People Divulge Their Wildest 'It's Not What It Looks Like' Experiences

A lot of situation comedy and farce is based on innocent events that are easily mistaken for something less wholesome.

70s sitcoms like Three's Company were filled with double entendre and sexual innuendo while the blond bombshell of the series—Chrissy Snow played by actress Suzanne Somers—was famously a virgin.

For as much as the shows hinted at sex, very little actually took place.

Reddit user C_Hawk14 asked:

"What is your 'it's not what it looks like' story?"

Arachnophobia

"I was at a mall with a friend and we were about to get in the car when she notices a big a** garden spider—one of those yellow and black ones—dangling off her sun visor right over the driver's wheel."

"She does not like spiders, and this was a big one in her eyes, so she screams and I look and I do not like spiders either, so I scream and we bail out, slamming the doors shut."

"Mall security saw us and called the local constable who came over ready for some sh*t to go down. We explain the situation, but the spider had gone out of sight."

"So the constable goes and peels down the visor and there it was and we discovered that this armed, vest wearing, well trained police officer does not like spiders and also screamed."

~ sevenaya

Lending A Hand

"My family and I went to this really weird little festival that happens every spring to celebrate a frozen dead guy. I wanted to do the polar plunge with my dad, so I used spray hair dye to make myself look a bit grey and I put on a fake beard so I could look like his mini me."

"It was so windy that year that they couldn't keep the warming tents up, so our alternative option was to pack in the back of a 1970s ambulance and try and undress then redress in warm clothes with 15 other random naked strangers."

"My dad didn't want to do that, so he decided he would walk up the main street and change in the café bathroom. Unfortunately it was so cold and windy that hypothermia was starting to set in."

"I had to go into this tiny a** bathroom with my dad to help him get changed. As we were nearly done, some old lady came barging in the bathroom cuz we were taking way too long."

"At that very moment I realized I had f*cked up. My dad was standing up and I was on my knees trying to button up his jeans—Levi 501s have a lot of buttons and they are weird to button on someone else."

"She had a look of horror on her face and the only thing I could blurt out was . 'NO it's okay! He's my dad!'."

"That was absolutely not the right thing to say."

~ bethereintime

'Tis But A Flesh Wound

"Makes me think of a cosplay I did that required fake blood. I didn’t think it was all that good, but it was a more subtle costume, and the amount of people who asked if I needed help and if they should call an ambulance was ridiculous."

"It hit a point where if I saw someone had noticed, I would immediately tell them it wasn’t real."

"I forgot to tell that to the worker at the fast food place I stopped at on the way home, though. Poor worker looked horrified and started handing me fistfuls of napkins to fix it before I told her."

~ mishyfishy135

Breaking The Bed

"I was staying over at a friend’s cottage in the country with my girlfriend (now wife). A bunch of my friends were there as well, male and female, but we got the spare bedroom because we were a couple."

"We all went to bed. After about twenty minutes, the bed we were in collapsed, making a terrible clatter."

"Instantly, the whole house erupted in cheers and laughter."

"Reality: bed was very rickety, no one had actually slept in it for a long time, and we were just peacefully resting in the bed when it just collapsed. But of course, everyone assumed we were having a go and literally 'broke the bed'."

~ Malthus1

Safety First

"I'm surprised no one called the police on me for this..."

"I do general repairs as a side gig. I offered to help a friend fix his sink one day. So I park my work van on the street outside his house and start organizing tools to bring into the house."

"Suddenly I look up and I see his 3-year-old daughter has somehow wandered out of the house and is walking in the middle of the road. Yikes. So I quickly run after her and grab her off the road."

"However, I couldn't bring her into the house just yet because my van was still completely open, with tools strewn about. So I had to put her in my van while I finished organizing."

"To anyone else, it probably looked like I kidnapped a little girl into my van."

~ vorxaw

Not That Kind Of Action

"According to my mom, she peeked through my open door and saw me in my chair, hands at waist level, shaking a bit as I worked my hands while breathing heavily."

"I was playing the video game Spider-Man 2 fighting the villain Scream."

~ Bonkboyo

What A Save

"I worked in a supermarket when I was younger and my boss found me one day lying on my stomach in the aisle with my arms fully outstretched holding a large jar of pickles."

"This was long before planking, but he still thought it was something being done 'for the lolz' and started chewing me out before a customer intervened and explained the situation."

"The fact of the matter was I was walking down the aisle when out of nowhere the jar just slipped off the shelf and I dove and caught it."

"That lady saved my a** that day and the clerk who was ringing her up got our secret signal which meant many items were 'accidentally' not scanned."

~ NamaNamaNamaBatman

Healing Hands

"I was a student athlete in high school and our athletic trainer was an attractive 24-year-old woman. I had a hip injury that required an ace wrap around my hip joint."

"One day, she was wrapping my hip before practice in a side-office off the bigger training room and two other athletes opened the door that we forgot to lock. What they saw was the back of me, with my pants down, and the trainer in front of me, on her knees, with her head in my crotch area, and her hand reaching back grabbing my butt."

"Her hand was only there for a brief second while she supported herself. But teenage boys only need to see that image for a fraction of a second for them to imagine something else."

"In case you’re wondering, this side-office was always used for more personal treatment like my hip injury. Girls would be taken in there if they had to remove clothing for example."

"The bigger training room was always busy, and it had a doorway that was always open, so we didn’t want passing teachers/other students/parents/visitors getting a sneaky look at teens in their underwear getting injury treatment."

~ MurkyHuckleberry4310

Untrue Crime

"I worked on a low budget movie (that never got finished). For one scene we needed scenes from the crime—gory bloody pictures they would put up on the board in the police office."

"Dumba** I worked with dropped them off at Walmart for printing and enlargement back when that was a thing. He did not warn them."

"When we went to pick them up, he got pounced on by police and had much explaining to do."

"I had made two corpses from skeletons, using the old tissue paper and latex method, same genius just tosses them into the back of his pick up truck to take them to the set. Got pulled over for speeding."

"They pretty much were pulling him out of the driver side window while was he screaming 'they aren't real people!' over and over again. When they finally touched one and realized it was plastic, they let him go while ticketing him for everything they could because they were pissed.

"Personally, I was thrilled my work was so realistic."

~ goblinmarketeer

Love Bite

"Owned a horse as a kid. My partner went with me a couple months back to visit him at the stable he lived at."

"Said horse has a habit of nipping (not out of aggression, to show affection/play). Horse was nuzzling his head onto my chest and bit right by my breast. Gently pushed his head away, but that sh*t HURT."

"Went home with my partner and I was getting undressed for some quality time. He took a look at me and went, 'what's that?'."

"I look down and there was a giant forming bruise/bite from where the horse nipped me. I quickly explained and he found it f*cking hilarious."

~ gettinghairy

Spiders 2, Motorists 0

"Spider in my car got me pulled over for swerving all over the road like I was inebriated."

"We found the spider and the cop just laughed at me."

"I’m not scared of spiders, but that huge monster was dangling in my face."

~ tbama11

Not That Oblivious

"I was a lab tech working at a pharmaceutical research lab and we ran out of pregnancy tests."

"I went to Walgreens to buy some home tests and I needed 5 of them."

"I was very obviously about 8 months pregnant at the time."

~ jennyvane

Not The Prank They Planned

"Sister went to the bathroom, and I hid under her bed to scare her when she came back in. She came back in only wearing a towel."

"Turns out she was trying on clothes or something. I yelled loudly, 'hey! I'm hiding under your bed and I'm coming out with my eyes closed!'."

"At first I thought to stay put and sneak out later, but figured that would seem way worse when she sees me come out of her room and is like WTF?'."

~ welito

No Good Deed

"A long while ago now, I was walking home from a friend's house. We had been smoking and drinking, so I was a little out of it."

"It was around 1am and I was almost home, when I saw this little old lady doubled over and struggling to walk. I asked her if she was okay and if she needed help."

"She said she was fine, but asked if I could help her home as she didn't live too far away. So I gave her my arm for her to support herself and off we went."

"Her home wasn't that far, but it was slow going. At this point, I had already decided that I was going to ring an ambulance for her, but thought I'd get her home first."

"When we eventually made it to her home, she took her key and opened her door... Only to collapse into her house and pass out... And then the house alarm went off... And then her neighbours appeared."

"Luckily, the neighbours believed me and the old lady managed to get some medical attention."

~ InfamousUnderpants

What incident were you involved in that wasn't what it looked like?