rSlash - r/TIFU By Buying from the US Military

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

0:00 Intro 0:07 Surplus auction 7:01 Blow me 9:00 Comment 9:29 Kong 11:44 Comment 13:08 Aunts house Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to R slash Today I FFed Up, where OP has a unique encounter with the United States military. Today I effed up by winning a government surplus auction. I get a break here because it happened when I was 13 years old. I was a young wannabe photographer, and I'd been researching the cost of setting up my own dark room. It's a mostly lost art. You need an enlarger, film tanks, chemicals, paper, and dozens of other pieces of equipment. Plus, you needed a light-proof room with decent ventilation. My parents were mostly supportive, if not mostly disinterested.

I was allowed to come and go as I please, and they were willing to let me use an unused bathroom at our house to set up my erstwhile darkroom. I just never had enough money to do it, so I used to have a rented dark room at a local studio that charged by the hour. My 15-year-old brother was a very early computer nerd and phone freak. He had different projects going on all the time. He used to buy stuff from the U.S. government.

They mailed books for auctions and surplus disposal. He had set up a bidding account and bought crazy used electronics and decommissioned communication devices. It was all through sealed bid offers and conducted solely through snail mail. You see a listing you wanted, you filled out a bidding form and then sent it in through mail. If you were the high bid, you'd receive a notice, sometimes four to six weeks later with instructions on payment and drayage. I've never heard the word drayage before. It means basically shipping logistics. He showed me a brief listing that caught his eye. It's been 50 years, but it went something like this. Portable field, darkroom, enlarger, trays, storage, self-contained with supplies and tools.

The listing had dozens of abbreviations and other details that I didn't understand, and it was located 90 miles away in the San Diego area. Shipping was to be coordinated by the winning bidder. I was very excited. My brother had gotten electronics, and tools for pennies on the dollar. He agreed to send a bid for me. After much deliberation on how much to bid, we came upon the magnificent sum of 80 bucks. There was little to no chance that I would win, but who knows? We sent off the bid. When the end date came and went, I breathlessly checked the mail daily to see if I won. Finally, I received a very official-looking envelope with basically a notification and an invoice. I won. We paid through a postal money order and received,

instructions on where to collect my triumphant spoils. This is where things go sideways. We just had no way of getting the stuff picked up. It was miles away. I didn't even have a bicycle at the time. My brother worked out a deal with a super shady guy named Lance who had a mini truck for a tank of gas and some swiped booze. We were mobile. We drove down to the warehouse with my paperwork in hand. Turns out we were going to a marine base. There we were. My brother, a slightly chubby freckled redhead. Me, a scrawny, prepubescent dupus, and Lance, a long-haired stoner straight out of dazed and confused. He was wearing a Mr. Zog's sex wax t-shirt. As we got closer to the gate, Lance starts freaking out. He's got pot on him and no ID. After we explained who we were

and why we were there, the gate guard had us drive to a holding area. Do not exit the vehicle. Do not drive past the second fence. After about 25 minutes, a very stern-looking guy came out and walked around the truck. Gentlemen, I understand you're here to receive a parcel. Yes, sir. Do not address me as sir. I work for a living. I'm Gunnery Sergeant Jones. Is this the vehicle in which you intend to remove your property? Yes, Gunnery Sergeant. Well, who is OP? Well, me, sir. I mean Gunnery Sergeant. He said to follow him. He took us to a dusty field and storage yard where we passed building after building of neglected green junk. Everything was covered in tarps and tied with rope. He finally stopped and said, Do you see the problem here? Huh? What? This is your dark room. We were in front of a dilapidated

20 foot long trailer from no later than 1960. It was filthy and sitting on very low tires. He opened the door. Go ahead. Watch out for mice and spiders. Inside was as awful and rotted as the outside. Boxes of old photographic supplies, unrecognizable canisters, and an ancient vintage and larger that was probably state of the art when Ike was in the White House. I was crestfallen, feeling dumb. Gunny chimed in with, I don't think Cheech's rig will tow this thing.

Toe this thing, I wanted to get out of here and never look back. I asked, what happens if we don't pick it up? kid, unless you're hiding a diesel rig somewhere, that thing's going nowhere. So we left. As much as I wanted to split the blame with my older brother, this was on me. I told him it was a great deal and that I knew everything on the listing. My money was gone, but the worst was yet to come. Sometime in the next few weeks, we started getting official-looking abandoned property letters and notice of forfeiture, and then it happened. I came home from school one afternoon, and there, in front of my house was the green beast. My horror was compounded by the fact that it was blocking the driveway. There was no hiding from this. I went inside. I remember closing the trapes as if my parents wouldn't notice it when they came home

and started frantically calling the numbers that I had for the warehouse. It was about three or four tries in when I finally got someone on the line who could help. Yeah, we had a load going over to Oxnard, and the gunnery said to drop it off on the way. I said, are you crazy? I'm a 13-year-old kid. And the guy on the other end said, well, according to the Department of Disposal, you're the owner of a surplus trailer and hung up.

About this time, a small group of nosy neighbors and kids, most of them my friends, had gathered around to see the green behemoth. This was perfect timing as my dad was rounding the corner in his brown 1972 Fleetwood Broem. My parents were not exactly engaged helicopter parents. My siblings and I pretty much did whatever we wanted with little to no supervision. They only got involved when our antics disrupted their lives.

Like now. My dad basically said, deal with it. Over the next few days, I cleaned it out, and I was able to move it so it wasn't blocking the driveway. I had eight kids pushing it. After a few days, we decided to run an ad in the L.A. Recycler. I sold it to a hippie who showed up in a vintage postal truck and gave me 50 bucks. I eventually built my dark room, and my family still teases me about The Beast. Our next Reddit post is from Fuzzy One. I have twin three-year-old boys, and they're very active and silly. Well, the other day, I was doing some yard work and using my leaf blower to clear away some grass and dirt. Naturally, my sons are infatuated with it, so I use the leaf blower on the them and they love it. I started chasing them around the neighborhood with the leaf blower pretending they were leaves. Good old wholesome father-son fun, right? Well, naturally, now they want me to use the leaf blower on them all the time. No biggie, it's a fun game and I like playing

with my electric leaf blower. Only now, it's everywhere, including places where I don't have my leaf blower. So instead, I have to pretend to blow them away like I'm blowing out a candle. Still fine. All day for the last three days, it's been, Dad, can you blow me away? Very cute stuff. Well, this morning we're at Target and the kids are getting a tad squirley. They wanted to go to the park, and I said that we can go after we finish up here. They're dancing around the aisles being toddlers.

Then my son comes up to me in the main aisle, and in the biggest toddler yell shouts, Dadda, can you blow me? Q five people turning around to look at me and my kid. You'd think by now I'd be immune to toddler-based embarrassment, but nope. So me, and my quietest voice, face feeling redder than a Macintosh Apple, responds, Buddy, inside voice. Do you mean that you want me to blow you away?

Yes, blow me, blow me. He jumps up and down. The other one says, yeah, blow me too, daddy. Boys, inside voices, please. You mean blow you away, right? How do you ask for that? Please may you blow us away? I blew them away, and they go dancing off like leaves.

The others who are watching, snicker and giggle. One of the other guys nearby gives me a knowing smirk that clearly said, Been there. I proceeded to finish off the quickest target run of my life. Down in the comments, we have this story from Rainbow Wherperdermis. A lifetime ago, I was shopping with my four-year-old niece, and her favorite toy was a small plastic figurine Puss and Boots from the Shrek franchise. That day she dropped it and started wailing, my puss, my pussy, at the top of her lungs.

No word of lie, a nun was watching as I scamper to quickly retrieve the toy and presented back to her with an emphasis on the in boots. Mortified, I wanted to blend into the milk display. Today I effed up by leaving out my Kong while I was at work. My wife's been out of town for the week, and since I've been working crazy hours, I asked my mom, to stop by the house, let the dog out, feed them, and keep them company until I could get myself home. Now, here's where it gets mortifying. When my wife is away for extended periods, I have a personal toy. It's blue, hourglass shaped, and, let's say, ergonomically designed. My wife is fully aware of it, and even jokingly nicknamed it my Kong. Anyway, before I went to bed after my last shift,

I washed it and left it on the dish rack in the kitchen. Usually I put it away a immediately, but I guess I was overworked and I passed out without thinking twice. So fast forward to today. I come home after 16 hours of non-stop work. I'm exhausted, dead on my feet, and just ready to fall into bed. I walk in and there's my mom on the couch, happily playing with the dog. And in the dog's mouth, the Kong, covered in peanut butter. I freeze, just completely short circuit. My mom gets up to greet me and goes, just loves his Kong. Immediately, she can tell something is up and asked, is everything okay, sweetie? I mumbled something like, yeah, just a long day, and stumbled off before I could burst into flames on the

spot. My mom didn't stay long. Thank God, she just left me a plate of food and went home. As soon as the door closed, I sprinted around the house trying to catch my dog, finally wrestled the Kong from him, and chucked it in the trash like it was radioactive. Now I'm laying in the bed, sleep deprived, and emotionally destroyed, trying to decide if I'll ever be able to look my mother in the eye again, or if I should tell my wife, or if I should just disappear. So I left my toy on the drying rack, my mom mistook it for a dog toy, filled it with peanut butter, and gave it to my dog. Update, I just told my wife. After almost passing out from laughing so hard, through a smile, she's scolded me for leaving it on the dish rack. Admittedly, it wasn't the first time she's told me

not to leave it there. Somehow, I think this time, the lesson has stuck. The top post, well, at least your wife will know what to get you for your birthday. Today I effed up by checking my dead grandpa's laptop. I am absolutely freaked out right now. My grandpa died a bit over a year ago. Today, my grandma had me see if his old laptop still worked. I plugged it in and turned it on. I wanted to see if the keyboard worked normally, so I opened Google and typed in the letter B. Right as I that best Chinese adult content popped up. I thought, oh my God, what do I do? I've only heard stories of this. I couldn't help myself. I checked the search history. Adult content everywhere. Nothing but adult content. Japanese stuff, Russian stuff, mommy kink, piss kink, everything.

He didn't use this laptop for anything but adult content and occasionally potato salad recipes. Of course, everyone can watch what they want if it's legal, but I never would have thought that about my grandpa. He was always just a sweet old man. You know, I can't help but notice that the word for adult content, four letters, you guys know what I'm talking about, has the same two starting letters as potato salad, both P-O. And then also, R is right next to T,

so I wonder if the searches for potato salad was actually him trying to type in the other P-word and his finger slipped. So actually, it was all adult content. Today I effed up by cleaning out my aunt's house. You won't believe what I found. So my aunt passed away two weeks ago, and she was a pretty all-around solid person. She didn't have anything weird or abnormal about her, as far as I knew. We attended the funeral.

It was super sad, and we miss her, of course. I spoke to my mother, and we believed that it would be best for us to clean out her house to not make the other family members have to do it since she lived alone. When we were cleaning up in the bedroom, we found a loose tile. We were curious, but not much, and started working on the furniture. At one point, I tripped over the tile. Angrily, I kind of pounded the floor. When I did, I noticed the tile shift as if it were in a freaking movie.

I moved the tile and found a ton of stuff. Videotapes and magazines of adult content to start with. And I'm talking everything. One was labeled feet and the other was labeled Daddy. We also found weapons, ammunition, knives, and then, if that wasn't weird enough, we found what looks like some kind of small canister. We also found bottles of vodka from 30 years ago that were full, and even a decent amount of cash. What do we do? What did I even find? Was my aunt some secret agent? Was she a murderer?

Or was this something even she didn't know was there? Couldn't be because it was so obvious. I don't know. That was our slash today I effed up. you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.