Always Better Off Checking
Pixabay“I had a car sitting on jack stands because I needed to do some transmission work. Before climbing under it, I thought it’d be a good idea to rock the car around. One of the jack stands was not in the right spot and the car slipped off it, slamming down on the front disk brakes.
Would have killed me.” Goyteamsix
Another User Comments:
“One of my coworkers died earlier this year from this very thing. You were good to check.” Wargarbler2
Another User Comments:
“Last year this happened to my father with the front wheels off… The truck came down dead center on his chest, but he was able to crawl out somehow and walk into the house to tell my mother he needs to go to the ER. my father is one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met but he was crying in pain when they made him lift his arms above his head for the xray.
He ended up with 5 broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder from prying himself free.
It could have been so much worse if he was only an inch or 2 closer to the front.” Coachcrog
32. Most Times A Second Opinion Matters
Pixabay“My daughter was six months old. Had a raspy sound when she would breathe. Doctor said it was called a floppy trachea, she would grow out of it. Took her to another doctor to confirm. He said the same thing.
My dad comes over one day and hears her breathing like she does.
‘Bullsh*t. Something is wrong. You need to take her to another doctor.’
I’ve already taken her to two different doctors, but dad said do something, so we did.
She had a birth defect. Her aorta formed around her trachea and was slowly suffocating her. Hospital wouldn’t even let us take her for a “fourth” opinion. She has to have surgery right now.
Open heart surgery n a six-month-old is not fun. Made me cry like a little baby. All good now.” gurrauthor
31. He Trusted His Funny Tingle
Pixabay“So, I’m working as a mercenary in Iraq defusing IEDs from different areas after the town has been liberated from ISIS occupation and rule.
I’m tasked with a school, which has killed 5 people on 3 separate occasions when they went to enter from one of the few entrances.
A couple local cops and 1 or 2 civilians I believe. I circle the huge compound, disarm a few switches, and trace the wires into a window on the ground floor, where it enters the room and leads under the ceramic floor tiling. There are some disturbed floor tiles, but just barely so, more like the dust settled oddly on them because they had been pulled up and replaced while Terrorist Terry is running and hiding the wire.
This turns out to be the most dangerous and complex IED I’ve ever encountered over a decade in this career field. Certain tiles on the floor have been lifted, and the foundation was chipped away to allow placement of different firing switches.
If you step on certain tiles while walking around the building, you lose. If you lift up certain tiles trying to get to the right wiring and circuit components, you lose.
Every action is done remotely and from a good distance away, so if I make a mistake or there’s something unexpected, I can walk away from it intact. After 2 days of work, I’ve disabled 8 different firing switches, and finally, find the detonator attached to the IED main charge. It’s under the floor in a storeroom, so I cant see exactly how much explosives have been used, which is important information to determine safe operation and evacuation distances.
Just a large area of disturbed tile approximately 10′ x 5′. I remove the detonator carefully after saving this last bit of circuit and get my tools ready to start excavating the dirt and sand hiding the explosives that are just beneath the surface (it’s slow work because each bit of dirt is moved carefully with a paintbrush).
I get this odd tingle in my nether regions and decide to leave that be for the moment and brush away some dirt at the outer edge of this hole/disturbed tile area to give myself a warm and fuzzy feeling about my next steps and adjusted plan.
After two strokes, I see another bit of the wiring that’s been encountered the last few days and have a ‘well… f*ck’ moment. Not only had they worked 8 different firing switches into this one giant sub-floor “f*ck you” charge, but there’s another entirely independent firing switch leading into a different area of the explosives. I snap a few pics, get my tools ready, and start walking back to my safe area to perform my actions on the new components. Radio back to my safety team who are further away at the cordon edge, update them on the situation, and actually tell them “just wanted to let you know what’s going on and what I’m going to do, so if everything blows up, you’ll know why.” We laugh at the dark humor, and I conduct my actions.
KA-F*CKING-BOOM
It was a Hollywood moment come to life. I was literally blown off of my feet while crouching, and flew back about 5-10 feet. The explosive charge was estimated near 400lbs or so, but the destruction of that part of the building had triggered one of the booby-trapped floor tiles in a different area, which sympathetically detonated THAT explosive charge, also estimated near 400lbs. Parts of the first and second floor collapsed to the ground, the hallways and rooms within 30 feet were completely destroyed and covered in rubble, and the blast from the explosion and the nearby dirt had created a large mushroom cloud of dirt and dust, completely hiding anything inside the entire compound from sight (maybe 200′ x 500′ total area inside the compound walls?)
My team freak out thinking I’m dead, and they blow up my radio with traffic, which of course delays my ability to assure them I’m roughed up but alive.
Had some minor cuts and bruises from the falling debris and a concussion and migraine from hell for about 2 weeks, but I walked away at the end of the day.
Always trust that funny tingle, folks.” KaboomTech
30. It Pays To Know What’s On The Menu
Pixabay“I was an expediter at a restaurant. It was super busy and I was trying to get runners for food. I was about to send out a stack of dim sum when I looked at the ticket again with a note that said “no peanuts on the tempura tofu.”
I had read it earlier and didn’t sprinkle peanuts on it.
Another server was about to run it to the table when I told him to wait and get the actual server for the table. We were slammed and he was kinda p*ssed but went and got him. The actual server comes back and he’s all frustrated when I ask him, ‘Does your “no peanuts” guy not like peanuts or is he allergic to them?’ Server responds with, ‘He’s very allergic to them, that’s why I put no peanuts on the ticket!’ He was all being sh*tty with me. I told him, ‘Well the f*cking tempura tofu is fried in f*cking peanut oil!’
Didn’t realize the head chef was behind me and heard the whole thing.
Server didn’t know we only used peanut oil. It was an Asian fusion really nice upscale restaurant. Needless to say she (the head chef) f*cking reamed this guy.
I was a half-second from sending that food out too. It would have been bad.” Leftpaw
29. Got A Request? Write It Instead Of Saying It!
Pixabay“Oh yeah. I worked for a large manufacturer as a buyer. I purchased raw materials and packaging for the production departments.
When working in a large consumer goods company, there will be a periodic and frequent product and packaging changes. These changes are supposed to be programmed to coincide with planned runs, promotions, private labeling, etc.
Marketing gets to decide what and when these will run; production gets to tell them how wrong they are.
Anywho, we had this marketing er, um, person who would regularly call down to the plant and ask me to buy such and such to run such and such. The first couple of times I did and it turned out that she didn’t know what the f*ck she was talking about, would deny ever requesting it. Sh*t would fall on my head for ordering materials without an RFP (request for production).
After the second or third time of being thrown under the bus by this bit…er, um, person, I started requesting things in writing.
She would verbally assent and then when the memo or request in writing didn’t arrive, the items would not get ordered. I had the quotes, the run times, the delivery but did not place the order until it was in writing. She would wiggle and pout to the boss, he would call me, I would explain that I had no such request (in writing) and about half the time a written request would appear. The other half of the time, the issue would quietly disappear. Hmmm.
So, I had developed the CYA because I needed an a*s cover.” Source
28. He Was “Unsure,” And It Worked In His Favor
Pixabay“One day I got a hit in the head while surfing.
It turned out to be a concussion and I went to the hospital with my mum I was 17 at the time. We met with the doctor in A and E and he said its a concussion we can do a ct scan if you want but there is probably no need. I was unsure and just said yeah I would like a scan. After the scan was told that they didn’t see anything but the radiographer would be checking it in the morning. The next day I got a call to be told that I needed an MRI that they found a tumor in my brain.
If they didn’t catch it there I would have lost my vision from the tumor and it would have been too late to do anything at that stage.” DarkFrogy
Another User Comments:
“Similar thing happened to my dad this May. He had a pain in his side that was near his appendix so his doctor recommended a CT scan mostly out of an abundance of caution and since my dad is retired with great insurance and plenty of free time.
His appendix was fine (the pain was constipation) but the tech noticed a spot at the bottom of his lung that turned out to be fast-acting stage 4 lung and liver cancer.
He was completely asymptomatic. That particular variety has a 70% 3-month mortality rate but also usually isn’t caught that early. 6 months of chemo and immunotherapy and now he’s in remission. It’s insane to think that by the time the symptoms showed up it would have been too late or he might have just dropped dead one day and we wouldn’t have even known why.”misoranomegami
27. It’s All About Sending It In An Email
PIxabay“It’s a driver’s 11th commandment.
We’re often told to do something iffy. For instance, I had blown a tire on the tractor. Most of the recap was still attached to the casing.
I pulled over and put in a call to dispatch expecting them to send a service truck out to me with a replacement tire. There was on the other hand, a truck stop about 10 miles down the road that had a tire shop. Rather than the service truck, I was instructed to nurse the truck to the tire shop. I didn’t care for that much and I told them so. With that cap still attached to the casing, it was going to slap the sh*t out of the truck, possibly causing damage. I was assured that any damage to the truck would be cheaper to repair than a service call.
I said okay, send me that in an email and that way if there was further damage, I’d have my a*s covered.
Anytime I’m asked to do something where I might be held accountable and the accountability isn’t mine, I just say, ‘Send that to me in an email.'” Source
26. This Is Why You Wear A Seatbelt
Pixabay“Before wearing a seatbelt was required by law, I never wore it. I approached a toll booth on a rainy night. I stopped at the toll booth and something told me to put my belt on, which I did. About a mile past the toll booth was an area that consistently bottlenecked due to merging lanes, which often caused stopped traffic as the lanes merged.
I was stopped in this traffic and I was in the left of 3 lanes. I saw the person behind me approaching way too fast, despite a mile of stopped cars ahead of him. He tried to swerve onto the shoulder and clipped the rear driver side corner of my car. This spun me out from the left lane to the right lane. Multiple cars got into accidents avoiding my highway pirouette, but thankfully I was not hit by any of them.
Final tally: I was not hurt, my car was totaled, my insurance paid for it (a nightmare unto itself) since he was an uninsured noncitizen, the cop who showed up after never documented me as a witness of the accident, neither the cop nor the guy who hit me showed up at court (I did after inquiring about it), and the guy who hit me got away with it.” Fthewigg
25. He Won The Classic Case Of “He-Said-She-Said”
“About 10 years ago when I was married, my wife’s best friend kept on flirting with me.
One time when she was being super aggressive, I recorded it on my cell phone. A few months later, she accused me of saying to her, the very things that she said to me. One listen from my wife to my phone completely exonerated me and shut her down completely. She was trying to ruin my marriage because hers was crummy.” throwaway4the1sttime
24. A Painful Surprise Was Waiting For This Person In Same Place Two Days In A Row
“Flipped over my shoe and shook it, cause I had found a spider in it the night before, just to make sure.
There was another spider in there.” iron_monty
Another User Comments:
“Or in the side mirrors, or under the hood (bonnet), or door handle…
My wife had one climb out from the side mirror mid-driving, nearly had an accident.
Luckily her friend, an Aussie, calmed her down, had her pull over and she relocated the huntsman to a little patch of forest nearby.
But huntsman’s size and appearance make me seize up and throw my kids in the way… uncontrollable reaction. I’ve got multiple kids so I’ll be fine.” spiegro
23. This Receipt Saved This Student A Ton Of Money
“Saving a receipt for a campus parking ticket I paid for during my freshman year of college. They do this thing where they double the ticket amount after a month of not paying. I paid it the week I got it, stuffed the receipt in my bag and forgot about it.
Apparently, whoever was in charge of clearing me didn’t, and I was told I had an unpaid, doubled parking ticket on my account after like 3 months when I tried to settle up tuition for the semester.
I disputed that and wore a smug look on my face as I directly reached in my bag and pulled the receipt out to show them.
I mean otherwise, I would’ve had to essentially pay that ticket 3 times. Something tells me it’s not the first time that’s happened to students there.” Jessiesgirl_97
22. Their Spidey Sense Was Tingling, And It May Have Saved All Of Their Lives
“Four students of mine won the 1st prize for a project they did and we all got a free trip to London.
We had spent the day sightseeing and were exhausted so we got an ice-cream and sat on a bench in a park to relax. A couple of minutes later I notice this couple walk by slowly, staring at us. My spidey-senses go mental. I do not like these people for some reason. She walks by and sits on the bench next to ours and he sits on the bench across from hers. They aren’t talking, just looking at each other.
And that is when I notice her reaching into her pockets.
I jump up, grab my students and run out of the park. My poor students are confused AF and wondering wtf is wrong with me, when all of a sudden we hear screaming.
Turns out she stabbed a couple walking through the park, trying to rob them.
It scares the ever-loving crud out of me knowing had I not gotten my students out of there, we would have been stabbed and robbed.” Penya23
21. For Some Reason, He Was Extra Cautious: And It Paid Off
“I booked a vacation for my wife’s birthday in Cabo San Lucas months in advance. For some reason, as I was booking it I decided to get the trip insurance I had never done that before but time this I thought I better do it.
Our trip was to be in October I booked it in June.
The beginning of September a Hurricane struck Cabo and did a lot of damage. I contacted the resort and they said they were not very badly affected. I left the reservation booked. The day before we were to fly to Cabo I checked the flights and everything was good to go. We got to the airport and as we were checking the woman checking in said ‘Oh there’s a problem with your connecting flight.’ Yeah the problem was the connecting flight had been canceled over a month ago. Yeah, Expedia neglected to tell us that little bit of info. I was able to recoup all of the money we spent because of the insurance.” deadeyeAZ
20. They CYA Properly, But Eyebrows Were Raised When An Accident Happened…
“Was remodeling my house, took out a loan and had to get the house appraised to get the loan.
Found that my house was worth $100,000 more than I had it insured for.
Raised my limits on home insurance. To $50,000 more than the appraised value in anticipation of completing renovations.
Two weeks later house burned to the ground due to a faulty bathroom fan that I did not touch.
City, insurance company and loan company all sent separate investigators due to how shady it looked.” cory89123
19. After Looking At The Skies, They Changed Their Spot And Hoped For The Best
“A tropical storm was blowing through my city a few months ago and we were projected to get some wind gusts and significant rain.
Because our parking lot isn’t large enough for all the staff and our clients, a lot of us have to park on the street, which is lined with large, old trees.
As I rolled up on the morning we were due to get the storm, I parked in my usual spot down the block. Before I shut the car off, though, I noticed that this particular spot was located directly across the street from one of the largest trees on the block. Thinking, ‘you know what, just to be safe…’ I put the car in reverse and backed up about ten feet, safely out of the direct line of fire from any trees.
In the middle of that afternoon, in the midst of the howling wind and driving rain, we heard a huge ‘THUD’ down the street. I went to investigate and that same tree I’d been parked across the street from fell across the road and missed my car by about eight feet.
At that moment, I was glad that I’d decided to play it safe–the car parked on the other side of the street directly across from where I’d initially been got absolutely destroyed. Crushed roof, windows blown out, just pulverized.” itsnotnews
18. Always Remember The AGAAT Mantra: All Gear, All The Time
“I spent extra money on kevlar motorcycle gloves, a lot more expensive but five times more durable.
When I, later on, crashed with my sports motorcycle, I slid the first stretch of meters on the palms of my hands (and feet and knees) before I started rolling, etc…” [deleted]
Another User Comments:
“Kevlar is the way to go with ALL GARMENTS. I’m talking shirts, shorts, pants, jorts, jants, underwear, socks, jewelry, glasses, freaking braces.
Piercings.
Dentures.
Can’t go wrong.” forevergallifralone
Another User Comments:
“When I was 20 I was heading for a long motorcycle ride with my friends. I was a novice rider and I knew it, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before you go down. Everybody does. So I for some reason worse my leather riding jacket (pads and all) that day despite the 90-degree heat…annnnnnd I went down.
Low side dump, skid on my elbow mostly, woulda been some nasty road rash. I rarely wore that jacket.” roboPEDE
17. Check, Double-Check, And Triple-Check Before Going Under A Car
“I had a car sitting on jack stands because I needed to do some transmission work. Before climbing under it, I thought it’d be a good idea to rock the car around. One of the jack stands was not in the right spot and the car slipped off it, slamming down on the front disk brakes. Would have killed me.” Goyteamsix
Another User Comments:
“Last year this happened to my father with the front wheels off… The truck came down dead center on his chest, but he was able to crawl out somehow and walk into the house to tell my mother he needs to go to the ER.
My father is one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met but he was crying in pain when they made him lift his arms above his head for the Xray.
He ended up with 5 broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder from prying himself free. Could have been so much worse if he was only an inch or 2 closer to the front.” Coachcrog
16. A Beloved Family Member Warned Him In The Oddest Of Ways, and He Paid Heed
“I was 19 and home for the summer from college. I had a contraband bottle of Bacardi stashed in my bedroom under a pile of clothes and other stuff between my bed and the window.
My grandfather appears in a dream and sits me down with this bottle to chew me out…not for having booze as a kid, but for hiding it so poorly.
I wake up, a bit disturbed by this dream and throw the bottle of Bacardi in a duffle bag and toss that in the trunk of my car as I leave for work. Get home that evening, and the pile it had been stashed under was moved as my mom had set up a table with a fan by the window to get air moving (grew up in northern WI without AC). Wouldn’t have been a fun rest of the summer had I been busted with that.” WinballPizard
15. Thankfully, This New Car Owner Listened To His Sixth Sense And Bought The Extra Warranty
“I bought a used Subaru Baja that was 5 years old at the time and had 75,000 miles for $12,000.
The salesman offered an extended warranty that covered the engine for $2,500, would last 3 years or 36,000 miles. That was kind of a lot, and I usually don’t buy those. I don’t know what got into me that day, but I said sure.
One month and 750 miles later after an oil change at a mechanic shop, oil started shooting into the….pistons? I’m not good with cars, oil went where it wasn’t supposed to go. Completely ruined the engine and turbo.
The dealer had to keep it for 3 weeks, the warranty company flew someone out to inspect the car, and eventually approved a replacement engine, turbo, and any other affected parts.
Total repairs cost almost $11,000, and the warranty then applied to all the new parts too.
The car drove like it was brand new! Later discovered the car had 5 previous owners before me, but I couldn’t find any accident or serious repair history. This is probably the only time buying an extended warranty on something actually worked out in my favor.” Comicspedia
14. A Split-Second Decision Saved This Renter’s Console And Game Progress
“One time, I unplugged my TV and game systems before leaving home ahead of a big storm. Came back to find that, everything I hadn’t unplugged had fried completely.
I’ve had surge protectors not do their jobs before, so I thought it’d be a good idea to be safe.
Also, all my appliances were covered under my renter’s insurance policy, but none of my ‘entertainment media devices’ would have, as I was not a student so I didn’t really have a need for that stuff. I’d have gotten a check for my TV and stuff, which would have replaced it, but this was before the days of cloud game-saving, so I would have lost all of my progress and a couple games that came with the console when I bought it used.
Second edit: No, a breaker won’t protect you from a surge, only from a short circuit. You’d need an arc fault breaker with built-in surge protection, very expensive in comparison to a renter’s / homeowner’s insurance policy.” [deleted]
13. In This Instance, Both Video And Audio Proved Invaluable
“Many years ago when I was a tech at a call center, I was on a call with the client’s IT guy to fix a corrupted database.
Their IT guy shared screens with me so that I could work on the recovery.
The IT guy renamed the files as F*CKED_DB, F*CKED_BACKUP_DB, etc.
Just to be safe, I had him say that it was he who named the files as such and not me. I asked him to confirm this each time I had to touch the files.
I took screenshots also.
Little did I know, this call was monitored (voice and screen recording).
A day later, I got called in by a manager asking me to explain a ‘situation’ that came out of a recent call I was on—he had only seen a few screenshots that were made by the recording program.
I told him to watch the whole video with the synch’d audio.
A few hours later, he called me into his office to apologize for speaking to me with such an ‘accusatory’ tone.
Moral of the story: always cover your *ss!
On the brighter side, after the incident, this manager was always super nice to me and backed me up whenever there was an issue. He even wrote me a rave review/recommendation on LinkedIn (back when LinkedIn actually got you jobs).” coldfusion718
12. This Safe Shopper Kept The Tablet’s Box, And Then The Tablet Stopped Working
“I bought a really nice tablet a few years ago, a Wacom Intuos Cintiq (essentially a drawing tablet built into a laptop) for animation and the like.
Sometimes when you buy nice things they come in nice boxes and for some reason I don’t really want to throw this box away immediately. I put it in the storage area of my basement and forgot about it.
After only about a month this $2,500 tablet stopped working. It wasn’t dropped or damaged, and I’m still not sure how it broke. It would simply try to boot up and fail, crashing and demanding a restart. I called support and after several calls and many hours, we were unable to resolve the issue. They said I could send it back and get a new one if it wasn’t physically damaged.
They told me it NEEDED to be sent back in the original box. I now keep boxes for everything I buy until the warranty expires.” penisvaginasex
11. She Always Kept Extra Essentials In Her Car
Pixabay“For years I kept an old hospital-issued diaper bag in the trunk of my car, with a full set of clothes for each of my boys, and a spare t-shirt for me. It got significant use for years and saved us countless times. I’d switch out clothes every 6 months or so when they hadn’t been used – trading up a size or two, and from one season to another.
Kept it up till a couple of months ago when I sold my last car.” gonyere
Another User Comments:
“To add to this – Always keep a towel in your car/bag.
Here are some famous reasons why:
You can wrap it around you for warmth.
You can sleep under it beneath the stars.
You can use it to sail a miniraft.
You can wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat.
You can wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes.
You can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal.
You can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.” Sumit316
10. This Man’s CYA Story Is A Wild Ride From Start To Finish
Pexels“Very minor, but once I was going out drinking in San Francisco with some friends.
We loved going to this kinda dive bar in the Tenderloin (rough neighborhood). Anyway, I had just bought a new car and was worried about parking it in the Tenderloin, all my friends assured me it’d probably be fine.
As we parked on the street about two blocks from the bar, a homeless guy came up to me and said ‘Man, you don’t wanna park that new car here! Somebody gonna smash them windows and steal your stereo! Your sunglasses!’
On a whim, I just said ‘Yeah, but we’re kinda late. Wanna keep an eye on it for me?’
He pauses for a sec and goes ‘Like a security guard? Yeah, man.
I’ll watch your car. You got $10?’
My friends, confused, started mumbling about just walking on, but I thought it couldn’t hurt much, so I gave the guy $10.
‘Here’s your $10, keep an eye on it, man. If it’s still in good shape when I get back I’ll give you another $10.’
‘Damn! $20? All I gotta do is sit here?’
‘And make sure nobody smashes my window. There isn’t anything inside anyway, it’s new.’
‘I got you, man. I got you!’ He took a huge swig off this bottle of wild turkey.
Anyway, the night progresses, we drink and have a good time, and now we’re all proper drunk except for my friend Mary who was our DD.
I gave her my keys and we start walking down the block. One by one we notice almost every parking spot has shattered glass next to it. Somebody went through the area and smashed each window to get into the cars. I get this sinking feeling in my stomach. I’m already mentally prepared to have to shell out a few hundred bucks to replace the window of a car that wasn’t even mine a week ago.
But lo and behold, we get to the spot and my car is fine – and the homeless guy is bundled up in a sleeping bag and he sees me and goes ‘HEEEEYYYYY! You back! You won’t believe what I did for you! Check THIS out!’ and he shows me this huge freaking bruise on his face and pulls off his gloves and shows me his knuckles which are scraped to hell.
‘What happened?’ I said.
‘Some kid, some tweaker, he comes around here smashing windows and grabbing stuff, he gets to your car and I’m like ‘Yo, pass that one. That one’s MY RESPONSIBILITY’ and he turned around pulled back on this big ol’ brick he’s got in his hand, and I JUMPED THAT MOTHER from behind and he hit me in the head with his damn brick but I knocked him good, man, I changed that kid’s MIND man. He was all strung out and he runs off down the block!’
My friends and I are staring at this guy incredulously. My car is fine, spotless.
I reach into my pocket for $10 but I realize I don’t have cash. ‘Dude, thanks so much! Give me a second I gotta get your cash.’ I say as I walk into the liquor store on the corner to use the ATM. As I’m checking out I realize they’ve got 750s of Wild Turkey in there for like $10. I buy one for him. I give him the $10 and the bottle. ‘Thanks for keeping an eye on the car for me.’
You would have thought this dude just won the lottery.
‘OOOHHHH SH*T!’ he kept screaming. Then he kicked the pile of blankets on the side and I realized he had a girl there sleeping and he goes ‘WAKE UP LOOK WHAT I GOT!’ and she rubs her eyes and looks confused at us, then at him, then at the bottle, then at us.
Wordlessly she reaches for the bottle. He hands it to her. He’s still screaming and hollering like it’s the best day of his life.” gaqua
9. Planning Ahead Saved Him And His Friends From Walking In The Dark For Hours
“I went hiking in the middle of the day with a friend and his girlfriend. I brought flashlights for each of us. Well, the hike took a lot longer than expected and my buddy’s girlfriend sprained her foot at the end. It took us nearly 3 times as long to get back and it was dark with relatively rocky terrain. Those flashlights saved our bacon.
I can’t even fathom how long it would take to stumbling in the dark otherwise.” EliteYager
8. This Driver Searched For Potential Accidents – And It May Have Saved His Life
“I was driving on the highway headed back to college and I see a flatbed semi coming in the opposite direction that looked to be carrying railroad ties (big square logs basically).
I think to myself, ‘Huh, it sure would be bad if one of those things fell off.’
I hold my gaze on the semi and you can guess what immediately fell off and started tumbling right down the center of my lane.
I’m convinced I wouldn’t have been able to react to it properly if I hadn’t JUST thought of that exact circumstance.” JustTheBigBaby
Another User CommentS:
“That’s some final destination sh*t right there.” ghostinthewoods
7. A Friend’s Sound Advice Kept Two Other Friends Safe During A Terrible Accident
“My friends and I were always giving sh*t to another friend because he was never wearing a seatbelt while driving.
One night, he and another friend drove me home, it was pretty late and we were all tired, when they dropped me off I told him ‘use the freaking seatbelt you dumb*ss’.
The next day, around lunchtime, I got a call that my two friends got in a car accident, the first fell asleep while driving my other friends’ car.
They hit a parked car, which hit the car in front of it and got stuck into a wall. The parked car acted as a ramp for their car, they flipped over and slid like 20meters upside down.
For some reason, he had his seatbelt on for the first time ever and he didn’t get injured. Both of them crawled outside the car without a single scratch. If I’m not wrong my friend in the passenger seat broke his pinky though.
Dumb*ss learned his lesson and his seatbelt is always on now, even when he’s in the passenger seat.” yellowrubberduck3
6. This Traveller’s Forethought Kept Them On The Right Track Sans Signal
“We recently went driving around Wales and always use Google maps for navigation.
Last week, The O2 network went down for most of the day, while we were smack in the middle of nowhere, which would have made searching for destinations impossible.
But, I had the forethought that even with a perfectly working cellular network, Wales is full of the countryside, so the signal may be lost a lot, So I pre-downloaded the entire northern half of Wales onto my phone before we set off so a data connection wasn’t required to navigate.
I think we’d still be driving now if I didn’t do that!” EpinDavinci
5. Another Motorists’ Life Was Saved Thanks To Motorcycle Gear…After Years Of Not Wearing Any
PIxabay“I am an avid motorcyclist that advocates wearing gear.
I had a friend that didn’t really care about gear of any kind, saying it was too hot in the summer to wear it. I was finally able to convince him to get gloves and a helmet after a few years of riding without them.
Not an hour after he bought the helmet and the gloves, someone turned left in front of him and he went down. He was able to reduce his speed before the crash but he still went flying over the hood of a Camry at about 30 mph, landing hands and face first on asphalt. He had a nasty gash on his leg and some pretty bad road rash on his legs and arms, but his hands and head were A-ok.
The bike was a total loss, insurance paid for it and the helmet and gloves. Once he was shipshape to ride again, he had me help him pick out a complete suit. I ride in full leathers and a very nice (and pretty) carbon fibre helmet if I am touring, I have Kevlar lined riding jeans for local riding. I will never get on a bike with anything less than that.” Villa-Strangiato
4. Planning Ahead In Case OF Emergencies Saved This Pilot’s Life, And Those Of His Passengers
“I used to be a banner tow pilot and was often tasked to fly banners over NYC area, especially over the Hudson River.
I would pick them up at an airport in NJ and make my way over from there. Typically, if you were to run into some kind of engine problem, you have a fair number of places you could theoretically land if you had engine trouble. Not so much over the NYC metro area. So I picked out a ‘trail of breadcrumbs’, if you will, of specific places I could try to land my plane if I ever had to.
On the one year anniversary of the Miracle on the Hudson (Captain Sullenberger, etc.), I was given the job to fly a banner over a boat on the Hudson that would be carrying the crew and some passengers from the flight.
On the way there, my engine failed while I was less than 1000 feet above the ground. Sinking quickly, I needed to find a place to land right away. Fortunately, my best previously selected spot was just to my left- a landfill on Staten Island, and I put the plane right on the top of it.” danmilligan
If you’re wondering about the story, read all about it here.
3. If It Weren’t For His Quick Thinking, His Finances Would Still Be In The Toilet
“I had originally booked a rental car for a trip to Iceland using my credit card points. Two days before, I canceled and booked it with my credit card which provides rental vehicle coverage because it looked like the weather wasn’t going to be great while we were there and I wanted the extra protection.
While there, we got into an accident for which we were not at fault. The car was almost a total loss and I had to pay $12k+ out of pocket to the company. It took a few months and a ton of paperwork, but the credit card company refunded all of it. I still think about how so so lucky it was that I changed the booking. I would have been ruined for a very long time otherwise.” othercrazycatlady
2. Getting A Better Insurance Plan Saved This Family Their Child’s Health And Finances
“My mother’s coworker convinced her to get the best possible insurance when pregnant, because this coworker had kids deprived of oxygen at birth.
She said she could lower it once the kids were five and seemed normal. It was a struggle as my parents were both in college and working while raising my brother, so they were looking to cut costs wherever possible. I ended up being born with a birth defect that required a transplant before five.
Before the new doctor even told her what was wrong (after rushing me away via ambulance), they asked her if she had insurance. She was able to say, yes, gold star platinum whatever. Many kids died even with the top-class care I received, so I surely wouldn’t have made it without it.
I’m turning 30 next year.
Thanks, random lady I’ve never met.” yokayla
1. Her ‘Better Safe Than Sorry’ Approach To New Medication Saved Her Life
“I was at college and was having a bad time. I had started a new anti-depressant a week or so before but was also using sleep aids because without it I had just kinda been not sleeping at all.
So one night, I’m laying in my dorm room after having taken my sleep aid, and sleepy me notices I have oddly-shaped spots on my arm…and my legs…and my belly.
‘What the heck. Why am I a leopard?’, sleepy me thinks. I want to roll over and lay down.
But for some reason, the fact that I looked like a leopard bothered me.
So, just to be safe, I stumbled out of bed to talk to the RA. I remember very little of that part.
Anyway, she took me to the hospital. It turns out I am DEATHLY allergic to one of the ingredients in that new drug I was taking. It just took a few days to build up in my system. By the time we got to the hospital, my throat was closing and I could hardly breathe. But because of the sleep aid, this seemed like no big deal to me.
I remember like five doctors/nurses around me. They had oxygen on my face, were rubbing my chest trying to help me breathe, and I got like 7 shots in the hip.
Eventually, they let me rest.
When I woke up, they made it very clear that had I gone to sleep in my dorm, I would not have woken up.” cassity282
If you ever feel like you should double-check before doing something or going somewhere, listen to that gut feeling of yours! It only takes a few minutes and could save you anything from an annoying outing to potentially saving you or someone else’s life.
Has anything like this ever happened in your life? Share with us in the comments below!
