# Tell us about something you've done once - and only once - and will never do again. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 3, 2018, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207 "2018-07-03T01:46:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/121 "2018-07-05T23:29:18Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > Deep sea fishing for halibut on a hazardous craft day. > > No, I did not get seasick. But reeling up a manhole cover from 800 feet… That’s a pretty accurate description of fishing for deep-dwelling fish with weighted lures. A giant pain in the ass. Great exercise though. ---
**Author:** ![Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uosdwis_R.Dewoh)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/122 "2018-07-05T23:39:05Z")
Go to a strip club. Went once during a friend’s bachelor party. One of the most unerotic and depressing experiences I’ve ever had. Can’t imagine how much more terrible it would have been if I were sober at the time. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/123 "2018-07-05T23:48:31Z")
> [@MindsEye\_Watering](#): > > Durian. > > One taste was enough for me. Jesus, somebody had one of those in our hotel and I thought someone had discovered a well-aged corpse. Can’t imagine getting close enough to actually eat one. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/124 "2018-07-05T23:51:13Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > Similar to Times Square New Year’s Eve - Camp out on the sidewalk in Pasadena to watch the Rose Parade. It’s cold, noisy, lots of drunks, you don’t get any rest so you’re bleary-eyed and out of it by the time the parade actually starts. And it’s not really that impressive in person. I had enough of parades in high school marching band - I don’t have any desire to watch them. > > Join the Mile High Club. Well, obviously I can’t join more than once, but I’m not gonna renew my membership. One of those things you do so you can say you did it, but not really worth doing at all. Airplane bathrooms are too small for their intended purposes, and definitely way too cramped for any other sort of activity. I have to agree with you on both of these. On the second one, I was in a small private plane so there was enough room, but my partner was the pilot so I was pretty nervous. I’m sure autopilot out over the ocean is perfectly safe, but… ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/125 "2018-07-06T05:47:11Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Jesus, somebody had one of those in our hotel and I thought someone had discovered a well-aged corpse. > > Can’t imagine getting close enough to actually eat one. My niece is in Indonesia right now (long story) and durian is one of the things (I hesitate to call it food, based on what I’ve heard about it) she wants to try while she’s there. I have a feeling that it’s going to be something she too will only do once. :o They do sell them here, but they are in the deep freeze, and STILL smell like dirty sweat socks. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/126 "2018-07-06T06:11:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > For me, I will never again do [The Death Ride.](https://deathride.com) Not that I didn’t have a lot of fun doing it, and I was lucky in that the year I did it the weather was as perfect as it could possibly be. But it was brutal, and I made a promise to myself while climbing the 4th pass that I would never, ever, ever, EVER do it again. 🙂 I’ve been back a few times to do 3 of the passes, or an abridged ride, but I’ll not do the whole thing again. I still love to ride, but I’m not in good enough shape anymore for that kind of stuff. A little bit of training and I think I could do one pass, maybe two (on a good day). And I’d need a pretty full day to do it. All five looks nasty. But even if you can’t do it again, you already done it. Congrats. Have you considered [RAMROD](http://www.redmondcyclingclub.org/RAMROD/RAMROD_course_information.html)? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/127 "2018-07-06T07:08:24Z")
> [@pohjonen](#): > > Sky diving. I did it once on my 30th birthday, and that sufficed. (I fainted when I melted and slid out the door of the plane and didn’t wake up until the parachute opened. I got a poor grade for failing to make an AGGRESSIVE EXIT.) Had there been any problems, I would no longer be alive to make this post. Then I landed flat on my back (they told us not to look at the ground but at the horizon so we wouldn’t lock our knees) and got drug for several hundred feet through the desert brush. It took awhile for me to remember what to do if that happened. I had another jump coming for the fees I paid, but I declined. > [@pohjonen](#): > > I’ll never forget sitting at the doorway of the plane and looking down at the little postage stamp appearing fields and the instructor putting his hand on my back and saying “GO!” My conscious probably decided, “I can’t believe you’re really gonna do that. I’m outta here!” and “I” fainted. The instructors had said that 9 out of 10 women and 7 out of 10 men faint the first time. Thank goodness for the static line attached to the plane, because I wasn’t awake to pull the cord myself. I wasn’t that scared in advance, until they told us all of things that could go wrong. I remember all the joking ceased and everyone got really quiet in the plane. I don’t think “fainting” is an accurate description. What commonly happens to novice jumpers – and I experienced this myself in the handful of jumps that I did – is just that a powerful mental block kicks in where, after the fact, you simply do not recall the free-fall portion of the jump. If you had really fainted you wouldn’t magically wake up just as the chute opens, yet everyone remembers their early jumps just fine from the point where they’re descending under an open chute. It’s a fascinating phenomenon. It’s your brain basically going “I can’t deal with the recollection that I was plummeting to the ground from a height of 3000 feet. This did NOT happen.” But it doesn’t really say very much about what you could or could not have managed to do during a free-fall emergency. When I jumped, the protocol was that newbies were absolutely not trusted to open their own main, so we were attached to static lines. But we were taught and expected to pull the reserve if the main chute malfunctioned, which is not really all that uncommon an occurrence. I strongly suspect that most of us would, in fact, quickly realize that something was wrong and pull the reserve ripcord, even though afterwards we might not remember a damn thing. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/128 "2018-07-06T07:46:04Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I totally forgot the first time I posted to add **go to the Indy 500**. So freaking b-o-o-o-ring. Never been to the Indy 500, but a business associate once gifted me a ticket to the annual Indy car race in Toronto. Boring doesn’t begin to describe it. Toronto’s race is run on streets in and around the Exhibition grounds, and our seats were near an S-curve. Sounds great, but you’d get “vroom-vroo-vroom–vroo-vroom” as the cars went by. Then nothing for five minutes. Then “vroom-vroo-vroom–vroo-vroom” all over again, followed by yet another five minutes of nothing. Lather, rinse, and repeat, for three hours. I found myself wishing I had brought something–a newspaper, a crossword puzzle, a book–to occupy my time between “vrooms” that we could see. So, I’ve been to one car race. I don’t need to see another. ---
**Author:** ![sps49sd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@sps49sd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sps49sd)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/129 "2018-07-06T14:15:56Z")
Joined the military. ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/130 "2018-07-06T20:31:26Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I don’t think “fainting” is an accurate description. What commonly happens to novice jumpers – and I experienced this myself in the handful of jumps that I did – is just that a powerful mental block kicks in where, after the fact, you simply do not recall the free-fall portion of the jump. Interesting. I’ve never skydived, but I have “blacked out” twice when unexpectedly falling from a minor height. I remember grappling with a fellow day camp counselor on a bridge that was about 6 feet above a stream. I remember the wrestling and getting close to the edge, and I remember being in the water. I have absolutely no recollection of the actual drop. Similarly, on another camping trip, I slipped and slid down a steep slope that ended in a cliff about 10 feet above a soft muddy stream bank. I remember sliding uncontrollably to the lip, and I remember bouncing off the mud and telling every one “I’m OK I’m OK”. Do not remember falling at all. However, I’ve gone cliff diving in Hawaii, jumping about 15-20 feet into the ocean, and remember that fine. Probably because I made a conscious decision to jump. More things I’ll never do again… See The Clash or The Ramones in concert. Not my choice or desire, but neither is ever happening a second time. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/131 "2018-07-06T20:54:37Z")
If he were still around, I know how David Foster Wallace would answer the question 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/132 "2018-07-06T21:49:09Z")
The Tower of Terror at Disney World. I don’t do well at falling type rides, but got talked into it by my (grown) kids. One, at least, won’t be urging me to try again. I was nervous enough during loading that I missed where the handholds were. My youngest son was sitting next to me. When the first drop started I reflexively grabbed for his leg. He was wearing shorts. I got a handful of leg hair and the hem of his shorts in a death grip that lasted the whole ride. I’m never going to do it again and he’s never going to try to talk me into doing it again. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/133 "2018-07-06T23:28:22Z")
> [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](#): > > Go to a strip club. Went once during a friend’s bachelor party. One of the most unerotic and depressing experiences I’ve ever had. Can’t imagine how much more terrible it would have been if I were sober at the time. Ah, yes. I’ve been to one strip club in my life, and that was enough. It’s interesting and arousing for maybe the first two minutes, and after that it’s awkward and boring. At least I found it so. > [@kayT](#): > > I have to agree with you on both of these. On the second one, I was in a small private plane so there was enough room, but my partner was the pilot so I was pretty nervous… “Yes, hello, this is your Captain speaking. I hope you enjoyed your flight!” ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/134 "2018-07-06T23:33:50Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > “Yes, hello, this is your Captain speaking. I hope you enjoyed your flight!” “I thought he was offering PEANUTS…” ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/135 "2018-07-06T23:40:01Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Ah, yes. I’ve been to one strip club in my life, and that was enough. It’s interesting and arousing for maybe the first two minutes, and after that it’s awkward and boring. At least I found it so. I felt that way about a Chippendales show. And it went on for THREE HOURS! It was kind of funny to see all the elderly women in attendance, and their husbands out in the hall, waiting for the show to be over. 😕 Another thing I will (probably) never do again: take a statistics class. (vomit smiley) I considered getting a MPH (master’s of public health) degree, until I found out that it’s basically a health statistics degree. I have a friend whose degree is in social work, and she referred to it as “sadistics”. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/136 "2018-07-07T02:14:55Z")
Visited Moldova. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/137 "2018-07-07T03:29:23Z")
I’m sure I’ve got plenty, but I’ll add another movie. I’ll never watch _Grave of the Fireflies_ again, and I own the thing on DVD. When I saw the schedule for this year’s Ghiblifest, I looked and said “There’s 8 bucks I’m saving myself that month.” ---
**Author:** ![Moris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moris/32/2846_2.png) [@Moris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moris)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/138 "2018-07-07T06:07:38Z")
Watched Tarkovsky’s Solaris. Excellent movie, but once was enough. I’ll never try Marmite again. I actually like the taste but it’s so salty I could hear my kidneys scream. I’ve seen Morrisey live in concert. Biggest dissappointment in rock history. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/139 "2018-07-07T07:16:39Z")
OD on caffeine. One summer when I was a paperboy, my weekday deliveries were in the evening and the weekend ones were in the morning. The weekend papers were dropped off at 2 AM, so many times I would get up and deliver at that time. To help me do this, I would take No-Doz tablets, which are 100 mg of caffeine, about the same as a cup of coffee. So one day, having friends in my bedroom, one of them noticed my box of No-Doz. He asked what they were for, and I told him. He was excited, and wanted to try one. I said go ahead, they’re relatively harmless. He turned it around and dared me to take the last 3 that were in the box. “No big deal,” I thought, and took them. Then he notice that I had another _unopened box_, which had 15 pills. So, another stupid dare, and I downed that entire box. 1800 mg of caffeine as basically a single dose. I didn’t notice any real ill effects for the rest of the evening. I hung out with my friends the rest of the evening, then went home. That’s when the troubles started. Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep that night. My mind was racing, my pulse too. I had to pee quite a bit, and I ended up being dehydrated by morning. What time I did spend on my bed, I sweated up a storm, with restless twitching. I was also extremely nauseated, and had dry heaves. In the morning, my dad “woke” me up (having not actually slept that night), and directed me to mow the lawn before it got too hot. So I did, with the mower’s sound compounding what could best be typified as a hangover. After doing my chores, I was still alert, but tired as all else. I couldn’t even take a nap. That afternoon, I delivered my papers, and was _just_ starting to feel like I might be able to sleep, when my mom reminded me that it was my sister’s birthday, and we were going to her favorite Italian restaurant for dinner. I had no appetite, but I managed to eat a little spaghetti for appearances. Upon getting home, I went and threw up. I did get to sleep that second night. But it was a Friday, so I needed to get up early (not 2 AM, though) and deliver newspapers. The stimulation is not like a cocaine high (so I’m told), so it wasn’t a euphoric experience. Later, I learned that every drug has an LD50, even OTC ones like caffeine. For my weight at the time, that was 7500-10,000 mg. I was below that, but at around 20-25% the lower end of that range, I sure was risking some serious health problems. I guess being in my prime probably helped me through it all. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207/140 "2018-07-07T07:49:54Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > you’d get “vroom-vroo-vroom–vroo-vroom” as the cars went by. Then nothing for five minutes. Then “vroom-vroo-vroom–vroo-vroom” all over again, followed by yet another five minutes of nothing. Lather, rinse, and repeat, for three hours. I found myself wishing I had brought something–a newspaper, a crossword puzzle, a book–to occupy my time between “vrooms” that we could see. > > So, I’ve been to one car race. I don’t need to see another. Yep. That’s a car race. The people I went with were aficionados, who insisted on going to watch the race AGAIN, on TV after we saw the vroom-vroom-vroom version, so they could see the bird’s eye view. Apparently they did this every year. I was trying so hard to be polite, because this was by best friend’s family, and they had given me a ticket in a really expensive section, but my brain was getting mushier by the minute. > [@sps49sd](#): > > Joined the military. I have no regrets about having been in the military, and I’m proud that I completed Basic with high standards, and have an honorable discharge, but I would never want to go through it a second time either. > [@Moris](#): > > Watched Tarkovsky’s Solaris. Excellent movie, but once was enough. I’ll second this too. I was the projectionist for a run of _Solaris_. Watched it once. Read a book the rest of the time. Except when my friends stopped by and we chatted in the hall. When I was a projectionist, there were plenty of movies I watched only once, but not that many I vowed never to watch again, and then, usually the “Never again” ones were movies I hated (like\* The English Patient\*). But there were a few like \*Solaris \*that I loved, and yet said “Never again.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-something-youve-done-once-and-only-once-and-will-never-do-again/817207.md?page=8)