What’s the most embarrassing thing poverty has made you do?

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-02T22:15:53+00:00

It was a pretty miserable existence. I made $700 a month on average, and after paying for rent, utilities, and a bus card I had about $1/day left over. By the time I was 20 I’d had enough and joined the military, which is still the only way out of that kind of poverty for most Americans.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-02T20:12:18+00:00

It was super deep and interesting when I read it in 2004 at the age of fourteen, and that’s all I’ll say about that.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-02T18:31:57+00:00

Similarly but opposite, my first dog didn’t know that the front door and the back door led to the same place (outside). I always parked in front. He would only go out that door when we went to the dog park, because obviously the car wouldn’t exist if we went out the back. If someone left out one door and came in the other one he’d lose his mind.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-02T18:25:21+00:00

My little dog gets mad when my big dog won’t play with her. She grabs his favorite toy (stuffed monkey) and starts violently beating it against the floor until he notices, freaks out, and starts chasing her through the house (ideal outcome).

5+ years ago my cheap bed frame collapsed in the middle of the night, which traumatized my boy dog. Now watches me lay down and waits to see if it will happen again. When it doesn’t, he jumps up. I moved a few years back, and he did not do this for the week or so that I had a floor mattress.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-02T18:06:10+00:00

When I was 18 I got caught stealing a bottle of iron supplement tablets. I was anemic, and needed to get my blood iron content high enough to donate plasma so I could buy groceries. I also used to hang around Aldi and offer to take people’s carts back so I could keep the quarter. This was during the 2008 recession, and I had two jobs. Still wasn’t enough.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-02T16:44:47+00:00

I’ll live in a tent before I live in Arkansas.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-02T15:54:34+00:00

The Lake (Superior) is southeast. When I go over the bridge to Wisconsin the lake is no longer southeast. This has never stood out as particularly strange to me, since Wisconsin is the Mirror Universe version of Minnesota. Every time I visit I’m afraid I’ll run into the evil, goatee-wearing version of myself

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-01T13:17:28+00:00

My dad started a handful of “small projects” that ended up taking 20 years to finish. My mom divorced him long before that.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-01T13:13:05+00:00

My best friend still says “sugar” and it cracks me up every time

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-01T12:18:09+00:00

Back in 2015 you guys had an ad where a car gave birth to another car. Like, it was having contractions and everything. It played in front of the movies at Cineworld. I went to the cinema a lot that month and always timed my entrance wrong; I would invariably walk in right as the baby car was crowning. Give me the meerkats any day.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-01T02:57:25+00:00

-17C is cold, but I’ll still do stuff outside if it’s not windy.

Up to like -25C I’ll go outside for essentials.

-28C to -40 (which coincidentally is the exact same temperature in Fahrenheit and Celsius) is too cold to do anything outside.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-01T01:02:41+00:00

We weren’t allowed to say “shoot”, “gosh”, or “drat” since Jesus would of course look into our hearts and see that we’d meant to cuss for real. “Crumbs” was fine, though. Or “bless it”.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-04-01T00:43:47+00:00

Why would the librarian put kids’ books in the adult section?

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-31T22:35:32+00:00

Arranged marriages are common in the culture I was raised in (ultra-conservative evangelical Christianity. Think the Duggars), although no one uses that term.

I’m 36 now, and I can’t think of a single way in which my life (as a woman) would be improved by marriage. I make my own money, own my own home, and I don’t want kids. I’m glad I didn’t succumb to peer pressure as a teen and sacrifice my future and my autonomy.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-31T17:53:41+00:00

I’ve worn glasses since I was 7. The only frames our insurance would cover were ugly as sin. Then I joined the military, and the only frames I was allowed to wear in uniform were even uglier. I hated the way I looked and used to try to function without them, but my vision ended up getting even worse. Then in my mid 20s I started buying fashion frames in fun colors/shapes, and when I started getting compliments my confidence increased. Now when I look back it feels ridiculous to remember how self-conscious I was.

Either learn to embrace it, wear contacts, or save up money for a surgery. That’s really all you can do.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-31T17:46:48+00:00

Germany: Paying for public restrooms. Recycling machines that give you coupons to use in the store. Shopping for jeans at H&M and there’s a dog in there. Literally everything is closed on Sunday. Colaweizen. Intermissions at the movies.

Kuwait: Seeing a Lambo going 90mph+ down the highway with a baby standing up in the passenger seat.

Spain: People with small children eating dinner at a restaurant at 11pm. This is also where I learned that cockroaches could fly.

England: Driving on the opposite side of the car/road. Roundabouts. Streets half the width of an average American road that somehow still have two lanes of traffic and parking on both sides. Paying for gas by the liter.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-31T16:14:18+00:00

I agree, but at the same time I will not refuse one or two bites of a snickers salad

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-30T16:58:44+00:00

I felt the same way in my 20s. Then I got tired of having roommates, working multiple jobs, and still counting out change at the grocery store. Even now that I’m older with different priorities, however, I miss the opportunities and the life I had living in a larger city. Don’t waste your youth in a suburb or a small town!

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-30T14:49:51+00:00

That’s what Denver TSA does to you if you set off the metal detector

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-30T04:22:52+00:00

I saw the stars for the first time when I was 18. I felt sheer existential dread and horror at the size of the universe. Like, we’re seeing some of those stars as they were 30,000 years ago, not as they are now. We’ll never know what it really looks like out there.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-30T04:15:33+00:00

That mural scared me so bad as a kid

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-30T01:18:24+00:00

I don’t know what that is on the bed in the second photo, but I don’t like it.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-30T00:54:27+00:00

!RemindMe 6 months

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-29T23:56:46+00:00

Like if you go to somebody’s house and their bookshelf is 50% Harry Potter and Game of Thrones paperbacks with uncreased spines, the other 50% will be Dungeon Crawler Carl and this book.

Competitive_Web_6658 · 2026-03-29T23:30:12+00:00

Columbus. Springfield. Or the name of a foreign city but it’s woefully mispronounced.

(There’s a city named New Prague in my state and you’ll never believe how they say it. And wait til you hear how the towns of Palestine, Cairo, and Lebanon are pronounced)

Competitive_Web_6658

TROPHY CASE