It is I, Queen of the Dumb-asses

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I fell through my ceiling.

You may think you’ve done a dumb-ass thing or two in your life and maybe you think you could make a run for the crown, but to you I say NAY! NAY! For I am clearly the reigning dumb-ass of the world. Bow down before me, my dumb-assed people!

I have a leak in my roof that’s producing unsightly water stains on the ceiling in my hallway. The roof guys are supposed to be repairing it, but since it’s a “repair” and not yet a “replace,” they’re working me in, which they haven’t done yet. Yesterday evening after work it was really raining here, so I went up into my attic with a black trash bag, thinking I might just spread the trash bag over the floor and prevent a bit more water damage. Now, I am in fact smart enough to know to only walk on the joists, except that the owner before me laid down some plywood to walk on. So I was walking toward the leaky area and I walked to the end of a piece of plywood.

At this point, was is forcefully brought home to me that the previous owner didn’t nail the plywood down, he just laid it down. The reason I knew this is that as I walked to the far end of the piece of plywood, the other end (the end my weight was no longer on) sprang up into the air, like the unweighted end of a teeter-totter, and the end I was standing on fell away under me, dumping me between two joists. Instinctively – or possibly because I am a complete and total dumb-ass – rather than just fall I put my leg down to catch myself. And fell through my ceiling.

Oh, not completely – I’m not typing this from the hospital. But my left leg to my butt was dangling through the enormous and hideous hole I punched through the ceiling. My assertive dog was beneath me, barking his ass off as follows: Holy shit! What the hell is that??? That’s the ugliest thing that’s EVER burst from the ceiling! Back, back up there, foul demon! My timid dog was under the bed, where she spends the rest of evening.

I took a few minutes to not panic and to consider the safest and least damaging way to extract myself (dangle dangle dangle) and then slooowly crawled back onto the plywood and exited the attic because my work was clearly done. I then took several photos of the hole (which looks pretty spectacular if I do say so myself; I do quality work) before cleaning it up the best I could, showering off the plaster dust and pink insulation fibers, and counting my bruises.

Next on the agenda, in addition to fix the fucking roof! is fix the fucking ceiling! I don’t know how to explain the damage in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a total dumb-ass, so I’m just embracing that: Look what I did! Because I’m a total dumb-ass! I have no idea how much it’s going to cost to fix and I really hadn’t budgeted for such a massive act of idiocy.

:frowning:

2

Hehehehhee.

To console you in your pain may I please say that my future father in law and I once dropped my chimney from the attic through the floor. that was quite a mess that left some gaping holes in the house.

3

May I make a suggestion before the next time you go into your attic and fall through the ceiling?

Get someone to come visit you, so that should you fall all the way through the ceiling, there will be someone available to summon an ambulance, or drive you to the hospital if neccessary.

Just confiscate their camera, first, so that there are no embarassing pictures of you half fallen through your ceiling floating around.

4

And now, in addition, you owe me a new monitor and keyboard for making me spray coffee on this one.

5

Hey, lose a ceiling, gain a great story. You’ll be telling that one for the rest of your life.

My first apartment had a bar separating the living room from the kitchen area. It was basically a low wall with a board affixed on top of it. My roommate and I, being enthused that we could cook up all sorts of yummies, decided to bake some sort of bread concoction. The dough was at the end of the board and I was kneading it like a he-man. At one point I discovered that the board was not affixed to the wall all that well. The salt and pepper shakers at the other end of the board enjoyed some serious catapult action.

6

I must admit, that is an impressive display of dumbassery, but as it was at least partially accidental, I may have to trump you with a story of my own colossal and potentially fatal idiocy, which is mitigated only by youthful exuberance and lack of forethought, but shares a common element.

I was visiting my mother in St. Catharines, ON, where she lived just off of Lake Ontario. Down the road from her apartment a short distance was a beach where in the summer I liked to go and play. In fact, I liked to go there and play in the winter, and this one particular winter, which was somewhere around 1980 or 1981, was a fairly spectacular one in that area.

Looking out from the beach over the lake, I saw that it was well and truly frozen. Well, how often do you get to walk out on a lake? The mere thought of doing something you just can’t ordinarily do was enough to tempt my adventurous but reckless butt out onto the frozen water. In the distance, perhaps two hundred feet or so, was a tantalizing crest that sloped up and out towards the horizon, like a reverse-wave frozen in mid-retreat. It was only three or four feet high, but being young, I liked to climb on things, and being that this was a frozen lake and thus a rare opportunity, I was drawn to it. Thus did I approach and climb the crest, where I looked out and surveyed my vast and featureless plain of ice. It was magnificent.

But being young, I lacked the forethought of consequence once tends to acquire only after one has experienced the full brunt of said consequences. Thus did my young brain think, “I wonder how far out I can go?” It didn’t matter that I was out too far for anyone on the snow-covered beach to hear if I screamed – nor that there was no one on the beach to to hear anyway. These were members of “what if?” scenarios that stood in the way of fun, and thus had no business intruding on my greatest Lewis & Clarke impersonation.

The crest on which I stood terminated in a sheer drop of several feet – no big deal at all; I was taller than that, so the return trip would be no problem. I was certainly dressed warm enough, what with being swaddled in a full snowsuit and mittens. I was absolutely good to go. So down I jumped. Jumping was fun – much better than carefully climbing. Only most of me that stopped moving when I hit the ice below, however. My left leg, apparently on an adventure of its own, plunged through what I now understood was thinning ice. Buried right up to my butt. My right leg was bent in a kneeling stance which would have been just fine if my left had joined it.

I managed to remain surprisingly calm give my age and penchant for overreaction.

“Well,” I thought to myself as my left leg dangled in the freezing waters. “That was unexpected. What now?”

I thought about it for a moment, then decided that the best course of action was simply to try and lift myself up – slowly, carefully. I did so, and managed to succeed without breaking through any more ice. I climbed back over the ridge and went back home, not much older, but alive, and a little wiser.

7

What a dumbass! (and well told.)

My dad did the exact same thing once, but he’s dead now, so you can assume the reign.

8

I demand visual proof of your so-called quality work! :stuck_out_tongue: Please post pics.
[sub]P.S. I’m glad you weren’t seriously hurt.[/sub]

9

I should have learnt how to use the camera…

10

Thanks for the laugh! I am glad you weren’t seriously hurt, but I would advise you to be very careful about washing any area that may have been scraped and come into contact with the fiberglass. Fiberglass sucks to get in the skin and can cause some serious irritation. Since we are in desperate need of a new roof and have had to make do with small patching until we can get it replaced/repaired, I have been extra careful when I go into the attic, as I have no desire to hear my family laughing themselves into a coma seeing me dangling through the ceiling. By the way, tell your dog that I loved his commentary!

11

I’ve been that dumb before, just not that funny.

12

I’m glad you weren’t seriously injured, Jodi, but it does make a great story. Made me giggle so much I had tears. Honest, it was just the fabulous way you wrote it and not the image of a leg and butt dangling from the ceiling.

13

How well you know my family and friends. Had any of them been present, they would have instructed me to hang on! while they fetched all the cameras they could find and took multiple pictures. Only after that would they have come to rescue me.

Thanks for all the comments; you make me feel a bit better. More like this → :dubious: than this → :o :eek:

Mindfield, I’m glad you weren’t hurt falling through the ice – a much more dangerous situation than mine!

Dinsdale, I gratefully accept the mantel from your father. As you can see, I am upholding the ancient tradition of dumb-asssery to the credit of the Order.

Encinitas, I would post the pictures but, Luddite that I am, I don’t know how. They are on my cell phone camera.

Litoris, funny you should mention the fiberglass: For all my bruises and pulled muscles in the, ah, let’s call it the “upper thigh area,” what hurts most is the fiberglass scrape to my right elbow. It stings!

I’m meeting the repair guy tomorrow morning. Anyone have any guesses how much the repair will cost? The repair area is about 3 feet long by 1.5 feet wide. That’s not the hole size, but that’s how much of the plasterboard I broke out or cracked.

14

You’re not alone – my sister managed to put her foot through the ceiling in her old house. In much the same way. Didn’t go through up to her butt, though.

15

It could be worse.

Let me explain. It was the eighties, and I was younger and more clueless than I am now. I lived in a basement apartment in Mississauga with two roommates. It was quite a large and well-appointed basement apartment; it even had three bedrooms.

However, the bathroom was located below the entryway of the house upstairs, and had a very low ceiling. Its door was precisely as high as my head when I wasn’t wearing shoes; upon entering, I would feel the jamb brush my hair. If I put shoes on, I had to duck. (My roommates were both shorter than I, so this wasn’t a problem for them.)

Inside, the ceiling drywall was about five centimetres higher than the door clearance.

One day, I finished a shower and decided to try to jump into my pants. I jumped upwards and felt a strong yet painless pressure on my head and through my spine. My jump was aborted; I dropped my pants, and I landed back on the floor to stand on them.

What had happened? I looked up to see an oval indentation in the ceiling. It was somewhat larger than my outstretched hand.

I had punched a hole in the ceiling. With my head.

It was funny, but on retrospect, I was lucky. The hole was exactly halfway between the ceiling joists. If I had hit one of them, it wouldn’t have given way.

My roommates came home later and I had to explain it to them.

16

Useful recent thread.

17

Oh, I know all about unweighted ends of teeter-totters. I broke my arm doing just that. Crawled right up past the middle to get away from the dog we were pretending was a monster. At least I have the excuse of being a child. Apparently not a very bright child.

Jodi, I’m very glad you weren’t hurt badly. You could have fallen and not been able to get up.

18

I’m going to use that line someday. Somehow.

That’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard :slight_smile:

19

I knew where this was going when you said walking on boards. They happen to end almost to a joist and then the back flies up and whacks you on the ass. Having to go in the attic for storage as a kid I nailed down the boards before someone went through. You’d eventually have to have an accident one of those trips up there.

20

No, I just know my family and friends.

This past summer, I participated in a Kayak “race”. Very informal, lots of fun.

At the end of the race, we went back to the dock, and somehow I managed to tip my kayak over, ending up in the water. Not a big deal-- I was wearing a life preserver–but now I was soaking wet. And they wouldn’t let me out of the water until after they took a picture of me. Very annoying. The picture is not exactly flattering–although not too embarassing either.