People Share Their “The Universe Is Messing With Me” Moments


We’ve all had those days where it seems like nothing is going our way. When no matter what we do, no matter how many precautions we take, things just don’t work out. Sometimes, it seems too insane to be purely chance: Maybe the universe is simply bored and having a chuckle at your expense. These Redditors certainly think so. Check out the funniest, strangest, and most unfortunate situations that they have ever experienced.

1. Twice Totalled

Right after moving, I was in a car accident on the freeway during rush hour. The back end of my car was crunched. The collision center was right next to a trucking company. While it was sitting in the parking lot of the collision center waiting to be repaired, it took an even stranger turn. A semi backed into the front end of my car. I could barely believe it myself.


2. Karma’s a Witch

This makes me think of my dad’s old job at Rite Aid. One day when he was working, he had a shoplifter run out the door and get into a car right outside. She slammed on the gas into reverse…right into a police squad car. The officer couldn’t get out because his door was so dented. So the shoplifter turned her wheels in another direction in the parking lot, slammed on the gas again…

…and smashed right into an ambulance with its lights on and siren wailing, as it was on the way to a call.


3. Don’t Ask

When I was in high school, my girlfriend broke up with me during class, and the teacher thought I was being disruptive, so I also got a detention for talking. I had to do my one hour of detention, but because I stayed behind so long, the school was empty by the time I finished…and that was the perfect chance for bike thieves to steal my bike. Oh, but it gets so much worse. 

So I was outside, extremely tired, with no bike, depressed about being dumped, and I looked up at the sky and said, “Could this day get any worse?!” And I swear to God, it started raining. I actually went home in the rain laughing at the situation…only to realize that my keys had fallen out of my pocket during my detention.

So then I had to wait four hours until my parents finished work to get into my house.


4. Small World

I grew up far away from my eventual husband. My husband’s father died when he was 19, so I never got to meet him. Because of this, he helped me reconnect with my own estranged father. We decided to go and meet up with my father, and my husband’s father was brought up during the conversation. My father’s response was incredible. 

It turns out that my father went to the same high school as my husband’s father, and they hung out! We didn’t believe him at first, but he started describing my father-in-law’s appearance and personality exactly, which was enough for my husband to believe him and laugh uncontrollably for a bit. It still blows my mind and makes me smile like an idiot.


5. Gut Feeling

When I was in 6th grade, my teacher started talking about appendicitis in class. The next day, I went down to my local soccer field. As I got there, I tried to sit on a bench and felt an odd pain on the lower right side of my torso. I attempted to shrug it off but was unable to. I went to the doctor, who said that my appendix needed to be removed within 2-3 days, or it would kill me. I had appendicitis.


6. Hasn’t Been My Month

The first weekend in August, I got mugged and punched on a night out. They took my phone, wallet, and keys. The same weekend, my dad and second mom split up after 15 years. The weekend after that, my mom went away on a holiday. The first night that she was away and I was watching the dogs, the eldest pup passed away at midnight as I was holding her.

About three days before my mom came home, I got rushed into hospital with supposed sepsis and had surgery. Luckily, I was in and out within a week. The last weekend of August, my car broke down and cost me $300+ in repairs. I am not leaving the house next August.


7. Magic Mom

We were on a road trip and the kids were playing “find a blue car, then find a red car,” and since they were both boys, it was getting loud. I had a headache but didn’t want to yell, so I said, “Why don’t you make it hard and look for a golf cart or something? No one is going to drive a golf cart on I-95.” Just then, an 18-wheeler hauling dozens of golf carts pulled up next to us from the next on-ramp.

Nothing but screams from the back seat. They thought I was magic.


8. Murphy’s Law

My mom’s family has this curse where either the bride or the groom gets seriously ill or has some sort of accident the day of their wedding. My grandmother and grandfather had colds, parents had the flu, my aunt had a cold, my uncle sliced his hand open on the cake knife, my older sister’s transport’s frame snapped in half, and my twin had the flu.

On my wedding day, my husband couldn’t raise his arms above his waist because he overdid it on his workout. Pretty mild in terms of the curse; dancing was interesting but it didn’t severely impact anything. The wedding was perfect and my mom and I thought we’d beaten the curse. We’ve never been so wrong in our lives. 

For the honeymoon, we were road-tripping to a family vacation home. 20 miles away from our destination  and over 400 miles from home, a deer jumped out of the brush and we hit it. The hood crumpled right into our radiator. We called the police and insurance and tried to get a tow truck. It was July and upwards of 100°F.

Three hours after we hit the deer (a nearby farmer put it out of its misery), an officer showed up to record what had happened. Then he left. Two hours after that, the whole fire department of the nearby town showed up because someone called 9-1-1 as they passed us on the road. We fielded their concerns and they left.

Five and a half hours after we hit the deer, the tow truck showed up. The guy was rude, extremely misogynistic, and ended up frustrating both my husband and I. He dropped us off at a mechanic at our original destination. It was 9 pm. I called a taxi service, only to find out that they don’t send out taxis after sunset.

So I frantically called my family members, hoping they knew someone currently vacationing in town. My grandmother had her friend pick us up and drop us off at the vacation home. We thought it was over. The next night, we found out my husband’s grandmother had cancer and she didn’t have long. My husband flew out three days later to say goodbye.

I was left alone with the mechanics consistently saying the car will be done by the end of the week. 2 1/2 weeks after we hit the deer, I drove home to my husband. So I’m not looking forward to what our kids might go through when they get married.


9. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

So the wife was in Newfoundland and I was in Ottawa. We were moving and she went on ahead while I stayed behind to finish my job and pack up the house. Bored one night, I went to a bar and started chatting with a couple of college girls I met. One thing led to another and they invited me back to their place for a threesome.

So there I was thinking, “There’s no way my wife could find out!” I was leaving town in a few days so there was no way it could ever blow back on me. And these girls were attractive! And I turned them down. Even if my wife would never know, I would. I had too much respect for our marriage to do something like that. Then I found out the awful truth.

Three years later, we were divorced because she was sleeping with five other men.


10. At Least It Fit the Budget

The day I paid off my car loan, my car broke down. I took it to a shop and the cost estimate was $375. The exact cost of what my car payments had been.


11. Accidental Invention

As a kid, I went to open up the blinds in the living room. The thick part of the blinds at the very bottom proceeded to hit a lampshade on the way up, which caused the lamp to fall over toward the coffee table, where it proceeded to knock over a full glass of cola, which I had conveniently placed right next to my powered-on PSP.

The thing never worked after that. I accidentally invented a complex machine for the sole purpose of ruining my favorite toy.


12. Take Your Vitamins

I had a drug test coming up for a job. I had stopped smoking weeks earlier, but I have been a long time smoker, so I knew that wasn’t enough time to clear it from my system and pass the test. Instead, I drank a ton of water and was offered vitamins by my friend to help darken my urine so that it wouldn’t be rejected for looking too diluted.

After my second time taking the vitamins, I realized that they didn’t quite taste right. When I looked inside the bottle, my blood ran cold. It turns out that the vitamin bottle is where my buddy kept his stash for a trip he went on, and there were a handful of small buds scattered inside. I certainly felt like the universe was laughing at me in that moment.


13. Driving Me Crazy

When I was on maternity leave, my car had a minor problem, but it took weeks for it to be repaired because they were waiting for a specific part that needed to be shipped in. They didn’t have a rental car at the time, so I was frustrated. Two weeks later, I finally got my car back, and I was as happy as can be. I parked it on the street in front of my house.

I kid you not, two hours later some elderly woman who was driving got unwell in her car and rear-ended my car, after already hitting two cars on the side, which also made my car hit the one in front of me. It totalled my car. It was totally sandwiched. The lady ended up being fine.


14. Adam and/or Steve

For over a decade, semi-strangers and business associates with whom I am not particularly close call me by the wrong name. Invariably, the wrong name is “Steve.” I’ve had e-mail messages where I have closed with my own name, and the greeting of the response is “Hi, Steve.” The guy who has an office next to me just last week said, “How’s it going, Steve?”

I understand people sometimes calling me the wrong name, but almost always the same wrong name?


15. From Old Car to No Car

I was travelling to pick up my new car that I had ordered and specified from scratch. There was a waiting list, and I had been waiting two years. When I was on my way to pick it up in Edinburgh, half a mile from the showroom the light went green and I drove my current car straight into another car that had run the light.

When I looked at the car, my jaw dropped. I noticed that it was a new car I had hit—my new car. IT WAS AN EMPLOYEE OF THE SHOWROOM BRINGING IT FROM NEARBY STORAGE.


16. Pizza Conspiracy

On more than five different occasions, I’ve been offered free pizzas the day I begin a diet. Twice is a coincidence. Thrice is a plot.


17. Psych!

Answering “C” 7 times in a row on an exam. You always wonder who is wrong: You or it.


18. International Incident

I was listening to a battle gameplay video at the airport when a TSA agent came up to me and asked me to remove my headphones. In the process of taking them off, I dropped my phone under the counter. As I was scrambling for it, the headphones detached. Then, the worst thing possible happened. The video screamed, “Bomb has been planted!”

The TSA agent SLAMMED into me, and I mean SLAMMED. I fell back into the wall, and the dude in the video was counting down the bomb, so now my phone was beeping alarmingly after screaming “Bomb has been planted!” The TSA agent found my phone and THREW it to the ground. It flickered and died. I lost my phone and then I couldn’t get on the flight until they verified my YouTube history.


19. Don’t Tempt Fate

I once crashed my company van on my way home from a company meeting. The kicker? The meeting was a celebration of our impeccable driving record.


20. The Roof is on Fire

One time, I was putting a trash bag outside my front door and I looked to the right and saw a daycare center on fire. I took one step back inside, mildly panicking, then ran back outside to make sure that I really saw what I saw—and it wasn’t on fire. Then a couple of months later, my grandma and I were driving past that very daycare center and smelled burning.

We turned to see smoke coming out of their dumpster.


21. Batman Goes to Primary School

A long time ago in primary school for Halloween, we were allowed to dress up in costumes. Just before Halloween, I was in an after-school club, which meant I missed an assembly.  So the next day, I dressed up as Batman and went to school. That’s when I realized my huge mistake. Everybody else had their uniforms on.

It turned out that the assembly was to tell students that the Halloween event was cancelled. There were no spare uniforms, so I was Batman for the rest of the school day.


22. DJ Saw You Coming

One day, I got fired, and as I was driving out the gate, the radio DJ said “Happy Friday everyone! Well, unless you got fired.” I laughed so hard that I was no longer crying.


23. Tired of This

There have been three times where I’ve driven over a nail within a day of getting a new tire, on the tire I had just replaced. Two of those times, I drove over the nail on a Saturday night. The tire place I go to isn’t open on Sundays.


24. What a Headache

The weekend of my school ball, I planned to go to an after party with my friends, but I had work the next day. So during that week, I told my friends that I’d tell work I had a concussion if they tried to call me in for that day, because we often got called in early in the morning. Well, the day of prom came, and I had a rugby game earlier in the day.

Throughout that game, I collided heads with three other lads and finally got knocked back into a teammate’s knee, hitting my head. I didn’t black out, but I also didn’t get up. I ended up getting exactly what I deserved. I failed the concussion test miserably and couldn’t go to my after party because the prom itself gave me such a headache.


25. The Demise of the Gizmo Sandwich

There’s a restaurant two towns away with really great gizmo sandwiches. I ordered one, and went to pick it up. When I got to the place, my coolant light started flashing and the engine was smoking. So, after I picked up the gizmo, I drove it to an AAA office building just up the road, because I didn’t know where the nearest garage was, and they called a tow truck.

I waited outside the building, sitting on a thin set of stairs and eating the gizmo. I finished the first half of the sandwich and grabbed the other half while reaching for my soda—then suddenly nailed my funny bone on the rails of the set of stairs and dropped the other half of the gizmo on the cold, hard ground.

While it was falling, I could tell the universe really didn’t like me, because it opened up and spat out all the good stuff before hitting the ground. After dying on the inside and cleaning my gizmo up and throwing it away, the tow truck finally came and carried me to safety. Two days later, my car broke down again at the gas station.

The same tow truck driver picked me up. I lost $1,400 that week. I hope you got a good laugh, universe; you took the joy out of my gizmo sandwich.


26. Technology, Am I Right?

“Password incorrect.” Click reset password. Enter password. Confirm Password. “Please use a password different from the current password.”


27. A Messy Situation

One fine day, I was out doing some work at a guy’s house when suddenly I needed to go to the bathroom. The guy wouldn’t let me use his bathroom, so I had to go to a gas station several miles down the road. As I was racing to the restroom, ready to make the photo finish, I dropped my pants and went to sit down on the toilet….but I didn’t quite make it.

I made a mess all over the toilet seat, it spilled onto my pants that were now around my ankles, and then down to the floor. Gravity dragged it onto the now ruined rim, and covered my bare butt and thighs with mess. Thinking fast, I removed my boots, socks, pants, and underwear, and pushed them aside to deal with later.

Once my original labor was done, I moved on to the most vile task of cleaning up my mess. It was everywhere, and I mean everywhere! It was dripping down the sides of the bowl and onto the floor, and my clothes were totally ruined. I used an entire roll of toilet paper to clean as much as possible, and dropped most of it in the toilet. But then came the next horror…

The toilet did not clog. It erupted like a shield volcano, sending my turds and dirty water to flood the restroom like Noah’s great flood! I found a plunger next to the commode and began pumping the heck out of the toilet, my desperation turning to total panic. For the next half an hour, I struggled against fate, plunging and scooping and being on the verge of tears.

Eventually, I abandoned the toilet and decided to attempt an escape like the defeated coward I had become. I couldn’t go anywhere without my pants and boots, and they needed to be cleaned off if I had any chance at flight. I put my clothes in the sink and began pressing water through them. I pushed down over and over, finally seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel…

But then the sink broke off the wall and shattered on the floor. This was the breaking point. My integrity and sanity gave out and my mind was in full “flight” mode. I put my soaked, foul-smelling clothes back on and left the bathroom. I told the cashier what had happened, and then left with my tail between my stained legs. I will never show my face at that gas station ever again.


28. My Boomerang Will Come Back

I was walking home from work about 8 years ago and found a really ratty, rusted-over trash penny in my pocket. It was the only coin I had, and I had no idea where it had come from. So I decided I was going to flick it into the street. I fired it good, and was surprised when it appeared to loop back 180 degrees to come right back at me, gently hitting my leg and landing on the ground at my feet.

Did I just accidentally master the boomerang penny flick? What the heck? Further inspection revealed that the penny was grabbed by a loose bit of spider silk in mid-flight, which I guess was tethered to the branches overhead.


29. Don’t Bug Me

I sometimes “play hooky” from work. Basically, if I need a “mental health day” but can’t explain that to my boss, I’ll make up some other excuse. At least 75 percent of the times I’ve done this, something happens on my mental health day that results in me actually needing to take the following day off work.

The most recent example: I called in one day and claimed I’d been stricken by the stomach bug that was going around. The next morning, ready to return to work, I woke up with a real bug stuck in my ear canal and had to go to the doctor to have it removed. I was able to go to work after, but I still had to explain why I needed to come in 4 hours late.

It was such a ridiculous situation that I didn’t think my boss would believe me, so I asked the nurse to actually specify the reason for my visit on the note they provided. I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned here, but I still haven’t quite caught on.


30. Fool’s Curse

My Mother-in-law claims she is cursed and ends up in the hospital every April 1st, without fail. It started when she was a child, and every year something different gets her: a dog mauling her, a car accident, the balcony security rail giving out and making her fall down three storeys, numerous wounds from other people’s April Fool pranks going wrong, etc.

She even has a bunch of scars, and she can tell you which April 1st caused each scar, complete with a full backstory. One April 1st, we were staying at her place, and she made a pillow bunker in her bedroom and literally waited out the entire day in there. She promised herself that this would be the first April 1st in decades without a hospital visit.

Midnight arrived and she triumphantly left her pillow fort, unharmed and victorious.  She didn’t know the worst was yet to come. To celebrate, she decided to cook hamburgers for the whole family. The pan, full of burning-hot oil, somehow slipped from her hands in such a way that all the oil spilled on her arm. An ambulance had to be called and she needed skin grafts.

My personal theory is that the universe got mad that she tried to fight back and turned the April 1st curse up to level 11.


Sources: 1, 2

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