Every single one of us has had a unique experience that's shaped us into the person we are today.
But a recent Reddit thread brought it to my attention that some people's experiences have been significantly more wild than others'.
Reddit user dontaskmeforfeetpics asked people to share something about themselves "that sounds totally made up but is 100% real"...and boy, did people deliver:
1. "A horse threw me in the air when I was a child, but I wasn’t riding him. He grabbed the skin of my back with his teeth and yeeted me."
2. "I sneeze when I think of sex. Every. Single. Time. My wife likes to give me shit if I just sneeze innocently. She thinks she's a riot."
3. "A pelican engulfed my head with its massive fucking beak when I was a small child. Pelicans are assholes."
4. "I found out my dad wasn't my biological father in 10th-grade biology class. We were learning about blood types and traits. I raised my hand and said, 'Your chart isn't accurate. My dad has AB negative and I'm O positive.' My teacher said, 'I think your mom has some explaining to do!' Turns out, he was not my father."
5. "I had my tongue surgically enhanced for more reach and flexibility when I was 8."
6. "I was at a store when Tony Hawk was signing autographs. I was only 10 at the time and was a huge fan. One of his early video games had just come out, and I was playing it on one of the TVs. The store wanted to grab photos of Tony playing his own video game. He came over and grabbed the second controller and began to play multiplayer with me."
7. "I am allergic to lettuce. Like, 'carry an EpiPen' allergic."
8. "I got a hernia from trying to match my wife's pregnant belly."
9. "I built a 13-foot-tall T. rex with Christopher Walken's head."
10. "I lost my virginity before my first kiss. She ended up kissing me after I was already in, so technically the kiss happened after."
11. "At age 50 or so and with limited to no video game experience, my mother completed Mario 64 before I did, in about half the time it finally took me to do it."
12. "My dad’s name is Luigi and my uncle’s name is Mario. They are brothers."
13. "When my mom was in grad school, she took several labs where she worked with cadavers. Because my dad worked nights, she often had to take me to class with her, and she'd usually just plonk me down on the table with the cadaver while she worked on it."
14. "I once successfully ran an unfunded shelter for about 100 homeless veterans...as a homeless civilian."
15. "My dad sold his motorcycle to a lady who used it to drive to a city a couple of hours away the next day so she could ax-murder her ex-husband, his new wife, and their kids. She was apparently fascinated with me and told my parents to never let me get married."
16. "I can't look left. Seriously. I'm not an ambi-looker; it's like the Zoolander of birth defects! It's called Duane syndrome, and my left eye can't turn left, so if I try to look to my left, I see double."
17. "I am one of very few people outside World War I to live through mustard gas. It was so rare that the doctors in 1995 had no idea how to treat me."
18. "I'm 30 years old and I've literally never been sick. Or, at least, never showed symptoms of being sick. No colds, no fevers, no viruses, no flu, even. I really don't know what it's like to be sick or get sick, and frankly, I hope I never do."
19. "I got run over by a car, but the driver didn't see me and proceeded to back over me. Luckily they didn't get my torso, but they crushed my legs. This was when I was 13 or 14 (about four to five years ago), so my legs have healed and I'm walking again."
20. "My grandma did a genealogy of my family and proved we’re related to Edgar Allan Poe."
21. "I can't drink the red Gatorade. This isn't super uncommon, but the red dye makes me nauseous and freak out. The funny thing is, I used to drink it all the time without a problem, but one year I started feeling weird and sick all the time, so I stopped."
22. "My daughter's first complete sentence was, 'The printer will kill you.' No idea where she got those words, that context, or that idea, but there you have it."
23. "My husband has been my best friend since I was 7 (I'm now 30). He was the new kid at school, and I walked up to him and said, 'We are going to be best friends.' He said, 'No, we aren’t. Leave me alone.' I bugged him every day for two weeks before he finally said, 'If I’ll be your friend, will you shut up about it?' We were married 20 years later. Proved his ass wrong."
Some submissions have been edited for grammar and/or clarity.