30 Wild Times People Got ‘Monkey’s Pawed’

There’s a delicate art to making a wish. You have to craft addendums to each aspiration, like “I want this without anyone dying” or “I don’t want to regret it” in order to feel comfortable hoping for something. There’s no proof that those qualifiers mean anything, but these days, it doesn’t hurt to include them — especially given the following stories. 

One Redditor, for example, wished for a promotion, only to later find out that their upward mobility meant their colleague’s position was terminated. Another’s parents spent 15 years wishing all of their neighbors would move away, but when a wildfire came and destroyed every home except theirs, they realized they actually missed living near all those people. 

A bunch more Redditors recalled the wishes they should’ve been more careful about making, including the guy who’s three for three on getting the worst possible version of what he thought he wanted.