Hybrid wow - a fellow North-Easterner! Well, I’m not from here, but I live here now.
Small world, huh?
I was home alone, about age 12, when I decided to perform a little electrical experiment. I went in the bathroom and pulled a plug about halfway out of the outlet, so that current was still flowing but the prongs were visible. I then took a darning needle (longer/thicker than a usual sewing needle), carefully held it a few inches above the prongs, and dropped it, expecting to get a nice show (sizzles, hot needle, something).
What I didn’t expect was the flash of light and the disappearance of the bit of the needle that completed the circuit. The metal didn’t really disappear, of course, but rather became a number of small metal spheres found in the carpet underneath the experiment site. I spent the next couple of hours (after changing the blown fuse) using tweezers to remove the bits of metal before my parents got home.
While typing this, I realized that I never told either of my parents about my little experiment. I’m sure that my 81 year-old mother, who died earlier this year, would have still given me holy hell about this, even 30 years after the fact.
I grew up in Calgary Alberta Canada. Every winter, my elementary schools would put up temporary snow fences (the fences were temporary, not the snow. Well I guess the snow must have been temporary too since Calgary is not under a 300ft (I’m in the US now) deep ice field)…
Anyway, these temporary fences consisted of 5 ft long 2-inch wide, half-inch thick pine lathes held together by twisted bailing wire. The fences were meant to act as a bit of a wind break and snow would drift up on one side. Once the drift go big enough, we’d run at the un-drifted side of the fence, turn and jump at the last moment and let the fence (backed by the drift) catch us. Great fun! Over time, the temporary fences would slump toward the drift.
So there I am, a 2 foot drift on one side of a fence with quite a bit of lean in it. I scamper to the top of the fence and begun to walk along the top. 2 or three of the lathes break under my uphill foot and I come crashing down, straddling the fence. Crushed my tender dangly bits but good.
Back in 1980’s Home Ec, we were learning how to use the microwave by making hot chocolate. Not only did I forget the water, I also threw the marshmallow on top before heating it up.
More recently, I broke a nail. This was a big thing, because as a lifelong nail-biter, I don’t have nails long enough to break very often. The nail in question was on my left hand, and I’m a lefty, so I conned Mr. Kat into helping me glue it back together. As I was waiting for the glue to set, he warned me, “Don’t lick it.” So I bring my hand up in an attempt to pretend to lick it, and of course manage to stick my finger in my mouth. Luckily, the glue had dried enough that I didn’t glue them together.
20 years ago I was making fireworks in the blender & the top got wiggly so I tightened it which caused the blade to hit side of zee pitcher & get red hot & causing zee rapida explosion. Suffice to say, the cops, owner & fire dept came & umm not wanting to be in jail, I just mentioned something about the fireplace putting out too much smoke. 7 hours later I called my girlfriend at 11pm & got some treatment at the ER.
Because caffeine causes stupidity:rolleyes:
Gawd, I’m laughing my ass off with these stories.
I don’t know how stupid mine is 'cause I couldn’t have been expected to know better. When I was about 13-14 my mom told me I could pull the car into the garage. I was so excited.
I started the car just fine. Then I figured it must be like a bicycle where you need to push really hard to get it going, right? I mashed on the gas. The wheel had been turned all the way to the right. The car lunged in an arc with the tires squealing until I t-boned the camper parked next to the driveway.
It all happened so fast! I was shaking like a leaf afterward.
Well mine involves alchohol (much alchohol… too much alchohol). Me and my buddies once got really drunk and it occured to me it would be a good idea to go and swim in my universities pond.
This was all good and well, I put on my trunks and we went to the pond, but there were two problems
- It was 2 am
- It was Feburary
Go here for pic (warning contains extreem stupidity):
http://mason.gmu.edu/~vsemenov/pond_pic.JPG
Weird thing is accept for a bad hangover and a lost pocket knife this resulted in no consequences whatsoever.
Two days ago:
I go down the hall, get into the shower, turn on the water, start soaping up.
Then I realize I’m still wearing my leather clogs.
Kind of changes the meaning of “shower shoes.”
This happened to our neighbors when I was about 12.
They were set to leave on a 2-week vacation. But something came up to postpone the AM departure to PM. It became necessary to serve lunch - but there was nothing to fix, as they’d been planning to be gone.
In the freezer was some ground beef, well frozen. This was before the days of microwave ovens, but one enterprising family member hit upon the novel idea of putting the meat in the clothes dryer for 10 minutes or so.
Unfortunately, the rest of the family settled on the idea of going out for lunch. The dryer and its contents were forgotten.
But only for two weeks. Upon their return, an unpleasant smell simply demanded attention. The dryer, rather old, was sent into retirement.
One of my finer stunts:
Building a home, alone, high on a remote mountain. Two stories high and ladder too short, I set it up in the back of my pickup. Then I carefully built a platform on the roof to hold dozens of rolls of rolled roofing felt.
You can probably see where this is headed… as I started laying out my first roll, the platform collapsed, sending the entire lot of material rolling down the roof, taking out my ladder and pickup in one fell swoop.
I had a great view to contemplate my dilema and the distance I was going to have to drop, but it took approaching nightfall before it occured to me to peel up a sheet of plywood decking so that I could drop the relatively short distance to the second story floor, through the trusses.
Okay, how many people have read something in this thread and thought, “Hey, I gotta try that!” So far, I’ve had that reaction to balancing on the soccer ball, and dropping a needle across both prongs of a half-inserted plug. I’m such a guy :smack:
Another stupid thing I did: I was ten or so, hanging out at my mom’s work after school, waiting for her to finish so we could go home. She worked in a bank. I was sitting at someone’s desk, reading a book, (H.P Lovecraft’s Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, actually) and absently fiddling with stuff on the desk. Underneath the desk, I feel this button, and not thinking about it, I push. Then I push it again. Then I jam on it about twenty times in rapid succession. Then I think, “Hey, what does this button do?” Right about then, my mom finished what she was doing and we left. About ten minutes ahead of the SWAT team. She never did figure out it was me. And I’m not about to tell her.
Stupid thing my dad did: When I was eight, my dad gave me an industrial glue gun to play with. And that’s not the stupid part! After I inevitably got the molten glue on my hand and severely burned myself, my mom bandaged me up, soothed my paniced screaming, and then took me to McDonalds to make me feel better. While we’re gone, my dad decides that I’m just being a baby (I was eight, you moron!), and the glue couldn’t possibly be that hot. So he squirts some into the palm of his hand. Guess what? Turns out the glue really was that hot, after all.
In breaking news, I’ve only just now realized that I forgot to remove the tags from the new pants I’ve been wearing all day.
“Got tight on absinthe last night. Did knife tricks.” Ernest Hemmingway.
“Knife tricks? I wonder if he did the same ones I know. I wonder if he knew this one… OW!” 2trew.
“Okay, so about 3:00 last night, this guy comes in, (extensive laughter), Oh, man, you wouldn’t believe it, (extensive laughter)…” Anonymous Emergency Room Doctor.
Let us never speak of this again.
The axe scar will just have to await the next such thread.
I was actually pissed so bad this one time on college, that i went down f’ra streak, thought I’d have some fun and actually ran into a pole and found my self with a huge bruise the next morning laying, with cock stuck, on a rusty old park bench:)
BEAT IT!! Not fun having a rusty cock eh?
Two words really tell the whole story:
Razor
Nipple
The entire tale is rather tedious, suffice to say it involves being startled by a ringing phone while shaving in the shower and to this day, I turn off the ringer before beginning any bathing process. 
I’ve done that. My pee comes out angled forwards anyway, so I have to lean slightly forward while sat on the toilet to get my pelvis and underneaths aligned right. One time, I was tired or something, and I leaned back while sat on the loo, peeing. Pissed on my jeans for half a second only — but that’s enough piss to be too much piss. Luckily I was at home, and could change.
I guess I’m kinda boring. I did the boiling a pot dry deal - with a dozen eggs in the pot. The stench was horrific, but, believe it or not, I was able to save the pan - it was a really good stainless steel saucepan that I loved.
I’m a lot better about setting a timer when I’m boiling stuff.
I can match the OP, just substitute hot dogs. Managed to save the kettle, though.
For sheer stupidity, I challenge all and sundry to top this one, not personally performed by yours truly but by a very good acquaintance of his:
Getting seriously, seriously drunk, and accepting the challenge to swallow a beer bottle cap. That by itself, he said, was rather easy…
Not me, but my dad. We were going to go fishing so he goes outside to dig up some worms. But, digging takes too long so instead he has a brilliant idea. He grabs a hacksaw blade, splices an electrical cord to it, plugs it in, and shoves the blade down into the ground. Worms start popping out all over - amazing! Well, about this time, he gets tired of bending over so he drops a knee - and grounds himself. He can’t let go of the blade because the current is too strong, and the blade is now embedded in his hand. I reached down and unplugged him. I was 6 years old and never let him forget it. Oh yeah, and all the worms escaped. Beat that.