The Missing Birth Certificate
I used to work with a guy in his early 20s who, at the time this story begins, was getting ready to go with his family for his first big trip out of the country. He was pretty dang excited and we were getting the play-by-play of all the things they were going to see.
Where they were staying, what they were going to do, he was preparing for all of it. Specifically, he would need to get a passport, but his birth certificate had been lost. When the replacement one arrived, the dark family secret got revealed.
His mom’s name isn’t the woman he’s called “mom” his whole life, it’s his sister. Turns out, his “sister” had him super young, and his grandparents basically took him on and raised them as their son.
No one ever told him the truth. So Sister was actually Mom and Mom and Dad was actually Grandpa and Grandma. Real dad is unknown. He took a few days off work to sort himself out, still went on the trip, still apparently had a blast.