32 People Share Their Biggest ‘I Messed Up’ Moments

While most folks would spend $50,000 on a nice vacation, a new car or a singular carton of organic eggs from Whole Foods, one Redditor had a different idea upon receiving such a princely sum: tossing it directly in the trash.

Initially convinced that accidentally pitching the five-figure cashier’s check wasn’t “a big deal,” they quickly discovered how wrong they were, learning the difference between a cashier’s check and a regular check while sorting through garbage in the wee hours of the morning. “My dad and I went down around midnight and tore open all the garbage bags in the dumpster,” they wrote of their high-stakes game of hide and seek, one that ultimately had a happy ending. 

The same, however, can’t be said for several other folks who massively screwed up in other ways. Here are other Redditors’ biggest “I messed up moments,” the wildest of which include broken bones, fires and “THICK letters from the IRS.”