Not the smartest thing I did, but I succeeded. Kids, don’t try this at home

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just used these words on an FB post to describe something I did in my 20s. I’m 61 now. And yet here on the dope I used similar words to describe something else I did just last week, when I decided to drive myself to the emergency room with an aortic dissection, here:

So I just had to shake my head. We’ve all done stupid stuff, right? And we got away with it, right? The stunt we tried, well, we succeeded right? How many stupid stunts have I done that falls in this category? At least two, and I’m pretty sure there are more.

So what was yours? What did you do then, where now you can say to yourself, man, that was not the smartest thing I did, but I succeeded. Kids, don’t try this at home. ???

I’m sure we’ve done this kind of thing before but, what the hell, let’s do it again! It’s time for another thread on this.

2

OK I’ll go. What I was just relaying on FB was when I was in my 20s. Young and broke, and full of energy and strength and not necessarily wisdom. My wife’s best friend Sue was moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco. She’d packed all her belongings into her Subaru Justy and was driving north to live near us. She, too, was young and broke.

Heading north out of San Luis Obispo on US-101 there is a long, steep grade to climb called Cuesta Grade. Turns out that when Sue was climbing the grade she also fried her clutch. She was stuck and she was broke. She couldn’t afford to have the repair done and also a night or two at a hotel while parts were being located. So she calls her best friend. My wife.

And so Bullitt, in his infinite wisdom, says, Hey I can solve this problem! And cheaply too!

My plan was to tow her car up to San Francisco where Sue could find a mechanic to do the job while she also stayed with us. I had mountain climbing rope and carabiners to pull Sue’s Justy with. I just needed a skilled driver to sit in the Justy and steer it, and to also apply brakes as needed, for the 250 miles back to San Francisco. Enter my brother, the perfect man for the job.

I borrowed my father in law’s quarter ton pickup truck (mother in law happened to be in San Francisco for the weekend, with the truck; she’s from Bishop CA) — because I certainly did not drive any vehicle strong enough for this job. My brother’s girlfriend wanted to come along, to ride with him in the towed Justy.

I explained my brilliant plan to all — to my mother in law, to my brother, to Sue, and to my wife. All were on board with it. For whatever reason, they trusted me. My wife and mother in law would stay home with our 3 kids while daddy went off and did stupid shit.

It was 5pm when we left San Francisco. Perfect timing to get to SLO and then tow the Justy back in the dark of night, so that hopefully the CHP would not spot us. Because if they did, I’m sure I’d be totally eff’d.

And so we did it. We arrived to San Francisco just as Dawn was breaking. I’ll save you the intricacies of what my brother had to do back there while being towed, but he is skillful and he did a masterful job. Me too, driving the towing truck, had to drive very carefully. Had to brake carefully.

It was not the smartest thing I did, but I succeeded. Kids, don’t try this at home.

3

I did this when I was about 17. I am in my 60s now. I still think about it from time to time:

My car needed a new starter. I figured I would do it myself. So I jacked up the vehicle with an old-school bumper jack and slid under it to replace the starter.

That’s right, no jackstand, no other support. Just a bumper jack.

I remember when I was under there, the bolts were stubborn. The car swayed a bit with each tug of my wrench as I tried to loosen them.

An old neighbor happened to walk by and asked my what the hell I thought I was doing and I’d better get my ass out from under that car.

He may have literally saved my life.

Man, what a dumbass I was.

mmm

4

I’m not quite sure if this fits, because the main thing I succeeded at was not getting killed, but it was definitely not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

To elucidate, a couple of years ago I was heading out for a long drive with a group of folks to go on a canoeing trip. I was driving to my friend’s house around 5:15 a.m. that July morning to pick him up. In my defense, I was not yet fully awake. It was just getting light enough to see in the predawn light. On the way, driving around 45 mph I spotted something in the road right before I hit it with a glancing blow. I pulled over in a safe spot to see if there was any damage to my car, and then stupidly decided to go see what it was that I hit. There was no traffic whatsoever so it seemed safe. Even more stupid was that I didn’t grab a flashlight or reflective vest or anything.

It turned out to be a 5-gallon bucket of spilled brake fluid in the center of the road that must have fallen off a truck. It looked like it had been hit several times. Weird, I thought. But then right as started to head back to my car I heard a vehicle rapidly approaching from behind me. I jumped away from it (fortunately in the right direction!), and the driver swerved to miss me (screeching his tires in the process), but it passed within a foot of me going very fast (undoubtedly speeding). I instantly realized what a precarious situation I had placed myself in (as I’m sure I was all but invisible to the driver) and that I had very nearly been struck and killed.

I have no excuse for my stupidity. As an engineer and construction manager, I know work-zone traffic safety. I have no idea what I was thinking. But I sure as hell will be more cognizant of this in the future. Thank God I got a chance to learn from my mistake.

5

My car was out of gas, so I filled a gas can and brought it back…on my motorcycle. I had to raise a knee every so often to keep the can from sliding off the motorcycle’s gas tank, and meanwhile the gas inside it was sloshing around and sometimes splashing out because the can didn’t have a cap, and all of this was happening directly over a running motor. I was damn lucky not to have gone up like a fireball.

6

New year’s eve 1989, I was in Rockwall, TX tripping my ass off at a friend’s party. Shortly after midnight, I get a call from my girlfriend in Denton. She’s drunk, not having a good time, and wants me to stop what I’m doing and come comfort her. I’m young-ish and stupid, so this seems like a good idea, even though my friends tell me not to go.

So, with a head full of acid, I get in my car and head to the 60 miles to Denton. Nothing too dramatic happens, the dumbest thing I did besides getting in the car at all was stopping at a Chevron to pee, looking at the bright ass store with all the people in it, and deciding to piss on their firewood pile and head on. However, at one point I’m heading up I-35 with a cop going the same speed as I am in the next lane over. We do this for a couple of miles while I progressively get more and more paranoid that they’ve somehow figured out I’m tripping.

Then he hits the lights and siren, and I silently freak right the fuck out.

A few seconds later, he then pulls over an El Camino doing 20 MPH below the speed limit in the middle lane.

I get to Denton, she’s nearly passing out, so I lay next to her in the dark for a few hours until the acid wears off and I can get to sleep.

Yeah, I don’t recommend it. Feet are the only method of transport I use when tripping now.

7

I once carried a loaded burrito in a flimsy clamshell container home on a motorcycle. I lost the burrito somewhere on the Blue Star highway near Saugatuck but hung onto the container all the way home to Kalamazoo.

8

When I was 19, I went rock climbing in Mexico.

Not with a guide or any other sort of organization. Just by myself. I saw a formation I thought I could get to with a short walk, maybe half an hour from the hotel, so off I went one morning. Was closer to an hour, but fine. No gear, no water, just wanted to get out in the sun and achieve some altitude.

After a couple hours of working my way up, alternating between climbing and walking on a steep slope, I found a cool crevice, a yard or so across, with the top maybe thirty feet above. So I set about chimneying my way upward.

When I reached the top edge, I gripped it with my fingers and hoisted myself up to see where I was.

On the other side was a sheer drop, heart-stoppingly high.

And then I felt something shift, and I realized that what I was hanging onto, what I had my whole body weight on, was a big teardrop shaped rock wedged into the top of the crevice. If it came loose, I’d be riding it down the cliff to my death.

I retreated very quickly, descending the formation and walking back to the hotel. I got there in midafternoon and spent the couple hours before dinner sitting on the couch trying not to get the shakes.

Very, very stupid.

9

Oh man, so many things. Looking back, it’s amazing that I’m not only alive, but still have both eyes and 10 fingers.

When I was 14 or 15, I made bombs for fun. I made gunpowder from scratch. I got empty CO2 cartridges from a friend who had a BB gun powered by them like these and filled the cartridges with gunpowder, I would insert modified rocket launcher igniters in the cartridge.

Here’s where it gets really dicey. I only had 3 or 4 feet of wire to attach to the igniter. How to blow up the bomb without gettting a face full of shrapnel? I decided to go to my old elementary school at the end of our block and put the bomb around the corner of a brick wall (this was the weekend, so no kids around other than me and the couple kids I invited to watch).

So I touch the wires to a battery. For a second nothing, then BA BOOM. Incredibly loud. I saw shockwaves in the air. One of my friends watching from around 20 yards away said he felt shrapnel hitting his jacket.

I made several bombs before deciding that I liked all of my fingers too much to keep pushing my luck.

10

Yes, so many things! This thread could survive for years just on car stories. I probably should have won several Darwin awards, (ok I know, you only get one) glad I made it this far.
Dont drive with your lights off kids!!! Dont climb cliffs (like Cervaise) all by yourself! Use ropes to climb tall trees! Surf in the dark with friends if you can! etc

11

One evening many years ago I was talking to the owner of a local short track. I was talking to him about a way to make a few bucks. I gave him my plan, stack 3 vehicles one on top of each other, drive another car off a ramp, knock the middle car out of the stack and the top car falls on top of the bottom car. He agreed.

On that fateful day, I brought 4 vehicles to the track, a large 60’s Buick station wagon for the base of my stack, a first generation Ford van for the middle and a Chevy Monza for the top. The car I would drive was a 69 Rambler Rebel that had been rear ended. I welded some bars into the Rebel just in case my stunt didn’t work and a car landed on the roof of the car.

With all 3 vehicles stacked the way I wanted them I drove the Rebel out onto the track. But I had an issue, the transmission was slipping real bad. I added a quart of tranny fluid but that didn’t help. The transmission quit working altogether. One of the track’s push truck drivers said he could give me a push to the ramp, I agreed. We started on the back stretch then went around the corner. I was thinking I wasn’t being pushed fast enough but I decided to try my stunt anyway.

As we approached the ramp I noticed a problem. The van was not centered on the Buick and the rear brake drum of the van was hanging over the roof of the Buick. I really didn’t have time to change my mind so I aimed the Rebel for the ramp. I went flying off the ramp and hit the van a bit lower than I wanted. I hit the van and came to an immediate stop. I only had the stock shoulder belt on, this caused the right side of my hit the steering wheel. There was about half a second of silence then the Monza fell and hit the Rebel right in the windshield opening. This caused the Rebel and Monza to slam into the ground. The next thing I remember was laying on the ground and a bunch of people standing around me. A guy pushed his way in and said he was a doctor. He asked me some questions, I apparently answered them the way he wanted. I was given a ride back to the pits and went and sat in my pickup for a bit. While I was doing this the 4 vehicles were removed from the track. I went and looked at them. On the roof of the Rebel just above the steering wheel was a round upward dent. It was made by my helmet when the Monza slammed into the Rebel. Right then I decided no more stunt show acts for me. The track owner came over and gave me a stack of 5 dollar bills, 100 of them. Despite the stunt not working, he said the crowd loved it.

12

There was the time my old Pontiac’s alternator was dead and I hadn’t had opportunity to fetch a used junkyard alt and swap it out (and had no money to pay a mechanic) so relying on battery to fire those spark plugs and of course nothing’s recharging it.

On a winter day with thick snow coming down, going home during rush hour, at the top of the hill the battery went dead and car engine stopped. Windshield wipers stopped. Power steering stopped. Power brakes stopped. Although with a shitload of pushing I could still exert some braking and I could still steer, just awkwardly and slowly.

Oh, here’s the hill, albeit this journey was shot going up instead of going down:

I rode the powerless car all the way down on gravity-power, managing to see the taillights of the cars in front of me through the snow collecting on the windshield well enough to sense where the road was winding, and made all the turns. Coasted to a stop where the road levels out and hitched a ride the rest of the way home.

13

In my early twenties (45 years ago), I was at a party with a bunch of friends, and four or five of us sat around a table doing tequila shots with salt and lime. We had just finished the whole bottle, when one of the young women there, who hadn’t been drinking, said “I have to go home.”

We looked around, and the only people who had cars were the ones who had been doing the shots. There was no Uber or Lyft back then, but in hindsight, calling her a cab would have been the sensible thing to do. But we were young and dumb and drunk. Really drunk.

I decided that none of them was in better shape than me, so I drove her home, probably about 20-30 minute round trip. Miraculously, I managed it without incident. When I got back to the party house, the rest of them had gotten into the vodka, and there was a lot of yelling, and I decided I should go home.

So back in the car for another 20-minute drive. I remember the lines in the road looking like a double exposure. Once again, I got there without hurting or killing myself or anyone else, Og only knows how.

That was the drunkest I’ve ever been in my life, and it was probably the stupidest, and undoubtedly the riskiest, thing I’ve ever done.

14

Hey, my boyfriend (now husband) broke down in that identical place, circa 1979 or so. We were driving from L.A. to San Francisco. We pulled off into a suburban neighborhood and slept in our car, a Volkswagen van. Then Mr. brown called buddies in L.A., and they came to get us. But the driver friend was totally drunk when he arrived, so Mr. brown made him sit in the back seat while we towed the van back to L.A.

The don’t try this at home part? Don’t try climbing Cuesta grade in a beat-up old Volkswagen hippie van, especially if you’re broke, stupid youngsters who can’t afford motels or a tow to a repair shop.

15

Spring break in college, I almost drowned off South Padre Island while swimming and drinking at the same time. My friend challenged me to get to the second sandbar with rough surf. I barely made it and then got caught in a riptide. I was missing from my friends for about an hour, and by the time I dragged myself back to their spot on the beach (the tide had pulled me about a mile down the beach) they were already discussing which one of them would have to tell my parents I had drowned.

16

Hmm, thought of another one. Fuel pump died on my next door neighbor’s Datsun and it coasted to a stop about six blocks from where we lived. He knew how to replace the fuel pump but it would require removing lots of clamps and hoses and wires from the engine block, hence not the kind of thing you really want to do outdoors parked on the margins of suburban main street.

“What if we got a spray bottle and filled it with gasoline?”, I suggested. “We’ll go in the early morning hours when the street is deserted. You’ll have to navigate by sticking your head out the window, cuz the hood will have to be up. I’ll sit up there in your engine compartment and keep spraying gas down the carburetor.”

He agreed it was worth a try. Damned if it didn’t work. So we’re lurching down the street at maybe 5 mph tops, first gear, and I’m squeezing off sprays as fast as I can; I’m perched precariously on top of the engine compartment, with running alternator and air conditioner belts spinning past various limbs, the air cleaner is in the back seat and I’m awkwardly leaning over the carburetor and could slip or fall in any direction if the car came to a sudden stop or lurched in an unexpected direction. Behind me was the cooling fan, of course, busily chopping the air to move it past the radiator. And I’m holding maybe a quart of gasoline in a plastic bottle. Car could backfire at any moment and burp flames back while I’m spraying gas at it, something that was more likely because of the weird spasmodic way the engine was being fed its gasoline. Driver had no view out the windshield, and had to make a right-hand turn with only a view of the street afforded by the driver’s side window.

17

A friend threw me a 30th birthday party. There was lots of champagne. Lots. I remember some sort of game where I had to take 30 sips every time something happened. It’s all sort of a blur. But what I do remember clearly is trying to stay in the middle of those double lines driving home.

Another stupid drunk thing happened in my late 20s after I’d been out drinking with friends. I got home and decided I wasn’t drunk enough and had a few more beers. About 1 a.m. I got the bright idea that I should visit an old boyfriend. I got about a mile or so when I brushed against the curb on a right turn and busted a tire. There were, of course, no cell phones and I was in a shopping area so I just drove home. Fortunately the rim wasn’t damaged and I got a new tire the next day.

It seems, in this thread at least, the most stupid things people do involve cars or drinking or both.

18

My “dumbass things I have done” story follows along the lines of driving yourself to the ER when you’re in no condition to do so, but I managed to do two related stupid things on the same day.

I had been having chest pains for several days, which as everyone knows are one of the classic signs of heart trouble. But somehow that never clicked with me and I just waited for it to pass. One day we had a fairly heavy snowfall, and since this was before I wisely enlisted a plowing service, this led to Incredibly Stupid Thing #1: yes, I went out and shoveled snow, an activity anecdotally associated with even apparently healthy people dropping dead of a heart attack.

Later in the day, with the chest pains neither better nor worse, I decided I should get checked out at the ER. That part was smart, but driving myself was not. I was still convinced it was nothing serious.

When I got to the ER, they immediately took my blood pressure and found that it was through the roof. From that point on this was treated as an actual emergency, because they suspected – and later confirmed – that I was having a heart attack. Not a major one, but definitely requiring intervention. I guess Stupid Thing #3 was waiting nearly four days before going to the hospital.

19

Not sure if this qualifies as doing something dumb knowingly…I wasn’t thinking at all and it was just sheer stupidity. In my early twenties, I lived in a crappy rental duplex that had bad plumbing, and one day the toilet flooded. My bedroom was not next to the bathroom, but it was a small living space, and the water made its way to the closet in the back of my room somehow. In my bare feet, I walked back to my closet and was stepping on the wet carpet in there to investigate the damage…it was too dark in there, so I reached up to turn on the light bulb (hanging chain/string off a bulb in socket), and well, you guessed it…ZAP! I got a nice shock that sent me flying out of the closet to the floor of my bedroom. I felt it through my entire body, but thankfully was unharmed, except for a slightly banged up shoulder from falling.

20

Contrary to popular belief, not all grizzly bears are like Gentle Ben and like to be scritched behind their ears. Learned that little faux pas the hard way. :running_man:…:teddy_bear:

JK

I did, however, want to surprise my family with a barbecue dinner when I was a young, inventive lad. So, I retrieved a pack of hot dogs from the fridge and started a wood and gasoline fire in a big pretzel tin in the basement with which to grill the wieners. Who knew the flames would reach and scorch the basement ceiling?!? :fire:

Dad saved the day (and the house🧯), for which I was grateful, despite not being able to sit for a couple of days afterward.