Everyone hates awkward moments, especially when they have to do with snooping in business that isn’t yours. The people of Reddit are all too familiar with either looking at things that they shouldn’t have or just finding out information they’d rather not know.
In either case, it leads to some hilarious but mostly awkward moments. Here are some of the best stories we could find.
Facebook Fling
One time I was up late at night scrolling Facebook at the same time as my married mother, who was an entire time zone away at the time.
She was messaging an old fling from high school while her husband was away at work and was sending him pictures.
I know all this because she didn’t send them via messenger. SHE POSTED THEM ON HER ACTUAL FACEBOOK WALL.
I had to call her in the middle of the night to get her password to delete pictures of her stuff off her own Facebook page. But at least it wasn’t hospital documents.
Reddit/BreesGOAT
Long Forgotten
When I was in high school, I used to spend a lot of time exploring abandoned buildings. One time, I was in a hospital. The top levels were all vandalized beyond recognition, but the basement was untouched.
I assume because people were too creeped out or because half the building collapsed, so maybe the risk kept people away.
I was dumb, though, so I went down. All the paperwork was still on the desks, prescriptions lying around, names, addresses, and phone numbers. I was honestly amazed that all that information was just left there.
It felt weird because I really wasn’t interested in any of it, but I couldn’t stop filing through rooms of paperwork, untouched for years. It was just a weird compulsion because I knew I wasn’t supposed to ever see any of that stuff. But at least it wasn’t the personal ad my friend’s dad put out.
Reddit/Blue_Ducktape
Personal Ads
My dad gave me a piece of furniture one time. When I got it home, a post-it note that had been stuck to the bottom floated down to the floor.
I picked it up, and in my dad’s unmistakable handwriting, there were various notes about gay personal ads he’d been responding to—they were mostly details about the other guys there.
Their names and ages and interests, the status of their conversations, etc. My dad was, at least, I thought, very straight. I put two and two together and realized this piece of furniture was from an apartment he kept briefly while he and my stepmom were on the outs for about a year.
None of this bothered me one bit, but I got the distinct impression that my stepmom (an older, very conservative lady) would NOT have been cool with any of this. I let him go to his grave without ever telling him I knew.
Reddit/knife_hits
The next Redditor’s concierge wasn’t the best with technology. And it could have been dangerous for her.
Password Protected
I was waiting in a condo apartment lobby, and I asked the concierge for the Wi-Fi password.
She was not good with computers and just turned her screen to show a text file that had every important password and keycode for the building.
I am talking router password, boiler room key combination, package room door code, security camera server password, and their concierge email login. Everything.
Then, because she didn’t want to read out each letter, SHE LET ME TAKE A PICTURE OF IT! But our next Redditor saw something that no one should ever have to see.
Reddit/ahhbeemo
A Night Never To Forget
I was 16 and was returning home after giving my neighbor a ride to her piano lesson. Ahead of me was a pickup truck loaded with sheetrock.
It was piled up so that it was higher than the cab of the truck, and there was a family driving the truck. It was a dad, mom, and two little kids who were in the cab of the pickup truck.
The oldest daughter, who was 21, was given the “honor” of riding on top of the sheetrock to hold it down. I watched as the wind picked up the sheetrock, and she had a flying carpet for a few seconds before she slammed into the asphalt in front of me.
I was able to drive home, and my friend and I were both in shock. I tried to get in the house without anyone seeing me, as I looked like the accident victim. I walked past my mom to go to the shower and asked my friend to tell her what had happened. My mom was so shocked by what she saw that she followed me.
Kids are kids, but uncles and aunts are grown-ups. Our next Redditor would discover that the hard way.
Reddit/Jalapeno023
His Aunt And Uncle
When I was 14, I was at my cousin’s house. We were supposed to be out swimming, but I had snuck back into the house to take a drink.
But when I got inside, I caught my uncle completely naked with my aunt. It’s an image I can never forget.
He gave me $100 on the spot to keep quiet. Every time after that when I would see him, he would always slip me anywhere from $20 to $50.
Finally, when I was about 19, I told him, “It’s all good, dude, you do you.” He gave me a hug, and we have been thick as thieves since then.
This next Redditor’s father actually saved a life when he saw something he definitely shouldn’t have. Thank goodness he was in the wrong place but at the right time.
Reddit/Cayde_7even
Saving A Life
This isn’t about me, but my dad. He stepped outside a bar one night on a rainy day to get more something from his car and saw one guy kneeling on the ground holding another dude’s face down in a pothole puddle, with the other guy thrashing wildly.
My dad said that instinct took over, and he just ran up and kicked the attacker in the head as hard as he could, knocking him out.
He sat with the victim until he left to make sure the dude was okay and didn’t try to hurt the now-unconscious attacker. Then he made an anonymous 9-1-1 call so that someone would tend to the unconscious guy and leave.
He said it was the creepiest thing he had ever just walked in on, and he never ever went back to that bar again.
The next story is a bit more lighthearted. You could even say that the Redditor enjoyed what he saw that he wasn’t supposed to.
Reddit/Atiggerx33
Naked Mom
When I was in high school, I saw one of my best friend’s mom naked. She hadn’t expected us to arrive home, so she took a bath and left the door ajar.
I was desperate to pee, so I went barging into the bathroom just as she was stepping out of the tub and stretching to reach a towel rack.
That was definitely an awkward moment I wasn’t supposed to see. I was terribly embarrassed and apologetic but not entirely sorry.
A teacher from Reddit saw one of his student’s search history on the school computer. But it ended up being oddly wholesome.
Reddit/icybikes
“How To Kiss”
I’m a teacher and was helping my student, a 12-year-old boy, try to troubleshoot his Chromebook and get it working again.
I always clear the cache and cookies because that usually helps, but because they are school computers, you can’t clear the history.
As I opened up the tab to clear the cache and cookies, I saw that his latest Google search was “How to kiss.” He knew I saw it, and he looked so embarrassed.
Scrolling Through His Phone
My dad was cheating on my mom with a co-worker. I was looking for a picture to send to my grandma for a Christmas card when his mistress texted him a question about what time they were meeting tomorrow.
Curious, I scrolled up and saw a picture of her, but it didn’t stop there. I showed my mom the texts right after I finished throwing up.Â
She couldn’t believe my father, and nor could I. The story ends just how you would imagine it might.
The next Redditor overheard a brutal conversation that they shouldn’t have. There’s no sugarcoating this next one.
Reddit/PartyAnimal24-7
X-Ray
I saw the chest X-ray of someone who had six months to live. I was a construction worker then, and I was fire caulking the ceiling of a hospital when one of the wound techs (who was old and tenured) gasped.
Whatever it was must have been bad to make her gasp. I looked down. “He has no more than six months to live, if even that,” she said.
The X-ray was of a lung, but the masses were so thick and huge that it made the screen look almost entirely white. “He has no idea. He’s never even had a chest X-ray before.”
Accidentally seeing someone naked can often lead to awkward moments. But this next Redditor couldn’t believe what he saw when he went to the fridge for a snack.
Reddit/vaporwaves_vibes
Full View From The Fridge
A while ago, my dad’s friend came over with his kid. Our house has a layout where there’s a bathroom door within view of the fridge.
I later go to grab a snack when I see the bathroom light on with the door open, and in full view, the kid is entirely naked, standing on the seat peeing into the bowl.
Noticing no one else was around, I walked away and tried to ignore that area until they left. I still don’t know why they go to the bathroom like that when they’re definitely tall enough.
Workplace mishaps often happen when an employee sees something confidential they aren’t supposed. This next one goes just as you might imagine.
Reddit/fox_office
Confidential Emails
About eight years ago, I came across an email chain on my immediate boss’s computer. It was about a coup some of the directors were organizing against the CEO and owner of the business to remove them from their positions.
I found out nine months before it became public knowledge when the owner sent out an email stating he was leaving.
What I didn’t know when I read the original email was that the coup caused a rift in one of the interstate offices that resulted in 60% of the staff leaving that office.
Then, of course, last year, I got sent an email with everyone’s salaries on it. Found out I was severely getting underpaid, so I will use it for my upcoming performance review.
Family members are often eccentric, especially if they are aunts. This next Redditor experienced that firsthand.
Reddit/keddsy
Odd Aunt
My aunt is really odd. One day, we were sitting in the living room talking with a number of family members.Â
She was petting her dog, and we were all distracted suddenly by something outside.
But I witnessed her pull a crusty out of the corner of the dog’s eye and put it in her mouth. As an eight-year-old, this was rather traumatic and confusing.
Here’s another workplace story. The Redditor had no idea what they’d see once they took a look at what was being printed.
Reddit/Vealophile
Payroll Checks
At work once, I was waiting for the printer, and there was another job ahead of mine in the print queue. I was curious because it was taking a long time.
So I opened that job, and it was everyone’s payroll checks! I could see how much our top dogs were making per week.Â
A little math and I knew their approximate annual salaries. I wasn’t supposed to see that.
This next Redditor snooped on her own laptop that her boyfriend was using. She was met with an unexpected surprise.
Reddit/3Throw_away13
Facebook Messages
My ex-boyfriend used my laptop sometimes, and he left his Facebook open on his messages. I’m not the snooping type, and I had no reason not to trust him, but the very top message preview was “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” and I didn’t recognize the other girl’s name.
I went down a rabbit hole and found out he was texting several girls. I also found out he still regularly reached out to girls on Plenty of Fish, where he had an active account, and had a secret second email he’d give those gals to talk to them.
Then he had the gall to try to tell me off for snooping through his private affairs. Dude, you literally used MY laptop to do all this.
Pranks are often funny, but sometimes they’re taken too far. One Redditor would happen to witness a prank gone wrong from their car one day.
Reddit/Miss_Roman
Prank Gone Wrong
I’ll try to paint the scene. It’s a sweltering summer day in a sketchy downtown parking lot. I’m sitting in my car.
I see a guy push over a portable washroom with another guy inside. The poor dude was covered head to toe in the contents of a hot city toilet.
I could smell it from my car. This guy obviously flips out and he starts beating the living heck out of the dude who pushed over the toilet.
One Redditor found out their father’s true colors the hard way. He decided to look at his WhatsApp messages.
Reddit/Mi1pool
True Colors
My childhood was very abnormal. I slept in a bedroom with my dad, in two separate beds, while my mom slept across the house in her own bedroom.
So it was obvious that things weren’t okay, even for young me. He was gone on weekends and until the early hours of the morning most weeknights. But I only found out the whole truth much later.
I found a text message on my dad’s phone to an unsaved number saying that he would love to be spending Christmas with his “real” family. I was 13. I just wanted to play Snake, man.
Even later, as an adult with a family and life of my own, I found out that my dad was openly cheating on my mom with the same woman for the duration of their 18-year marriage, and I had a half-sister who was my age. I’m 90% sure that the text message was to that woman, but I never bothered to ask.
One Redditor thought that they’d seen someone in their house as a child. The dad insisted it was a ghost, but we all know what it was.
Reddit/cmxssey
Vacation
My mom and sister were on vacation, so it was me and my dad home alone. It was past my bedtime, but I couldn’t sleep, so I went downstairs to see what my dad was doing.
As I was going down, I saw something that made me stop in my tracks. I see across my living room the silhouette of a woman walking by. I only saw it for a split second.
My dad came running towards me like, “Hey buddy, how’s it going? Give me a hug!” He held me back, so I couldn’t get past him to see who it was. I was really upset because I thought it was my sister and they were playing a trick on me or something. My dad was quick to tell me, “Oh, you thought you saw a ghost!
Let’s call your mom and tell her you thought you saw a ghost!” Years later, my mom found out my dad’s been cheating, and now he’s married to the woman. That guy sucks.
This next story has to be the weirdest one on the list. Imagine getting emailed pictures that you definitely knew weren’t for you.
Reddit/The-Lasso
Hidden Camera
About a decade ago, someone placed a hidden camera in the living room of an apartment occupied by two middle-aged gents. Every time one of them moved around, the camera took a picture and sent it to MY email.
To this day, I have no idea who these men were or why this was happening to me. I used my 1998 pinging skills and determined they were somewhere in France while I lived in the US. For a while, I felt scared to interfere. Maybe it was a Mafia thing? Or something I didn’t want to be involved in, anyway! The camera was hidden in some type of clock.
I think it may have been sitting on a mantel because it overlooked the living room and a wall with three doors. Two of the doors were these men’s bedrooms, and the other one was the bathroom. Many pictures were sent to me of them getting up to go to the washroom in their tightie whities in the middle of the night.
Others were of them drinking bottles of red and watching TV. I waited a couple of days, thinking at some point, maybe the person who set up the camera would figure out they weren’t getting their emails and change the email. Nope. Eventually, I called the company and made them stop sending the pictures. The men never did anything but sleep, eat, drink, and watch TV. Everything else is a mystery.
Relationships need trust, or they’ll fall apart. This Redditor found out the hard way that sometimes people are just bad.
Reddit/ilovecatscatsloveme
Checking Her Messages
My ex-girlfriend and I had just started to turn things around after a rocky patch in our relationship, and she left the laptop I got her next to me while she went to the store.
I ended up checking her messages while she was gone, and my heart just hit the floor. She had messaged multiple guys.
The one that screws me up mentally to this day, though, was the message from her best friend: “Why don’t you just leave him? He’s so good to you.
You know he doesn’t deserve this.” Her reply chilled me to the bone. She said, “Well, someone’s gotta pay my cell phone bill.”
Another story is about a father’s true side being shown the light of day. Luckily, this Redditor did get revenge in the end.
Reddit/charlielovesu
Email He Shouldn’t Have Seen
When I was 13, I went into our computer room just in time to finish seeing my dad send an email that said, “I love you,” and some other stuff to a woman who wasn’t my mom.
He tried to cover my eyes and act like he was joking around. I promptly left and went back a while later. I tried getting into his email, but he had changed the password.
Previously, we all knew it because his email was used for logging into a lot of stuff within our family. I never told my mom—but I did get my revenge.
A few years later, he divorced my mom, and she asked me for help getting proof of him cheating from the laptop he had also used. Just going to add a PSA here to parents, though: Don’t ask your child to do this. Take it to a darn computer shop and save your child the emotional and mental scars.
This next one has to be the most wholesome story on this list. It revolves around a cat!
Reddit/sendnoodles2748
Secret Cat Time
I live with two housemates. One of them has a cat which I think is pretty cute, but the other housemate, who is already pretty stoic in general anyway, almost refuses to acknowledge its existence.
I popped my head into his room one day (his door was open), and I saw him with his headphones on, playing with the cat with one of those long stick toys with a string on end.
He had a pretty big smile as well. He didn’t see me, and I just observed for a couple of seconds because it was surprising to me and quite cute, and then I quietly left.
I didn’t bring it up afterward, either, because it seemed like a cute, private moment that I don’t think he would’ve liked anyone to have actually witnessed.
Ever picked up your mother’s phone and been mistaken for her? Well, one unlucky Reddit user knows that pain all too well.
Reddit/MilknBones
Answering The Phone
My mother would have me answer her phone when she was busy sometimes while I was growing up.
At the time, my mother was dating this guy and he called her regularly. Well, one time, I answered, and he thought it was my mother.Â
Then the most awkward few moments of my life happened. It was with him saying all kinds of stuff not meant for a child’s ears, and then I politely told him I would go get my mom now.
Terminal illnesses are no joke. But one Redditor fondly remembers something their mother did before they passed away.
KrunchyOrangeTacos
Without Her Hair
When I was nine years old, I walked into my parents’ room to talk to my mom, who was sleeping. She had cancer at the time, which I didn’t know about, so she always wore a headscarf to hide the fact that she was losing her hair from chemotherapy.
She woke up frantically and hurried me out of the room, but I could not forget the moment when I saw her without hair and couldn’t understand why.
In case you’re wondering, my mom passed two years later. I have come to terms with it, though, and I am 22 years old now.
What’s worse than accidentally seeing someone naked? Well, seeing a naked family member, of course!
Reddit/sechellia
Naked Grandma
I saw my grandma naked. My room is across the hall from the bathroom, and I would do homework a lot with headphones on.
I heard my grandma holler something at me from the bathroom. I made the biggest mistake of my life.
I took my headphones off and looked at the bathroom door right as she opened it to go to the guest bedroom. Turns out she was saying, “Don’t look! Naked grandma!”
Another story about seeing naked people accidentally. But this Redditor saw his friend’s dad in a compromising circumstance.
Reddit/Sam_and_Green_Eggs
Coming Over Unannounced
When I was a kid, maybe eight years old, I went over to visit my friend who lived across the street. I’d often come over unannounced and just knock on their door to ask if my friend wanted to hang out.
So I get there and knock on the door and wait for it to be answered. No one comes, but I can hear noises indicating that someone is home, so I knock again.
My friend would often play video games with headphones on and would be slow to answer the door, so I just kept waiting and knocking again, unsure why it was taking so long for the door to be answered.
My friend’s dad walks into the hallway to try to spy through the glass door to see who it is. He stands there fully naked, and we make eye contact through the glass.
We’ve heard about cheating a lot. But this Redditor found something he shouldn’t have that actually ended up not being anything!
Reddit/WhiskandTequil
Suspicious Document
In high school, I found a document on my dad’s computer that looked suspicious. When I opened it, my heart dropped. It was basically a diary of his massive crush on another woman.
I don’t know why I opened it, and I felt really bad, but he probably shouldn’t have kept it on a computer he let me use. It was weird, but I never told anyone and tried not to think about it.
My parents are still together today and they seem (mostly?) happy. As a kid, I just felt really sad for both of my parents. I figured they were just staying married because they didn’t believe in divorce, but since I’ve actually been in relationships now, I get that that’s just a thing that happens, and maybe he was trying to write it out to move on.
Parents should learn to hide anything that isn’t meant for their children’s eyes. One Redditor was on the wrong end when they just wanted to show a photo of their turtle.
Reddit/UnobtrusiveHippo
Naked Photo
My parents were getting ready to head out for a double date with my friend’s parents. Everyone came over to our place beforehand and brought their kids because their oldest daughter was going to babysit the rest of us.
The adults were in the kitchen chatting, and my siblings and I decided we wanted to show our new sitter this photo of a turtle we caught. But it was anything but that.
None of the photos were labeled well, so of course, we ended up giving the sitter what turned out to be a naked photo of my dad. Five kids with our jaws on the floor.
The sitter snatched the photo away and presumably put it back where we found it. Within seconds, all the parents came through, “Okay, kids, be good…” met with our stunned silence.
Reddit/chesquayne
