Didn’t you say you were gonna go to bed early last night? Liar, liar, pants on fire! Okay, that’s perhaps not even a lie, just an everyday task failed to accomplish. However, it’s one thing when we are lying to ourselves, and a whole other when lying to others. Although some lies might be innocent and harmless, some, at first glance, white lies might grow into your biggest nightmare. And when they spiral out of control, they bring you problems you never wished to endure.

Quite a while ago, someone on Reddit asked a question that touched a chord with many Redditors. User claytonbigsbysmydad asked, “What is the smallest lie you’ve ever told which had the biggest consequences?” And a bunch of Internauts delivered. The thread got 10.6K upvotes with 6.7K comments, and we have featured some of the best responses in the list below. Check it out, and also let us know if you ever lied about something seemingly minor, but the lie then evolved into something big?

More Info: Reddit

#1 Dog Eats Chocolate = Mom Gets A Divorce

Image source: BriceWithRice, GRVO TV

Once when I was around 6 or 7, my mom brought home some delicious chocolate, and gave some to me. I loved the stuff and stole the bar that she had saved for my step-dad. He comes home and my mom can’t find the chocolate. She asks me what happened to it, I blame the Duncan (our dog) knowing that he often eats things off the counter (I didn’t know at the time that chocolate was toxic for dogs), My mom goes terribly pale and rushes Duncan to the vet, and he has to throw up.

I felt terrible about this as I thought it was because he stole the chocolate and was some form of punishment. The next day she brings home more chocolate. Nobody told me that it was for Duncan’s own good that he was taken to the vet. So feeling bad for doing this to Duncan, I give him my chocolate this time thinking he deserved it after taking one for the team last time. Later that night my mom asks me how the chocolate was, this time I decided to tell the full truth and explained that I gave the chocolate to Duncan this time as I felt bad for getting him in trouble the first time. So another late night trip to the vet, and I finally was told that chocolate is toxic for dogs. Duncan was fine in the end, and for the rest of his life I snuck him meat and other things that would not kill him.

Now the twist is that the very expensive vets trips cost a lot of money, which prompted my mom to take a look at our expenses. She found that the then step-dad was hiding an affair, and then got a divorce.

TL;DR: I lied about our dog almost dying, then almost killed him on accident, causing my mom to get divorced.

#2 “Um, We Can’t Go… Birthday, Yah, That’s Right, Birthday…”

Image source: Scrappy_Larue, Studio Sarah Lou

In college, the girls in the apartment downstairs asked my roommate and I if we’d like to join them at a concert a month away. Neither of us wanted to, and my quick thinking roommate said that date is my birthday (it wasn’t) and we have other plans. They ended up not going to the concert, and we had forgotten about it—but on that date they called me downstairs to help them move something. I walked in the door, and “Surprise!!” A birthday party for me with about 15 people there. My roommate was just as surprised. I couldn’t tell them the truth and just went with it. Even got a couple small gifts. I always felt guilty about it.

#3 The Phone Call Of Fate

Image source: _zero_, amboo who?

When I was younger at a birthday party, a girl asked me for a quarter to call home for her dad to come get her. I told her that I didn’t have one and she got a ride home from another parent.

Later, I heard that when she got home, she found ambulances around her house because her father had died falling out of a tree doing yard work. I kept imagining that if I had given her the quarter, her dad would have come to get her instead of continuing yard work. If I had given her a quarter, maybe she would still have a father.

#4 Yeah, I Heard Everything (Inside: Oh No, Gonna Need To Adlib Now)

Image source: leftoverrice54, Fred Jala

I walked in on my friend finishing a conversation on her phone. She looked at me, petrified, and asked if I heard everything. I told her with a defeated face “yes”. She starts crying and leans on me, telling me she is so afraid and doesn’t know that to do. I did this initially as a joke, but obviously I’m in deep water now so I just tell her everything will be fine and to call me whenever she needed me.

Turns out she got pregnant and asked me to go to an abortion clinic with her. Her boyfriend scrammed. We are best of friends now.

#5 The Price You Have To Pay Just To Join A Club

Image source: girraween, hbp_pix

When I was little, maybe 6 or 7 years old, and I was playing with my cousin. He was/is my best friend, even if we have grown apart in the last few years.

Anyway, I told him if he jumps out of the tree onto the trampoline, he can get into the club. He jumped and jarred his knee. He screamed blue murder. There was no club. There was no entry test.

The injury plays up till this day. It affected him when he was playing gridiron (he had to give it up), it affected him when he joined the army and again when he become a cop. I’m worried one day he dies because of that knee and I’ll blame myself for it.

[FYI:] Gridiron = American football. I’ll never make that mistake again. When I said I’m afraid he’ll die because of his knee, I meant in some kind of job related incident. I know where he works as a police officer there are a lot of violent bogans (the worst kind of bogan).

#6 Who Knew The Easter Bunny Is A Plumbing Expert

Image source: VelvetTush, Ranjan Gupta

When my sister and I were kids, I told her the Easter Bunny came through the drain. I thought it was cute, and since Santa came through the chimney I couldn’t think of any other routes into the house. She cried for HOURS. Easter became the most miserable holiday for years until we grew up and she realized what an idiot I am.

#7 The Bullying Never Stops, Or Does It?

Image source: Alk3PrivateEye, Heidi

Once when I was a kid I invited a kid that I bullied horribly over to my house for a sleepover because I was told I had to do something nice for someone I hurt by our priest during confession (I went to a catholic school).

The next day after a pretty boring night we were playing in the snow banks and I lied telling him my foot was stuck and I couldn’t get it out, he ran well over a mile back to my house to get my mom to “save” me… well that kind of woke me up and made me realize “this kid isn’t that bad.” After that day I never bullied anyone again, and 20 years later that turd that I bullied so terribly is still my best friend, was the best man at my wedding, and the godfather of my first child.

#8 They Broke The First Rule…

Image source: puckislife_24, darkday

Back when I was 16 I was a camp counselor for a group of kinder gardeners. A few of them wouldn’t stop shoving each other, so I told them (jokingly) to save it for fight club which was at the end of the day… being kids they thought fight club was real and told their parents about fight club which resulted in me having to explain to the administration and all the parents that no… there was no fight club. I wasn’t hired the following year.

They broke the first rule of fight club.

#9 Would You Like To Hear About Our Lord And Savior…

Image source: BasedRocker, Alec Wilson

I told my 3 year old son I was God just to be funny. No matter how many times I tell him I am not God, he still thinks I am to this day.

#10 Accidental Identity Theft

Image source: BlatantConservative, Hillary

When telling stories [online] I change up a few details. Like if I’m 18 I’ll say I’m 17 or 19, I’ll say I live in a town one town over, stuff like that. The point is, if someone gets [mad] at me (which happens pretty regularly) they won’t be able to doxx me.

Well someone tried to doxx me anyway, and they somehow came to the conclusion that I was this kid a year below me in the same high school as I was at at the time.

So I had to both try and convince the doxx guy that that wasn’t me, and I had to go to this kid and explain that I’d somehow accidentally stolen his identity and he should watch out for a crazy dude on the internet.

I must have put enough doubt in the doxxer’s mind cause nothing really happened after that.

#11 All I Want Is To Doodle In Peace!

Image source: GreenGlassDrgn, josh james

I was at a job fair against my will. Was trying to steal a pen so I could retire to a dark corner and doodle while everyone else did their thing.

The lady caught me taking a pen, and I had to act interested in her sales pitch. Then a news reporter showed up.

Before I knew it, I was in national papers as a general human interest story as a turnaround miracle story, of how I’d come all the way from the barren plains of another country far away while kicking mental illness and addiction, and now wanted to become a nurse.

I don’t, nor have I ever, wanted to be a nurse, but that interview sure snowballed all out of proportion. All I wanted was a free pen. Its been ten years and people are still asking how the nursing career is going.

#12 At Least The Mom Was Chill About It

Image source: mrkushie, Caren Pilgrim

Once when I was really young (maybe 6 or 7), my family was out for pizza and I told them when I was off alone that a man had asked me to come out to his van for candy. I have no idea why I did it, I’m sure I was just parroting something I heard in one of those Stranger Danger videos, but I threw it out there thinking people would be impressed I said no or something.

Well all of a sudden there are police everywhere, the whole pizza place is basically evacuated, the police are grilling me about what he looked like and I’m making up a description on the spot (something like blonde hair, green plaid shirt, etc.). Well a few minutes later the police come out with a guy who looks *exactly* like the description I gave, and I quickly told them that it wasn’t him (thank god I didn’t ruin that poor man’s life).

After all that, I thought it was done, but I got SO many cards, and balloons and toys from relatives, family friends, teachers, there was a write-up in the local newspaper, etc. It blew up into this HUGE deal. For a really long time I never told anyone, and for some reason a few years ago (in my late teens, early 20’s) I remembered this incident and felt super guilty about it, so I called my mom out of the blue to explain that I made it all up.

I’ll still never forget her reaction: “Huh. That’s a weird thing to lie about.”

#13 And That’s How You Learn To Play The Piano

Image source: melapot8, Stig Andersen

Oh man. When I was 7 I had been learning how to play the keyboard for two years. It was one of those Casio keyboards that had light up keys to learn how to play a song. If you put the easy setting on you could literally hit 1 or 2 keys over and over again and it would play the entire song through. So at the age of 7 my grandparents thought I was a prodigy. I could ‘play’ Fur Elise, Canon in D and Moonlight Sonata. Family and friends would come over to listen/watch me play and were astounded. 2 years or so go by like this. For my 10th birthday my grandparents bought me a real piano and signed me up for a summer camp where ‘prodigies’ of different instruments went to compete. VERY expensive. My entire family, friends from school and a priest family friend was there for my birthday party and wanted to hear me play on my new piano. I broke down crying and ran to my room and confessed to my grand-mom what I had been doing for years and it broke her heart AND trust for me. It sucked. I still cringe when I think about it. I’ve been playing for over 20 years now though and can play all of the songs I listed and probably hundreds more now.

#14 Blame It On The Mean Girl

Image source: 2d4b5l69, ssilberman

I remember back in kindergarten, there was this girl in my class that really hated me and would just be overall mean. One day, I got fetched from school drenched in sweat and out of nowhere I told my mom *mean girl’s name* dropped water over my head. That led to me, my mom, her and her mom in the principal’s office with everyone mad at her whilst she cried. I think she apologized… But anyway, what with two angry moms and a principal I think I would too.

#15 He Got Out Of That Jam…

Image source: quilles, Ryo Chijiiwa

During my undergrad I took a number of business courses. During one of these courses we were learning about a small company that produced high end jam. The prof asked the class what we thought of high end jam as a business. I said that it was a stupid idea, why would I pay $20 for a bottle of jam when I could make it myself. I meant that as a rhetorical question but apparently my prof took my literally. When I was packing up at the end of class the prof came over to me and started asking me all sorts of questions about jam making. So I rolled with it. I lied and told him how my grandmother taught me how to make jam, when the right time to pick the berries was to ensure optimal jam, etc. I don’t know how to make jam. I had no idea what I was saying but the prof bought it. We became buds. After every class we would chat, mostly about jam.

He wrote my reference letter to get into my competitive undergrad program and again when I applied for my masters. I owe most of my academic career to jam.

#16 Well That Escalated Quickly…

Image source: makinwar_uk, Quinn Dombrowski

Told my parents I had lost my crappy phone on a bike ride (C.2010) when I had actually put it under my bed so I could get a new touchscreen phone over my crappy Alcatel phone.

Mum went to phone shop and tripped on ledge outside shattered her left elbow narrowly missed out on having the joint replaced with surgery. To this day she can’t bend her left arm past 150 degrees and can’t kneel as tripping f****d her knees up big style and caused a hernia in her stomach that the NHS refuse to operate on unless it becomes life threatening. Crappiest son over here.

#17 “Stranger Danger”

Image source: Yoinkie2013, sylvar

My first year walking to school alone was the 7th grade and I was late a lot. It got to a point that the teacher told me I would have to do all the days chores (putting chairs down in the morning, wiping boards clean, cleaning after lunch, etc.), if I was late again.

Well the next day I was running late as usual. Being a lazy sob, I knew I had to do something to get out of doing the daily chores. So when the teacher asked me why I was late, I thought back on the assembly we had a few weeks prior on school safety. So I told the teacher that a strange man pulled up to me when I was coming into school grounds and asked me to come with him to see some puppies.

I honestly thought that would be a good enough excuse and it would be the end of it. F*****g, nope. School was suspended for the rest of the day, police were called, my parents were called in. And I was interviewed for the entire day. Had to describe the man, the car, everything. They ended up hiring a security officer for the grounds because of that incident and put in a few new cameras. We had monthly school assemblies because of it too.

And it was all for nothing. Because less than a week later I was late again and had to do all the daily chores.

#18 The “Firey Drill”

Image source: ComptonUnicorn, Know Your Meme

Being the youngest sibling I was always getting razzed, so one time they told me as I was starting school to look out for the firey drill, I had never been in school so I asked what it was. “You will hear a loud bell that warns children when this man comes to the school and attacks with a drill thats on fire and tries to drill into the kids brains!” So a few weeks into school there is a fire drill, so I take off screaming like crazy hoping to survive running as far away from the school as I could. My Mom was not too happy with my siblings when she got the call from our school telling her I was gone.

#19 Oh, Childhood Lies…

Image source: bean220, Luis Penados

When I was about 13, I called a little boy ugly. At the time, my mom’s best friend was driving me home from school. Of course she told my mother what I said, and my mom asked me to not say things like that. I told her I didn’t call anyone ugly. It was a little lie (at first I didn’t know what she was talking about), and it became this big whole ordeal about “my kid would never lie to me” and “why would I lie about this.” They were best friends and they no longer speak because of this. All three of us were dumb and immature.

#20 Life Lesson Learned

Image source: Alocasia_Fruit, Kimberly Vardeman

When I was seven or eight my friend and I were playing underneath her deck. They had a rickety pool ladder that was meant to let you get into their above-ground pool. We were just chilling, playing with invisible dogs or some s**t, when we looked up and noticed some twigs sticking out from the rafters on the underside of the deck.

The big red “animal” light started flashing in our heads, and she held the ladder still while I climbed up it. We found a robin’s nest with four eggs in it and I can still remember to this day what they looked like. I’ve always liked the color.

Being little and stupid, we pulled the nest down and went to go show my mom. My mom opened the door, saw the nest, and immediately said, “where did you guys get this?”

Being little and stupid, I immediately said, “we found it on the ground near the pool.”

My mom was angry, but I didn’t understand why. She said something about the momma bird not wanting the eggs anymore and called my dad down. He looked annoyed, but took the nest from us and walked down the driveway, across the street, and stood under the deck asking us where we found it. Sticking to our story, we showed him the ground underneath the rafters. There.

So he grabs the pool ladder and starts to climb up, and I don’t really remember this part at all. But what I do know is the ladder broke, he fell, and everything else that happened is just kind of gone from my head.

What I do know is this: he absolutely shattered his ankle. He had to be out of work for a long time, had surgeries, and on top of it all, the accident forced him to leave the rescue squad he had been a part of since like, college. The rescue squad that is the only reason he ever met my mother. He says he left because of my little brother being a year or two before but I am like, 90% sure that was not it.

Three of the eggs broke, and I can still see them shattered on the patio ground.

Maybe it’s not a big deal to anyone else here, but I literally still feel guilty about it and it was close to two decades ago. I made my dad give up his literally life-saving past time, caused him recurring pain for the rest of his life, all because I couldn’t keep my hands off of a damn bird’s nest.