‘What’s the worst bit of bad timing that you or family and friends have had?’ – 22 people who just missed out on greatness

‘When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers’, said Mark Twain. And he’s right: it never rains, but it pours.

They’ve been chatting about the most galling gases of misfortune over on the AskUK subreddit after Dangerous-Land-1773 posted this particularly egregious example:

What’s the worst bit of bad luck/bad timing that you or family and friends have had? I obviously don’t mean tragic events but really rotten bad luck that would sicken anyone.

A cousin of mine had worked at a large supermarket for many years and she had been in a National Lottery syndicate with four other women there for years too. She got a new job and left but the following month the four remaining syndicate members won just over £4,000,000 (4 million).

They bought her a bunch of flowers between them…

Ouch, that must have hurt. But they weren’t alone in their pain, as these other instances of mishap showed…

1.

‘Me and my husband have two young kids. Every now and again my husband will book a day or two off work as holiday just to chill, and almost every single time he does it one of the kids is poorly and he ends up looking after a sick child. It doesn’t matter how far in advance he books the day off you can almost guarantee a child will be ill on it.’
–candigirl16

2.

‘After my marriage break up I moved to a new town to start a fun new life… this was at the start of 2020.’
–ChipCob1

3.

‘My husband and I invested heavily into expanding our business at the beginning of 2020. Business was in the events industry, you can guess how that went.’
–TimedDelivery

4.

‘My Royal Family-loving neighbours were having a massive Sunday garden party on 31st August 1997.’
–mutexsprinkles

5.

‘My dad used to go to the shop on the way to work and buy 10 cigarettes and a scratch card. One morning the shop keeper put the usual 10 smokes on the counter and tore off the scratch card.

My dad said, no scratch card today, only got enough for the cigarettes. The guy behind him said, “I’ll take that” The guy scratched it off and won his £1 back… Only joking, he won £777 or £7777.. can’t remember, it was the 777 scratch card.’
–Bumble1982

6.

‘I am a very serious law abiding citizen. I am the family police to make sure my family don’t break laws either. This year 02/01 at midnight I checked with my father if I could borrow his car. He said insurance is sorted I can use it.

I left the drive way drove 100 meters and got pulled over by a random cop (in the uk it’s very rare for the police to pull you over). Turns out my dad forgot to actually add me on the insurance so the cop slapped me with a £300 fine, six points on my license and seized the vehicle.

The worst part is I am a heavy goods vehicle driver so having points on my license may now get me fired from my job.
Good work dad.’
–Regular-Ad5912

7.

‘I know someone who moved stores at Asda and missed out on a share of £12.8 million. Each person received just under 500k each. He asked to stay in the syndicate but they refused due to him always being late with payment and didn’t want to have to chase him down for money when he was moving about 40 minutes away.’
–simundo86

8.

‘I was getting out of my car a few years back, and grabbed my coat off the passenger seat as I closed the door behind me. Turns out my phone was in the folds of the coat and fell out as the door closed.

The closing of the door and the falling of the phone were timed so that the door actually crushed the phone as it fell. The odds of that happening must be ridiculous.’
–Suspicious_Page_1557

9.

‘Around 22 years ago now I was just finishing a driving lesson. My old Nokia had just started ringing as I was getting out of the car. Unfortunately I was at just the right angle for the phone to slip out of my pocket directly into a drain.

I heard a few bars of the Imperial March from Star Wars, a splash, and then it was gone. I just stood there in disbelief whilst my driving instructor was pissing himself laughing.’
–sleepyprojectionist

10.

‘Local shop which I alway pop into for bread, milk, etc and a scratch card. Have been trying to save for a month and not buy scratch cards and local news announces a man has won £1 million at said shop. Gutted.’
–Adorable_Week7181

11.

‘I know someone who was handed divorce papers, sacked and had their family hospitalised in the same week.’
–Conscious_Theory_996