Two Stories That Didn't Happen (But Could Have)

The first one was inspired when I washed my hands last night:

It's not that I don't like okra slime, I really don't mind it, but this was almost too much. I don't know how Wal-Mart did it but it seems like they had been able to actually add okra slime to their bag of frozen okra. Did they just freeze the okra in extra slime? I ate most of the okra but by the time I got to the bottom of the bowl it was getting somewhat gross. I actually didn't eat the last few bits and threw them away. After putting the bowl in the sink I took a short stroll outside since we just had our first thunderstorm. It was amazing how many earthworms were our on the concrete, and these guys are huge. I picked one up just to see how thick they get when they contract, and it is impressive how thick they get, bigger than a pencil around. I made my way back inside. I watched a couple seconds of TV, the show is some crappy movie that doesn't hold my attention. I walked over to the sink, I didn't think that the okra was slimy enough to get on my hands but my hands were slimy and in need of a wash. I looked for a second and then licked off a large streak of slime. HORROR. That wasn't okra slime, but worm slime. The surprising part is that both slimes tasted the same. The gag reflex was late but amazingly strong.
Truth Factor: All of it up to where I licked the slime off. I washed my hands off thinking it was okra slime and when I was done I remembered that it was worm slime. I was very happy that I chose not to like off the slime.

The second one was inspired after reading A Gentleman's C post about a crazy guy:

Everything was going to plan. It is 1850 and my guess about what people wore was close enough. There are a few bits and pieces that are out of place, but when asked about them I was quickly able to dispel questions by saying I am a tinker and make small strange objects. It is amazing the amount of knowledge that I can learn from just a short afternoon in the past, there is just nothing like actually being in the time to be able to understand it. But I think it is about time to head on back to the present. I don't want to mess up the present, and for being a first trip to the past I do not really know how much going into the past actually effects the present. So I head on back to my machine. On the way back I go past a classroom, the teacher is preparing the to recite the planets. I laugh a bit because they have no idea about Pluto, and they wont for a long time, heck, they might not even know of Neptune yet. The teacher reminds the students to include the newly discovered planet, the kids all say 'yes' in unison, and then start their list. "Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune." I stand in shock. How is it possible? How could my machine have changed the world so quickly? Why is Ceres a planet? Did my machine have some sort of gravity well and did something to the orbit of the planets? That doesn't make sense, my machine only was in their future, how could it have such an effect that all kids think that Ceres is a planet? The thoughts and the dread fill my mind, if my short trip made that much of a difference to the past, there is no use going back forward into time, the present will be radically different and not even close to what it was when I left it. I spend the rest of my days in the 1800's quickly descending into self-inflicted madness.
Truth Factor: Well I didn't build a time machine, but if I did go back in time I probably would flip out like this, and I would have thought that I screwed everything up. That is because from 1801 to the 1860's Ceres was actually considered a planet in our solar system. When I would have heard that I would have really thought that I messed things up, even though I really didn't. I bet there are just hundreds of little things like this that would surprise any time traveler.