People Share The 50 Worst Things They Accidentally Overheard And Can’t Forget

It was when I was a kid and it was just my single mom and I living in a house together. She had late stage ovarian cancer that was getting worse. One afternoon she told me she was tired and needed to go lay down in her room. Totally common with her condition so nothing struck me as odd. I went to her room with a glass of water to put by her bed for when she woke up, but right as about to turn the knob to get into her room, I was thrown off guard when I heard her voice and it sounded like she was incredibly emotional and sad. There was no phone in her room and I knew nobody was over at our house visiting. It took me a minute of eavesdropping to realize that she was using a tape recorder to record her last goodbyes to me for after she died.

She died two weeks later. I found the tape. This was years ago and I still haven't been able to get myself to listen to it. The memory of being there while she was recording it, and the memory of my naive adolescent self finally realizing that my mom was about to die is just too overwhelming for me still. But I'm glad to know that one day when I'm ready, I will have a recording of her voice to listen to.

After speaking with my grandpa on the phone before he properly hung up, I heard him commenting to my uncle how ungrateful I was. I had at that point visited every week for a year and cleaned his entire bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, hallway and living room every single god-damned week. Usually bringing some food or dessert with me.

I moved out of town shortly after this.

So guy at work was on his cell phone. He starts getting louder and louder. Eventually he is basically yelling into his phone.

He was on the phone with his wife verbally a***ing her and yelling about how bad he was going to beat her when he got home.

Security was called. He was fired and the police were contacted about the potential abuse.

Heard a coworker plot with her husband to falsely accuse her ex of child a***e. She wanted full custody, she ended up with one supervised visit per month. I wonder who spilled the beans?

When I was 12 I overheard my stepdad saying to my mum how much better their life would be without me there and how awful I am and how he wishes I wasnt there. My mum just agreed. I wasnt even a bad kid :( did well in school, never got in trouble, I could be a stroppy teenager. He was an awful manipulative violent misogynist and I wish HE wasn’t here.

I was 14 and I overheard my mother talking with a doctor about my younger sister's cancer treatment, I had no idea she had cancer, she had no idea she had cancer. As soon as she got off the phone I asked her what was going on, she burst into tears, I burst into tears.

My little sister was 8 at the time and had been ill for months, so I helped my parents talk to her, it was very upsetting. We shortly after took her to a clinic 500 miles away, spent a week there, no cancer, no leukemia, misdiagnosed, she had an abscess that caused her symptoms. Easily treated, but I'll never forget hearing the phone call.

I heard half of a phone conversation. A man said into his phone,

"I ain't doin' this s**t; there wasn't supposed to be no security guard here!"

Overheard by me, the security guard. In a bank that had recently been robbed.

I work in a hospital. I overheard a doctor telling a 1 year olds parents their child just died. I will never forget the sounds that came out the mother.

I left home at 18, because I lived in a toxic household with conservative Christianity as the excuse and mental illness as the aggrevator. It should come to no surprise, but over the phone, I heard my mother telling my youngest sister that she hoped she became nothing like me.

This hurt for two reasons.

My sister is extremely like me, and to know that she is going through exactly what I went through, or worse in a bid to stop her from becoming like me, hurts. I left that home with so many issues, and I know that not only her, but my other siblings will eventually leave with a set of their own. I'm trying to talk to them frequently enough and alleviate the poison my mom is pouring into their minds, but my youngest sister is already depressed and much more. It's difficult, because they are ""homeschooled,"" so they only have me and other family members. They are totally isolated, as I was, and surrounded with religious propoganda.

The reason for my mom to "love me in her own way" (see: love me when convenient to tout her good deeds to her church and pyramid scheme groupies) is because I'm queer, living with my same - s*x significant other, outside the bounds of marriage.

Forget that I am succesful, am currently pursuing two degrees to further my success in my adult life, and am combating my own laundry list of mental health issues and disabilities. Forget that I succeeded past everything she set me up against. I am queer, and that is a sin.

Despite all of my accomplishments and the work I have put in to make sure that I can help my siblings escape when their time comes (and on some level, make her proud) none of it matters, because I am queer.

My family and I were at a restaurant and there was a father and his daughter (we'll call D, for daughter) sitting in the booth right across the aisle from us. D looked to be no more than 20 years old. She talks the whole time about her ex, Chris.

Apparently, Chris was married and D did not give two s***s. She said it was the wife's fault for not being good enough to keep her husband faithful. Welp, Chris was still sleeping with his wife because she got pregnant. When D found out wife was pregnant, D told Chris he had to choose between her and his wife. At first, Chris chose D. Then he found out his unborn child had congenital heart defects. So, he called off the divorce, broke up with D, and moved back in with his wife.

D sits there in silence looking slightly bewildered before saying, "I don't know why he chose her and the r****d baby. So what if it dies? They can always make another one." But that's not the worst part. Her dad breaks his silence and asks, "So, your mom and Chris aren't getting divorced?" YOUR MOM and Chris?! YOUR MOM?! This bat s**t crazy b***h was having a blatant affair with her much older stepfather, made him choose between her and her pregnant mother, and then made sociopathic comments about her unborn brother.

[Edit]: Thanks for the up votes everyone! I would like to clarify a few things. This conversation took place at a Mimi's Cafe in the East Valley of the Phoenix, Arizona metro area. She was 100% white trash from head to toe. My family seriously were expecting a camera crew for a prank type tv show to show up. It's hard to fathom someone that demonic truly does walk amongst us. Also, I'm not positive the man she was dining with was her father. He looked old enough and they had similar facial features.

I was fourteen years old and it was the end of 8th grade. I f*****g hated middle school and was picked on mercilessly. As the end of the year celebration we went to one of those putt putt/driving range/batting cage places and my older brother came and visited for lunch. He was like 19 and home from college and it was really sweet of him to do. I also have to note that objectively my brother is very attractive. At the time he was a college swimmer so he was in really good shape and all my friends were gaga about him. When I was in line to get some more food I heard these two b****y girls in front of me go "How does she have such a hot brother when she turned out so bad!" Oof. My poor fragile fourteen year old self esteem. I pretended I hadn't heard them, left the line, and managed not to burst into tears. Teenage girls can be so cruel.

On a flight got once I listened for two hours to the old men behind me talk about their recent sexual exploits in Thailand. It was disgusting.

A few months ago in the gym, three guys were talking very loudly. I could hear them over my music. The weight room was pretty empty.

One was talking about how his girlfriend was such a b***h for not putting out. He detailed all her excuses then went on to say at least he had his other girlfriend. One of the other ones piped up and said he should just wait until she falls asleep because then "she can't do anything about it." They all cackled and he said he'd thought of that before but now he'd have to try it. Completely vile humans.

"YOURE PREGNANT?! WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU TELL ME THIS NOW?!" Line at Chipotle.

Her> "it doesnt matter. Im having an abortion as we speak. Just took the pill. I would never have YOUR kids."

It was brutal. Completely brutal.

I was home alone as a 12 year old and my dads friend called the house. I let it go to voicemail and he left a bizarre voicemail about my dad being the best friend he’d ever had. My dad came home 10 minutes later and I told him about the voicemail. Dad tried to call him and he didn’t pick up. It turned out he shot himself immediately after leaving the voicemail- which was a pretty big mental time bomb for me.

Was in the emergency room for 5 hours with a semi ruptured appendix. I was out there so long; passing out and coming to... I thought I was going to die. Turns out there was a greyhound that ran over a mini van with a family inside. Everyone but the driver made it out ok. When they finally took me back I heard a doctor say to a woman “ma’am, I’m sorry. We did everything we could, but your husband didn’t make it”. That wasn’t the part that was bad. It was what happened next.... the woman made a sound that struck me to the core. I’ll never forget it. It’s been almost 20 years ago and it still makes me tear up thinking about it. The sound illicited so many emotions of anger and disbelief and sadness. There’s just something about that sound coming from another human. The wailing, half-sobbing, muttering scream that it was...

Definitely the worst thing I have ever overheard.

" We dont need to care about him since he's adopted."
I was maybe 10 Vacationing with some family friends at a local summer resort. The family was trying forever to have a baby and after 10 something years decided to adopt a toddler. A year later the woman got pregnant (ended up having 2 more bio kids) and still loved her adopted still the same. The husband however became indifferent to their adopted and spoiled the bio baby rotten and took pleasure in making sure the adopted knows this. He made a lot of jokes of returning the kid since he is not blood related anyways and other comments that were hurtful and out of line.

Soon cousins of the kid started to taunt this poor 4 year old who is confused of why he was being teased (mind you this happened in a 1 day span too). Mom tried to sheild him as much as she can and the husband made a serious faux pas of making that comment in front of 10 other people from church too. he tried to back pedal fast but not before my scary mother - the leader of the friend group ripped him a new one.

He never joined us anymore in gatherings and eventually the whole family moved to another town months later.

Standing in line waiting for my Tim Hortons coffee. The girl in front of me was talking with her friend:

"yeah ...so I caught HIV from this dude. Its okay though, it's not like I'm going to die right away"

........I want some of her positivity.

When I worked at Waffle House the location I worked at was part of the prison work release program. Our grill guy was a convict in for burglary and a few other charges. I'd say he worked there for maybe 6-8 months. Over the course of that 6-8 months he became romantically involved with a customer. Also, behind her back, he was going up to the motel behind us for some steamy times with a few other servers. He was stringing a whole bunch of girls along. The girl who was his "girlfriend" wouldn't believe anything bad about him. She was a very young, sweet, naive girl and I felt bad for her TBH. Me and my fellow older "seen it all" lady servers tried to tell her. But she wouldn't listen.

Anyway, one night the girlfriend was there, and the two of them were in the stock room doing...whatever it was they did in there. I was on my way out the back door to throw some trash in the dumpster and I heard her say "You mean just LEAVE??" so I started to listen. He's trying to talk her into hopping in her van, grabbing her 2 year old and taking off to Alabama with him. Troubled, I headed out front to mull over what I should do. Deep down I thought "surely she's not that stupid".

We got slammed right after this and one of the other complicit servers filled in for him on the grill so he could spend time with her in the closet. I had no time to think about what to do after that. I didn't realize they'd actually done it until the CO that came to pick him up was there, asking where he was. Everyone had disappeared at that point, knowing what was coming, leaving me to be the one to have to tell the guy he escaped. And I was pissed. Beyond pissed. I just stood there, jaw clenched, staring at the prison guard angrily. He knew what I was about to say before I even said it.

"F**k me, they took off"

And I knew what was coming after that. I knew the f*****g news would be there. I knew I was going to be questioned. Oh my god I was so incredibly mad I could've turned into the sun. I was mad at them too. Him for being such an incredible d*****s doing this when he only had THREE MONTHS left on his sentence. Her for being so stupid as to torpedo her life and get her kid taken away. I liked both of them somewhat. Pair of f*****g dumbasses.

So I got questioned and avoided being put on TV (thank god THANK GOD) and the manhunt ensued. All the second shift servers but me got fired or sent to other stores after it was found out what they'd all been doing. Some other things came out about them too so it wasn't just for the escape incident. As to the pair of dumbasses, she was found about a week later in Alabama, alone in a park, because he'd abandoned her. Then a few days later he was found at his dads house. Got 6 more years added to his sentence. She got her kid taken, lost her job and 2 years in prison, which she only had to serve about 6 months of.

Stupid stupid stupid. Everybody in this story was stupid, including me.

Not the worst, but definitely a head shaking moment. I was at the D.C. Zoo with me little girl visiting the gorilla exhibit, when a small boy 10-11 years old turns to his mother and asks, “Mom, it says that we’ve evolved from primates is this true”? Which point his mother scolds him and says “Don’t read that filth! All humans have descended from Christ, not primates! Start reading your bible and stop reading your science book”! I was genuinely stuck in awe for a few minutes as I felt a bit sorry for the small boy.