“The Bullet I Dodged Was That Linda Was A Flake”: 44 Times People Got Truly Lucky

Driving to my girlfriend's parents place in Montana for Thanksgiving...

Crossing a mountain pass in my 1984 Toyota Tercel, it was a beautiful, sunny winter day, but coming around a bend I hit an ice patch and immediately started sliding off the road. It was next to a cliff, with no guardrail, and it was a slow-motion freak out. The car came to a stop just before going over. My girlfriend didn't even have room to get out on her side.

We slowly and carefully slid out my side and both got out safely, but then our previous freakout turned quickly into some real concern about what the hell we were going to do next, and how we were going to get out of there in the middle of nowhere. And, it was cold.

Not two minutes later a pickup truck with two guys in the cab and three in the bed came around the bend toward us. They pulled over in front of my car, and they all hopped out like a pit crew. One guy with a tow strap hooked it under the front axle, hooked it on the back of the truck and they pulled my car off the cliff and back onto the the shoulder of the highway.

I thanked them PROFUSELY, and asked them what in the hell they were doing out in the middle of nowhere like this. One guy said that "there wasn't much to do around here" and helping people on the highway was kind of a fun activity.

The entire event took a total of about ten minutes.

Not having a kid at 17 in high school.

Ended up going to my dream university and am 18 years into a meaningful, fascinating career. Realized in my early 30s I actually don't want kids ever and I'm so so so thankful i didn't end up as a teen mom.

I'm writing Planned Parenthood into my will.

My anorexia was so severe that the doctors didn’t think I would make it. Hospitalized for over a year, and now 9 years later, I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been and am currently in Grad school to be a therapist that specializes in eating disorders. Pay it forward.

Around 2019, we were struggling financially and as a result, our gas was shut off. After months of struggling, we were finally able to get the bill down and have the gas turned back on. When the worker came out, he had to do a mandatory test for carbon monoxide. Turns out our furnace was absolutely leaking carbon monoxide and we had no idea! I can’t help but think it’s entirely possible that we could’ve got carbon monoxide poisoning if we had not had our gas shut off in the first place. We got a new furnace and loaded up on carbon monoxide detectors. What was a huge misfortune of having our gas shut off due to not being able to afford the bill, actually ended up saving our lives in the end.

When I was about 8 years old, we went on a family vacation to the mountains in western North Carolina. While we were there, we went tubing on a river. At one point there were some rapids and I fell off my tube and got caught in the undercurrent created by the big boulders in the river. I was stuck there for what felt like minutes and was unable to get to the surface.

My parents didn’t see it happen, but some stranger did and he yanked me out. I doubt I’d be here today if it wasn’t for that man, I wish I knew who he was so I could say thank you.

Quit smoking cigarettes when I was in nursing school. I saw a COPD patient bent over in the tripod position in order to breath better, and in that moment, something in my brain clicked. I told myself "This is you, if you do not stop" and after some back and forth... I've quit 10+ years strong!

Hurt my lower back last year and had to get surgery. During rehab I was still having balance and bowel problems that based on MRIs shouldn’t exist.

Due to bowel stuff I went and got a colonoscopy at 38 years old and they found a huge polyp that was about 6 months away from turning into colon cancer. The doctor mentioned how lucky I was. Got it taken care of and found out recently my issues are due to a different higher up back injury where my nerve was compressed affecting my bowel and getting it fixed now.

If I didn’t hurt my back, and it wasn’t misdiagnosed, I’d have colon cancer right now.

A misdiagnosed back injury potentially saved my life.

I was dating this girl for a while. I thought she was the one for me. Pretty, adventurous and fun. Then I discovered my at the time best friend and her were sleeping together for a few months. I was devastated. Went into a full spiral depression for about 4 months. When I came out of it I reached out to some friends who I had not talked to since. They chose the backstabber over me. My entire friend group abandoned me. I had no one. Then I hit up an old friend from a younger age who we drifted apart because of that friend group. We started hanging out again and he introduced me to some new people. Then a few years after that he introduced me to my now wife.

Though at the time I was crushed by what they did. That "best friend" did me a huge favor and showed me that girls true side. And now I'm happier then I have ever been.

Was driving home with my then girlfriend down a normal road. We decided to go out for food and stopped at applebees. Food took forever. It was like 45-50 minutes between ordering and getting the food. We finished, paid and left kind of miffed. Continued driving home and the street lights were out at some point and a detour. Turns out a tornado ripped through that road just ahead of us. Probably would have been on the road if our food hadn't taken so long.

I didn’t marry my ex. He’s still the same old loser who can’t hold down a job and lives with his parents ten years after we broke up. He also constantly told me I was “not smart” in a gentle voice and I just graduated law school and passed the bar on my first try.

I worked with two nurses and had my eye on Linda, a pretty, vivacious, smart, flirtatious woman. Her friend, Deanna, was very pretty, but quiet, though she could hold conversations. I had concert tickets and went up to ask Linda out for the first time. She was wearing a wedding ring!! (Nurses don't wear rings, and Linda had forgotten to take hers off that evening.)

Deanna was in an isolation room, all gowned and masked. I put on a mask, went to the door, and asked her out. We've been married 47 years this month. The bullet I dodged was that Linda was a flake. She was on her second marriage, broke up with him, and married twice more. She always wanted younger, then much younger men ... pretty boys. She aged out and would accept a man near her age. Last we knew, she was living alone.

I was looking in a store window in San Francisco in 1973 when a couple girls handed me a flyer for a church. It sounded sketchy so I passed on it. Good thing because the pastor’s name was Jim Jones.

I desperately needed a career change in my late 30s and was originally going to go into nursing. For one reason or another I decided against that and ended up getting a degree in IT. A few years later the pandemic hit and instead of having to work in healthcare during that circus, I got to start working from home and received a sizable raise.

I've given this story before. Twas a bed.

Years ago, when I was in middle school, my brother and I had bunk beds, and he had the top one, which was held up with metal bars. If you've seen Step Brothers, you can see where I'm going with this, except it's with metal bars instead of neat boxes.

Well, since we lived in an old house in a country neighborhood, we occasionally got bed bugs. My bed got them especially badly, and it was even worse during the summer.

Usually, I went to bed first, but since I was tired of getting bitten, I chose to stay up as long as I could, while my brother went to bed.

He jumped on his bed, which then fell onto mine. It did not fall flat. Rather, the side that fell was *where my head would be.* I slept in a chair that night.

TL;DR: Bedbugs saved my skull.

Went to my gf's dorm after a date. Were snogging on the front porch of the dorm and I jokingly asked if I could drive her car back over to my dorm across campus because it was so late. Was about 3 in the morning at that time. I knew she'd say no which was fine because it was mostly a joke. I picked up a can of metal cleaner the staff had left next to the door and said I'd use it for self-defense if anyone tried anything. Gave her a quick kiss, put the cleaner back down and got about 100 feet away which I heard my name. Confused I stopped, turned around and she was running towards me with her keys. Told her I was joking and that'd I'd be fine. Turns out someone had just had their throat slit about 20 feet from my dorm window. The police were still on scene when I pulled into the parking lot. They ended up finding the guy hiding in the bushes next to our humanities building, a building, and bushes, I would have walked by about 2-3 minutes later, if my gf hadn't come running back out to give me her keys.

2 weeks from “I do,” found her secret phone: 400+ dudes, zero “work emails. Cancelled wedding, lost 30k, gained freedom + lifelong bragging rights, Best divorce I never paid for.

Was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma and given a year to live. 30 years later, still here. i’ve truly tried to make the most of every minute since. Life is precious, don’t go through what I did to realise that.

I was with a woman in my early twenties that I'd had a crush on for most of high school. At the time I was tending bar and a raging alcoholic but she stayed nonetheless. We ended up getting pregnant and I just could not get my life together. We lost the baby and she ghosted me a few weeks later. We had known each other for a decade and been on and off for five of those years so the ghosting was like being stabbed in the heart. In the span of a few weeks I'd lost my first child and the only woman I had ever loved. She did reach out a few weeks later and apologized for ghosting me and we parted somewhat amicably.

It took me a few years to bounce back from that but eventually I went to community college, moved across the country to transfer to a very prestigious college, found my niche in anthropology, and met my soul mate who I am celebrating 6 months of marriage with today. My ex met a good man she's super compatible with. She always wanted to be a mom. She now has 2 kids with him and loves being a Mom and I'm happily married and about to get my bachelors next month.

So I guess we both dodged a bullet!

Was offered an opportunity to move from my still current job to a director role of a department at a non-profit. 4-day work week, hybrid schedule. Minimal nights, weekends, travel. The money would've been great. I would've reconnected with an old boss that would've been above me that I liked working for previously...

I let my current boss know what was going on and that I intended to put in my resignation when offered. She asked me what it'd take to help me stay (which she is a great boss to work for, very pro work/life balance). The 4-day work week and hybrid was a big thing about the other job... but i just had a feeling that I should give them an opportunity to keep me. They gave me a good offer and ability to earn a promotion (which i since have)...

I decided not to make the move to the other job. Stayed where I am with some better benefits.

Two months later, got a message from the person I would've worked for letting me know that they've been completely shut down as the board dissolved their program and everyone was let go immediately.

My ex-husband was a huge man child. Pretty much incapable of acting like an adult and probably had Peter Pan syndrome. Long and short, we divorced and I found out about a year and a half later he was arrested for “dating“ a 15-year-old. He was 24.