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Original poster

What’s your eternal hell cycle?

128 replies

ladyandthechocolate · 15/08/2023 07:08

On a long journey, we were talking about the idea of hell cycles (that is an endless scenario you find yourself stuck in for eternity that would really be your worst nightmare). But lightheaded obvs.

They had some really creative ideas (DD thought she’d be in a doughnut eating competition on the back of a moving float to the sound of crying babies whilst wearing clothes with itchy labels).

This was mine:

I’m in a busy soft play which is hot, loud and smells of grease and nappies. I’m looking after multiple children who all want something from me, or for me to crawl through impossibly tight spaces with them. I’ve got a hangover with a banging headache and wet socks from where I have trodden in something unidentified and I’ve got no other adults with me for solidarity.

What are yours?

OP posts:
Friarclose · 15/08/2023 18:49

I'm on the London underground. It's packed and I'm standing under someone's smelly armpit. Everytime we stop at the station the doors are stuck. The lights keep going out and I'm dying for the loo.

Sunnysideup999 · 15/08/2023 18:52

I’m stuck on a train and it’s boiling hot summer and there’s no air con and it’s stuck on the track and the toilets are blocked and they’ve run out of water and I have a uti brewing and a headache/hangover and there no seats so I’m standing in the aisle wedged amongst a load of larger lads who are on their way to a stag do and they are chanting rubbish and there’s no Wi-Fi and I’m carrying a big bag of luggage with two young children whinging at me that they are tired and hungry and want to get off and are we nearly there yet.
True. Story.

MiddleParking · 15/08/2023 18:53

I’m pregnant, or carsick, or both.

Persiana · 15/08/2023 18:59

I think mine is stuck in endless traffic jam, horns blaring, it's boiling hot, no air con, noisy and fume filled air outside so you can't even open windows. Sun beating down through the windows. No food, no water, need the toilet, crying/whinging children in the back. The car radio is stuck on traffic updates that sound unreasonably upbeat considering they are telling me I'll never move. I'm missing a flight because of the traffic, and won't be able to claim on insurance. Me and dh have fallen out because of it all, so he is fuming beside me. Life feels bleak 😂

Jamtartforme · 15/08/2023 19:03

It’s half an hour to dinner time and I have to come up with something for my family (fussy DH, typical 4 year old DC, and dairy free me as EBF baby has CMPA). The fridge is nearly empty, the kids are in meltdown, every utensil is in the sink unwashed as we had decided to do some ‘fun’ baking that afternoon and our hideously noisy tumble dryer is on. I cobble something together and after being persuaded to eat it drops half of it on the floor. The baby starts crying to be fed, I wash up, slip on a toy on the floor then before my head hits the floor BOOM, back to the beginning like in Russian Doll.

Pliudev · 15/08/2023 19:03

My friend is giving me a lift to a place 500 miles away that I need to get to urgently. She drives an old car with bad suspension and keeps turning off the main road to drive along narrow twisting lanes because she prefers these. She drives at speed, accelerating towards blind bends and only slowing afterwards. I will be sick soon.
I had this dream last night and was so pleased to wake up. But it could happen IRL because this is my friend. So far I have avoided sharing long journeys.

Bookworm12345 · 15/08/2023 19:07

Stuck in a silent, stuffy room with people eating crisps very loudly, or just eating full stop with no way of covering my ears or blocking out the noise. Argh!

HippyChickMama · 15/08/2023 19:12

Stuck in traffic and desperate for a wee. It is really hot and the air con isn't working. I need to keep the windows open because of the heat but the person in the next car is whistling loudly. My foot is itching inside my shoe and one of my bra straps is twisted.

HashBrownandBeans · 15/08/2023 19:14

Mine just came up in my Facebook memories. Stuck on a caravan holiday with my insufferable ex. A pompous, grumpy, moody fun-sucker. Our relationship is at its end. My kids are with us and hate him. It’s a constant cycle of snappy, hurtful bullshit about stuff that is meaningless, perpetually coming out of his boring face and we are all stuck there, tolerating him.

Hatsforbats · 15/08/2023 19:15

On a fairly small boat in the middle of a very choppy sea. So I'm terribly seasick and there is no hope of land coming.
I cannot throw up and nothing relieves the woozy nauseous feeling
There is an inside to the boat but in there is a combination zumba and maths lesson with mandatory participation so I have to stay on the outside bit where people are vomiting off the side and 4 shrill voiced children keep asking questions about marine life that I don't know the answer to.

Redragtoabull · 15/08/2023 19:16

Driving down a main road and at every turn off road is some prick screeching to a halt into the main road in the hope that said prick could intimidate this prick to give them way

Blueuggboots · 15/08/2023 19:17

Tinned Beef ravioli to eat, Justin bieber (spelling??) music playing, and my ex husband everywhere I go.

Faunanflora · 15/08/2023 19:18

This - sorting a huge pile of socks and being left with 3 odd ones.

What’s your eternal hell cycle?
coxesorangepippin · 15/08/2023 19:19

Cooking dinner every fucking night

coxesorangepippin · 15/08/2023 19:20

Lol to the odd sock Inferno

I have a bag full of odd socks and am past giving a shit about them

The sock puppets are goners!

BreadInCaptivity · 15/08/2023 19:26

Stuck on an airplane with a child sat behind me kicking the seat and screaming.

I spill food/drink over myself due to being jolted so I'm also wet/a total mess and hungry. Full flight so no more available.

The inflight entertainment is broken and I've forgotten my kindle and headphones.

The flight never ends.

Speedweed · 15/08/2023 19:29

I'm on a bouncy castle, packed with children, so I can't really move without squashing them. I'm at the back, I need to get off as I have a hangover and need to be sick. My trousers are too tight, my t-shirt is polyester, I'm too hot and my period is starting. The heat has made my hair flop forwards, and the more I touch it to push it back, the sweatier and stringier it becomes. Everything is sticky. The vomit and bleach smell due to the filthy mop (love that pp!). I can feel the saliva starting to run so I'm about to be sick all over these kids...

MissPettigrewIsWFH · 15/08/2023 19:30

Having a newborn with reflux again. Felt like a circle of hell!

MyJobIsBeach · 15/08/2023 19:53

I think about this kind of thing far too often..

I am stuck on a country road with two way traffic but there is only space for one car to get past, cars consistently come towards me and I am always the one who is forced to pull over. My toddler is in the back crying inconsolably and James Corden is in the passenger's seat attempting a Carpool Karaoke of Cocomelon's greatest hits.

I am being tailgated by an aggressive individual in an SUV. The smell of fresh manure from the fields penetrates my nostrils - the air con is broken and it's a stifling hot day so the windows are open. I am wearing a polyester dress and my thighs are stuck to the leather seat. There is a huge, hairy spider sat within my peripheral vision and my heart rate is so high that my Fitbit is registering the experience as exercise. Just when I think it couldn't get any worse... I think too hard about the logistics of driving and immediately forget how to do it.

Witchinawell · 15/08/2023 20:00

Everything is lightly coated in grease and the only cloth I have has been left in the sink too long and has that disgusting musty smell on it …

spitefulandbadgrammar · 15/08/2023 20:01

Back to back labour. Forever.

Duchessofspace · 15/08/2023 20:06

My was also real the smoke alarm happened in friends - happened here - I took the battery out the bloody thing was beeping - I took the capacitor out - bugger me still beeping. Awful - I ended up at 5 am driving to the local park to dispose of it

Nomorebollocks · 15/08/2023 20:13

Mine is reality.

it’s the summer holidays. All of you are school age or work in schools so the whole family is on holiday and at home for 6 weeks. You pack the entire house up to go away. You come back and unpack the entire house - except now it all needs washed, dried and put away. You pack the entire house up to go away again. You come back and unpack the entire house…
…and it’s 40 degrees all the time because you live in fucking France.

Northbright · 15/08/2023 20:20

Trying to claim a refund from an airline based abroad and being redirected to a website contact email, then an automated phone, back to a website, back to phone on and on repeat and telling the same story each time and not getting a reply from a single human but only computer says no AND the whole time someone poking me firmly in the upper arm.

TastyPastry · 15/08/2023 20:24

I'm changing in a cubicle with a mean curtain that doesn't pull across properly. Every time someone goes past it shivers and gapes open in their wake. I can hear every person approaching as they stomp up the corridor and I grab the edge of the curtain to stop it flapping open. The aircon is broken, I'm hot and sticky and struggling to get in and out of the clothes which are sticking to my skin.The room smells of dust and other people's armpits. There's no stool to put my bag on and I have to put it on the floor in amongst years of accumulated fluff and dirt and unidentifiable 'bits'. I have to take my shoes off to try things on but the floor is so dirty I don't want to stand on it and so l'm trying to balance standing on the tops of my trainers. The room is too small and I keep banging myself on the walls. There's one glaring overhead light that casts such hideous shadows on my face and body that I look like an extra in a cheap horror film.

I get my head stuck inside a top and can't get it off. I call for the assistant to help but no-one can hear me above the music from the shop's two sound systems which are playing jazz and musak simultaneously.