While on a ski trip, we left a keg party to go to the mountain (Sunday River). It was about midnight, and there was a lift running, so we hopped on. After 10 minutes or so, I realized “Holy shit! What the hell are we doing?!? Nobody knows we’re up here, and someone could come along and shut down the lift at any moment, and we’d be stuck here, on the chair, in the cold, all night.” Looking back, I guess six hours in the freezing cold wouldn’t mean certain death, but at the time I was scared shitless, and made a convincing enough case that to my pals (one on the chair with me, and two guys a couple chairs back) agreed that if we actually made it to the top we should get the hell off and walk down. Which we did.
So there we were, in middle of the night, drunk, walking down a friggin’ mountain. Heh. The lift was still running an hour later when we got to the bottom.
May I relate an instance by my teenage daughter while I was present?
She’s at the wheel of the family car, having just received her license. I had the audacity to correct her on one of the finer points of driving. With a roll of her eyes she responds, “Sheesh! Driving is easy! It’s all common sense!”
She then proceeds to pull out into oncoming traffic.
Multi-vehicle accident shuts down the road.
Totals the car.
Airbags HURT, dammit!
Cuts, bumps, and bruises all around, but no one seriously injured… thankfully.
Breaking into a car with a loaded rifle, setting up said rifle, and waiting for a man to walk through a door with the intention of shooting him. I left before he came through the door. Lucky for him, and lucky for me in retrospect.
Three days of canoeing from the nearest anything, I was frying fish (fresh northern pike) in a folding camp fry pan. Tried to flip the fish like I flip pancakes at home.
The pan folded, sending the fish and searing oil into my face.
Blind in both eyes for two days, unable to paddle out, horrible, horrible pain, no possible way to keep the wounds clean.
(not the stupidest I’ve ever done perhaps, but the one with perhaps the worst potential consequences, and damn, I should have known better.)
I went to my first reptile show about a year ago in Indy.
While there, I saw a BEAUTIFUL Ball Python, labelled as “Pinstripe.” It was $90, so I decided that it’d be a bad idea to buy something that expensive without telling The Cody, plus my dad had said No More Snakes while I lived with him (which was a temporary thing).
About a month later, I see a picture of the exact same pattern, only correctly labelled “Spider.” Apparently, the guy selling this little “pinstripe” was an importer who didn’t really understand all the morphs.
I had my first driving lesson at the age of eight. At the top of a hill. In the passenger’s seat. By wondering “Hmm…does the car still move if I put it in drive without a key?”
I was working two jobs; one was my current full-time one and the other was theoretically at the low end of part time but in reality was almost full time. I was getting very little sleep most days and none at all on many days. I drove the ten miles into town on winding two-lane roads, and then drove through downtown, during morning rush hour, after I had gone without sleep for 30+ hours. My body was driving correctly but my brain kept going to sleep. I would just sort of zone out, then come to and marvel that I had gone half a mile with no memory of doing so. I was extremely lucky I didn’t kill myself or anybody else. This memory is one of the reasons I’m hesitating to pick up a second job, even though I need the money very badly right now.
I don’t either of us should write these down on Graduate School Applications. The trampoline did at least slow me down (otherwise bones would be broken) plus it was spring time so the ground was very very soft. I can’t see a hammock doing much of anything at all to slow you down. Plus, upon closer inspection, the tower was closer to 35 feet (50 was a WAG, it’s been a while).
Gee, there have almost been too many to contemplate and probably many much worse than the one that stands out in my mind but here it is anyway.
I am actively involved in the revitalization of the old downtown in the city we live in. I send out a newsy, e-mail update weekly promoting events, businesses etc. in this area…the darn thing goes out to about a thousand people. I was talking about an event that was coming up that I was emceeing and I mentioned that they should come, even if only to point and laugh at my lack of public speaking ability. However, it went out as “pubic speaking”. I was told by friends that work for the City that they had all done that but doubt that they got the response that I did. I got emails back from over twenty people, including the District Attorney, a well known local minister, my adult daughter all telling me how sad they would be to have to miss my “pubic speaking event” !
When my baby had his eyes checked, the Opthamologist said they see kids ALL THE TIME who have done this. Not a big deal, he said; it will eventually wash away, and it doesn’t damage the eye. Actually they use a form of it for surgery.
Burned my penis while ironing naked. Yes that’s right. I am tall, the ironing board is low. The mid section of my wanker is just even with the ironing surface. Out of the shower, start to get ready for work, Honeyyyy, have you seen my blouse? Yeah, it’s over th… KSSSssssssss!
all telling me how sad they would be to have to miss my “pubic speaking event” !