# I had a bad experience **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 3, 2004, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459 "2004-06-03T15:26:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/1 "2004-06-03T15:26:12Z")
Over the years it seems like I have had a bad experience over just about anything. I mean, bad to the point where I am really reluctant to try the experience again. I don’t know if this is just normal, or I just have terrible luck when it comes to _everything_, but here is a few things I’ve had a bad experience with- \*\* Alcohol Broccoli Heavy Petting Paintball Turkish Delights Sleepaway camp Underwear \*\* If you are curious about any of these, believe me I have a sad story which accompanies each one ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/2 "2004-06-03T15:36:26Z")
Not to downplay your bad experiences in the least, but I’m pretty certain we all have our list of bad experiences. It’s just the things that make us grow as people. Hell, it took me less than two minutes to come up with: **Gravity Genetics Ski Slopes Harry Blackstone New York Tourists Freehold Twp. Police Everlasting Gobstoppers Mixing Beer And Tequila A Nail In The Atlantic Ocean** I will admit, however, I _am_ curious as to the underwear one. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![swampbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampbear/32/467_2.png) [@swampbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampbear)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/3 "2004-06-03T15:40:24Z")
**Hal** I am overcome with curiosity over the nail in the Atlantic Ocean. Did you step on it? ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/4 "2004-06-03T15:44:50Z")
**Underwear** When I was younger I used to wear colored underwear. For a while I really didn’t care what color my underwear was. That is, until someone teased me about it. In the locker room in seventh grade, I was the only kid that wasn’t sporting a pair of tightey _white_ ies, and people used to laugh at me about it. I know it was important to just ignore them, but I was incredibly sensitive about things like this and totally mortified. I threw out all my colored underwear and had my mom buy me pristine WHITE underwear. Fast forward to college, after a game of Volleyball class, I’m getting dressed after taking a nice shower. I was talking to some guy in the locker room and he made an offhand remark about my underwear. Seems all of the sudden _nobody_ wore tightey whities, they all wore boxer briefs or boxers. And _none_ of them wore underwear that was even remotely white :smack: I don’t like wearing boxers/boxer briefs…I must be the only one on the planet who feels more comfortable in just briefs. But I guess the worst part about it is that it still really gets to me. I know its stupid, and I could have fired something equally rude back at the guy, but the damage was already done. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bo\_Peep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ea5d25/32.png) [@Little\_Bo\_Peep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bo_Peep)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/5 "2004-06-03T16:35:48Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > **Underwear** > > I don’t like wearing boxers/boxer briefs…I must be the only one on the planet who feels more comfortable in just briefs. But I guess the worst part about it is that it still really gets to me. I know its stupid, and I could have fired something equally rude back at the guy, but the damage was already done. ☹ **Tighty whities are sexy.** My husband has a few pairs and I always find he looks sexy in them and he hates the loose feel of boxers too. I mean, I’m sure tighty whities don’t look good on all men but then again it probably has nothing to do with ther underwear they are wearing… “Nice” underwear is overrated anyway as nobody really gets to see them all that much. I don’t know, I am sure I’d get teased about my underwear too sometimes (I’ve been known to sport a pair of beige-grandma-ballistic-big-enough-to-be-a-parachute type of underwear once or twice). ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/6 "2004-06-03T16:43:43Z")
Ah. Well, Incubus, we’ve probably all got scars from school days. JUST from school days alone, I’ve got these: running for student council office proms periods dressing out for P.E. teachers who are unfair crushes on boys From my young adult years: calculus virginity (after the age of about 18, almost nobody admits being a virgin, even if they are) first job crushes on boys/young men divorce of parents From my adult years: marriage–the early years (wow, talk about your adjustment periods–but it’s all good now) second job crooked car dealers family illness So, not to downplay your bad experiences, but ya know, that’s life. You learn and grow. ---
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/7 "2004-06-03T17:16:13Z")
I wanna hear about the heavy petting! ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/8 "2004-06-03T17:33:15Z")
**Heavy Petting** This is a good one. See, I was involved with this girl back in High School, and it was the first (i.e. the _only_) girl I’ve been remotely intimate with. The day before, we were fooling around in her room, and her dad came back early. I wasn’t supposed to be there, so he was mighty pissed when he saw me getting dressed. I wound up getting chased out of the house by him wielding a tire iron, threatened horrible things if I ever came back. Of course, I was seventeen, and in proximity to the only girl that was even remotely interested in doing intimate things with me, so I was pretty determined/desperate. I figured I would just not go in the house anymore- we could fool around on her property. Her house was situated on six acres of dense woodland, so there was a lot of cover afforded for some hanky-panky 😉 We were doing some heavy petting in the middle of the night, when all of the sudden I hear this low growl. In the darkness, I see this medium sized object approaching us, growling. It started barking and coming after us, and both of us freaked out and ran out of the gully, leaving most of our clothes behind. There were a lot of prickly/thorny plants down there, and my arms and legs were mighty scratched up from getting chased by some dog in the middle of the night. So yeah. I was engaged in heavy petting and was nearly mauled by a dog. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/9 "2004-06-03T17:47:43Z")
I want to hear about the turkish delights. Some bad experiences of mine: **Wet roads Moving at the wrong time Women Alcohol Gravel Golf Gazpacho** Ok, I made the last one up. ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/10 "2004-06-03T18:01:10Z")
I also want to hear about the Turkish Delight one As for me, I’ve had bad experiances with Bible Camps Unsteady JBL Speakers P.E. European Handball Pneumonia Roller Coasters Airsoft ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/11 "2004-06-03T18:50:55Z")
> [@swampbear](#): > > **Hal** I am overcome with curiosity over the nail in the Atlantic Ocean. Did you step on it? **A Nail In The Atlantic Ocean** _Seaside Heights, NJ, circa roughly 1994 or so._ I was born and raised 10 minutes from the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve lived my whole life an easy ride from the beach, and I _love_ a good ocean swim. Therein lies the quandary: I live so close to the ocean that I can go anytime. Since I can go anytime, I never go. :smack: There’s never any pressing reason to go, since I _know_ it’s gonna be there tomorrow. But, I digress…back to 1994: I’m hanging out in Seaside with my friends. It’ll be two more years until I start dating the woman I’ll eventually marry, so my eyes are open. I meet a very nice girl, have a few drinks, and we exchange numbers. We speak on the phone later that week, and make a date for that weekend. We’ll meet at the beach, go for a swim, then get some dinner. _“A swim”_, thinks I, _“in the ocean? Wonderful idea! I love swimming in the ocean, and I haven’t done it in years! It’s because I live so close to the…”_ yeah yeah yeah…we already heard that part. The following weekend comes. We meet at the beach, pick our blanket spot, and head into the water. Now, have I mentioned my dating situation up to this point? Well, it didn’t exist. Not to say there was nothing happening, there was just never any “dating”. There was going to bars and doing regrettable things with cheap women, but there was no “dating”. And damnit, I wanted to start “dating”! So here I am, walking into the ocean with a very nice girl that I was getting along with splendidly. On my first actual, real, “would-you-like-to-do-something-this-weekend” _date_ in a long, long time. And before I can even get out to that depth where the water soaks up your swimwear and chills your goodies before you get a chance to fully submerge them, a crab sinks its claw into my foot. At least, that’s what I thought happened. I managed to hop out of the water and instead of a crab, I found a three-inch roofing nail imbedded in my foot. So, to make a long story slightly less long, my first real date in years wound up being maybe 10 minutes long, followed by a three hour hospital visit (complete with tetanus shot). At least I got a good story out of it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![swampbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampbear/32/467_2.png) [@swampbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampbear)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/12 "2004-06-03T19:09:49Z")
Day-umn **Hal**! Roofing nails the bane of my existence. I hate them things! I swear, there could be one roofing nail in a three-hundred mile stretch of six lane highway and I’ll run over it. GRRRRRRRRRR… But I never stepped on one in the ocean. 😃 Poptops, well now, that’s a completely different story. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/13 "2004-06-03T19:26:56Z")
**Turkish Delights** I had heard of Turkish Delights before- the White Witch used them to lure one of the boys in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. That kid was crazy about them! But beyond that, Turkish Delight was just some arcane european candy. Well, one time my grandmother came back from a trip to England, and brought some back. I was curious, so I tried one. :eek: Suffice to say it was the worst candy I had ever tasted. It had chocolate on the outside, so I figured it couldn’t be _that_ bad, right? Wrong! The author of the [badcandy.org](http://badcandy.org) website put it best when he described the unpleasant taste of bad candy as “The taste sensation was if a midget had crammed his sweaty arms into my mouth, and was playing pinochle with my uvula wtih his ham fists” Now whenever I see or get close to some chocolate peice that has iffy contents, I can’t help but think back to Turkish delights and then I get violently nauteous. If I ever needed a quick purgative, I can count on just chomping on one of those candies! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/14 "2004-06-03T20:38:51Z")
Yeah we’ve all had our bad items: Hyundai Excels Going to a doctor “Just to cover our bases” Blind dates Buicks Gallon size J&B Whiskey Not knowing when to call off a wedding ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/15 "2004-06-03T20:47:02Z")
> [@BurnMeUp](#): > > Not knowing when to call off a wedding Now _that_, I’d be interested in knowing more about. And I hope it doesn’t tie in with the “Gallon size J&B Whiskey” story. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/16 "2004-06-03T21:22:42Z")
> [@Hal Briston](#): > > Now _that_, I’d be interested in knowing more about. And I hope it doesn’t tie in with the “Gallon size J&B Whiskey” story. Nope separate stories. I had broken up with a long time on again off again girlfriend and started hanging out at a terribly cheesy dance club. This club was 16 and over, as I was not yet 21 and there were no 18 and over clubs in the area at that time. I met this girl who I danced with a bit. She was 26. It didn’t strike me as odd that she hung out in a 16 and over club. Perhaps it was all the drinking I did before I went there. So we started dating. In the few months we were dating I noticed she was a bit of a basket case, but then again my last 2 girlfriends were no winners either so I didn’t think much of it. This girl would cry about everything and anything… one of those “BUT DO YOU REAALLLLY LOVE ME” types. Everything was a big deal everything a battle. One day she was upset that she didn’t know what I was really feeling. Me being an idiot and not knowing to kick her to the curb said the only thing I could think of to prove to her I wasn’t taking it lightly. “Let’s get married”. To this day it was the worst 4 syllables I had ever uttered. Well we started planning the thing. Her family… made Al Bundy’s brood look like the royal family. Her mom would hang out all day in a housedress, drinking Run and Cokes until she couldn’t walk. Her dad was about the same, but loved to talk about how he could kick everyone’s ass despite being a spindly little bastard. Her two younger brothers were like Beavis and Butthead mixed with Bill and Ted. Her Family insisted that since they were poor the whole wedding would happen in their back yard. The refreshments were to be A few cases of Bud and free pizzas pilfered from the little Ceasars she worked at. Within 1 week of asking her to marry me I didn’t want to marry her. I did not know how to stop the flaming shit filled rollercoaster of death. So I kept going. Finally the day of the wedding came… about 4 times that day I considered runnign to Canada or Mexico. I went through with it and was not happy. All my friends asked me “What do you see in her” and my only honest answer was “I have no idea". They thought it was a joke. The marriage was awful. She was a harpy. She would screech at me and cry if se didn’t get everything her way. If I even recommended a different movie than the one she wanted it was a reason to cry. She’d make asinine accusations. She’s slap me in public. She’d say the most incredibly stupid and embarrassing things to people. It got to the point that my only solace was to start drinking around breakfast time on the days I was at home with her. In fact she even tried to talk mew out of getting a Tech Support job with a computer company. At the time I was working as a janitor. She (and her family said) you’re stupid… you have a job that pays you 8 bucks an hour! You’re going to get fired within a month and then you’ll be out of your good job. (Just a note that TS job lasted 6 years while I kept being promoted and eventually moved me to this job where I get to travel the world and make considerably more than $8 an hour). Finally the last straw came. Me and a good friend had made plans to go to dinner and go see an anime flick that was playing at an arthouse theater. She had been invited and declined saying “it sounds lame”. Fine with us. So the day comes and she raises holy hell. She decides to come with us. We go to a brew pup to play pool, eat and drink some beer, she gets sloshed beyond belief and then demands we go home because she doesn’t want to go. We tell her she knew the plan and this movie was playing one night only and started in 10 minutes. She said “Take me home or I swear to god I’ll blow up this car” As we looked at her in disbelief of her idiocy she starts yelling" You two are just fags for each other aren’t you!" Calmly I told her I’d had enough, we took her to her parent’s house (near the theater), and I told her not to bother going home that night. My friend and I enjoyed the movie and I went home. The next day she called to tell me she was going to stay with her parents for thaw weekend and I said. I don’t ever want you to come back. Within a week I had the papers filed and sent to her at work. After the divorce I had her come and get her few meager possessions (we owned nothing so it’s not like there was much to split up). Then she disappeared from my life, only to surface a few days before I was due to be married to my current (and wonderful) wife. We had a few words and I told her I never wished to speak to her again. ---
**Author:** ![beckwall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b487fb/32.png) [@beckwall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beckwall)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/17 "2004-06-03T22:56:16Z")
Here’s a partial list: **Cowboys** **Junkies** **Cowboy Junkies** **Annoying sports mascots (redundant)** **Colostomies** **Mimes** **Tainted love (not the song, the actual love itself** **Wells Fargo** **Pisces people** **Paper-thin hotel walls** **That guy I met on Prodigy chat 8 years ago** ---
**Author:** ![sishoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3e96dc/32.png) [@sishoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sishoch)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/18 "2004-06-03T23:09:29Z")
In no particular order: an axe sharing a bedroom with an older, larger, and stronger older brother graduate school dating learning my “friend” couldn’t care less about me sky diving (not as bad as it sounds) falling in love (long story, don’t ask) leaving my job (hasn’t happend yet, but it will be ugly) ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/19 "2004-06-04T02:09:41Z")
[Preacher hat ON] **Incubus** , not wanting to cast a serious pall on what is mostly a humorous thread, but I can’t help it. You sound like a fairly young person, so I’m going to inflict some advice on you. This is life. A lot of good things happen, a lot of bad things happen. Most of them, in either direction, are largely undeserved, and largely unforseeable. The fact is, people don’t have a lot of control over their lives, and we are in general pretty bad at predicting the consequences of our actions. I’m not talking about fate here; I’m a fairly strict determinist. I’m talking about the fact that there are just too many variables in life to be able to control or even prepare for every contingency. But you do have control over one thing - the way you look at the things that happen to you. The bad things you’ve described here are being laughed at by a bunch of jerks because you weren’t wearing the same underwear as they were (how weird is that - who cares?), getting yelled at by a girlfriend’s father and being chased by a dog, and getting a bad taste in your mouth from Turkish Delight. You can either allow this kind of thing to make you afraid of everything, or you can look at it from a detached perspective and say “Yeah, that wasn’t particularly pleasant, but neither was it disastrous.” You have the choice to be happy or not. External events will of course have an impact from time to time, but even their impact is very much determined by your own attitude. Save your anguish for events that truly merit it; very few lives escape without real tragedy at some point. But tragedy is in the eye of the beholder, and if you view every lousy thing that happen to you as a disaster, then that will be your life - an unending series of disasters. Your choice - regardless of what comes to you from the outside. [/Preacher hat OFF] ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459/20 "2004-06-04T03:48:11Z")
Bad experiences, the common denominator. Off the top of my head: Hide and Seek Al Gore Not listening to that “bad feeling” about a kitten That guy a friend liked Box cutter My AmeriCorps\*VISTA Leader and just this weekend…The bathroom scale (did **not** involve weighing) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-bad-experience/248459.md?page=2)