Person Asks “What’s The Smallest Lie You’ve Ever Told Which Had The Biggest Consequences?”, And 30 People Deliver

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.