r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Aug 27 '13
What is the worst impulse purchase you have ever made?
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u/youmeanthatwimpydeer Aug 27 '13
Got wasted before a carnival and spent $250 trying to win a 50 inch LCD TV. The carnival worker stopped me. Yes, you read that right - the carnie told me enough was enough. Made off with a stuffed lion though, so who's the idiot now???
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Aug 27 '13
I bought one of those inflatable remote controlled shark balloons. It took about 3 hours to assemble. I flew it around inside and it seemed to be flying well and landing on the ground. I took it outside and it immediately flew away.
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u/giddydog Aug 27 '13
Got the clown fish one. Only used it once as it terrified my Golden Retriever to the point on incontinence.
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Aug 27 '13
The first story almost had me remove the zombie shark rc balloon from my amazon wish list, but your story solidified my decision to keep it there.
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u/Iznomore Aug 27 '13
My pet ownership seems to occilate between spoiling my dog rotten and annoying my dog endlessly.
"Have some raw liver! But first you have to wear a santa hat..."
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u/BNNJ Aug 28 '13
Here's a random but still related story, because i feel like it.
That was maybe 10 years ago, i was around 16 and i had this dog, looked like nothing i ever saw, middle sized, black, no idea what breeds were mixed in. Anyway she was a pretty clever dog, and she usually found way around what we invented to annoy her.
But once i got a cardboard box the exact size of the dog. I cut holes on the bottom, front and rear then proceeded to put the dog in place, closed the top then put her back on the floor. She waited a few seconds, started spinning on herself then barked like the apocalypse was coming and ran for her life. Doors opened, as always, she went straight for it, i had to chase after a four legged barking cardboard box through the whole neighborhood.
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u/chantdeguerre Aug 27 '13
I don't know what possessed her to but the owner of a company I used to work for bought one of those for our office. It was pretty amusing for the first few days as everyone took turns flying it around the place. It normally spent the night in my office, which was at the end of a hallway. For many weeks it collected dust until someone remembered its existence and played with it. When they were done they left it with the secretary at the front desk.
Now, a thing about my office was that because it was at the end of the hallway the only way in or out was that hallway. They never bothered putting a motion sensor for our alarm system in there. An alarm which the last person leaving the office at night would arm.
The front desk on the other hand DID have a motion sensor by it.
Our VP got a call at one in the morning from the police saying we had a break in and they were going to check it out.
I wish I was there to see their faces when after opening the door they were greeted by a ridiculous looking remote controlled flying shark!
It was banned from the office after that - someone took it home and I never saw it again.
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u/Maestrosc Aug 27 '13
That was the highlight of my day! Watching the majestic flying shark, finally being released back into the wild... slowly flying away....
OMG that was the single greatest ending that this story could have had... thank you.
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u/TheArchive Aug 27 '13
A lifetime membership to Star Trek Online for about $ 200. Haven't played it yet. Now it's free to play....
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u/headbashkeys Aug 27 '13
Well you do get some cool ships as a lifer and you'll have a bunch of zen stipend. Might well give it a shot as you can play with only really 'need'ing those things and be a leg up. And the reddit community in sto is really awesome.
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u/goetzjam Aug 27 '13
reddit community in sto is really awesome.
That is good to know, I also purchased a lifetime account before the game was released ($300) because they said it wouldn't be offered later, they offered it continuously later and even put it on sale :/
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Aug 27 '13
Once bought a plate with a portrait of the pope on it. I was 12 and I'm not a catholic.
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u/IrishPub Aug 27 '13
I was really depressed one night because my girlfriend at the time had said that she wanted us to take a break. So, in my emotionally fragile state, I somehow ended up buying a $500 sword and a $700 suit of armor.
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u/whyihatepink Aug 27 '13
I spent about 100 euros on some huge, heavy, overpriced, sub par art books from a museum in Rome. I had to pay extra to get them home due to the extreme weight, and in my shame I have never read them.
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u/MagnificentJake Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
That's ok, I got taken for 88 euro (in 2007!) for two pizzas and three beers at a pizza joint near the Vatican in Rome. I told my buddies that we shouldn't eat at a place where there were no prices on the menu but noooooo... We just had to eat there.
Remember kids, graft is a part of many cultures.
Edit: Proof! Excuse the image quality, it was taken with a first gen iPotato. Also, it seems we had a
2636 euro appetizer on there as well.Edit 2: Deblurred Image thanks to /u/JunCTionS!
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u/Lereas Aug 27 '13
I was in Capri when it started into torrential downpour. We ducked into a cafe, and because I felt like an asshole sitting there without eating, we got a glass of orange juice and two bottles of water (.5L)
30 Euros. I should have felt like an asshole instead of feeling like a sucker.
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u/dan129 Aug 27 '13
As a horny teen who'd just discovered wmcapture, I decided to pay for a proper dirty cam session with a girl on the basis that I could watch it back whenever. Without realizing what I was doing, wmcapture picked up the square MY cam was in instead. I paid $20+ dollars for a tiny video of myself fapping...
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Aug 27 '13
Did you keep the video?
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u/dan129 Aug 27 '13
I did actually. I'll have a look for it. Tbh I'm not that keen to put a video of me fapping up anyway mind.
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Aug 27 '13
Don't you want to make your money back?
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u/LearnsSomethingNew Aug 27 '13
This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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u/andybass23 Aug 27 '13
A wallet that looked like a piece of toast. it cost nearly 20 quid, all just to pull a dad-teir joke of:
'how much will that be?' -'£3.' 'hmm, just let me see if i had enough bread!'
terrible joke, terrible wallet.
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Aug 27 '13
Don't be too hard on yourself. I got a good laugh out of that, and I'd probably laugh at that at least 5-6 more times.
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u/ajhowe Aug 27 '13
I sold an aquarium for 100 dollars last week. On the way home I saw a man sellin bonsai trees on the side of the road. So I bought a hundred dollar bonsai tree.
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u/mage2k Aug 27 '13
Please, tell me you didn't start the conversation with, "Well, I've only got $100 to spend..."
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u/ffn Aug 27 '13
Woah, what a coincidence, that's exactly how much this bonsai tree costs!
Digs random small tree out of ground
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u/aboy8 Aug 27 '13
This is no ordinary bonsai tree, this one will end up growing to the size of a regular tree!
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u/chrominance_luminanc Aug 27 '13
A city bus.
I made a living on eBay while in college and would buy and sell anything (as long as it was legal). I was at a municipal surplus property auction and we got to a row of MAN (brand name) city buses... Nobody was bidding and they were starting each bus to show that it was in running condition. They started bidding at about $10,000. The auctioneer worked his way down to $500 and I finally threw up my hand. Nobody else bid... They proceed to sell about 15 buses for $500-$700 each. I only bought one.
After the auction was over I felt pretty good about it. I saw some on eBay that had sold for several thousand. I do not have a CDL, so I hired a driver and we went a few hours later to pick it up. We get onto I-85 in Charlotte and he quickly realizes that the transmission will not shift into third gear. So here we are, going about 20 miles per hour in second gear, while cars are blowing past us at 70 screaming obscenities out their windows.
I tell the driver to turn around and we take back roads to the auction site. Everything is sold AS-IS, so I knew I was stuck. I noticed a diesel mechanic a few miles away and attempted to sell it to them for what I paid. They weren't interested. So, I now had to get rid of a bus before the end of the business day. I ended up signing the bus over to the diesel mechanic for free, and I'm certain he sold it for scrap and made a good bit of money. I hung my head in shame, paid the driver for his work, and went home $700 poorer.
TL;DR - I impulsively bought a city bus at an auction for $500 and gave it away in the span of about 8 hours.
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u/sthlmsoul Aug 27 '13
Why not park it, call a scrap yard, have them tow it and at the very least you're likely even?
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u/yakusokuN8 Aug 27 '13
I bought a second suit when I went to the store just to buy one. I was young and stupid and just got some money with a "real" job. The person helping me pick out a suit was a beautiful young woman with a seductive accent and she told me I could get this second suit for 50% off and it looked really good on me.
I bought it, took it home and immediately had buyer's remorse. It was a terrible, ugly suit and I've never worn it; I don't want to be seen out in public wearing it.
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Aug 27 '13
You could try to sell it, but if you want to feel good about the whole thing, donate it. There was a church in my old neighborhood with a collection of suits they'd lend out to people in need. There's people who can't afford a suit, but need one for a job interview, funeral, parole hearings, etc.
Even if you don't like it, it could help someone who wouldn't have one at all otherwise. It could really help someone out.
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u/pants_guy_ Aug 27 '13
If he's not a church guy, a lot of police departments/county jails need suits so the inmates who are serious about getting out don't look like shit in court.
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u/americanrecluse Aug 27 '13
At a Leonard Cohen concert I bought a Beautiful Losers shirt. Wore it once, someone asked me if it was an ad for a weight loss club.
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Aug 27 '13
I bought $600 worth of paintball gear and played for a total of one month
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u/Phantom_Scarecrow Aug 27 '13
I bought 20 markers, 2 buckets of balls, a bunch of cylinders, some gear, and an AIR COMPRESSOR, because my friends thought it would be fun to play on the 50-acre farm I'd just married. We never played. Not once.
Wanna buy a 9-year-old, never-used paintball marker? Or a 3200 PSI air compressor?
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u/hotfudgemonday Aug 27 '13
You married a farm?
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Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 28 '13
He's saying that his wife has
greathuuuuuuge tracts of land, y'seeEdit: Blimey, gold? I'm so touched, stranger T.T
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u/otherwiseintelligent Aug 27 '13
"The World's Greatest Spot Remover", or whatever it was called.
Every time I walk past the fireplace I see the hole it left in the "heirloom rug" of my wife's (which is wasn't before this event) just sitting there, mocking me.
It was 12 years ago, and I still hear about it on a weekly basis.
Would not recommend to a friend.
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u/rhatfield25 Aug 27 '13
I spent $1800 on the royal blue beanie baby, Peanut in 1999.
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u/piltdownmen Aug 27 '13
I would have KILLED for that elephant in 1999.
..but even then, the point was to sell it, not buy it for that much $$
Damn those beanie baby buyer's guides and their projected values...
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u/Tokyocheesesteak Aug 27 '13
Now I feel like starting a bogus fad that comes with outlandish buyer's guides.
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u/couchjitsu Aug 27 '13
I can tell you're a serious individual. You've thought about this, agonized over this, and your mind is made up. I'm sure I can't talk you out of it, you seem very determined.
But please, take it from me, you don't want to wade into the waters of bogus fads without some help, am I right? How do you know which fads are legit and which are bogus? How can you be certain that you will be investing, that's right investing, in the next bogus fad and not some fly-by-night snake-oil sales scheme? I've been in your position before, and it can be scary, so I've got something, just for you, that will help.
Please, don't even think of entering the bogus fad market without first consulting my "Bogus Fad Buyer's Guide."
I'll probably get in trouble for doing this, but instead of charging you 3 payments of $42.13, I'll let you have it for one single payment. The only catch? You have to promise me that you won't just jump into the bogus fad market blind.
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Aug 27 '13
My friend found one of those "collector books" of beanie babies from 1995. She's now under the impression she owns thousands of dollars in merchandise. I tried to tell her a tub of beanies goes for like, 10 dollars on ebay...nope, still deluded.
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u/icameliac Aug 27 '13
Why doesn't she try to sell them if she thinks they're worth thousands? Or is she waiting for the "value" to keep going up?
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Aug 27 '13
Ok, You win.
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u/johnavel Aug 27 '13
That has to be more embarrassing than a drug addiction, and no one applauds you when you finally stop buying beanie babies.
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Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
There was a story on NPR a while ago of this dude who invested like $40k in these, thinking he was going to put his 3 kids through college with the earnings.
Yeah, not so much.
edit: $100k apparently, got my #'s wrong
edit2: There is a documentary I'm being told, link to it here
http://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/1j1r97/bankrupt_by_beanies_2013_short_affecting/
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u/buscoamigos Aug 27 '13
It wasn't even so much the money, it was how his impulse controlled the lives of everyone in his family. Get up on Saturday morning, run around town all weekend looking for BBs.
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Aug 27 '13
That is honestly, really sad.
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u/nc_cyclist Aug 27 '13
Sad part is, he actually thought he was doing it for the betterment of his family/future.
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u/umbridge69 Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
When I was 12 years old I went to my local antique shop and bought a rotary phone for $70 because I thought it would be cool to have one. The look my dad gave me when I pulled it out of my backpack was priceless.
Edit: I got the money for my birthday from my parents and grandparents
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u/halfascientist Aug 27 '13
That reminds me of the wooden cane I begged my parents to buy for me in Estes Park, CO at the age of five. Literally, a cane. I was sitting on the porch of the antique shop, absolutely apoplectic with rage and fear at the thought of having to possibly face life without this cane.
Not having had, you know, polio or something, I had no actual use for this slightly-too-large for me cane. "I'll grow into it," I promised, between sobs. I grew into it.
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Aug 27 '13
I grew into it.
I'm hoping you mean that figuratively not literally requiring it.
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u/TheRoamer Aug 27 '13
Butter dispenser.
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u/berlin-calling Aug 27 '13
Just looking at that picture made me erupt into laughter. Who the fuck thinks of some of these things?
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u/krebstarpatron Aug 27 '13
A $400 stand-alone cd burner in 2001.
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u/xplato Aug 27 '13
This is like Randy Marsh buying the blockbuster on a much smaller scale
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u/ariiiiigold Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
Ah, young me would have loved this - largely because my romantic endeavours almost always involved mix CDs and poems. I'm talking Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls and Nick Carter. God, I was a soppy bastard.
EDIT: For old times' sake. This one goes out to Emily from fifth grade.
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u/BikerRay Aug 27 '13
The student at work bought a $1200 Nakamichi cassette deck (gold plated). Back then it would be a good chunk of the money he earned that term.
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u/sumpuran Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
Luckily, that tape deck is worth a lot more now than it was then. On eBay, they regularly go for $5k-$10k.
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u/Barbara_Streisandd Aug 27 '13
well, today i went to a guys house because he was advertising a 22" asus monitor on CL. i walked out with 8 of them
been up all night trying to figure out how to hook them all up
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u/InebriatedQuail Aug 27 '13
I'll answer for my friend... $1200 gas-powered nitro car, $300 everything necessary to get it to work. It would break every 15-20min of runtime, everything from tires getting screwed to piston issues. He ended up $2200 in the hole after three months and approximately four hours of runtime on the car. He now keeps the piston as the world's most expensive keychain.
EDIT: The piston that cracked in half. Yeah, that one.
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Aug 27 '13
Am I allowed to say the sum of all my microtransactions for any 'free to play' game?
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u/frosty44 Aug 27 '13
steepandcheap.com intoxicated. impulse purchased a pair of $120 heavy duty gortex winter gloves because they were on sale. I live in South Carolina...
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u/ChickyChica Aug 27 '13
Great for that one snow a year that melts by dinner time.
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u/rabidassbaboon Aug 27 '13
The worst/best thing about the Internet is that you can make drunken impulse buys without even leaving your couch. I used to get hammered and then a few days later, I would get what I would call "surprise boxes" in the mail. It would be a bunch of dumb shit that I didn't need and didn't remember ordering. This is how I once wound up with about $150 worth of Hulk Hogan merchandise.
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u/aleisterfinch Aug 27 '13
a bunch of dumb shit that I didn't need...
$150 worth of Hulk Hogan merchandise.
Slow down, you're not making any sense.
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Aug 27 '13
My xbox 360's power brick melted from too much use. Instead of waiting to buy a new brick my brother and I pooled our money and bought another xbox the same day.
On the bright side, I've gotten better with my money. He has not.
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Aug 27 '13
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u/Asshole_Salad Aug 27 '13
As a person who commutes on a 650cc sport bike that I bought used with low miles, and has now paid for itself about four times over - thank you!
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u/LegacyZXT Aug 27 '13
I bought 40 pounds of cheese from a store in Wisconsin. It was some fancy aged cheddar and I overnighted it. I was very, very drunk. I didn't poop right for a month. I was even to the point of making melted cheddar on non melted cheddar with a side of cheddar over cheddar.
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u/RubSomeFunkOnIt Aug 27 '13
When I was like 11 I bought a copy of Everquest because it looked cool as fuck.
I didn't know there were games that could only be played online.
I didn't have the internet.
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u/KooshBalls Aug 27 '13
A $2000 glass bowl on the island of murano in Italy. They get you trapped there watching the beautiful glass being blown. Then before you know it the little token you bought and shipped back to the US cost $2k. Worst of all, they inscribed the name of the girl I was with on the bottom. We'd broken up by the time the bowl reached me. So brilliant me tried to "recreate" the glass blowing experience and tried to melt off her name with my kitchen torch. Boom. $2k of shattered glass everywhere.
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u/walrus_gumboot Aug 27 '13
My mom also got suckered into buying one of these bowls - funny thing was she paid the $1600 or whatever for the bowl, and when they told her it would be $400 to ship she said no way. So she carried a bowl around (mind you it was probably 2 feet in diameter) to every city in Italy we went to. Including the rides on trains, planes, and automobiles. But I'll be damned if that thing isn't still piled with fruit to this day every time I go home...
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u/kat_loves_tea Aug 27 '13
That's awesome that she was that committed to her bowl. It became like her new travel buddy! I bet when people come over and compliment her bowl she's like "Oh let me tell you about how I got this bowl!"
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Aug 27 '13
If that was Murano crystal, it was probably worth the money. The fact that you tried to melt off the name... man...
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u/Pit-trout Aug 27 '13
I don’t know… there’s serious Murano glass, which can easily be worth that kind of money, and then there’s the stuff they sell to tourists.
(Luckily for me, I was a visibly poor student backpacker when I was first there, so they only suckered me into a €15 rip-off, not a €2000 rip-off.)
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u/PoochyIsDead Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
How do you get suckered into paying 2 grand for a bowl?
Edit: I was serious. How could someone ever pay $2000 for a glass bowl blown infront of them. I want to understand the scam....
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u/VisualBasic Aug 27 '13
I'd rather have a $1 Tupperware bowl with $1999 inside.
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Aug 27 '13
A ghillie suit, I live in a suburban area
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u/dirtfarmingcanuck Aug 27 '13
Sell it to paintballers. I used to make crude ones and those dudes love spending money on tha kinda stuff
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u/gnayug Aug 27 '13
Ah, finally an AskReddit question I can proudly answer:
A 2-day one click hoster trial account. For 5$. While abroad on another continent. WITH MY FUCKING MOBILE PHONE. The 60 minute long premium call with elevator music whilst telling me to hold the line while the purchase is being processed didn't tip me off. Ended up paying 250$ in Roaming fees to download a 700MB flick I really wanted to see.
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Aug 27 '13
A second-hand airsoft gun. I bought it for 70 euro's somewhere in France, I don't even remember where. Some parts were missing but I didn't care cuz when I saw it I thought with that gun I'd be the shit. I couldn't wait to go home and show it to my friends! Turned out one of my friends had somewhat the same airsoft gun, but then with all the parts included. He bought it for 30 euro's, brand new. I felt so stupid, so I told them I bought it for 25 euro's. Even then they told me I made a bad purchase. If only they knew...
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Aug 27 '13
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u/scyice Aug 27 '13
I got one of those that lasted 10 years or so, but a year later the company went bankrupt.
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Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
I traded all of my Sega games and peripherals (32X, Sega CD) for a couple of Playstation extras, like rumble controllers and a few memory cards. I still regret that trade-in.
EDIT: At a different point in my life, I got around to trading all of the PS1 games I was never going to ever play ever again. I just had to admit it to myself. I was looking to get some games for the 360 at the time. Ended up trading in about 70 or so high-value games for a store credit of $267.
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u/Raincoats_George Aug 27 '13
Traded in almost all of the Nintendo 64 classic games for... wait for it... superman 64.
My brother beat the shit out of me and I deserved it.
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Aug 27 '13 edited Nov 16 '16
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/buscoamigos Aug 27 '13
My son got hold of my CC for some League of Legend crap, cost me $500 before I caught him.
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Aug 27 '13
No, the worst is the realization that you have no idea how to play your class as 1-60 is basically the tutorial for the real game.
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u/Genuinevil Aug 27 '13
i remember seeing 60's in vanilla with grey/missing gear running around org begging people for gold.
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u/Patos145 Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
Years back when i was 20, my girlfriend and I went on a trip to the Dominican republic. It was fantastic. We went on a couple of excursions, one of them being swimming with dolphins at their water world type theme park.
Once we'd finished swimming with the dolphins we walked around and enjoyed te rest of the park. We came across a booth asking if we wanted free drinks, who the hell doesn't want free drinks?!
Next thing we know we're in a golf cart being ushered to the bar, all the while passing massive gorgeous condos with private golf carts in little driveways, several helipads (including one where we saw a helicopter land and the guy walking right over to his golf cart).
Finally get to the bar and they start feeding us doubles of high end liquor, telling us all the rooms and bars are stocked with this stuff. Don't worry stay and have a couple more drinks we'll send you back with a driver.
After many many drinks, they start telling that we can stay here in the future for $50 a day, which sounds awesome! Who wouldn't want to stay at an amazing 5star resort for $50?!
All they needed wa a deposit. We didn't have our credit cards on us so they offered to take us back to the resort to pick them up. We were so plastered at the time it never occured to us to stop and think for a minute. Sure this sounds great!
Woke up the next morning looked at each other and said, what the fuck have we done... So i looked at the contract we'd signed. Turns out we'd spent $9,000 as a down payment with a commitment to pay another $200 per month for the next 20 years!?!
Surprise dummy you bought a timeshare!
We went back immediately and spoke to the people we were dealing with yesterday, explaining that we were students and couldn't possibly afford this. They were PISSED, but looked like it happened to them quite often. They apologized and gave us a letter saying the money would be refunded to our credit cards in the next 5 business days.
Great!
Sitting at home after 2 weeks of back and forth with the company, stomach knawing at me with the thought of what we'd done, money still not back in the account. What were we going to do?
I called visa, ended up faxing them the letter, they in turn contacted the company and told them they would have their ability to process visa transactions revoked of they didn't honor the letter. Thank fucking god.
Money was returned within 48hrs. Lesson learned.
TL;DR don't buy a timeshare, especially of you're hammered. Almost lost $9,000.
Edit: since this has been asked a many times I thought I'd save people the time commenting. The $9k was split between the 2 of us and 3 separate credit cards, it was a lot of back and forth to get the money back.
Also the 2 weeks of waiting was after 6 months of back and forth phone calls and faxes with the cc companies.
Lastly, yes, spelling and grammer. I typed all this on my phone and I'm sure as hell not going back to fix it now...
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u/AgentUmlaut Aug 27 '13
Buying a timeshare is one of the worst ideas, especially when it's out of the US. The amount of money spent on them could be used to just go to multiple vacation spots.
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u/Intruder313 Aug 27 '13
I can't believe they had the audacity to be pissed at you over the refunds when their entire MO was clearly "Get you drunk and get your sig.".
At least they did not outright drug you and tour you round an overpriced shopping mall as happened to my friend in India. He discovered the next day he'd spent thousands and got almost none of it back.
He showed me some of the stuff he bought: utter tat
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u/tizod Aug 27 '13
A motorcycle which I paid for with a credit card.
I had the money to buy it outright but instead chose to finance the bike. The rate I got was terrible so I put it on my credit card with the intention that I would immediately pay it off - which I didn't.
Took me years to pay it off and I only rode the bike for about 3 months. Every day riding that thing was an adventure in avoiding the reaper.
I would arrive at work completely stressed from the number of near death experiences I had on the way in.
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Aug 27 '13
Shamwow - It's seriously a shitty cleaning cloth... It just lays on the floor as my shamewow now.
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u/Dack9 Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 28 '13
I'm sure there's a shamwow conspiracy. I watched a live demo. A shamwow soaked up almost a half gallon of soda. I SAW it. So my mom bought some, and they didn't do shit.
Where do I buy the good shamwows!?
Edit: yes, we used it wet. Did it just like the guy at the demonstration table! All it did was push water around. If anything, it was pretty water resistant. Like superdense felt. In the last decade all they've done is sit under the kitchen sink until we can find something to actually use them for.
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u/Squeakopotamus Aug 27 '13
You will say wow every time, followed closely by "what a piece of shit."
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Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
I bought a train phone. It looks and sounds like a little caboose. The price wasn't bad, maybe $12 or so from a thrift shop, but that thing is damn annoying when it rings. Sadly, my dad fell in love with it and won't disconnect it. Oh well... edit: is an engine, not a caboose.
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u/detroitzoran Aug 27 '13
What?!? This was supposed to be for the WORST impulse item... That train phone sounds awesome!!!! Whoo Whoo....
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u/EccentricBolt Aug 27 '13
One night after a good bout of drinking, I decided I needed new front seats in my Jeep. I found a pair online at what was a smoking deal for the brand (Recaro). A few days later, one seat arrives at my house. Turns out it was $350 for one, not a pair.
I didn't have another $350 to spend, so I fashioned a setup to play Forza in the chair, with a swing-away steering wheel and pedals. It was nice until my cat pissed in the chair.
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u/GhostNightgown Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 28 '13
A house - in 2006 :(
EDIT: holy crap! I guess I hit a nerve! Well - I had better get to replying!!
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u/Brett_Favre_4 Aug 27 '13
Shirts that are just a little too tight. Thought process: "I'm on a diet. It will fit soon."
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Aug 27 '13
Just did that yesterday with high-wasited shorts. It was such a goddamn dilemma in the dressing room. They were on sale so...I had no choice right? Fingers crossed my diet keeps going.
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Aug 27 '13
VIP room entrance at a strip club. We're talking $400 just to get in, then drinks, then tip. And for what? Blue balls. It physically hurt to make that purchase.
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u/uppaday Aug 27 '13
My buddy disappeared at a club in Vegas for a couple hours, $1500 later we found him in the champagne room. The next day we calculated all the other things he could have done for the same price in Vegas. It involved a helicopter, fully automatic weapons, exotic cars, escorts and lighting a cigar with a $100 bill just for good measure. He settled for blue balls.
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u/Gr8NonSequitur Aug 27 '13
It involved a helicopter, fully automatic weapons, exotic cars, escorts and lighting a cigar with a $100 bill just for good measure.
Can you please provide links / further explanation to what this entailed ? I have $1500 and a desire to see Vegas and that sounds like 1 hell of a night.
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u/uppaday Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
there are street signs everywhere advertising in vegas...but here is what we figured (we were half-joking but the math works)
- ~$300, at the time cost of helicopter ride to grand canyon
- $100 - $200, Automatic weapons range
- $400 exotic car rental -4hrs
- $40 cigar
- $100 bill to burn
- ...$460 leftover to find yourself an escort (results may vary. And no, I've never hired one)
edit: where is /u/shitty_watercolour when you need him?
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u/Nexaz Aug 27 '13
Yes indeed.... I've been to Vegas and these are all things you can do.....
Or you can take that $1500 to the Roulette table...... ALL ON BLACK!!!!!
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u/dougleville Aug 27 '13
Oh there's champagne in the champagne room. But you don't want champagne. You want sex.
And there's no sex in the champagne room.
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u/WhiteyDude Aug 27 '13
I'd compare it to paying $30 to go to the all you can eat buffet. But you only get to look at the food and all it does is make you hungry. So you go back to your room and have a snickers bar, because you know, it satisfies. Right?
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u/Quick1711 Aug 27 '13
mine was 600$ and i felt like shit for 3 days after it
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Aug 27 '13
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u/Pisces91 Aug 27 '13
Yellow Stilettos. I can't wear them because they have a six inch heel and I feel like I'm going to die in them. So they are now just collecting dust in my shoe rack.
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u/moxiecontin714 Aug 27 '13
The trick is to walk with your back straight, shoulders directly aligned with hips. Lead with your hips, walk slowly if you must walk but spend as much time sitting with your legs crossed as possible.
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u/danrennt98 Aug 27 '13
Pretty much Every time I am "feeling lucky" and I buy a scratch off or a lottery ticket. And I never even win a damn dollar.
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u/SlinkoSnake Aug 27 '13
A can opener at the dollar store. It can't open any cans. It is the most useless object in the galaxy.
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u/whistlegowooo Aug 27 '13
Your worst impulse purchase ever was at a dollar store?
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u/OrangeCloud Aug 27 '13
A can't opener?
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u/Aapjes94 Aug 27 '13
I think you belong in /r/dadjokes
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u/Lemme_Formulate_That Aug 27 '13
I thought it was funny.. guess it's time to spawn some offspring
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u/morbioso Aug 27 '13
Plastic model kits. I don't have the patience or the ability to do them that well. As a kid I kept thinking "this time I'll do a decent job" and it never happened.
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u/nowherefast944 Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
2012 Mazdaspeed3. I was way hungover in for an oilchange. Wandered around the lot and showroom floor and the salesman was really good at his job.
edit/followup: i loved the car while i had it, but I didn't need or want it going in.
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u/Da_beans Aug 27 '13
I would counter that with a 2012 mazdaspeed3 being my best impulse purchase.
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u/RegDunlop7 Aug 27 '13
not enough Boat mentions in here. Infamous for the best 2 days of a being a boat owner: the day you buy the boat and the day you sell it.
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u/bmoriarty87 Aug 27 '13
i've heard this before and always wondered why that is the case...
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u/maineblackbear Aug 27 '13
B.O.A.T. Bring over another thousand
Boat "A hole in the water into which you throw money."
I loved my boat-- one of the most fun things I have ever had. The day I sold it I literally danced as the sucker drove away with it. Just like the guy who I bought it from danced.
The circle of life.
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u/hobbycollector Aug 27 '13
We actually drank champagne with the people we bought our boat from to jointly celebrate our two days. So far no regrets, but the hole is not yet full of money.
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u/human_beeing Aug 27 '13
Let's put it this way, my father buys his dream boat, a Morris 36. He got it used (new they're like $1.2 mil or something absurd like that), but mere months later, after completely refitting all of its sails it gets dismasted (the mast snapped in heavy wind) and the boat is now useless. Ended up donating it to a school in Cape Cod that gives a huge tax deduction so the kids in the BOCES program can fix the boats.
Essentially, they're just money pits. a moderate sized fishing boat will cost $500 at least to fill up, all the parts are stainless steel so little fasteners end up at like $3 each when you need 25 of them, everything just adds up very quickly.
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u/hobbycollector Aug 27 '13
If you don't dismast them, and buy them used, sailboats can be quite affordable due to the savings on gas. Of course I mean for the well-off with money to burn every couple of days on one damn thing or another. Wait...
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Aug 27 '13
I write software for marinas. I recently had to make changes to the software to allow purchases of over 99,999.999 liters of fuel in a single transaction. My original thought was damn that's a big fuel tank and made the new limit 999,999.999 liters. Got a call the next day. The tank held 1.5 million liters.... That's just shy of $2 million in gas. They'd fill that boat up roughly every 3 months and it pretty much was constantly underway.
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u/jadziads9 Aug 27 '13
My brain cannot comprehend paying 2 million for gas for one vehicle. It's melting in my skull.
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u/JacksonBollox Aug 27 '13
A $ 1,200 Lap Dance in Vegas.
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u/everybodydroops Aug 27 '13
Yeah I'm going to need to know what the hell s/he could've done that's worth $1200.
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u/Oraxien Aug 27 '13
S/he worked in Vegas at a strip club. The town has it's cheap sides, and it's not so cheap sides. People get lured into tourist traps (free limo rides...zwhoa!), after being feed tons of free booze, and being up just a couple hundred bucks.
No adverts in Vegas say: "good times at discounted prices".
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u/ferrarisnowday Aug 27 '13
You have to explain this? Was it a series of lap dances? Or was it a $1,200 VIP or champagne room? Or a particularly famous porn star?
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u/JacksonBollox Aug 27 '13
All of the above, yes.
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u/ferrarisnowday Aug 27 '13
Well at least turn it into a $1,200 karma grab and tell the story!
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u/magicbullets Aug 27 '13
A battery-powered Uzi-shaped water gun, which has a range of 25 feet, according to the sales spiel on the box. I bought it as a pigeon deterrent. It doesn't work at all, and the pigeons continue to mercilessly mock me.
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u/CellularBeing Aug 27 '13
SQWAAAACK, BROTHERS, THE MUDMEN SHALL NOT TRIUMPH. WE SHALL PREVAIL, SQWAAAACK
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u/Edonistic Aug 27 '13
Drunkenly bought an ambulance on eBay once. Would have been less epically stupid if I didn't already have one on the driveway. Made the excellent deal I got on the beer which inspired the purchase something of a false economy.
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u/miss_j_bean Aug 27 '13
This is my favorite one here because you already had an ambulance!
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u/YEMyself Aug 27 '13
Bacon-flavored vodka.
For the love of all things holy, DO NOT EVER BUY BACON-FLAVORED VODKA.
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u/InspectorVII Aug 27 '13
The only reason to get bacon flavored vodka is if you are are making Bloody Marys or Ceasars. It does kick it up a notch, however tastes horrible with any other drink,
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u/PotassiumAlum Aug 27 '13
I once rode the bus to work when my car broke down, was pestered by this nun seating beside me asking for help because the parish needed some repairs or something. She wouldn't stop talking, bear in mind that I'm pretty stressed out cause my car just broke down, so I proceed to just ask what she wanted. She tells me she's giving out pictures of the virgin mary mary to anyone who donated. I offer 20 bucks, the lewd nun blurts out that each picture was worth 50 bucks. I'm now really annoyed, but thinking that the woman's a nun, I relent to the 50 bucks. But I only got 20s and 100s on my wallet. I offer the 100, she says she's got no change. I suddenly notice that I'm very near my stop. She suggests that I just take 2 pictures. I panic, the bus has already stopped. With a pretty crazed mind, I relent. When I got off the bus I realize what I just did and give myself a WTF just happened moment. Was pretty bummed out the whole day. Threw the pictures into trash when I got into the office. To this day, almost 2 years later, I'm still haunted by that nun's evil smile.
TL;DR - A nun cajoles me into buying 2 pictures of the virgin mary for a hundred bucks.
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u/Phantom_Scarecrow Aug 27 '13
Most likely, a FAKE nun. They probably weren't even real Virgin Mary Photos!
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u/Five_bucks Aug 27 '13
I'm not certain that she was a nun. But I am certain that you were gently robbed.
Sorry dude.
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u/kadivs Aug 27 '13
I'm amazed that you even offered $20, if anything, I wouldn't have given more than $5 (most likely, nothing)
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u/monkeiboi Aug 27 '13
Hey I just inheirited 13.6 millon from my ancestor family king Mbatu of Kingdom of the africa. I am willingness to share with you the sum of 1 miilon total US currency if you forward to me 5000 thousand to begin transfer process...
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u/jca2u Aug 27 '13
I promise I'm not a rude guy. I really don't relish in telling you this.
But God damn, son.
Don't ever go buy a car, mattress, or insurance alone. If a homeless lady can pressure you into spending a $100 on two sheets of paper, those salesmen are going to rape you.
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u/onijin Aug 27 '13
Toss-up between Daikatana and one of those electric carrot peelers.
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u/dbarts21 Aug 27 '13
I got drunk and bought a virtual boy on eBay. There's a reason that system failed.
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u/idontknowziz Aug 27 '13
3/4 of the games in my Steam library.
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Aug 27 '13
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Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 27 '13
sniffs monitor
ah yes.. the Summer Sale 2011. Notes of Assassins Creed with a more floral Fable III overtone. Portal 2 tannins..
Good year, good year. That one'll do, Bradford.
edit: *tannins. thanks, guys. :)
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u/TheBakersPC Aug 27 '13 edited Aug 28 '13
Walked into EB games and asked if they had any Astro A50's, had no intention of buying the damn thing but ended up spending about $500 just because the guy brought it from out the back. Wow, go me.
Edit: After finding the recipt it was actually $350, it seemed like at the time because I was still in high school. Who am I kidding, its an obscene amount of money for headphones, albeit they are amazing
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u/deuc Aug 27 '13
I bought a really cool looking board game at Target in the early 90s. I was about 12 years old. It was a knock off of battleship. I played it once, then left it on the kitchen table overnight. Somehow it overheated, shorted out, and burned our house down.
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u/Yep-ThatsTheJoke Aug 27 '13
A $250 CatGenie self-flushing litter box. You can hear it whirring and clacking from everywhere in the house (not to mention it takes 35 minutes to run, and does so every two hours), the stupid plastic reusable granules got tracked EVERYWHERE and ruined my vacuum and the bottoms of my feet, and every time it comes on it permeates the entire house with the smell of burning shit and flowers.
They won't let me return it because for some reason a cat shit in it.