New Year's Eve 2004 I accidentally helped break into a flat in Dublin, Ireland. Honest but monumentally stupid error based on mistaken identity, and the most embarrassing mix-up of my life. Detained by police, a hair's breadth from getting charged with felony burglary. Ultimately released but to this day I haven't heard the last of the teasing from family and friends. And me who's never even had a speeding ticket. Ugh.
Anyone else ever do anything Darwin Award worthy?
I've been arrested 6 times and tried to commit suicide 3 times, I'm not proud of any of it, it was all really dumb and I hurt alot of people who care about me. Those were serious incidents that looking back on now, have made me a much stronger person. There's been goofy stuff I've done like; I went out for a night on the town in full drag, cut my finger in half peeling potatoes, tripped over an oven, tried to swallow a steak whole and choked on it, urinated on someone for no reason and jumped in a freezing cold duck pond. :lookingup:
A few months back I tried crossing a shallow yet fast-running stream on my quad and got swept downstream. It was a glacier-fed stream, so it was super cold and I was swept 50 yards or so, most of it while UNDER my quad. Did it right in from of my kid, so had I bit the big one in the process He'd have seen it all. While all that was happening, I lost a $300 GPS, my goggles, and ultimately my Eraserhead sweatshirt.
I've done worse, I just have most of it blocked out. .
My entire relationship with my ex-fiancee.
When I was about 10 or 12 years old (I had a ton of problems back then) I jumped into a fountain in Baltimore, Maryland. I swam in it and climbed on some sculptures. The whole time my aunt who was looking after me and my sister who was with us were trying to catch me and encouraging me to come out. Even though my aunt was pretty mad (if I remember correctly) I consider it one of the funniest and most rewarding experiences of my life. :bouncegiggle:
Let's see . . .
I distinctly remember getting into my 1980 mustang and gripping the roof of the car with my left hand as I settled into my seat . . . then reaching across my body with my right hand and closing the car door firmly.
On my left hand!! :buggedout:
Once when I was in the Army and on special duty (driving a fishing boat, cool eh?), a friend and I got really drunk and tried getting on a cruise ship that was docked in town. The problem was that we tried getting on, , with a grappling hook. We couldn't throw it nearly high enough to catch onto anything, so it just made a loud clang against the hull and came right back at us. Apparently the police watched up do this about a half a dozen times before they saved us, from ourselves. The hook was big enough it would have bashed our skulls if it were to hit up on the way down, , which it nearly did.
Mt sister once dared me to eat chapstick, I asked if it was toxic. :tongueout:
Argued with logic on the internet with someone lacking it.
Darn. Cheeze beat me to it. But it was definitely the dumbest thing I've done - and likely will continue to do. :lookingup:
The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd times I fell in love.
Popped MONSTER A-GO-GO into the DVD player.
I went to college on a partial scholarship but dropped out sophmore year to become a "detective" with a high school buddy of mine down in Corpus Christi Texas. "It didn't work out" is putting it mildly and it still haunts me to this day in various ways, including the fact that I still haven't completed college. On the other hand, I did get to visit Brownsville Texas, which must be the Stray Dog Capital of America.
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee71/HammockRider/lget5010homer-simpson-stupid-like-a.jpg)
Driving under the influence of various substances. Real stupid.
I also should have pulled out of the stock market a couple of weeks ago.
Having to pull money that my late grandmother gave me before she died 3 times to get out of credit card debt (Well the first one was also to pay off a lot of medical bills.)
Quote from: raj on October 13, 2008, 02:14:44 PM
Driving under the influence of various substances. Real stupid.
I've done that too, a long time ago in my youth. Probably counts as the stupidest thing lots of people have done.
Quote
I also should have pulled out of the stock market a couple of weeks ago.
Personally, unless you need the money
right now to live on, or need the capital gains loss to offset gains from prior years, I think locking in your losses is stupid. Buy low, sell high.
I've been fairly lucky in that most of my boners have been relatively minor in scale and collateral damage. However I have been involved in two vaguely beverage related incidents.
- When I was at Uni I started to make myself a cup of tea from a cafeteria dispenser when I noticed two girls (one blonde and one redhead) that I was keen on. I started to act 'cool' in front of the girls, causing myself to put my fingers under the pouring hot water. This caused me to loudly drop the 'F-Bomb' in front of the entire refrectory (which wasn't very big). :hot:
-Last year I was hurrying for a bus while carrying two heavy bags of shopping. I decided to run down an entirely empty escalator but I tripped and fell down the bottom half of it. I looked like I had gone three rounds with Mike Tyson! :bluesad:
While in high school a couple friends and I decided that we could liven up our Saturday night by jay walking (running actually) across all 8 lanes of the 605 freeway, twice, we had to get back home.
I've never driven under the influence, but I let a friend who was pretty drunk drive me home once. I swore if I made it home alive I'd never do that again, and haven't.
Quote from: ER on October 12, 2008, 06:07:18 PM
Anyone else ever do anything Darwin Award worthy?
I was working as a summer employee in an electronics factory, in the engineering labs. This factory specialized in high-voltage devices, and there was a piece of equipment that fired 5000 Amps at high voltage (for comparison: your entire house is probably 200 A) through the device. The trigger switch wasn't working. I knew enough to know the contacts of the device I should short out to trigger the test gear, and I knew enough to worry a little, so I thought I was being smart, holding the aluminum bar with insulated pliers, making sure to use only one hand, standing on the lab bench so I wasn't grounded etc.
But for some reason my boss about had a heart attack when he saw how I was turning on the test gear.
Another time, same factory, I had my hand on one panel of some equipment on the assembly line and was feeling around underneath the equipment for a switch I knew was there. ZZZZAP! Found it! 220 V that time, straight across the chest. Apparently this switch (which wasn't known to the assembly-line workers) was just a bare switch with the contacts fully exposed.
One other time there was a cable that I was hooking up to an oscilloscope. I'd spent a couple of hours making a custom cable with the right connectors (probably a 10 minute job for an experienced engineer). Happened to touch the contacts of the cable to the case in such a way to short the 220 V supply. The entire cable vaporized in my hand, leaving me holding the connector. All I could think was "I spent 2 hours making this! I spent 2 hours making this!".
LONG AGO...There was a foregin exchange student in high school who was being bullied. I stood in the back of the crowd and just was a yes-man to the whole process. I knew I shouldn't have but I convinced myself it was good fun.
Sorry Dude.
-Ed
Two events come to mind in the past 10 years, both at weddings ironically.
The first happened a few years after I started dating my wife (around 10 years ago). Background first, I never had gone to weddings much in my life. I was under the impression for years that the guy who catches the garter would be the next to be married. The story pretty much ended there so I thought. I didn't know about the whole putting it on the girl who catches to bouquet thing. Figuring that I wanted to look impressive to her and her mother (who sadly was there too), I made a great dive to catch the garter. People were all laughing and talking sh*t and I couldn't figure out why. That would be because a 12 year old girl caught the bouquet. :buggedout: Luckily the DJ called off the garter ceremony.
The second one was less embarrassing but I got plastered at my wife's aunt's wedding. When I left I forgot about the step down and sprained my ankle. I was too drunk to figure out I couldn't walk on it. When I got home, I puked in everywhere but the toilet (kitchen/bathroom sinks, trash can, outside) and when I woke up I couldn't figure out where my key were. My wife was p*ssed but the best part of the story is no one remembers me being drunk. Rather they remember her yelling at me in the parking lot. :bouncegiggle: