Wow, how’d it go?
The closest I’ve come to a Darwin Award, probably, was along the Zambezi, many years ago. It was night time, and I’d just arrived in Zambia. I was out walking with a friend near the river, when we heard some strange animal noises.
“Hey, do you think that could be hippos? I’ve never seen a hippo.”
“Me neither. Let’s go check it out!”
So we walk down to the river bank.
“Do you see anything?”
“No, man, it’s dark.”
“Hey, wait. Don’t hippos kill more people in Africa each year than any other animal?”
“Oh, right. Good point.”
We slowly and nervously go back in the opposite direction.
We got a look from a safe distance the next morning. Yeah, hippos. Quite a lot of hippos.
I have no idea if we were in any real danger that night, as I don’t know how close we were to them, but I think it’s fair to say that it wasn’t our brightest moment.
(And I don’t know if the tip you hear for getting away from lions and polar bears, that you don’t have to outrun the animal, you just have to outrun your friend, works for hippos, but that wouldn’t have helped me in any case. The friend I was with runs marathons.)
Joining the military. Everything after that is just part of the job.
Seriously though, I was a broadcaster in the Air Force. The first time I spoke into a microphone knowing that seven or eight million people would be listening to me made me go light headed for a few minutes.
I’m a bit surprised no one here thought deciding to have a kid was scary.
I was about 19, I guess, and went for a trail ride on my horse, bareback, no bridle, just a halter and 2 lead ropes. The barn I was boarding at had about 400 acres of wooded trails. I ran into 2 other boarders out riding- fully tacked up- and the 3 of us rode on together for a while.
We came upon a section of trails that had cross country jumps set up, about 1/4 mile or so, jumps between 2-3 feet tall. My horse LOVED to jump, and sins I was bareback, I asked the 2 I was riding with to please walk to the side of the trail, as I did NOT want to have him take off over the jumps. They were slightly ahead of me and I saw them look at each other and laugh, then put their heels to their horses!
My horse was normally a well behaved fellow, but with no bit in his mouth, his love of jumping, and his 2 companions flying over the fences, there was no holding him. He went tearing down the trail, over the jumps. I was TERRIFIED but gave him his head once I saw there was no stopping him. By the time I reached the last jump I had relaxed and was enjoying the ride. Never did anything like that again but looking back, I’m glad I have that memory.
Interesting - Air Force football games?
So you were flying Delta, I take it?
Ha! Nope, morning radio in Seoul and Tokyo. In both paces our primary audience was 40-80 thousand service members and families, with a secondary audience of millions and millions of local nationals.
The most scared I’ve ever been - and I’ve done some really stupid things in my life - was the first night in my new home. Lying in bed realizing that my wife and I had just signed papers commiting to pay this huge amount of money every month, without exception or excuse, for a period of time that extended farther into the future than I had been alive. I knew, based on my experience with car loans, that making monthly payments get old really quick - but had just agreed to make 360 of them! :0
I sometimes read about a certain celebrity who said they used to be a lifeguard or volunteer fireman or whatever, and they add that nobody ever thanked them for saving their life. I wonder if this individual might have presumed a little too much when he thought he needed to commit this act of rescue, and lectured/badgered the rescuee for being so careless and stupid. That might be why they never got thanked.
I’ve done the same climb!
Pretty scary, and once you commit to it,you absolutely may not descend. You have to get to the roof and come down the other side.
I was in Kabul shortly after 9/11, the Taliban had just been kicked out of the city and the Shia were allowed to publicly celebrate Ashura for the first time in years. I went with a translator to a mosque and just kind of hung out while people whipped themselves bloody. Not scary, but really weird.
I got stuck outside of my hotel in Baghdad when the Sadr uprising started and coudn’t get back in the city. I ended up driving to the Turish border and taking a cab to the nearest airport to get back to DC. One night, a mortar hit an ammo dump near my house in Baghdad and stuff exploded all night long.
I was on a plane that was late in LA due to a mid-route emergency landing on the way back to CA from DC. I still had further to go after–to a town called China Lake. Since the LA to China Lake flight would be gone before we landed and the rental car counters closed, I wrote my destination on a piece of paper and while we were hanging around at the emergency air port gate, I walked around with it held up to all the passengers on the plane.
A guy came over and offered me a ride.
I’m not a complete fool. I demanded he show me his ID. It turned out he lived two blocks from me, and had seen me give a presentation at the base, and we were able to cross check mutual acquaintances.
Obviously, I got home safe, and I really wasn’t worried about him. What was terrifying, was that I was civil service and he was a contractor. If I had been caught taking a ride from him I could have been fired for corruption (ah the insanity of the 80’s under Paisley)!
Was 5 when my mother fell asleep while driving us to the Poconos. Woke her up just in time to keep us from flying off of the highway (380?).
I was on a tour bus in Bogotá and the bus driver refused to drive us past the certain Embassies in February of 1980 .
One of them was taken by guerrillas the next day.
I was in a hotel in Philadelphia to see the sights with my parents in 1976 at The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel (I was a young boy). The week after we got back, it was in the news: something about Legionnaires’ disease.
Spent Christmas with police cars circling our block because some domestic anti-tax group had made death threats against my father.
Slipped off of the face of a small cliff while free-hand rock climbing in the rain. (76?-77?) I have a small scar to prove that.
Held off some thieves from stealing furniture off of my next door neighbors front lawn with a wrist rocket (1978?).
Drove a VW bug whose engine burst into flames while I was driving it ('79?)
Repossessed a car from the courtyard of a group of “Project” apartments in '87.
Pretty sure I drove past Ted Kaczynski in North Caldwell one afternoon in the '94.
Drove a car full of scared business people through/past an armed crowd blockading the PATH train access in Jersey City after the Rodney King verdict.
Fell off of a second small cliff, breaking both elbows and right wrist. Drove home afterward (stick-shift).
Caught a partial bounce back off of a beam from part of a round I fired at a badly maintained range, so yes I guess I could say I’ve been “shot”. (picked pieces out of one arm with tweezers for 2 weeks).
Was hiking with a GF through some trails when I heard a rattle snake rattle (Very distinctly) close by. Told her to freeze. She asked why. Told her just freeze She did. We waited 5 minutes and then she asked what that was about.
“Oh, I was just admiring the view”. (no reason to ruin the hike, right?)
Was in Orlando after 9/11 after all of the rental cars were Gone (and all flights canceled)
Was at work when the receptionist opened an envelope of white powder in '02.
Was driving home from work on GSP North at 8pm on October 28th when Sandy hit. I saw transformers exploding in every color of the rainbow (including brown) and had to drive over a tree that had blown across the highway from Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.
Look, I’m sure that there are LOTS of scary things more, but I just can’t remember them all at one sitting. Heh. :o
Got him, didn’t have to shoot him.
When it was all over with and the adrenaline rush wore off, I had to find a bathroom real quick. I could have shit through a screen door and not hit the wire.
The first time was the worst. The other times scared me, but nowhere near as bad.