People Share Their Most Embarrassing Small Town Stories

I lived most of my life in a very small town in Northern Maine. There were about 200 kids in my high school and there were 56 kids in my graduating class—we were tied with the class of 1961 for the largest class ever.

When the primary employer in town—Pinkham Lumber Mill—shut down, the town got even smaller. Now the senior class is considered large if it reaches double digits.

In such towns across the world, everyone knows almost everyone else's business. Which is great when it's shared happiness about events like births or marriages or offers of support during illness, injury or death.

It's not so great when the information is rooted in scandal or embarrassing incidents.

Reddit user Sultanofbooyeah asked:

"People from small towns 'where everybody knows everybody': What did someone do that was so embarrassing they had to move away?"

At Least It Wasn't Ice Town

"Our mayor lost 1.3 million dollars to an internet scammer promising a Beyonce/Justin Timberlake concert."

"It was so embarrassing, he..."

"Oh wait, no, they reelected him, my bad."

"We're on the East Coast of Canada. Also, to be fair, he lost the election after this scandal happened and stayed out of politics for a few years before making his return."

"People have short memories, I guess."

~ MandyAlice

Scamanda?

"This girl in middle school told everyone she had a brain tumor and did 'fundraising' for a surgery, but one of her best friends asked her parents about it, and they had no clue what she was talking about."

"This was early in the school year, and she didn't last until winter break before her family pulled her out of the district because the bullying was so bad."

~ Thin-Solution3803

Rampage

"Local weed dealer in our tiny town in the Bible belt started selling and taking a lot of mushrooms. About a month after the debut of his new product, he took a ridiculous amount in a video on his Snapchat story in order to show how good they were."

"The morning after that video was released he started posting 10 videos every minute on his Snapchat story for like 6 hours, it was all ramblings of him being God and better than the scum he was forced to live with on this Earth and how he could save us if we stopped thinking."

"I don't remember much about the unhinged postings, but I do remember the very last video was him in one of the only 2 public parks here peeing on the grass, exposing himself right in the center of the field in front of God and everyone."

"After all of that was released, he ended up going to a retail store that I worked at with a handful of my school friends, and he went on a rampage, screaming and stripping naked."

"I walked past the tantrum at one point and saw him punching the floor over and over, and there was blood from his busted up hand all over himself and the floor under him."

"He ended up getting arrested, and the last time I had heard about him, he was in a psychiatric hospital receiving treatment for psilocybin-induced psychosis and mania."

"It was absolutely insane. Now everyone in town asks me about my 'shrooms friend from high school."

~ BevinBash

Collateral Damage

"She was renting out a second home to her son—who blew it up. The investigation found he was running a meth lab."

"Since her son was living there, it wasn't listed as a rental, so it was listed as just a second home of hers."

"Everyone found that her house blew up because of a meth lab. Which meant everyone thought that she personally did it."

"Even after her son got arrested, a lot of people still thought she did/made drugs. So much so, that a lot of people would not hire her because of her 'drug past'."

"Poor lady never touched drugs in her life."

~ AnalysisNo4295

Avoidable Tragedy

"Two high school sophomores in my tiny Vermont town went drunk driving when one's folks were out of town."

"They killed a very popular senior student."

"They were both relocated and never seen in my town again."

~ IGHOTI907

Glitter Is Inescapable

"I remember when my grade school had us do that D.A.R.E. program in 6th grade. It was in February, and the first day of the program just happened to be the day they had us decorate envelopes to hang from our desks for the Valentine exchange."

"A lot of glitter glue had been used and the envelopes were all spread out on tables and shelves to dry. The officer came in and started his spiel, and at one point went to do the casual sit/lean on one of the shelves...and sat right on one of the envelopes, getting glitter glue all over the seat of his pants."

"We all called him 'Deputy Sparklepants' for the entirety of the program. I'm turning 40 this year, and I still remember Deputy Sparklepants."

~ Lachwen

Toxic

"Teenaged employee urinated in the biscuit dough at Hardee’s. His co-workers laughed."

So when his mom showed up to order breakfast, he told her what he did as if she would think it was funny. She didn’t find it funny at all and literally beat his a**."

"It made the local paper. Destroyed the whole community and the restaurant."

"The Hardee’s became an Arby’s, and now it’s a bridal shop."

~ Low_Effective_6056

Common Occurrence

"We had a girl in high school who went to 'stay with her sister'. Yes, she was pregnant."

"Her dad was a very outspoken Evangelical pastor at a local church. The story ripped through town, the horror!"

"Well, she was never allowed to return to our town, but magically the pastor’s wife—she must have been 50 at least—had a new baby she pushed in a pram all over town that she and the pastor claimed was hers despite her never being pregnant before their baby magically appeared."

"Everyone knew, everyone whispered behind their backs, but no one said a word out loud. Pretty f*cked up when I think about it now."

~ CptDawg

Where's John Wick?

"Our old neighbour and my wife got into a petty argument about dog poop. To make a long story short, a neighbor lady tried to poison our dog with antifreeze but ended up killing the neighbor's dog on the other side."

"At the same time she was caught cheating on her husband. So he left her and made the police fully aware of what happened to the neighbour's dog."

"We all packed that courthouse and made her feel horrible. The judge was furious."

"She moved away shortly after. Oddly enough, the vacant house exploded about a month later from a gas leak."

"The guy she was cheating with was a gas fitter. The explosion was from a gas dryer in the basement."

~ Slackerwithgoals

Fair Warning

"In middle school, a kid got hauled out of class because he had an ounce of weed in his locker on the day the cops brought their drug dogs in for training on locker sweeps."

"We were all told in advance they were coming."

"His parents decided he should attend a strict boarding school."

~ arsonfairy

Typical

"The town's fire and brimstone, bigoted Evangelical minister died from autoerotic asphyxiation while wearing women's underwear and surrounded by gay pornography."

"His wife and kids came home from a long weekend and found him. The family left town immediately and only his wife came back for the funeral, but talked to almost no one."

"Within days it was as if they never existed."

~ Strong-Bridge-6498

Miss Trunchbull

"The principal got caught locking a kid in a closet at one of the elementary schools.

"Somehow the school district let her go pretty quietly and she just moved across the state for a new job in education, but not as a principal."

~ Popular_Emu1723

False Reporting

"Three teen sisters faked their own kidnapping. They said they had been tied up in a corn field. They scratched each other up to make it look more realistic."

"They blamed someone they thought of as an easy target (kind of a weird outsider kid) not realizing it was about the worst person to pick—the sheriff's son (they didn't know he was the sheriff's son).

"The local paper said there was a warrant for their arrest because they didn't appear in court. Their parents had packed the family up and moved away to who knows where."

"I was in the middle sister's class, and even our class could figure out that their story didn't make any sense."

"The story crumbled under any level of scrutiny."

~ kaywild11

How Did He Not Hear It?

"Late 80s. Very nerdy White guy: super quiet, bowl cut, smart, but completely socially inept. Not a jerk, just a nerd.

"Summer of his junior year, visits family for the summer and comes back as a White guy pretending to be a Black guy."

"I mean, fully dressed and coiffed like an 80s rapper stereotype and talking like a stereotype, too. He even changed his name."

"To Duke E. Fresh."

"Duke E. became Dookie in 2 seconds. Dookie 💩 Fresh."

"Rough..."

"His parents sent him to another high school by December."

~ MW240z

The Imperfect Crime

"Small town of 10K people, in the 80s when absolutely nobody had any home security cameras nor locked their doors."

"Like any town, there were occasional thefts and break-ins, mostly by bored teens. But what people almost didn't figure out was that the things they thought they 'lost' were actually stolen from them."

"After the crime was exposed, people learned it was an all-too-common experience to suddenly find themself missing a valuable piece of jewelry. No sign of break-in, but the diamond ring or gold watch was just not where they were sure they left it."

"It was always the type of heirloom item that wasn't worn every day—it was just kept put away somewhere in a little bag or box. Most people suspected their friends, family members, children, or spouses, because who else would even know about the existence of this item?"

"The local insurance agent where they took out a home insurance rider to cover the family heirlooms!"

"This guy would help people make sure that their family valuables were insured. Then, a couple years later, when they had an appointment to stop in and review their life insurance policy, he would be late to their appointment."

"Once in a while he got caught knocking on front doors at the appointment time, or popping his head inside the unlocked door to 'see if you were at home'. His cover story for that was, 'Oh! I thought we agreed to meet at YOUR HOUSE'."

"But typically, while they were in his office, waiting for HIM to show up...he was in THEIR house stealing from them!"

"After his jail term, he moved away."

~ justinsayin

What scandal rocked your hometown?