Anyone else almost committed manslaughter in a humorous way?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A few years ago when I was at college, I managed, completely without intent, to almost cause the death by asphyxiation of my closest friend.

It all started as we left the class. Walking along the sidewalk in front of the labs, we were arguing light-heartedly about some insignificant point that had been raised in the lesson. Needless to say, I was right and he was wrong. Eventually, and to my delight, he left himself open and made a particularly stupid comment. There I had him! I had ready a groundbreaking and irrevocable point, one that would have ended our current argument indefinitely with me as the clear victor. I opened my mouth, trying in vain to keep the smug smile off my face. I could almost smell the victory, sense the glory. I took a deep breath… and promptly walked straight into a lamppost. Before I ‘d even realised what had happened, the metallic “dong” sound still ringing out loudly in the air, fate was torturing me again. Totally disorientated, I stepped bewilderedly from the sidewalk and onto the grass verge… straight into a big pile of a dog crap. To this point, the events had taken no longer than 10 seconds, but it was still plenty of time for my friend to be red in the face, making a gurgling noise, and pointing at my shoe. Holding a hand to my bruised face, and trying to muster as much dignity as remained, I began the nasty process of wiping my soiled Nikes on the grass. It was a sticky bugger, and wasn’t coming off easily, and so ignoring my friend’s gasps and gleeful attempts to inform passers by, I proceeded to wipe my shoe on the grass with a little more force. Too much force. I slipped over in the wet and transformed the dog’s little present from a mildly upsetting mess on my shoe, into a disgusting, wet paste running the entire length of my jeans.

Getting to my feet, and turning to face the now fairly large crowd of people pointing and laughing, I accepted my fate, and gave them a bow and a wave. By this point my friend, who suffers from asthma, was gasping for breath, bright purple, collapsing onto his knees, and reaching frantically for his inhaler. He had to spend the next two days at home recuperating. Strangely enough, I wasn’t overly concerned for his health at the time.

He still merrily tells the tale to any new girlfriend I introduce and to anyone else that will listen.

Has anyone else almost committed manslaughter in a humorous way?

2

So, um, how did your walking into lamppost and treading in dogshit precipitate your friend’s asthma attack? Was he highly allergic to squished dog turd?

3

Well obviously.

Nah, I dunno. But he did manage to make himself very ill after laughing at me. Maybe it was the grass, maybe something else. Who knows, who cares? He did jokingly blame me a few days after though :slight_smile:

4

Ahhh yes… humorous attempted murder. Something I am very familiar with.

My favorite one happened about 4 years ago. The starter in my old car died. I was pretty broke and couldn’t afford to take it in. A friend of mine at the restaurant I was working at mentioned that he had worked as a mechanic for awhile and suggested I just buy a starter and he and I could fix my car. Sounded like a great idea so after we removed the old starter, I went out and bought a new one and a case of beer .My friend and I met up in the parking garage where my car died.

2 beers later we began working. It took some effort to get the starter in place (and 2 more beers) but we were successful. He asked me to get on top of the engine and make sure it was the right place if I remember correctly. I said it was and he began to secure it. Suddenly there was a huge BANG and my friend let out a huge scream! I freaked and asked if he was okay. He said he was all right just freaked out. He asked if I had unplugged the car battery. Turns out in my drunken state I had forgotten and his screwdriver touched the engine I guess. Oops :smiley:

Moral of the story is don’t drink and try to fix your car.

5

Well, it was more near mass-suicide . . . I was in a summer stock company up in Upstate New York in 1981. They put us in this long-abandoned . . . well, shack, in this tiny town. The gas stove hadn’t been used in goodness-knows how long and the thingie in the back had fallen out of the wall.

So here’s us New York actors and actresses, trying to hook up, turn on and light a gas stove, when our “survival skills” pretty much consisted of hailing cabs and calling for Chinese take-out. We got the stove hooked up to the wall, fiddled some knobs, and then, ABOUT TEN MINUTES LATER, lit a match and held it out.

“FOOOOM!”

It’s a wonder none of us lost more than eyebrows.

6

I almost killed my SO.

He was driving his mother’s Jeep, and the battery had died, or so he thought. So, we went to Wal-Mart, bought a battery, and went back to his place to replace it.

I was cleaning out the inside of the car, wiping down the dashboard and putting armour-all on it. He was installing the battery. The hood was up, so I couldn’t see him, and I leaned forward to reach right under the windshield. Apparently, I leaned on the horn the minute he got the connections set up on the battery.

Did I mention that he has a pacemaker, and that he jumped about 6 feet in the air in complete and total hysteria? Meanwhile, I have no clue what’s going on until I see his frazzled, extremely ticked off face peering around the hood of the car. Whoopsies! :smiley:

7

Well I was once sitting on a wall with my friend Grant. We were watching the first girls waterpolo team play a really tough match when he began making some slighlty sexist jokes about the teams. Me being the ardent feminist I am I playfully pretended to push him off the wall.

Infortunately grant has the balance of an executive desk toy and he proceeded to free wheel off the wall with an alarming “eeeeee!” noise.

Now I dont know why there was a 4 inch metal spike sticking up out of the ground but there it was. It was the kind of thing that no-one took any notice of because it was so small but when it is heading straight for your head I imagine it looks much bigger. Anyway he missed it by a few centimetres and he was fine.

Of course he recently stole away a girl I was really crazy about so sometimes I wish for a time machine… aaw forget it.

8

During a smoke one day, a friend of mine decided to wrap his head in toilet tissue so that he resembled a mummy. It was quite funny.

Anyway, he had a bit hanging out of the bottom on his left shoulder so (stupid as I was) I decided to light it. I quipped “your face is on fire”. He turned to look at me and - lo and behold - his face really was on fire. Well, his entire head, really.

One friend ran from the room, screaming “HE’S ON FIRE!!!”.

Thankfully, the victim managed to pull it all off and sustained not even the slightest burn. I hate to image what could have happened if his hair / clothes had caught fire. He may not have died but it would have hurt a bit.

I am so glad we have all only ever laughed at that incident.

9

Oh yeah - I just read Eve’s.

While at uni, a friend and I were watching TV (weird). It was winter so I put the gas fire on. About half an hour later I got a cigarette out and put it in my mouth. The lighter was at the end of the cigarette, my thumb was on the little wheel when suddenly - I noticed the fire had not lit.

Close one. That could have been a manslaughter / suicide combo.

We opened all the windows and froze half to death.