Just like lint (or the speed thereof—I just dated myself with that reference), lying is something that folks don't really know why or how or when it happens sometimes. Or starts to.

Lying, i.e. the process of deceiving, has many purposes, including the desire to protect oneself or others, sometimes to hurt people, sometimes because it's fun, but most importantly, folks believe that it's because it fosters and develops imagination and creativity, especially among kids.

But sometimes—sometimes—lies just go a tad bit too far, escalating to degrees that nobody could've guessed—or maybe they could've if they've been burned before—with the liar then possibly suffering the consequences, and then sharing them in a viral AskReddit thread.

Folks have been sharing the lies they started, which were simple at first, but spiraled out of control because someone took the bait and then made it worse. Or better. Depends on how you look at it.

The viral thread got 10,600 upvotes with 6,700 comments, with the best responses finding their way into this curated list, so scroll down, check it out, upvote, comment, sub-... do whatever it is that you do here and just enjoy your day.

More Info: Reddit

#1 The 1% Gallon Of Milk Says It All

My girlfriend and I used to buy milk at the 7-11 across the street from our apt, because for whatever reason their gallons of 1% were always a dollar cheaper than the grocery store.

Reza, The young middle eastern guy who managed the store got to know us fairly well, in that we would always greet eachother and occasionally if he saw their stocks of 1% gallons running low he would store one in the back for us because he knew we would always come in at like 2 pm every Sunday for milk. Really nice guy.

The week before we took a vacation, the girlfriend was studying her a*s off for her exam, so I did the grocery shopping alone. Because we were leaving mid week for our trip, I only bought a half gallon of milk.

Of f*****g course Reza assumes the worst. He assumes that we've broken up. He asked where she was and I just kind of grumbled, ready to launch into explaining how her test was tomorrow and whatnot, but before I could he just launched into this whole big apology like he didn't realize and how he just got divorced and how he misses her every day....I just didn't have the heart to tell him that she was just busy today, and that we were leaving for the week so I just went with it.

I didn't want my gf to think I was a s**tbird, so I neglected to tell her when I got home.

Two weeks later, (coincidentally the gf is busy working a weekend shift to make up for our week off) I go back in, grab a gallon of 1%, and quickly realize that looks bad, so I turn around, put the gallon back, and grabbed the half gallon. The whole time Reza is watching me, dejectedly. He starts telling me it gets better, hang in there, we can grab coffee if I want to talk. I politely decline, and quickly realize this lie is going to spiral out of control real fast. I think I told the gf that they were out of gallons and Reza didn't save us one this week.

In the ensuing weeks, I proceeded to make all efforts to buy milk when the gf wasn't around. She still didn't know. I "decided to start working out", so I was able to justify to Reza the purchase of a gallon of 1%. We would normally chat for a few minutes and we would ask each other how things were and We would both give vague answers and wish each other well and be on our way.

Eventually, one day the gf goes to 7-11 on her own when I wasn't around. I guess Reza helped her, made small talk, but was definitely weird towards her. She texts me about it and at this point I knew the jig was up and I had to come clean. When I get home I explain everything to her, and she laughs, calls me an idiot, but at the same time thought it was cute for me to keep up the facade and commiserate with Reza, who was clearly dealing with some of his own issues.

She decided that we needed to stage a reunion. So the following Sunday, we waltzed in, arm in arm, looking cheery. We could feel his eyes following us around the room, I made eye contact with him once or twice, he was trying desperately and failing to hold back the biggest knowing grin I've ever seen. Finally we go to check out and he starts wringing his hands and finally bursts out about he was rooting for us and how happy he was that we worked it out.

The look of excitement and happiness on Reza's face was probably one of the most uplifting moments I've ever had. He told us repeatedly how we give him hope and how not the whole world is evil... holy c**p.

Glad we could help you Reza, sorry I lied about the milk.

Image credits: Chahles88

#2 The Bullying Never Stops, Or Does It?

Once when I was a kid I invited a kid that I bullied horribly over to my house for a sleepover because I was told I had to do something nice for someone I hurt by our priest during confession (I went to a catholic school).

The next day after a pretty boring night we were playing in the snow banks and I lied telling him my foot was stuck and I couldn't get it out, he ran well over a mile back to my house to get my mom to "save" me... well that kind of woke me up and made me realize "this kid isn't that bad." After that day I never bullied anyone again, and 20 years later that turd that I bullied so terribly is still my best friend, was the best man at my wedding, and the godfather of my first child.

Image credits: Alk3PrivateEye

#3 Dog Eats Chocolate = Mom Gets A Divorce

Once when I was around 6 or 7, my mom brought home some delicious chocolate, and gave some to me. I loved the stuff and stole the bar that she had saved for my step-dad. He comes home and my mom can't find the chocolate. She asks me what happened to it, I blame the Duncan (our dog) knowing that he often eats things off the counter (I didn't know at the time that chocolate was toxic for dogs), My mom goes terribly pale and rushes Duncan to the vet, and he has to throw up.

I felt terrible about this as I thought it was because he stole the chocolate and was some form of punishment. The next day she brings home more chocolate. Nobody told me that it was for Duncan's own good that he was taken to the vet. So feeling bad for doing this to Duncan, I give him my chocolate this time thinking he deserved it after taking one for the team last time. Later that night my mom asks me how the chocolate was, this time I decided to tell the full truth and explained that I gave the chocolate to Duncan this time as I felt bad for getting him in trouble the first time. So another late night trip to the vet, and I finally was told that chocolate is toxic for dogs. Duncan was fine in the end, and for the rest of his life I snuck him meat and other things that would not kill him.

Now the twist is that the very expensive vets trips cost a lot of money, which prompted my mom to take a look at our expenses. She found that the then step-dad was hiding an affair, and then got a divorce.

TL;DR: I lied about our dog almost dying, then almost killed him on accident, causing my mom to get divorced.

Image credits: BriceWithRice

#4 Yeah, I Heard Everything (Inside: Oh No, Gonna Need To Adlib Now)

I walked in on my friend finishing a conversation on her phone. She looked at me, petrified, and asked if I heard everything. I told her with a defeated face "yes". She starts crying and leans on me, telling me she is so afraid and doesn't know that to do. I did this initially as a joke, but obviously I'm in deep water now so I just tell her everything will be fine and to call me whenever she needed me.

Turns out she got pregnant and asked me to go to an abortion clinic with her. Her boyfriend scrammed. We are best of friends now.

Image credits: leftoverrice54

#5 He Got Out Of That Jam...

During my undergrad I took a number of business courses. During one of these courses we were learning about a small company that produced high end jam. The prof asked the class what we thought of high end jam as a business. I said that it was a stupid idea, why would I pay $20 for a bottle of jam when I could make it myself. I meant that as a rhetorical question but apparently my prof took my literally. When I was packing up at the end of class the prof came over to me and started asking me all sorts of questions about jam making. So I rolled with it. I lied and told him how my grandmother taught me how to make jam, when the right time to pick the berries was to ensure optimal jam, etc. I don't know how to make jam. I had no idea what I was saying but the prof bought it. We became buds. After every class we would chat, mostly about jam.

He wrote my reference letter to get into my competitive undergrad program and again when I applied for my masters. I owe most of my academic career to jam.

Image credits: quilles

#6 All I Want Is To Doodle In Peace!

I was at a job fair against my will. Was trying to steal a pen so I could retire to a dark corner and doodle while everyone else did their thing.

The lady caught me taking a pen, and I had to act interested in her sales pitch. Then a news reporter showed up.

Before I knew it, I was in national papers as a general human interest story as a turnaround miracle story, of how I'd come all the way from the barren plains of another country far away while kicking mental illness and addiction, and now wanted to become a nurse.

I don't, nor have I ever, wanted to be a nurse, but that interview sure snowballed all out of proportion. All I wanted was a free pen. Its been ten years and people are still asking how the nursing career is going.

Image credits: GreenGlassDrgn

#7 The "Firey Drill"

Being the youngest sibling I was always getting razzed, so one time they told me as I was starting school to look out for the firey drill, I had never been in school so I asked what it was. "You will hear a loud bell that warns children when this man comes to the school and attacks with a drill thats on fire and tries to drill into the kids brains!" So a few weeks into school there is a fire drill, so I take off screaming like crazy hoping to survive running as far away from the school as I could. My Mom was not too happy with my siblings when she got the call from our school telling her I was gone.

Image credits: ComptonUnicorn

#8 The Phone Call Of Fate

When I was younger at a birthday party, a girl asked me for a quarter to call home for her dad to come get her. I told her that I didn't have one and she got a ride home from another parent.

Later, I heard that when she got home, she found ambulances around her house because her father had died falling out of a tree doing yard work. I kept imagining that if I had given her the quarter, her dad would have come to get her instead of continuing yard work. If I had given her a quarter, maybe she would still have a father.

Image credits: _zero_

#9 "Stranger Danger"

My first year walking to school alone was the 7th grade and I was late a lot. It got to a point that the teacher told me I would have to do all the days chores (putting chairs down in the morning, wiping boards clean, cleaning after lunch, etc.), if I was late again.

Well the next day I was running late as usual. Being a lazy sob, I knew I had to do something to get out of doing the daily chores. So when the teacher asked me why I was late, I thought back on the assembly we had a few weeks prior on school safety. So I told the teacher that a strange man pulled up to me when I was coming into school grounds and asked me to come with him to see some puppies.

I honestly thought that would be a good enough excuse and it would be the end of it. F*****g, nope. School was suspended for the rest of the day, police were called, my parents were called in. And I was interviewed for the entire day. Had to describe the man, the car, everything. They ended up hiring a security officer for the grounds because of that incident and put in a few new cameras. We had monthly school assemblies because of it too.

And it was all for nothing. Because less than a week later I was late again and had to do all the daily chores.

Image credits: Yoinkie2013

#10 "Um, We Can't Go... Birthday, Yah, That's Right, Birthday..."

In college, the girls in the apartment downstairs asked my roommate and I if we'd like to join them at a concert a month away. Neither of us wanted to, and my quick thinking roommate said that date is my birthday (it wasn't) and we have other plans. They ended up not going to the concert, and we had forgotten about it—but on that date they called me downstairs to help them move something. I walked in the door, and "Surprise!!" A birthday party for me with about 15 people there. My roommate was just as surprised. I couldn't tell them the truth and just went with it. Even got a couple small gifts. I always felt guilty about it.

Image credits: Scrappy_Larue

#11 At Least The Mom Was Chill About It

Once when I was really young (maybe 6 or 7), my family was out for pizza and I told them when I was off alone that a man had asked me to come out to his van for candy. I have no idea why I did it, I'm sure I was just parroting something I heard in one of those Stranger Danger videos, but I threw it out there thinking people would be impressed I said no or something.

Well all of a sudden there are police everywhere, the whole pizza place is basically evacuated, the police are grilling me about what he looked like and I'm making up a description on the spot (something like blonde hair, green plaid shirt, etc.). Well a few minutes later the police come out with a guy who looks *exactly* like the description I gave, and I quickly told them that it wasn't him (thank god I didn't ruin that poor man's life).

After all that, I thought it was done, but I got SO many cards, and balloons and toys from relatives, family friends, teachers, there was a write-up in the local newspaper, etc. It blew up into this HUGE deal. For a really long time I never told anyone, and for some reason a few years ago (in my late teens, early 20's) I remembered this incident and felt super guilty about it, so I called my mom out of the blue to explain that I made it all up.

I'll still never forget her reaction: "Huh. That's a weird thing to lie about."

Image credits: mrkushie

#12 "I'm Going To Leave The Room For Two Minutes. If It Appears, Then We Will Just Call It A Day And Everyone Can Leave"

Oh my god... this event just hit me like a sack of bricks.

Gather around folks, it's story time.

So it was my senior year of high school, and I was in the forensic science class. We were getting closer to the midterms and one kid, his name was Nathan, was trying to steal a triple beam balance so he can measure his drugs. He was able to fit this f****r into his backpack. The end of class, the teacher notices there is one of these scales missing.

In a classroom environment, these are okay to have. Apparently, outside of a classroom, they are considered drug paraphernalia.

"I'm going to leave the room for two minutes. If it appears, then we will just call it a day and everyone can leave." my teacher says. She leaves, and everyone turns to Nathan because it was obvious that he did it. Instead of putting it back to where it was supposed to be, he puts it under my chair. "Can you just say you found it here?" I agree. **Big mistake.**

The teacher comes in and states that she doesn't see it. The principal is with her too. "Where is it?" she asks. The entire room looks at me now. "I found it here, under my chair."

The teacher looks astonished, because for my metal head looks back in the day, I was a pretty well behaved kid. So I'm taken out to the hallway and the principal, before she even said a word I go "I didn't do it. Nathan did." I was quickly escorted to the principal's office.

*Now I am going to hold you here for a quick second. Because this detail is pretty important. I went camping several days before and got my arms stuck in a thorn bush, causing scrapes and small cuts all over my arm.*

So I am sitting in the office waiting to be talked to, and that is when Nathan is also escorted in as well. Except he is taken right to the office and I am brought into another. There is the principal, and the school psych counselor. The principal asks if I had any issues at home, and the psych started to jump in. I sat there for several hours wondering what it was all about. That's when they asked why I had a small package of safety razor blades in my locker. They were for tech class I was taking at the time, and the school thought I was cutting myself or something.

This big whole thing happens, and the principal realizes that this was all just a huge mistake. There was nothing more or less to the situation. He ended up getting me lunch that day.

It also turns out that Nathan got suspended for a week, and my entire class came down to the office and backed me up saying how it wasn't my fault. It was a good time.

Also, Nathan, it's been 10 years. You don't have to be weird when you see me.

#13 Who Knew The Easter Bunny Is A Plumbing Expert

When my sister and I were kids, I told her the Easter Bunny came through the drain. I thought it was cute, and since Santa came through the chimney I couldn't think of any other routes into the house. She cried for HOURS. Easter became the most miserable holiday for years until we grew up and she realized what an idiot I am.

Image credits: VelvetTush

#14 Fake It Till You Make It

When I was like 11, I wanted to get out of school the next day, so on the way home from a super bowl party with my mom I started acting like my stomach hurt, she said she'd give me something at home for my stomachache. Knowing this wouldn't get me out of school, I started fake crying and said it really really hurts.

By this time we were already in the driveway of our apartment, she looked at me and said I'm gonna take you to the hospital but if your faking, I'm gonna beat your a*s! (Mexican household), so I stuck to my story and continued sobbing and saying it hurts.

We get to the hospital and they don't know what's wrong with me so they wanna do a cat scan of me, my mom agrees and off I go, after the scan the doctor told us he thinks my appendix looked a little inflamed and that was probably the reason for the pain (I literally had no pain or discomfort anywhere) and that they wanted to remove it which means surgery, my heart sank at the news, but I knew I couldn't confess now I was to deep.

So they schedule the surgery for the next morning , the morning comes and about half my family is there for support and prayer. I'm super f*****g nervous at this point so when the nurse gave me a shot on my butt cheek I accidentally tensed up and felt one of the worst pains of my life, they take me into surgery and everything thing went fine, the surgeon even came to recovery and showed me my appendix which was awesome!

I stayed in the hospital for about a day then I went home but before that the doc told my mom I couldn't go back to school for about two weeks while cuts healed which was also awesome!

Even better my church royal ranger group visited me at my house and brought me this big basket filled with snacks and candy. It was the best two weeks of my life, my mom made my brother get me what I wanted cuz she didn't want me moving around, I just played video games the entire two weeks, then I had to go back to school.

I'm 23 now and have not told a soul I was faking being sick, I like to think of it as one of my greatest achievements. The end....sorry ma.

TL;DR: faked being sick and went into surgery just to get out of school.

#15 That's Not My Name

In the second grade I told the substitute that my real name wasn't Aicire. It was Sarah, and the family that was keeping me made me change my name. I missed being Sarah. Fast Forward a couple hours. CPS is at our house and my parents were LIVID.

#16 They Broke The First Rule...

Back when I was 16 I was a camp counselor for a group of kinder gardeners. A few of them wouldn't stop shoving each other, so I told them (jokingly) to save it for fight club which was at the end of the day... being kids they thought fight club was real and told their parents about fight club which resulted in me having to explain to the administration and all the parents that no... there was no fight club. I wasn't hired the following year.

They broke the first rule of fight club.

Image credits: puckislife_24

#17 Murder She Wrote

When I was a boy, I plagiarized an Encyclopedia Brown story for a creative writing project. My mom was so proud of me and was parroting "my" story to her friends for days. I'd never felt so guilty in my life. So ashamed. Even though I didn't know what plagiarism was, I knew I had stolen those words, paraphrased them as my own. I vowed I would never do it again... and would write my own stories to overcome the theft.

Twenty-five years later and I've written three novels and tons of short stories... as far as I know, none of them are cribbed. I wake up in cold sweats sometimes worried that something I've read has somehow permeated my subconsciousness and made it onto the page.

#18 Toys And Lawsuits

When I was in elementary school, so probably like 10 years old at the time, I had this friend C. C was that small, pale, frail kid with glasses, I think everyone knows the type. No matter what physical activity this kid did, he would inevitably end up injured in some "horrific" way (i.e. twisted ankle, bruised leg) and would wind up on the ground writhing in pain. If his mother was in eyesight when this happened, which was basically any time we weren't at school, she would rush over to scoop him up and drive him to the closest hospital without hesitation. We will call this helicopter woman Ms. M.

Now me and C were good friends, and had been since the first grade. I'd often go over to his house, and he to mine. One thing to note was that looking back, I'm pretty sure Ms. M was a hoarder. Just loads of c**p piled up everywhere, could barely see the floor in her bedroom, it was nuts. Anyway, one year C had a birthday party at his house, and he invited myself and a few other close friends to a sleepover.

I guess this must have taken place in 2003 or 2004, because for his birthday, Ms. M bought C a Gameboy SP. He quickly opened it and we spent the next 3 hours huddled around C as he played whatever game came with the system. But eventually, we decided to take advantage of the last few hours of daylight outside, and went to play in the backyard. All except T, a mutual friend of C and I's. He insisted on staying inside and playing, which we let him do for a while.

Eventually we needed another player for football, so we went inside to grab T. After a few minutes of arguing, I managed to snatch the Gameboy from T, and told him I was going to hide it, so he might as well go outside. He did, and I put the Gameboy under a recliner in the living room. Well, at some point that night, somebody sat in the recliner, and the frame of the chair ended up cracking the screen of the Gameboy. Well, T knew I hid it somewhere, so the blame inevitably shifted onto me. But I didn't want to get in trouble, so I adopted the Bill Clinton defense; deny, deny, deny.

Ms. M ended up calling my mother to pick me up, and they had a huge argument while I was sitting in the car. My mom told me not to talk to C or Ms. M anymore, and that was that. I saw C at school every day, but we just sort of avoided each other. Any time I saw Ms. M, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Which sucked, because she seemed to be at school **CONSTANTLY** after that. Whatever, life goes on.

**BUT WAIT!! THERE'S MORE** Fast forward a few years, and Ms. M ends up bringing my family to court, claiming 75 cents a day in damages for the broken Gameboy SP. She had waited as long as she possibly could before the statute of limitations prevented a lawsuit. I think in total she was asking for close to $1000 USD.

This was so far into the future, I hadn't seen C for probably 4 or 5 years (he transferred schools not long after the incident) but he looked exactly the same at the trial as he did back then. Anyway, we have our day in court and we wait in the courtroom for hours until our case is called. We walk up to the bench, the judge takes a look at the case, and tells C and I to stand right in front of her. She leans over the bench and said something to the effect of "I'm glad that your parents have brought you in today, because I'm about to teach you both a lesson. Turning to the court to resolve an issue about a broken toy, is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in weeks. Deciding to brood on an issue for years in order to profit as much as possible from a fellow man is not a decision worthy of you young men. I hope that after today, you will have a greater understanding of what the judicial system is here for, and that it isn't a tool to get back at someone. Case dismissed."

She also had a few choice words for both of our parents, but I don't remember exactly what they were. Sorry folks! Thanks for reading.

TL;DR: Accidentally had a part in breaking a friends Gameboy SP, made like Bill Clinton and denied that s**t, got sued ~6 years later. 2/10 wouldn't do again.

Image credits: gameboythrowaway28

#19 Oh, Childhood Lies...

When I was about 13, I called a little boy ugly. At the time, my mom's best friend was driving me home from school. Of course she told my mother what I said, and my mom asked me to not say things like that. I told her I didn't call anyone ugly. It was a little lie (at first I didn't know what she was talking about), and it became this big whole ordeal about "my kid would never lie to me" and "why would I lie about this." They were best friends and they no longer speak because of this. All three of us were dumb and immature.

Image credits: bean220

#20 Life Lesson Learned

When I was seven or eight my friend and I were playing underneath her deck. They had a rickety pool ladder that was meant to let you get into their above-ground pool. We were just chilling, playing with invisible dogs or some s**t, when we looked up and noticed some twigs sticking out from the rafters on the underside of the deck.

The big red "animal" light started flashing in our heads, and she held the ladder still while I climbed up it. We found a robin's nest with four eggs in it and I can still remember to this day what they looked like. I've always liked the color.

Being little and stupid, we pulled the nest down and went to go show my mom. My mom opened the door, saw the nest, and immediately said, "where did you guys get this?"

Being little and stupid, I immediately said, "we found it on the ground near the pool."

My mom was angry, but I didn't understand why. She said something about the momma bird not wanting the eggs anymore and called my dad down. He looked annoyed, but took the nest from us and walked down the driveway, across the street, and stood under the deck asking us where we found it. Sticking to our story, we showed him the ground underneath the rafters. There.

So he grabs the pool ladder and starts to climb up, and I don't really remember this part at all. But what I do know is the ladder broke, he fell, and everything else that happened is just kind of gone from my head.

What I do know is this: he absolutely shattered his ankle. He had to be out of work for a long time, had surgeries, and on top of it all, the accident forced him to leave the rescue squad he had been a part of since like, college. The rescue squad that is the only reason he ever met my mother. He says he left because of my little brother being a year or two before but I am like, 90% sure that was not it.

Three of the eggs broke, and I can still see them shattered on the patio ground.

Maybe it's not a big deal to anyone else here, but I literally still feel guilty about it and it was close to two decades ago. I made my dad give up his literally life-saving past time, caused him recurring pain for the rest of his life, all because I couldn't keep my hands off of a damn bird's nest.

Image credits: Alocasia_Fruit

#21 And That's How You Learn To Play The Piano

Oh man. When I was 7 I had been learning how to play the keyboard for two years. It was one of those Casio keyboards that had light up keys to learn how to play a song. If you put the easy setting on you could literally hit 1 or 2 keys over and over again and it would play the entire song through. So at the age of 7 my grandparents thought I was a prodigy. I could 'play' Fur Elise, Canon in D and Moonlight Sonata. Family and friends would come over to listen/watch me play and were astounded. 2 years or so go by like this. For my 10th birthday my grandparents bought me a real piano and signed me up for a summer camp where 'prodigies' of different instruments went to compete. VERY expensive. My entire family, friends from school and a priest family friend was there for my birthday party and wanted to hear me play on my new piano. I broke down crying and ran to my room and confessed to my grand-mom what I had been doing for years and it broke her heart AND trust for me. It sucked. I still cringe when I think about it. I've been playing for over 20 years now though and can play all of the songs I listed and probably hundreds more now.

Image credits: melapot8

#22 Would You Like To Hear About Our Lord And Savior...

I told my 3 year old son I was God just to be funny. No matter how many times I tell him I am not God, he still thinks I am to this day.

Image credits: BasedRocker

#23 The Brotastic Turtle

Fourteen years ago I was at a party of a friend of a friend and kinda lied to be super interested in a turtle or tortoise or whatever it was that he had in a terrarium. I just wanted to pretend to have a valid reason to be in this corner of the room in order to get a better view of a girl standing there who was apparently not wearing a bra. But she started to talk to me and it turned out she had just moved in next door and didn't know anybody there. We are now married for almost 10 years and have a girl and a boy.

#24 Well That Escalated Quickly...

Told my parents I had lost my crappy phone on a bike ride (C.2010) when I had actually put it under my bed so I could get a new touchscreen phone over my crappy Alcatel phone.

Mum went to phone shop and tripped on ledge outside shattered her left elbow narrowly missed out on having the joint replaced with surgery. To this day she can't bend her left arm past 150 degrees and can't kneel as tripping f****d her knees up big style and caused a hernia in her stomach that the NHS refuse to operate on unless it becomes life threatening. Crappiest son over here.

Image credits: makinwar_uk

#25 The Price You Have To Pay Just To Join A Club

When I was little, maybe 6 or 7 years old, and I was playing with my cousin. He was/is my best friend, even if we have grown apart in the last few years.

Anyway, I told him if he jumps out of the tree onto the trampoline, he can get into the club. He jumped and jarred his knee. He screamed blue murder. There was no club. There was no entry test.

The injury plays up till this day. It affected him when he was playing gridiron (he had to give it up), it affected him when he joined the army and again when he become a cop. I'm worried one day he dies because of that knee and I'll blame myself for it.

[FYI:] Gridiron = American football. I'll never make that mistake again. When I said I'm afraid he'll die because of his knee, I meant in some kind of job related incident. I know where he works as a police officer there are a lot of violent bogans (the worst kind of bogan).

Image credits: girraween

#26 Accidental Identity Theft

When telling stories [online] I change up a few details. Like if I'm 18 I'll say I'm 17 or 19, I'll say I live in a town one town over, stuff like that. The point is, if someone gets [mad] at me (which happens pretty regularly) they won't be able to doxx me.

Well someone tried to doxx me anyway, and they somehow came to the conclusion that I was this kid a year below me in the same high school as I was at at the time.

So I had to both try and convince the doxx guy that that wasn't me, and I had to go to this kid and explain that I'd somehow accidentally stolen his identity and he should watch out for a crazy dude on the internet.

I must have put enough doubt in the doxxer's mind cause nothing really happened after that.

Image credits: BlatantConservative

#27 What's My Age Again?

Not my lie but was told to me by my college roommate, and has pretty much upended everything I ever thought I knew about the world or the human condition:

On the first day of college me and my 3 roommates (randomly assigned, never met) move in to our apartment. It happens to be roommate X's birthday on the day we move in. He casually mentions that he just turned 18, we wish him a happy birthday, nothing out of the ordinary, right?

WRONG. Fast forward to 3 years later, exactly 3 years to the day. We take roommate X out for dinner on what should be his 21st birthday, obviously intending to pour drinks down his throat until he can't remember his name. We're at the table telling the waitress to "take care of him" "its all on us" "he just turned 21 break out the beer bong!" etc. She cards him kind of as a joke, looks at his ID, and goes, "uhhhh... you just turned 22? Not 21?". We all assume she made a math error, but he sheepishly just nods his head and grabs for his ID back.

At this point we can't just pretend like nothing happened and ask him how old he had turned on that day. He looks around like he's looking for an escape route and eventually says "21...". I'm skeptical at this point, so I ask to see his ID. He hesitates but realizes there's no way out and hands it to me. Sure as the sunrise this kid is 22 years old. At this point the waitress has been standing around awkwardly for a few minutes and eventually just peaces out.

Now you may be thinking that this was one casual lie/mistake that he made on the very first day and just never had reason to correct. But think back to college. Think of all of the subtle lies this kid must have told me, our other roommates, hell almost everyone he ever met over the course of that 3 year period, to never, *ever* let it slip that he's actually a year older than we all think. We even went through basically an entire year of "not being able to buy alcohol" thinking he was 20 like the rest of us, when he was actually 21. I can't even count how many parties we had where we had to hustle hard just to get a couple of cases of Natty Ice, and this guy could have solved them all by just admitting his lie. But he never did.

This hit me really hard, and for the life of me I can still not explain why I am so confused or upset or offended or IDONTKNOWWHAT about this. For weeks afterward the only conversation we would have is me asking him why he would lie about something like that, how many times he must have almost slipped up and told us the truth, and JUST WHY on earth he would go so all in on such an inconsequential lie. He never had an answer at all. Not even "I was trolling" or "I thought it would be funny." Just kinda shrugged and went "idunno". And that's got to be what gets me the most. The possibility that there really was no reason for this lie, and that I just got trolled for 3 years because this guy accidentally said 18 instead of 19 and was too embarrassed or lazy or whatever to ever correct himself. It's now 6 years later and this thought train still keeps me up at night sometimes.

*I just want to know why*

Image credits: anon

#28 He Got Grounded, But It's Still Funny

Not me but my my brother. When he was in 1st or 2nd grade he felt like not doing his homework for a solid week. When confronted by his teacher about this, he decided to tell her that we had a death in the family and lost an aunt. My mom is one of nine and I guess he figured the teacher wouldn't ask too many questions. He was almost scotch free until he went grocery shopping with my mom the next week and ran into the teacher in dairy. My mom was very confused when the teacher was apologizing for her loss. Both heads turn to my little bro and he has to sit there and explain it to both of them. He got grounded and my mom and I still laugh about it.

#29 Blame It On The Mean Girl

I remember back in kindergarten, there was this girl in my class that really hated me and would just be overall mean. One day, I got fetched from school drenched in sweat and out of nowhere I told my mom *mean girl's name* dropped water over my head. That led to me, my mom, her and her mom in the principal's office with everyone mad at her whilst she cried. I think she apologized... But anyway, what with two angry moms and a principal I think I would too.

Image credits: 2d4b5l69

#30 Impersonating A Brother For All The Right Reasons

My step grandpa would call after my grandma died once in a while "about his car" and then turn it into a chat. He always thought I was my brother over the phone and most of the time I corrected him.

Ever since my grandma died, he literally started drinking himself to death. I saw him a few months after her death and he was REALLY skinny and barely still with it. I remember holding back tears as he tried to tell me a joke. This sad, incredibly weak old man who was a few weeks from dying was mustering all the strength he had to tell me a joke. It was actually pretty funny too.

He was always kind of an a*****e, which for some reason made me so much more sad to see him like this. I sometimes wonder why that is.

Fast forward a few weeks. He called our house to speak to my brother, who is a mechanic, to ask him a question, "about his car"

I answered, and again, he thought I was my brother. I tried probably about 10 times to correct him but he kept talking without much of a chance for me to say, "let me go get my brother"

Anyway, the "small lie" is that I had a 20 minute conversation with my step grandpa who thought I was my brother the whole time. He asked me a lot of personal questions and I did my best to answer them the way I thought my brother would. Idky, but for some reason when I remember this it makes me feel horrible. Also this was likely the last time he talked to anybody before he went to the hospital and died.

#31 When You're Gone, You're Dead

Not sure if this counts as a lie, but I convinced my sister that the word "dead" meant "gone".

My little sister is 16 years younger than me. When she started talking, every time someone would leave the room, I'd say "X dead", like "Mummy dead". Eventually, she believed that the word "dead" meant "gone", and she started to use it herself. Needless to say, my mother wasn't very happy, but we all found it kind of funny to be honest, and when you laugh at something a child does, they do it again and again.

She got to about 2 and a half years old, and my mum dropped her off at nursery. Up until this point, for whatever reason, she'd never said it outside the house. So in the middle of the day, when she said "Mummy dead", the care workers at the nursery freaked the f**k out. They tried to ring my mum, but she is notoriously terrible with phones and so didn't answer. She's also quite often late.

The workers at the nursery were apparently just about to ring the police when my mum finally showed up. She had to explain what her big brother had done. I was practically crying with laughter when I was told what happened.

TL;DR: Convinced my young sister that "dead" meant "gone", she scared some nursery workers with what they thought was a premonition of some kind.

Image credits: Blaizeranger

#32 "$10" vs "BO"

So when I was in college I played on one of the Universities athletic teams.

Some background for those that haven't been around college athletics: on away trips you are given a visiting team locker room to change and shower in after your practices and the game. Most of the time they try and put the visiting team some distance away from the opposing (home) team. It keeps the players from fraternizing or having pre or post-game conflicts or whatever else may arise I guess. Sometimes there aren't any other locker rooms available though so you will occasionally see the opposition before you hit the field.

As I was walking by the locker room I saw that one of the signs had the name of one of our players on it with "$10" written under her name. So of course when I came back to the locker room I had to share this gossip, I figured them having out a bounty on injuring one of our players would get us all fired up ya know. Well me and another player decided to do a second walk by of the other teams locker room to take another gander at the sign. When we walked by I realized that I had misread it, it didn't say the girls name $10, it said "Girls name, has BO" and had a drawing of some testicles. "Has" was written really small so I hadn't seen that part, and the BO was kind of sloppy so I guess I had misread it as $10. Well anyway me and my teammate decided to not tell the rest of the team that I had misread it, because we didn't want to hurt the girls feelings (yes I know, I'm an idiot).

Well turns out that the player the sign was about did end up getting somewhat seriously injured in the game. Her parents got a lawyer and wanted to sue even after I told everyone that the sign didn't really have a bounty on her, just an insult. I felt terrible about it, and it [upset] my coaches, as well as my teammate off. I should have just ducking told the truth to begin with.

#33 Panic! At The School

I forgot to do my school project, freaked out at the last second, and told my teacher I have stomach cancer (WTH is wrong with me?) She told me not to worry about it, and that she's gonna give me a couple extra days. Yay, sounds good! Except for she called my mom that night. Thank god my mom has an accent so I don't think my teacher understood her too well, but my mom did tell her I have stomach issues and they don't know what it is. My teacher decided to accompany me to my next two doctors appointment. It was so weird, I had to pretend I had a tummy ache in her class... All day long. :(

#34 "Oh, Me Too! I Did Ballet"

In middle school I became good friends with the girl whose locker was next to mine. One day at lunch she casually mentioned that she did ballet for a while in elementary school. Stupid me wanting to fit in says "oh, me too! I did ballet." Well somehow she interprets this to mean I'm some experienced prima ballerina and to this day I'm still keeping up the lie. Truth be told, I can't dance at all.

Image credits: anon

#35 Thanks, Roomie!

I had a skype interview for my first job. I was in my roommates room in college because I shared a very small room with no desk. At one point in the interview, my future boss asked me if I was home, to which I answered: Yes. But then somehow he got confused and thought I was at my "home" home, not my college house, and I didn't want to correct or explain it to him because the interview was going well.

After that he noticed my roommate's Mardi Gras street sign behind me and asked me a bunch of questions like, where I got it, how fun was it, etc. For example, I told him I got it near the main street, and he started describing the streets and the stores. I just said I don't really remember. Since I was too awkward to properly explain everything to him, I just started saying yes to everything he asked. He ended believing I was some crazy party animal [partaking in illegal substances atop the backs of lovely individuals and having crazy "pillow fights" in the streets].

I did get the job and worked there for 1.5 years before changing jobs. He still does not know.

#36 When A Lie Leads To The Truth (Actual Dog Included)

Told my GF at the time I was at a buddy's hanging out. I was out shopping for her birthday. She called him to ask if I was there. I wasn't.

Caught her cheating that weekend.

- I did catch her in the act with 2 guys (yes, at the same time).
- We had only been going out about 9 months at the time.
- I did keep the receipt and returned the gift and got a full refund.
- After I caught her I went home, packed her stuff dropped it off, said goodbye to her parents and her dog.
- Spitroast.
- I did not barge in, I left immediately.
- We were not living together, she lived at her parent's house when I caught her.
- Gift was a necklace that 19 year old me probably thought was top cheddar at the time.
- Bro at the time didn't think anything of it, more of a "nah haven't seen him today".
- The only thing that bothers me from time to time is the dog. I don't even think of have a picture of him!

Image credits: CanadianPucker

#37 Who Checks The Resume Anyway, Am I Right?

I lied on my resume about an engineering degree.

Been at the job for about 18 months. They taught me enough in training... been faking it ever since.

#38 Random Acts Of Meanness

When I was in the third grade, right after the recess bell rang, I told a random girl that her best friend did not want to be friends with her anymore. She stayed outside crying in the field and it wasn't until 45min later that they found her. She didn't come back to school until the next week.

Image credits: anon

#39 Let The Brownies Hit The Floor

Back in 3rd grade my friend dropped his brownie on the floor in the cafeteria because he said he didn't want it. When the lunch aid came over she asked me who's brownie it was and I said it was there when we got there because this was my best friend and I couldn't snitch on him. Later that day I was called into the principles office and was questioned vigorously on this brownie like it was a big deal. I held my ground and denied everything but then for the rest of time I spent in elementary school I was never allowed any treats/snacks/drinks in any classroom throughout the school. Tough love if you ask me.

Image credits: Dylancana

#40 The Resemblance Is Uncanny

My friends and I accidentally got a kid suspended. We finished the last class of our day before lunch on a Friday, and we were feeling pretty good, so we picked up a handful of rocks and tried to see who could throw them the furthest. Turns out one hit our teacher. She brought us into the office and made us tell the VP our story. Since she wasn't in the room, we lied through our teeth and made up a description of a kid we'd never seen before. A week later, the guidance teacher approaches us and tells us she's glad we didn't take the blame for the kid who threw rocks because the principle found out who it was and he's be getting a 3 day suspension from school.

Image credits: anon