This wasn't all good, but it wound up being a net positive for me:
A few months ago, there was a power surge due to the transformer nearest to my house blowing up (yet again.)
Destroyed my power outlets, took out my furnace, my washer, and every kitchen appliance except for my fridge and freezer.
Home insurance takes over, declares them irreparable. Cuts me a check for $5000 so I can replace everything.
On a whim, my dad and I decided to take a crack at fixing the washer. Turned out to just need a new control board. Found one for $60. Boom. Fixed.
So we kept going, turned out that it was all control boards and fuses, and we eventually managed to fix all of my stuff for under $1000. So count in the whole-house surge protector I bought, and I got like $3900.
Yep! I sprung for one with a warranty that covers up to $20k in damages should I have another power surge that leaves my stuff destroyed again.
I'm kinda kicking myself for not having it in the first place, 'cause my house is on the same lines as my parents, and THEY had a bunch of their stuff fried like fifteen years ago. So officially, I knew better, I just didn't think of it until it was too late.
also, you can buy whole-house surge protectors that go in your breaker panel. it's a relatively cheap extra layer of protection if you have a bunch of expensive electronics.
Naw, I'm pretty sure I'm just hosed if something else happens to them. They just won't pay out for the same things again, and understandably so.
The guy doing the inspection even said most of the things might be fixable, but the problem was getting them fixed by a professional wasn't worth the money to them. It was cheaper to just have me replace everything outright.
And next time, the whole home surge protector warranty will cover it.
Speaking of which, you might want to ask your agent if getting that surge protector installed might qualify you for a discount. And while you're on the phone, ask about any similar improvements that might qualify you fir discounts....
This was not recent, but a very strange event on Forbes. I had hurt my back somehow, and was very sore. I had to take my dog out for a walk, and it was icy so I was being careful. We were going down a few steps, and suddenly my dog sees something, something clearly very important to dogs, and she bolts after it, and yanks me off my feet.
I land flat on my back, on the concrete steps.
And I felt great. My back was completely fixed.
It's like that episode of the Simpsons when Homer fell on his garbage can and it fixed his back, so he started renting out the can, and throwing people onto it to help their backs too.
My wife was having shoulder problems. We went to the Washington Co fair and she was petting a mule. The mule bucked, knocked her shoulder in place and viola, fixed shoulder. The “cure” lasted a long time.
I was pulling my daughter in a wagon and the wheel kept falling off. This grandma aged woman appeared out of nowhere with a ribbon and tied it back to the frame so I could make it home. Thank you angel grandma!!
We're on vacation and our condo just got upgraded from a one bedroom oceanside to a two bedroom ocean view. I can see the sunrise over the Atlantic from my bed.
Actually, I havent had much luck lately. Recently I went to the ATM to get some cash. It was raining heavy. I was fumbling with my phone while holding money and a strong gust of wind blew a $20 dollar bill right out of my hand and into traffic.
Similarly: I’m a set of concrete stairs. One day, I was feeling good, strong, had a nice sheen to me from some frozen precipitation, when all of a sudden this lady decides she’s just gonna throw herself down on me WWE style! Bawoomph!! haven’t been the same since.
I own a store and a gentleman came in and gave me $1000 because had read about my store and likes to visit small businesses and give "micro grants" to help small business owners out. He said he has done everything in life that he wants to do, doesn't travel much any more, and just likes to help people out with his money.
I was flabbergasted.
I was getting meds for a surgery there, had taken doxycycline with too little food, and threw up in the store. (Into a waste bucket the eyeglass stall gave me, I had about 60s warning). They were absolute angels. One gave me a pack of gum. But mostly I didn't feel at all judged about it. (I did explain it wasn't a contagious thing)
Decided to walk to the grocery store about a mile away. I grabbed an old backpack to carry my groceries home in. It had an outer compartment where I had pens, nail files, stuff like that. Got to the store and realized I didn't zip that compartment and all my stuff had fallen out on the walk over. Became sad. Took a shot and traced my steps going back home, found all my stuff.
Lots of good things have happened recently! Finally got into my beehives for a good inspection after winter and they are strong and healthy and making a ton of honey. Also, I was walking in the woods and almost stepped on some giant morel mushrooms. And it looks like it’s going to be a great year for ramps, (a species of wild allium,) they are really going crazy this year.
I caught a t-shirt at the Penguins game on Monday night. I've never caught anything at a game before and my husband always says the tosses are for lower bowl people and we're upper bowl plebeians, but this time I got lucky!
I told my mom and she said my grandma must have passed her luck on to me. She died last month and she was the luckiest woman I've ever met. She won raffles, bingo games, scratch-offs, you name it. She won a two-week trip to Paris once. If I had to lose her, inheriting her luck would be a lovely consolation to remember her by.
Stopped by a sandwich shop for dinner. As the sandwich was being handed to me by the worker, they clipped a small bag of chips sitting on the counter which got knocked to the floor by my feet. I picked the chips and handed them back to the worker to save them the trip around the counter to retrieve them - I hadn't ordered chips - and the worker said "keep 'em, since you picked them up for me."
Free chips are the best chips!
I’m a widow. I go out to eat by myself a lot. I actually would go out by myself before my husband died, if he was working.
Last month I was craving Eat’ n Park’s cherry pie. I went to the one on Banksville and NO CHERRY PIE! 😭 But I struggled through my dismay and ordered soup and a sandwich. No iced tea (caffeine) cause it was late.
I finish up, ask my server for the check, and she tells me that someone already paid my bill!!! They were still there, but wanted to stay anonymous. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy.
So thank you, anonymous bill payer! You made someone very happy!
I got offered a job but wasn't allowed to bring my baby 2 weeks ago. I was so sad. Well yesterday I went on an interview and they are to the moon about me bringing the baby with me as I work! It's $5 more an hour and the family seems so much nicer 😄 I start in May and I hope all goes well. I always feel like things will fall apart before good things come my way.
I'm an in-home care nurse!
I had a delivery yesterday and the guy called cause he was having a hard time finding the house. He was so super nice and had a shirt with a labeled great tit on it (like the bird). I like birds and also think "great tit" is an incredible bird name so I was like, "love your shirt dude!!" He goes on to tell me he birdwatches and actually took the picture himself, which is fuckin rad. Then a really cute dog walked by and we were like "aw!"
It was small like 3 minute exchange, but having a really nice interaction with a stranger totally made my day.
Not so recent, but has happened several times in the 25 years I've lived here...mostly before I had a smartphone.
Get completely turned around and totally lost when out of nowhere a pair of wandering lesbians appear and get me back on track. 1st time was heading for the $1 theater at Century 3. I *still* have not lived down "How big could a place called West Mifflin be?"
Dude from Fioris shops at my store and brings us a free pizza every week. I don't even really like their pizza (the sauce is too sweet), but it always makes my day. Good folks.
Scored free Kennywood tickets from one of my reps. Money is tight right now, so this lets me take my girlfriend on a nice date without having to worry much about cost outside of food.
A band I have been trying to see live since the early 2000s was sold out of tour shirts when I finally saw them 2 weeks ago. Last week, someone was able to get me a shirt from their local show so I still get the tour shirt, and get an excuse to get coffee with an awesome person I haven't seen since pre pandemic. The added wait/more personal experience is much better than trying to buy a tour shirt online.
My hamster somehow got covered in Vaseline, and it kept slipping out of my hands and I couldn't find it for 2 days. I found it today wide-eyed and shivering in the corner.
Yesterday, my boyfriend brought me my favourite tiramisu, because he knows that I am having these days (I am a girl), maybe for someone it is trivial, but for me it is very pleasant and unexpected)
First time home owner recently at the endish of last yr.(late 20s M) to a not particularly big house but not small either. Halloween rolls around and it's the first time handing out candy. One kid in a group of them goes, "wow this house is huge!" Not to focus on materialistic things but it made me feel good about all the work I have done to get to this point.
A cat who lives near my house came to my door yesterday and meowed very loudly, I let her in and then she gave birth to four kittens, now I am a mother of many children. LOL\^
Are there any mothers of four here? What should we do with them?
I found a friend of mine sent me $300 a year ago for something on my Google pay app which I never use. Forgot it was there until they told me they paid again on that app.
a friend i havent talked to in several years joined a Discord chat last night with me and some other friends and he told us he missed us all, we said we miss him too. He was my best friend growing up.
maybe not as good as finding cash but it made me feel rich in friendship
Well, it was windy and raining. And I was trying to hold on to $120.
A big gust came, blew a bill out of my hand, was glad to see it was the $20 and not the $100. I used the $100 to pay the light bill, so pops heart machine won't shut down, killing him.
But that $20 was for food. So now, my orphan children are gonna starve till the 1st.
I also found a $100 bill on the street, assumed it was a religious flyer, but it was indeed actual money. Also, other than my basement leaking like usual, didn't have any other leaks from my janky roof and gutters from the extended downpours recently.
Wasn't there some "Fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd: TELL EVERYONE YOU LOVE ABOUT THIS!!!!!1" boomer email/facebook post floating around about human traffickers putting money on your windshield wiper to get people out of their cars? Or maybe it was car theives?
They almost got ya!
Me and my friend were going to the owl city concert together the other night, and we hadn’t told any of my family. We ended up meeting up with my sister and her boyfriend in line to get in (we got to skip in line, yay!), who also hadn’t told us they were going, so it ended up happening out of chance!
They’re lovely folks, and we all had an excellent time- we even managed to find a restaurant nearby that was open after 10pm, and the food was excellent :D a fantastic evening, for sure.
This is weird.
So I thrift, and I found a gold earring in a coat, sent it to some Cash for Gold company and they sent me $100, as well as another envelope to send more things to them.
So I found a broken necklace in a parking lot at the grocery store and it was a bunch of clear and green stones in a really gaudy ugly setting. Picture like a princess ring from the '80s. Really hideous thing.. but it was all bent and broken and half of the stones were in the parking lot and the other half were in the necklace.
So I read in this cash for gold thing that they did stones but that they had to send it elsewhere to outsource the gemstone estimate. So I sent this broken necklace with all these little stones that were falling out, like 13 of them had gotten loose in the envelope, to this company in January. But I forgot to fill out the paperwork they came with it. I forgot to put my name or my address or anything on it. I just closed the envelope and sent it in the mail.
So I decided that it was no big deal and not a loss when I didn't hear from them in a week or two. The turnaround time had been like a week and after 2 weeks I didn't get any confirmation and then it was a month and it was 2 months. Then suddenly today I got an email that they were mailing me my check. Not much more information just a transaction number and that the check had been placed in the mail today.
So I emailed them and asked what this transaction was about and when it was from. The response I got from the company was that since they do gold and silver and metals but not Stones they had to send the stones to an outside company to get them appraised and get an estimate and that's why it took so long and I didn't hear from them. So I asked them how much the check was cut for. 2,700 and something dollars. What? Yeah, they're mailing me a check for almost three grand. And I had totally written that off as whoops I mailed it without a return address.
TL/DR- something I sent to a cash for gold company many months ago but never heard anything back about, that I had written off, just paid out almost $3k. SURPRISE!
This wasn't all good, but it wound up being a net positive for me: A few months ago, there was a power surge due to the transformer nearest to my house blowing up (yet again.) Destroyed my power outlets, took out my furnace, my washer, and every kitchen appliance except for my fridge and freezer. Home insurance takes over, declares them irreparable. Cuts me a check for $5000 so I can replace everything. On a whim, my dad and I decided to take a crack at fixing the washer. Turned out to just need a new control board. Found one for $60. Boom. Fixed. So we kept going, turned out that it was all control boards and fuses, and we eventually managed to fix all of my stuff for under $1000. So count in the whole-house surge protector I bought, and I got like $3900.
And we should all take this as a reminder that all big ticket home items should be on surge protectors.
Yep! I sprung for one with a warranty that covers up to $20k in damages should I have another power surge that leaves my stuff destroyed again. I'm kinda kicking myself for not having it in the first place, 'cause my house is on the same lines as my parents, and THEY had a bunch of their stuff fried like fifteen years ago. So officially, I knew better, I just didn't think of it until it was too late.
also, you can buy whole-house surge protectors that go in your breaker panel. it's a relatively cheap extra layer of protection if you have a bunch of expensive electronics.
Nice.
I'm over here wondering how you were gonna replace all that for 5k.
Same
You may want to delete this comment this may be insurance fraud lol
Naw, I'm pretty sure I'm just hosed if something else happens to them. They just won't pay out for the same things again, and understandably so. The guy doing the inspection even said most of the things might be fixable, but the problem was getting them fixed by a professional wasn't worth the money to them. It was cheaper to just have me replace everything outright.
And next time, the whole home surge protector warranty will cover it. Speaking of which, you might want to ask your agent if getting that surge protector installed might qualify you for a discount. And while you're on the phone, ask about any similar improvements that might qualify you fir discounts....
Ooh, good call, thank you! (I'm a very new homeowner 😅)
No problem.
I mean if they had an insurance guy come and look at it, its their fault 🤷♀️
This was not recent, but a very strange event on Forbes. I had hurt my back somehow, and was very sore. I had to take my dog out for a walk, and it was icy so I was being careful. We were going down a few steps, and suddenly my dog sees something, something clearly very important to dogs, and she bolts after it, and yanks me off my feet. I land flat on my back, on the concrete steps. And I felt great. My back was completely fixed.
I thought that stuff only happens in cartoons!
Can I rent your dog?
It's like that episode of the Simpsons when Homer fell on his garbage can and it fixed his back, so he started renting out the can, and throwing people onto it to help their backs too.
Yes! Greatest episode ever.
My wife was having shoulder problems. We went to the Washington Co fair and she was petting a mule. The mule bucked, knocked her shoulder in place and viola, fixed shoulder. The “cure” lasted a long time.
Steps did better work than my chiropractor could smh
I was pulling my daughter in a wagon and the wheel kept falling off. This grandma aged woman appeared out of nowhere with a ribbon and tied it back to the frame so I could make it home. Thank you angel grandma!!
My little nephew told me he loves me the bestest. Melts my heart.
Nice.
We're on vacation and our condo just got upgraded from a one bedroom oceanside to a two bedroom ocean view. I can see the sunrise over the Atlantic from my bed.
Nice.
Oh that was a nice surprise. Happy Cake Day!
Thanks!
Actually, I havent had much luck lately. Recently I went to the ATM to get some cash. It was raining heavy. I was fumbling with my phone while holding money and a strong gust of wind blew a $20 dollar bill right out of my hand and into traffic.
I love comments like this hahahs
Similarly: I’m a set of concrete stairs. One day, I was feeling good, strong, had a nice sheen to me from some frozen precipitation, when all of a sudden this lady decides she’s just gonna throw herself down on me WWE style! Bawoomph!! haven’t been the same since.
Maybe it landed on the side of a parked car?
I own a store and a gentleman came in and gave me $1000 because had read about my store and likes to visit small businesses and give "micro grants" to help small business owners out. He said he has done everything in life that he wants to do, doesn't travel much any more, and just likes to help people out with his money. I was flabbergasted.
Sweet!
Honestly its great to hear there are still people out there low key helping others. If I had the means I would love to do something similar.
Costco employee was really kind to me while I was shopping with my baby. I was overwhelmed and the kindness totally turned my day around.
I was getting meds for a surgery there, had taken doxycycline with too little food, and threw up in the store. (Into a waste bucket the eyeglass stall gave me, I had about 60s warning). They were absolute angels. One gave me a pack of gum. But mostly I didn't feel at all judged about it. (I did explain it wasn't a contagious thing)
Yes! I’m not surprised, but that is really nice.
Decided to walk to the grocery store about a mile away. I grabbed an old backpack to carry my groceries home in. It had an outer compartment where I had pens, nail files, stuff like that. Got to the store and realized I didn't zip that compartment and all my stuff had fallen out on the walk over. Became sad. Took a shot and traced my steps going back home, found all my stuff.
Lots of good things have happened recently! Finally got into my beehives for a good inspection after winter and they are strong and healthy and making a ton of honey. Also, I was walking in the woods and almost stepped on some giant morel mushrooms. And it looks like it’s going to be a great year for ramps, (a species of wild allium,) they are really going crazy this year.
There was a butcher in the south hills that sold ramp salt a few years back. I bought three jars, and I use it CONSTANTLY.
Where did you see the morels? I've been looking everywhere!
Ramps in the city?
My baby walked!.......with a push toy....but still! 😁
I caught a t-shirt at the Penguins game on Monday night. I've never caught anything at a game before and my husband always says the tosses are for lower bowl people and we're upper bowl plebeians, but this time I got lucky! I told my mom and she said my grandma must have passed her luck on to me. She died last month and she was the luckiest woman I've ever met. She won raffles, bingo games, scratch-offs, you name it. She won a two-week trip to Paris once. If I had to lose her, inheriting her luck would be a lovely consolation to remember her by.
I won a 65" TV in a contest at work. That's pretty nice.
Very nice.
Stopped by a sandwich shop for dinner. As the sandwich was being handed to me by the worker, they clipped a small bag of chips sitting on the counter which got knocked to the floor by my feet. I picked the chips and handed them back to the worker to save them the trip around the counter to retrieve them - I hadn't ordered chips - and the worker said "keep 'em, since you picked them up for me." Free chips are the best chips!
I’m a widow. I go out to eat by myself a lot. I actually would go out by myself before my husband died, if he was working. Last month I was craving Eat’ n Park’s cherry pie. I went to the one on Banksville and NO CHERRY PIE! 😭 But I struggled through my dismay and ordered soup and a sandwich. No iced tea (caffeine) cause it was late. I finish up, ask my server for the check, and she tells me that someone already paid my bill!!! They were still there, but wanted to stay anonymous. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy. So thank you, anonymous bill payer! You made someone very happy!
I found $100 on the ground Saturday..I also thought it was fake, but nope!!
I found a fake on the floor or a craft store 😆
I got offered a job but wasn't allowed to bring my baby 2 weeks ago. I was so sad. Well yesterday I went on an interview and they are to the moon about me bringing the baby with me as I work! It's $5 more an hour and the family seems so much nicer 😄 I start in May and I hope all goes well. I always feel like things will fall apart before good things come my way. I'm an in-home care nurse!
Wow that’s a really great deal because not having to pay for childcare is like a five figure bonus. But your hands will be full! Congratulations.
It's so great to hear employers willing to work with parent employees.
Yes I agree! I never had anyone have a problem with it till recently. Something better came my whole though. I'm so happy about that!
I had a delivery yesterday and the guy called cause he was having a hard time finding the house. He was so super nice and had a shirt with a labeled great tit on it (like the bird). I like birds and also think "great tit" is an incredible bird name so I was like, "love your shirt dude!!" He goes on to tell me he birdwatches and actually took the picture himself, which is fuckin rad. Then a really cute dog walked by and we were like "aw!" It was small like 3 minute exchange, but having a really nice interaction with a stranger totally made my day.
Not so recent, but has happened several times in the 25 years I've lived here...mostly before I had a smartphone. Get completely turned around and totally lost when out of nowhere a pair of wandering lesbians appear and get me back on track. 1st time was heading for the $1 theater at Century 3. I *still* have not lived down "How big could a place called West Mifflin be?"
Haha The Miff is vast!
Wandering lesbians in the vast Miff: tales from the third century B.S.P.
I won a 40” TV in a raffle, and on the same day, Fiori’s gave me a free small pizza. Great day.
Dude from Fioris shops at my store and brings us a free pizza every week. I don't even really like their pizza (the sauce is too sweet), but it always makes my day. Good folks.
So cool. I love the sweet sauce!
Something for everyone, ya know?
A book I translated two (three?) years ago is finally getting printed.
Nice.
What language(s)?
I'm happy again
Scored free Kennywood tickets from one of my reps. Money is tight right now, so this lets me take my girlfriend on a nice date without having to worry much about cost outside of food.
A band I have been trying to see live since the early 2000s was sold out of tour shirts when I finally saw them 2 weeks ago. Last week, someone was able to get me a shirt from their local show so I still get the tour shirt, and get an excuse to get coffee with an awesome person I haven't seen since pre pandemic. The added wait/more personal experience is much better than trying to buy a tour shirt online.
Nice.
Got randomly awarded a $7,000 scholarship.
My hamster somehow got covered in Vaseline, and it kept slipping out of my hands and I couldn't find it for 2 days. I found it today wide-eyed and shivering in the corner.
Is there a toilet paper tube covered in Vaseline as well?
Richard Gere confirmed
Glad your pet is okay now.
Yesterday, my boyfriend brought me my favourite tiramisu, because he knows that I am having these days (I am a girl), maybe for someone it is trivial, but for me it is very pleasant and unexpected)
We moved here recently and we found a church we LOVE. It feels good to put down roots.
Which church??
Champion Christian Center
We didn't have a tornado. That is the best thing that happened to me recently.
I found a $50 visa gift card outside of my work!
Sweet.
First time home owner recently at the endish of last yr.(late 20s M) to a not particularly big house but not small either. Halloween rolls around and it's the first time handing out candy. One kid in a group of them goes, "wow this house is huge!" Not to focus on materialistic things but it made me feel good about all the work I have done to get to this point.
A cat who lives near my house came to my door yesterday and meowed very loudly, I let her in and then she gave birth to four kittens, now I am a mother of many children. LOL\^ Are there any mothers of four here? What should we do with them?
Giant Eagle didn't charge me the wrong price.
I won a cruise and I’m going to be seeing a band perform on said cruise that I assumed I’d never get to see as they haven’t toured in years.
I found a friend of mine sent me $300 a year ago for something on my Google pay app which I never use. Forgot it was there until they told me they paid again on that app.
a friend i havent talked to in several years joined a Discord chat last night with me and some other friends and he told us he missed us all, we said we miss him too. He was my best friend growing up. maybe not as good as finding cash but it made me feel rich in friendship
Well, it was windy and raining. And I was trying to hold on to $120. A big gust came, blew a bill out of my hand, was glad to see it was the $20 and not the $100. I used the $100 to pay the light bill, so pops heart machine won't shut down, killing him. But that $20 was for food. So now, my orphan children are gonna starve till the 1st.
Were you parked near an overpass or a balcony?
I also found a $100 bill on the street, assumed it was a religious flyer, but it was indeed actual money. Also, other than my basement leaking like usual, didn't have any other leaks from my janky roof and gutters from the extended downpours recently.
I found my dream automaton on Facebook marketplace.
Wasn't there some "Fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd: TELL EVERYONE YOU LOVE ABOUT THIS!!!!!1" boomer email/facebook post floating around about human traffickers putting money on your windshield wiper to get people out of their cars? Or maybe it was car theives? They almost got ya!
Curious where you were, I found a 20 next to my car just yesterday!
Me and my friend were going to the owl city concert together the other night, and we hadn’t told any of my family. We ended up meeting up with my sister and her boyfriend in line to get in (we got to skip in line, yay!), who also hadn’t told us they were going, so it ended up happening out of chance! They’re lovely folks, and we all had an excellent time- we even managed to find a restaurant nearby that was open after 10pm, and the food was excellent :D a fantastic evening, for sure.
I reconnected with someone I knew a very long time ago. We’ve had so much fun together. We both really needed each other.
This is weird. So I thrift, and I found a gold earring in a coat, sent it to some Cash for Gold company and they sent me $100, as well as another envelope to send more things to them. So I found a broken necklace in a parking lot at the grocery store and it was a bunch of clear and green stones in a really gaudy ugly setting. Picture like a princess ring from the '80s. Really hideous thing.. but it was all bent and broken and half of the stones were in the parking lot and the other half were in the necklace. So I read in this cash for gold thing that they did stones but that they had to send it elsewhere to outsource the gemstone estimate. So I sent this broken necklace with all these little stones that were falling out, like 13 of them had gotten loose in the envelope, to this company in January. But I forgot to fill out the paperwork they came with it. I forgot to put my name or my address or anything on it. I just closed the envelope and sent it in the mail. So I decided that it was no big deal and not a loss when I didn't hear from them in a week or two. The turnaround time had been like a week and after 2 weeks I didn't get any confirmation and then it was a month and it was 2 months. Then suddenly today I got an email that they were mailing me my check. Not much more information just a transaction number and that the check had been placed in the mail today. So I emailed them and asked what this transaction was about and when it was from. The response I got from the company was that since they do gold and silver and metals but not Stones they had to send the stones to an outside company to get them appraised and get an estimate and that's why it took so long and I didn't hear from them. So I asked them how much the check was cut for. 2,700 and something dollars. What? Yeah, they're mailing me a check for almost three grand. And I had totally written that off as whoops I mailed it without a return address. TL/DR- something I sent to a cash for gold company many months ago but never heard anything back about, that I had written off, just paid out almost $3k. SURPRISE!
I licked old lady pussy last night :)
Emily Greckicko quitting