# I fell eight or nine feet
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [May 10, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667 "2015-05-10T01:48:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/21 "2015-05-10T19:10:33Z")
I guess I’ll have to carry my Scoopic wherever I go.
I told my friend about this incident. He said it’s too bad it wasn’t filmed. We could use it for an extra scene in the movie! 😛
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/22 "2015-05-10T20:51:34Z")
Are you sure you were dripping blood, not tomato juice?
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/23 "2015-05-10T20:57:36Z")
♬ \*No tea, no tomato juice.
You’ll see no potato juice… \* ♬
No tomatos yet. I just planted them about three weeks ago.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/24 "2015-05-10T21:10:36Z")
The way the weather has been going, you probably could have planted them in late February and they would be ready by now.
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### Author:  [@oz0ne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oz0ne)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/25 "2015-05-10T22:00:33Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> …The SO likes the self-propelling feature…
Yours or the mower’s? 😉
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2015, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/26 "2015-05-11T03:28:06Z")
> [@oz0ne](#):
>
> Yours or the mower’s? 😉
Nice one. 😛
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### Author:  [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/27 "2015-05-11T14:23:53Z")
Have a nice trip!
StG
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### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/28 "2015-05-11T14:42:45Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> I wish someone had seen the fall. It was spectacular.
Ha, that reminds me… I was near the top of Arapahoe Basin real late in a heavy snow year. There was so much snow it had parts of the regular obstacles covered, so being new to the course I should have slowed… but screw that. I had cut hard to the right down a chute, had to turn even harder to the left to avoid a boulder and lost my edge. Both skis went flying into the air, I tumbled toward the rock trying to just miss it and tried to throw anchors from arms and legs while blinded by a large cloud of loose snow. I came to a stop, determined that I was indeed still alive and sat up to assess the situation. Then I hear this voice, there’s a lift overhead and this little German man in a very, very thick German accents cries out with great enthusiasm “Zat vas spectacular!”
Well, it wasn’t tomatoes and terra cotta, but if you say so.
---
### Author:  [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2015, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/29 "2015-05-11T14:51:58Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> Well, which one was it? 8 feet or 9 feet IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
>
> The story is so lacking in details, how do we even know it happened.
>
> Jan 2000, only 50,000 posts. I smell a troll.
> Time to go see if you’ve posted this on a bunch of other message boards.
> [obligatory “I’m joking” in case a humorless mod doesn’t think I’m kidding]
> And just to be serious, you have to be careful. Doesn’t take much. I fell about 8 inches and ended up in surgery to fix the cartilage I tore.
His refusal to give an accurate measurement makes me suspect that the fall was actually one of those more typical 7 footers.
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/30 "2015-05-11T18:01:10Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#):
>
> His refusal to give an accurate measurement makes me suspect that the fall was actually one of those more typical 7 footers.
Men always overestimate length.
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/31 "2015-05-13T04:23:26Z")
If it were a vertical fall, you’d be lucky you didn’t break your back. Be more careful in the future!
When I was ~9 yo my dad took me to the pet store and he bought me two hamsters. When I came home I wanted to show them off to my big sister, Jan, ~19 yo at the time. She was in the kitchen making out with her boyfriend, John, a big, tough Philadelphia cop. John was my favorite boyfriend of my sisters. He used to take me fishing with his little brother, a physically and mentally wounded Vietnam War vet, and we always came home with a bucket of fish. Good times.
So, I sneak into the kitchen holding my new hamsters in my right hand and switch on the light with my left hand. The sudden light spooked Jan and John and they uttered a rather loud scream. Their scream and the sudden light spooked my hamsters and they jumped off my hand. Gravity introduced them to our kitchen linoleum very quickly.
My new pets were writhing in pain with hyper-flexed backs on our kitchen floor. They obviously broke their vertebrae in the short fall from my 9 yo old hands to the floor—a 3 foot fall, tops.
Jan got a bit hysterical, pleading with her cop-boyfriend to put the poor critters out of their misery somehow; I’m thinking, screw that, I just spent my allowance on those rodents and surely we could patch them up somehow. John was conflicted, but did the right thing.
Yes, he was a tough Philly cop, but he had a heart of gold and a particularly soft spot for animals (not so much for fish). But, he knew there was no hope for the hammies and so asked my sister for a paper bag. Jan quickly produced a small brown paper bag; John put the writhing hamsters in it; took the bag outside and placed it in the middle of the road in front of our house. Then, he got in his patrol car and ran over the bag. He had tears in his eyes when he got out of the car. So did Jan and I.
I bought my youngest daughter a guinea pig a couple months ago (guinea pigs make fantastic pets, BTW, as long as you treat them right) and nary has a day gone by that I don’t plead with her to only carry the pig low to the ground and over carpeting. Those writhing hamsters haunt me to this day.
Animals, including us, can die from surprisingly low falls.
That’s my public service announcement for the day.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/32 "2015-05-13T16:13:11Z")
That story wasn’t as funny as mine was. ☹
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/33 "2015-05-13T17:43:29Z")
I forgot to mention that the hamsters tried to hang onto the back of a chaise lounge on their drop to the floor, but alas, they only succeeded in collapsing the chair on the way to impact. It was almost funny :D, but, ultimately not :(.
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### Author:  [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/34 "2015-05-13T20:09:37Z")
So the headline would read “Man falls, on pot!”. Happens every day.
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2015, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/35 "2015-05-13T20:21:04Z")
The next best thing to the gas not exploding was that the folding chair frame didn’t lop off a couple of your fingers, so congratulations on that too.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/36 "2015-05-13T20:27:31Z")
I think I’ll glue the pot back together, if the SO doesn’t throw it away. It would be like… a _trophy!_
And now I’m reminded of 5th grade. The teacher explained ‘crackpot’ came from an old saying ‘Thou art as useful as a cracked pot!’ He may have made it up on the spot. He did that.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2015, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/37 "2015-05-14T03:50:54Z")
The lesson is don’t solicit sympathy here because your Doper friends will just draw fingernails on the blackboard just to watch you wince.
All in good fun.
So what are going to do next month? 😃
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### Author:  [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2015, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/38 "2015-05-15T22:24:15Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> Well, which one was it? 8 feet or 9 feet IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
>
> The story is so lacking in details, how do we even know it happened.
>
> Jan 2000, only 50,000 posts. I smell a troll.
> Time to go see if you’ve posted this on a bunch of other message boards.
> [obligatory “I’m joking” in case a humorless mod doesn’t think I’m kidding]
> And just to be serious, you have to be careful. Doesn’t take much. I fell about 8 inches and ended up in surgery to fix the cartilage I tore.
reported
[also kidding]
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2015, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/39 "2015-05-16T00:03:10Z")
I glued the pot back together today.
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### Author:  [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2015, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fell-eight-or-nine-feet/719667/40 "2015-05-16T00:43:32Z")
Anyone else reminded of this [classic post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9192890&postcount=16) by the late **ChiefScott?** The original was posted some time around 2000 and is probably one of the reasons why I still pay for a membership.
> [@](#):
>
> Being wheeled through the airport. Cab ride to Moms. Hobble up to the front door. Ring the bell. Dad opens it.
>
> “Please don’t break my toilets.”
>
> Needless to say, my family has never, and will never, let me live down those two seconds of stupidity.
StG
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