Deep sigh…

In 1965, at the age of 23, my beloved father — who just passed away last month at 83 — came to this country from eastern Europe to start his new life in the ‘promised land’ of America where he ultimately became very successful after toiling in the city for 60 years to provide for me, my siblings and my beloved late mother.

The only problem was, he didn’t speak English that well and was obviously concerned that it would hold him back in his new country.

That same year, a brand new movie came out, called ‘The Sound of Music’ which he was very interested in as it reminded him of the “hills from the old country” that he wouldn’t see again until The Wall fell in 1989.

Determined to learn his newly adopted language, he walked into a seedy Times Square movie theater that year and watched that movie intently to learn the language — not once; but ten (10) times that year. It’s a memory he would never forget and occasionally bring up over the years

Flash forward 50 years and it’s 2015 and it’s the 50th anniversary of that movie’s release. To commemorate it, the Academy had invited a very well known Lady Gaga to come perform the famed title track during the Oscars - with beloved star of the film, Julie Andrews, there to witness it.

The performance was other-worldly and completely out of character of Lady Gaga’s nasally vocal range. It’s like an alien took over her vocal tract and it sounds nothing like her (Google it) — much like the way Bob Dylan threw his voice on ‘Nashville Skyline.’

My father, now in his 70’s, watched this famed performance in real time and was blown away… just completely brought back to his youth as a young man facing down this crazy city, and Stefanie Germanotta was the one blowing his mind.

He turned to me during the performance, nearly in tears, and asked me who she was. I let out a comic sigh and began to explain her history & cultural value. He then turned back to me and said,

“She’s so incredibly talented. If you ever meet her in the city, please let her know how proud I am of her, will you?”

I smirked to myself, laughed it off, and said, “Sure, Dad…” knowing darn well that would never happen.

FLASH FORWARD to a few months later… I am hanging out on the LES with my rocker friends in an underground bar downtown, all getting drunk and having a blast when all of a sudden I need to excuse myself to go hit the bathroom downstairs to take a leak.

As I make my way down the stairs, I look up and walking up the stairs is none other than Lady Gaga. Alone. Just me & her on a narrow stairwell in dirty bar in the city.

I take a deep breath, along with a big leap of faith, open my lips, and go…

“Ummmm… can I tell you something?”

She turns to me, fully expecting me to bust into some “OMG, I’m like your biggest fan, OMG!!” diatribe when I just turn and go,

“…sooooooo, my old man asked me to tell you something…”

…as I explained the entire story above, fully expecting her to be completely apathetic to the admission, etc.

I look up after the words leave my lips only to find her eyes the size of the moon — completely swelled up with humility and compassion nearly bursting into tears as she told me how much that story meant to her.

“Can I tell YOU something now?” she said, as I braced for impact.

“I rehearsed that song for 8 straight weeks for 8 hours a day leading up to that performance knowing how important it was to an entire generation of people like your father. So please, tell him *I* said thank you, ok?!”

I was completely blown away, thanked her for her hard work on my father’s behalf, hugged her and sent her off as I drove home out to Long Island that night.

The next morning, my dad walked into the kitchen and asked how my night went. I smirked, turned to him, and said…

“Have a seat, pops… do I have a story for you, old man.”

Rest in Peace, Dad. I love you.

My brother passed in an accident. His fiance was upset with my family during the funeral and afterward she never spoke to us again. Him and his fiancé had two dogs.

About 3 months after his passing, on a random Saturday, my girlfriend at the time and I went to a local dog shelter to see if we could maybe adopt a dog. I was really depressed and sad about his passing. It still felt very fresh.

While I was walking through the shelter looking at these dogs I saw a dog that looked familiar. One of my brothers dogs had a beautiful orange color coat and was long and thin like a greyhound. She may have been a mix. When I saw her name I just about fainted. Her name was impala. That’s what he named her because his favorite car was a Chevy impala. I immediately asked to speak to the person in charge of the shelter and explained the situation. I gave them the name of my brother’s finance and asked if she had surrendered her. He explained that under normal circumstances they would never give out that information but would make an exception. He confirmed she had given her up for adoption and allowed us to adopt her.

My girlfriend and I both cried all night with her like I’m crying as I type this. She was a very loving dog and so so special. She lived for 10 years and every time I looked at her she reminded me of my brother and we loved her so much. It was extremely sad when she passed and we miss her dearly. I hope my brother was looking down on me smiling knowing that for whatever reason we decided to go to a random dog shelter on a random Saturday and found his dog. We never found out if his fiancé kept the other dog because he was not at that shelter.

This is my 1 in 1,000,000 thing that happened to me.
May they both be resting in peace.

Wife and I were going through our Pokémon cards one day and organizing them into a shared binder, she had soo many more than me because most of mine were stolen by a bully of mine back in elementary school.

When we were looking through them I noticed on a few of the cards something I did when I was younger, I left little nail imprints on the corners of my cards so I'd know which were mine when i used to play and trade.. I asked my wife where she got those cards as all of those nail printed cards were the same that were stolen from me..

She says "Oh some kid back in elementary school used to have a crush on me and gave me these cards"

I asked what his name was.

She says Matt S... my freaking elementary school bully!!

So wife and I went to completely different schools on opposite sides of the same town, she moved to Cali, came back to NY for a week to visit parents, 2 days before going back to Cali we randomly met at mutual friends house in our mid 20s, hit it off got married 2 years later, bought a house decided to combine our cards to decorate the game room and now I have all my old Pokémon cards back.

We were meant to be together.. the wife and the cards.

In the early '90's I was in Manhattan and taking one of those elevators that's glass and overlooks a large atrium. About 30 or so floors up, it stops and the power goes out (meaning the little phone/alarm doesn't work). We are smashed in there like, well, an elevator in Manhattan at rush hour.

After half an hour people really start getting uncomfortable and after an hour people start freaking out. No one is coming by and no one is hearing us shout. Then, about 90 minutes in two guys start walking in our direction and we start pounding on the glass and yelling.

They walk over and when they do I can see it's George Wendt and John Ratzenberger (Norm and Cliff) of Cheers. At the time, the show had just had it's series finale and was one of the most popular shows on earth. They come over, pry the doors open just enough to talk to us, learn we're stuck and get help.

When we get out we learned they were staying in that building, there with the whole cast for some sort of press event related to the show ending. Minutes later Ted Danson comes out of his room to join the fun. All three were so incredibly nice and took pics with everyone. Out of all the people in that city, we were saved b/c Cliff and Norm happened to be headed to their room and see us.

When I was 14, my nextdoor neighbor was 12. We had our first kiss behind her dad's car. Soon after, they moved away and our romance was done. Until 45 years later when we reconnected on Facebook. I posted that I was going to Mexico and she replied, "I wanna go." 45 years between our first and second kiss. Now 51 years after our first kiss, we married on a beach in Cozumel living our best life. The first person I kissed will be the last person I kiss.

Had a CT scan and the tech caught on the very edge of my bladder a wierd spot. He shifted the machine and found a 14cm malignant tumor on my ovary. (14 cm is considered huge.) When he saw it I heard him breathe in and mutter " Oh My".

I instantly realized that something was bad. My doctor of 25 years had left a message to call him before I even made it home.

Shockingly, the cancer was almost all encapsulated, so I had surgery, 4 rounds of chemo and took cytoxin for a year. Im 15 years cancer free.

Unhinged in the best way. I once had a teacher give me $200 in cash once. He had overheard me crying to my friend about how my mother stole all the Christmas money i had saved up to buy my sisters gifts. We were very poor, and i wasn’t allowed to work, so once again my sisters weren’t getting ‘real’ gifts from me. I think i was a freshman in high school, maybe sophomore year.

Anyway, this teacher also knew my mother was struggling with addictions. He went home and told his wife, who also knew me, and they agreed to give me the money. He surprised me a week before Christmas break and I just remember sobbing.

Anyway, same teacher walked me down the aisle decades later. He was always one of the kindest men I had ever met and gave selflessly to his students. This man would have a fan club if we could lol.

My husband bought himself a new electric chainsaw two days ago. He has left the empty box in the dining room. I refuse to take it out so every meal time I make sure the box is on his dining chair so he has to move it to sit and eat. He still hasn’t taken it to the recycling bin. I think this box is going to be in the dining room for quite a while, at least until Saturday when we have guests coming over.

Edit: box update. I took inspiration from some of your ideas. Husband came in from work and put his phone down. When he was distracted I placed his phone in the chainsaw box. A while later he asked if I’d seen his phone. ‘In the box’ I replied. Now you’d think he’d ask what box but no, he knew! Box has been moved to the garage without a single vocal request from me. Small win, but I’ll take it.

Not as awkward as it is sad. I've been a server for a while, and one of my regulars was a older couple. They hadn't been to the restaurant for a few months, but the menu changed and we had lost a bunch of regulars. -I'm clueless- About a month ago the husband comes in alone, and I ask him about his wife. He started crying and told me she died and he was afraid to come in alone. I sat down and hugged him for a while, then grabbed the owner who talked with him over dinner. He stayed 5 hours. Note to all servers, you don't know what kind of day your customer is having. Be a good human.

I used to work at an animal shelter. A woman brought in a Rottweiler puppy, age 8 weeks. Said she was surrendering it because she did not realize it would get that big. O.O

(Honestly, though, thank you thank you thank you lady. You brought him in young, cute, and supremely adoptable and not a year and a half later, out of control and completely unsocialized from living in your yard. You did the right thing!).

Oregon may become the first state to implement universal healthcare. A measure to make it a state Constitutional right was passed in 2022, with a report outlining plans set to be released in September 2026, with a guarantee for a legislative vote in 2027. .

Starting today, my state is selling insulin pens at $11/pen.

Today Florida launches a public, searchable animal mistreatment database. This will prevent animals being placed with a person who is violent toward animals. It’s part of Dexter’s law. Justice for the animals ♥️.

Cancer survival rates are up due to early detection and advances in treatment. This is especially true of colorectal and breast cancers.

California is no longer in a drought and all our reservoirs are significantly over capacity

Edit: spelling.

My neighbors abandoned their son to me, randomly off and on starting when he was 3, then the mother went to prison and the dad fell hard into the booze by the time the kid was 12. I got permanent legal guardianship.

He graduated with honors from high school. He got an academic scholarship to an ivy league University where he graduated on time and with honors. He's in his 30's now with his own toddler and doing great in life.

Terrorist Khay Rahnajet mailed a letter b**b without enough postage. When it got returned to sender he opened it and died.

Not really ironic, but still funny as hell.