Quirky And Captivating Discoveries That Became Online Sensations
People can surprise themselves by what they find interesting. Although we all go through life developing interests that we're passionate about, the world has no shortage of rabbit holes that fascinate us for reasons we can't really explain.
Although we can typically expect reactions along the lines of "So what?" when we share our latest obsessions with others, that doesn't make us any less captivated. And oftentimes, we've only begun to uncover what a seemingly mundane sight has to offer by the time that obsession takes hold.
It's natural to be a little confused by this thing's purpose
Although it's unclear how Reddit user PestTerrier got a hold of this object, they weren't sure what the plastic poles sticking out of it were supposed to do. They were also unsure of why some of them had little barbs on the ends while the central one didn't.
However, a commenter answered both of those questions by explaining that this is a display easel used to hold up promotional information at trade shows. So the barbed poles hold the display while the other one keeps it standing.
Apparently, this counts as a medical supply
Apparently, it's not uncommon for veterinarians to have a bottle of Easy Cheese or similar spraying cheese brands among their more expected medical supplies. After all, most animals don't really like going to the vet, so a little treat like this can help make the examination easier.
Although some would expect the same reaction from peanut butter, others in the field noted that some peanut butter brands use a sweetener called Xylitol. Since this is potentially lethal to dogs, Easy Cheese seems like a safer option.
A blast from the past that might even surprise the past!
When Reddit user Nocommentthx666 uploaded this photo of their great-great-grandfather's driver's license, they expected it to be a vintage curiosity and nothing more. Without the lamination or color in the photo, it's a little hard to recognize to modern eyes.
However, it would have been an unusual driver's license back in 1965 as well. That's because California's prosperity and increase in car ownership in the 1950s led the state to mandate photos on driver's licenses before most of the country caught up.
This is easier to do than it seems
When someone buys one of those fancy, high-performance $200 dollar knives, it's easy to start assuming they can do anything. However, one person learned the hard way that it's more like a katana than a broadsword. It's great at cutting but not at much else.
As Reddit user robreinerstillmydad explained, their husband thought he could smash some imitation crab with it to create a cool effect. Unless cleaving his knife in two was supposed to be the cool effect, it's safe to say things didn't go as planned.
The real mystery is still unsolved
One day, a Reddit user received this string of aluminum and plastic rings from a warehouse in New York. They didn't order this or even know what it was. Since these appeared to be specially made for a specific purpose, it didn't seem cost-effective for an online brushing scam.
Indeed, the strongest possible answer is that they were sent this by mistake. That's because these are identification bands for racing pigeons. Hopefully, whoever actually ordered these gets them in time for the race.
That's a neighborhood landmark they really can't miss
As Reddit user ryanclicks2 explained, this anti-aircraft gun from World War II is just standing around in their neighborhood in Washington State. Although it's clearly been left to rust here for a while, it's a little less clear exactly how long it's been here.
Sure, it's possible that it was installed here during the war to defend the coast from a possible attack by Japanese forces. However, it's just as likely that it used to belong to a ship and was brought here after the ship was decommissioned. Why here, though?
As if working in fast food didn't get stressful enough
Nobody can really predict how their day is going to go and that's especially true when a freak occurrence comes out of nowhere and makes everything more complicated. Based on how excited this sign sounds, it clearly startled the workers here when a lightning bolt took out their drive-through order box.
That said, their haste made this sign a lot more charming than they likely intended. "A lightning hit me" sounds like something a little kid would excitedly exaggerate after a close call in a storm. Poor order box.
How did this person even notice this?
Sometimes, things can go unnoticed for years despite being right under our noses all along. And when we discover them, we can never return to the blissful ignorance we felt before. Some people have mentioned that noticing the triangle in the Usher song "Yeah" ruined it for them forever.
Well, it seems that Reddit user nullrecord has found a visual version of their triangle. One of the holes drilled into this HP laptop is slightly out of sync with all the others. For anyone curious, it's on the third row near the center.
Let's thank this person for sparing us the details
There's likely a lot that can be tough about managing a gas station but having to take care of the bathrooms in those places must be near the top of the list. For some reason, it's always gas station customers who think of the foulest things to do in there.
A lot of signs clearly have a story behind them but this is one that nobody wants to hear. They're giving the kind of person who would do this a lot of credit that they understand the word "defecate," though.
Don't worry, this isn't what it looks like
When it's time to replace the ice at a hockey rink, it can end up looking like there should be police tape hanging around everywhere. However, this isn't a crime scene and that red stuff is just paint distorted by melting ice.
As the image's uploader — who is a zamboni driver — explained, the reason why the ice looks so white at hockey rinks concerns the layer of paint that's installed between two layers of ice. It would otherwise look much clearer.
Tree stumps are more colorful inside than people realize
When a tree in a neighborhood gets cut down, there's usually a good reason for it. And while the multiple holes Reddit user lightstrident drilled into this stump resulted in a colorful array of wood chips, they also explained why this tree had to be removed.
Indeed, all of these colorful chips came from the same tree. While the shades of brown indicate the level of rot that a given section of the wood was experiencing, the white discharge is likely influenced by a fungal infection.
Believe it or not, all of this meat is safe to eat
Typically, a green slice of prosciutto like this would give every indication that it's ready for the trash can. After all, that usually indicates that mold has taken over and the meat usually has a smell to match that reality.
However, those who go near these slices will likely find that they all smell and taste fine. That's because the cells in this meat are acting like a reflective prism due to a process called birefringence. If they're moved to a room with different lighting, they'll look different.
This sign is a tad misleading
This sign comes from a popular Japanese restaurant chain called Coco Ichibanya. Since earthquakes and other natural disasters in Japan tend to shut down trains and make roads difficult to drive on, the chain's management has offered to assist customers on their walk home.
Despite how it sounds, that doesn't mean that the restaurant's employees will walk their customers all the way home. Instead, they provide water and make their bathrooms available while also providing disaster information those customers can use on their uncertain journey.
This probably isn't as nefarious as it seems
When Reddit user bastardisedmouseman was roaming south London, they came across this bag of small balls that were individually wrapped in aluminum foil at the side of the road. Naturally, this mysterious package led some users to suspect that the uploader had happened upon a narcotics drop.
However, that's actually not the most likely answer for what this is. As it turns out, zoos and bird sanctuaries collect owl pellets — hairballs owls cough up to get rid of undigestible materials from their prey — in bulk for school biology lessons. This wasn't dropped intentionally.
That is one persistent logo
As Reddit user disneycm_matt explained, they put this black sticky note over this bright logo on their computer, but found that blocking that light out wouldn't be as easy as it seemed. That's because the darkness of the note faded once the light burned the logo's image onto it over time.
As for why they would do this, that logo continues shining even after the computer enters sleep mode. While that decision probably satisfied some corporate executive's ego, it made it nearly impossible for some users to sleep in the same room as their computers without a measure like this.
Just a sign of the times
When urban planners work out where to put walkways, they can often get a hint by the little trails that people wear into the grass over time. These are known as "desire paths" because regardless of the alternate routes around them, those trails make it clear which way many people wanted to go.
However, this roadside desire path indicates a sad state of affairs in Orlando, Florida. So many people have begged for spare change near this stoplight that they've worn a desire path into the tree-lined median.
They didn't want ANYONE to make a mess
This sign was posted above a urinal. That makes it clear what exactly it's cleverly imploring visitors to aim but it's incredibly fascinating to see the lengths they went to communicate that they don't want anyone — and they mean anyone — to mess up their floor.
After all, this message was also delivered in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and binary. Even robots are cautioned not to let anything leak beyond the urinal. The custodians must be on the verge of striking or something.
Their crisis becomes an opportunity for many
For those wondering why a bunch of people are combing through a mountain of potatoes, the answer is pretty simple. Most people are happy to go through the trouble when it means that they're getting something for free. But why are these potatoes free?
Farmers tend to grow enough to fulfill their contracts and once those contracts are honored, the surplus from a given harvest is often given away. Since inflation apparently caused some of this farm's buyers not to renew their contracts, they had more potatoes to give away than usual.
It's small and strange but it has a recognizable purpose
When Reddit user dreammaayan found this small, metal tool in their kitchen, they noticed that it was tiny enough to be dwarfed by a lemon. Naturally, that only made them more curious about its purpose. As it turns out, it was the kitchen for a reason.
This is a can opener. It may not be as large or easy to use as most handheld openers, but that's because it was built for portability. It's a military-issue can opener intended for use out in the field.
This couldn't have happened in a better place
Although people have likely been staring at the skies and seeing images in the clouds for as long as humanity has been alive, it's not often that the image in them is this strikingly clear. There's no room for interpretation: That is a dragon.
More specifically, it's the kind of dragon typically depicted in Chinese folklore, as they tend to be longer without the defined wings of Western images of dragons. That makes it incredibly appropriate that this cloud was hovering over China. No wonder so many people are taking pictures of it.
This is a surprising way to tell whether teeth are real
When this person smiled while under blacklight conditions, she noticed that two of her teeth didn't glow in the dark like the rest of them did. That's because those two teeth are actually porcelain crowns.
Although artificial teeth apparently don't glow in the dark, there was a time when they once did. To make them indistinguishable from real teeth, denture manufacturers used to add trace amounts of uranium to them. However, the potential for radiation complications wasn't worth this aesthetic goal, so the practice has long been discontinued.
The future is here and it's pretty underwhelming
As Reddit user lonelywhalien52 explained, they were treated to a new experience when they pulled into this drive-through. It seems that every company is trying to carve out their own piece of the hype around AI, and this fast food restaurant is no exception.
However, the uploader wasn't excited for this idea to catch on because communicating with the order box was an infuriating experience. Anyone who's ever dealt with a voice-activated phone messaging system will understand why, but this one has the added bonus of going haywire whenever the customer pauses at all.
How did this happen? Seriously, how did this happen?
Somehow, this bathroom soap dispenser managed to catch on fire. Even more puzzling is the fact that it did so while barely affecting the room itself, from the looks of things. Naturally, questions abounded as to how this could possibly happen. Some figured that it's an electric dispenser that shorted out or had an important mechanism burn out.
However, the only detail the uploader contributed was to say that wasn't the case. So, the remaining possibility is that it had an alcohol-based solution inside and someone set it slight while horsing around. Given their evasive answers, the uploader was everyone's number one suspect.
There's got to be a story behind this
Reddit user Electric_Sundown found an engagement ring hanging by this statue's wrist in their local park. Since that's quite a valuable object to just leave behind, the photo ignited so much curiosity about how it ended up there.
A sad explanation would be that the proposal didn't go as planned and somebody was too heartbroken to do anything but leave it here. However, the most likely answer is that someone lost it and another person decided to display it prominently in case they retrace their steps looking for it. Of course, the funniest answer is that someone tried to marry the statue.
This is probably making some other fans salivate right now
As Reddit user 3nzo_the_baker explained, their friend is the proud owner of an original poster from the third part of the original Star Wars trilogy. The first thing the uninitiated will notice is that the movie was going to be called Revenge Of The Jedi before the word "Return" was chosen instead.
Some suggested that this original title plus the fact that Luke Skywalker's lightsaber is red here suggests that the script underwent some major changes before the title was changed. However, it turns out that poster artist Drew Struzan wasn't thinking of the significance of the lightsaber colors by the time he completed this draft.
The neighbor is serious about this little fence, but why?
As Reddit user DoIGotSkillz described, someone in their neighborhood makes a habit of setting up this little fence around his car every time he parks it here. As for why he doesn't just put it in the garage, it turns out than an identical car is already in there.
Still, that doesn't get anyone closer to finding out what the fence is for. Some figured that it was a way to deter car thieves who would have to slow down too much while messing with it, while others figured it was intended to keep porcupines and another small animals from wrecking the tires.
This little friend is named Gizmo
As Reddit user Kilojo explained, one of their neighbors has a Xoloitzcuintle named Gizmo. For those unfamiliar with the breed, it's a hairless dog native to Mexico. Although it looks smooth and shiny now, these dogs look adorably wrinkled when they're born.
While there are benefits to getting a hairless animal like Gizmo, it's also worth noting that they can require a little extra care than other dogs in some respects. One small example is that Gizmo needs sunscreen and lotion for its skin to stay this healthy.
The rain keeps whoever did this job honest
As Reddit user PonySlaystationn mentioned, they often see the indents left by hundreds of car tires when it rains on this parking lot. However, that says a lot more about how this asphalt was laid in the first place than it does about the traffic in this area.
Although people couldn't agree on whether it was like this because of shoddy, unprofessional work or the fact that European asphalt tends to be softer than the American stuff, it's not a very encouraging sign of quality.
This isn't roadkill, nor did it come from an animal at all
Every now and then, people will come across something that looks so unpleasant and even alien that they don't want to get near it. And the prospect of touching such a thing is completely out of the question. That's not a bad idea in this case, but not for the reason people might expect.
That's because this odd, greenish puddle is actually melted glass and concrete. When a power line fell on this sidewalk, the energy it released was so hot that it melted the parts of the sidewalk it made contact with. If anyone needs a reminder not to touch downed power lines, this is it.
Censorship happens with a fine-tooth comb
Although many commenters weren't impressed by the prose in this book when Reddit user Ok-Transportation-90 posted a picture of it, they didn't do so to make fun of the writing. Instead, they made sure to note that the book had been purchased in China.
That turned out to be important information because it explained why a short passage had been covered by liquid paper. The Chinese government is known to edit out any references to the LGBTQ+ community in cultural works, which is why Brokeback Mountain was banned in China.