The Galactic Misadventures of Capatin Jester and the Stationary Garage Door.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Oh, c’mon, Mermaid, you’re not gonna corrupt me any further than you already have. :wink: I’d like to let my age be as ambiguous as possible, but I just threw it in to add texture to the story.

pwill said:

Honestly, I thought I had hit a garbage can. When I came out to get into the car, one of the cans was in the garage, which was very odd, since they’re usually on our porch. Anyway, after the crunch, I thought “Damn, I hit a can. Why were they in the garage to begin with?” Then I turned around, and my thoughts changed to “Damn, I WISH I had hit a can.”

Oh, yeah, same as above on the age thing. Just try to conveniently forget it.

Homer said:

Lots and lots of sexual favors. See, you THINK that “Captain” is the big rank, but it isn’t ill you sell your body that they spell it the REAL way. :stuck_out_tongue:

22

Jester,

My mom had done this twice!. She now has a little post it note on the steering wheel, put there by my dad, that says “Open Garage Door”. Hell of it is, you can’t buy just the bottom panel to the door-you have to buy a whole new door. Dad’s got 2 almost complete garage doors in the shed… And one time, in this huge old car she used to have, that barely fit in the garage, she ran into the front wall. Bowed out the panneling in the family room, but when she backed up it went back OK. She now has wheel stops correctly positioned so she can’t go too far forward.
As for me…well at the ripe old age of 20 or so, I was looking for something in the attic, and accidentally put my foot through the living room ceiling from above. Was sitting on the porch when mom came home, and greeted her with, “Mom, I broke the house”.

23

Ummm… NO.:mad: Far too embarassing to tell here. Perhaps in another thread if the topic comes up (which it just might someday).

24

I’m 22 and still don’t have my license. Probably because driving with my mother in the passenger’s seat was too traumatic an experience. My dad is cool. My mother is positively neurotic.

“You’re doing good, you’re doing good-oh, you’re going off the road-” grabs the steering wheel. I almost had a few accidents while driving with Mother Dear.
Now, dish up the dirt on Spinne, Jester!

:smiley:

25

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Jester *
**
[QUOTE
Oh, c’mon, Mermaid, you’re not gonna corrupt me any further than you already have. :wink: **]

Well if that’s the case, then c’mon over here and give The Mermaid a big 'ol soft, slow, wet, sloppy, sensuous, ass-up-against a Mexican wall … handshake. Yes handshake.

[sub](remember— he’s only 16, he’s only 16, . . . . .he’s only. . . .)[/sub]

26

Well, after reading the OP I was hoping this would be a thread about what happens when you play video games for too long. As such, I’ll give you my completely non-car-related story about the time I played Deus Ex so much that for weeks, every time I saw a grating on a wall, I wondered how many lockpicks it would take to open it, and if I had enough ammo to kill any greasels I might find while crawling around in there.

27

No, no, I know what a Captain is. I’m confused by the term “Capatin” which shows up in the ti… ah hell, screw it. It was a dumb joke anyway.

–Tim

28

You’re not the only one to modify a garage door this way. I got one from the outside with my truck, once. At the ripe old age of… (Ralf counts on his fingers and mumbles… he reaches for his shoelace, then thinks better of it - he’s at work, after all!) At the ripe old age of 35, more or less. And the pisser of it was that we were about to list the house for sale, so I had to fix the thing in a hurry. The realtor came over later that day, and the first thing she said was, “What did you do?!” I didn’t think it was that obvious, but…

I’ve done other stoopid things behind the wheel. I hit my first car on the way home from getting my first driver’s license. Doh!!

Another time I just finished patching a hole in the gas tank of my Gremlin. I had the spare tire out to give me more room to work. Backing it off the ramps, I rolled over the spare tire, and put another hold in the gas tank. Doh! Doh!

And I’ve backed into my own car while driving someone else’s car. Doh! Doh! Doh!

29

I’m another one that ran into the garage door from the outside.

I was 16 and wanted to change the oil in my 1970 Pontiac Catalina (now that’s a friggin’ boat), so I set up the ramps about 3 feet from the garage door and drove up 'em. You know how you really have to gas it to drive up those last few inches? I drove right over the ramps and into the door. I haven’t used ramps since, I just don’t trust them.

30

Sorry guys, I’ve got you ALL beat.

At 15, I hit a train.

:slight_smile:

31

My brother did this when he was 14.

It was almost time for us to got B-Ball practice. However with a hoop in our driveway he wanted to start now. Being totally ID driven he told my sister to move her car ("78 Ford Pinto) and she refused. She also refused to give him to keys and let him move it. So he hops in and releases the brake and puts it neutral to let it cost down the driveway. Next to our drive is a lamp post. He didn’t roll out to the street and hit a car. He didn’t roll into the lamp post. No, he left the door open and the door caught the post and ruined the post and the door. My sister didn’t get to kill him as we had to leave for practice less than one minute later. My brother, of course, got away with this with out any real punishment.
Lyllyan
you have some splaining to do…

32

I myself recently learned an important lesson about U-Haul trucks: Make sure you’ve actually put them in park.

I recently moved, and had rented a uhaul. So, I went to fill up the tank before I returned it. As I pulled into the gas station, I realized I didn’t know what side of the cab the tank was on. So I put it in park (or so I thought) and got out to check.

As I stepped around to the passenger side, I realized the truck was backing itself into the very busy street we’d just departed. However, I came up with a brilliant plan!

Summoning all of my speed, dexterity, and skill, I made a mad dash for the (still-open) driver side door. The truck was picking up speed, and I knew I had but one shot at it. Looking not unlike Indiana Jones, I dove for the drivers seat!

However,out of nowhere, I was clobbered in the head with a ton of Uhaul door-frame. I saw stars. The world began to spin. Things were going dark, possibly due to the fact that the sun was setting.

Luckily, with my last burst of strength, I slammed my right foot down on the brake, which had the effect of slamming the door closed onto my left leg.

When I came to, weary and war-torn, I noticed the people looking in my direction, mostly laughing at me. I found a different gas station.

The moral of the story: I realize now why they call it a “parking” brake, as well as an emergency-brake. If you set it when you park, you might avoid such an emergency…

33

To give estimates no how much a new one will cost. The first one gave me a look, said “You the culprit?” and when I responded, told me “You did a helluva job on this one. Impressive.”

I think the ballpark figure for the new door was upwards of $1,600. This does not bode well for the “parents being happy with me” idea. I’m just lucky I live out at school during the week.

Homer, don’t worry, I followed your logic. I never was good at spelling. Of course, I’ve never been good at admitting mistakes again…

Guin, perhaps Spinnie’s mishap will come up at the next PittDope. For the moment, I’d just like to hold it over his head for a nice, long time.

Mermaid, Give it up already. You know you want me.

And Lyllyan, I agree with Zebra. Fess up about the train!

34

Hmm… This reminds me of a story of my own.

I still had my little Cavalier, so I must have been about 18–you know, the age when you’re at the pinnacle of your intelligence. The important thing to note about this car is that it had a bad oxygen sensor, so it idled at way too high a speed.

OK, so I had just finished up doing a brake job on my oh-so-powerful 2.0 liter piece of crap and had hopped in to test it out. This is the first time I did a brake job all by myself; cool huh? Start the car, press the brake pedal. Hmm… that’s odd, it goes down to the floor a lot easier than it used to. Not stopping to wonder why, I put the car in reverse. Those of you who have ever done a brake job know what happens next…

That’s right, there’s no pressure in the brake lines and my car idles at high RPM, so I go shooting in reverse as fast as little tires can carry me. And what do you suppose is sitting about 40 feet directly behind my car in the gravel portion of the driveway? Oh, just my brother’s '55 Chevy. Yep, a pretty much drop-dead gorgeous '55 Chevy. Out of pure instinct, I press harder on the brakes, but of course the pedal’s already to the floor and not doing any good. And as my brother (who was washing his car) screams at me, I have the presence of mind to throw the car into park. But since I’m off the cement and going slightly downhill on gravel, I skid into his car.

There are two reasons I am still alive today.

  1. Heavy steel bumpers made in 1955 fare pretty well when hit by cheap plastic 1984 bumpers.
  2. The bumpers on his car were really the only bad pieces on it and I only left a couple little red spots on it.

Fortunately I now remember to pump the brakes back up after putting my car back together…

The other story that came to mind is when a co-worker was following me somewhere, so I was checking the mirrors pretty much constantly to make sure I wasn’t losing him. As it happened, I was going about 45 mph and looked up to see the previously green light had changed to solid red. And here I am about, oh, 100 feet from the intersection. Brakes locked, tires smoking, I end up stopped in the middle. Well, might as well go right on through at that point. Fortunately it wasn’t a very busy road at that time of day, so all I did was wear my tires a bit. And I gave Nick something to smile about–“Nice stop back there.”

I’m not even going into the time I rode my bike down the ditch…

35

Jester, sometimes you make me sad… This is not one of those times. This is one of those times where I’m content just to laugh at you. (Hey, you do it to me, too, so don’t complain!) I still can’t believe you drove into the garage door. <giggle> Oh and by the way…

<growls>

Ok, think I’m done for now. Gots to head off to get my paper back. <whimper> Ta all!

36

OK, since you asked nicely. And no rude remarks!

My family and I were on the way back from a lovely weekend at my grandparents in South GA. It was late summer, and we
had a fresh crop of peanuts in the back of the station wagon. (This was in 1973, so you can imagine the size of this station wagon.)

I was working on getting my license, and therefore was at the wheel of the family car. What could happen? There were miles of nothing but cotton fields, with the occasional tractor. Our travels took us thru many a small town. Mom was in the front with me, Dad was in the back seat with my little brother, and my little sister was in the very back, with the peanuts.

We approached yet another small town, and there were the RR tracks. The lights were flashing, but cars were heedlessly traveling back and forth across them. I stopped. **“Can you see anything” “No, it looks okay on this side” “go on up a little” ** I must state that there were two tracks, and one train had simply unhitched some cars and left them on the tracks, obscuring my vision. I ease up. I don’t see anything. Mom doesn’t see anything. I ease up some more. By this time I am well past the first set of tracks and heading for the second. I ease up. I look. There, heading straight for my mother is a train. I started moaning, my mother is shouting “GO, GO!” I don’t know whether to go forward or go back! I am paralyzed! All I can see is this fricking train about to come through our car. The train is blowing it’s horn - it’s so damn LOUD! Dad - **“Go across, go across!” ** I floored it, and the train hit the right rear quarter panel of the car and spun us parallel to the tracks. We come to an abrupt stop, Dad jumps out of the car and runs to the back, where my little sister had been. She was still there, and fortunately had no more than a circular shaped cut on her leg. Peanuts were everywhere. Glass was everywhere.

I don’t remember a whole lot after that. I do remember that all the rubberneckers were eating OUR peanuts as they watched. The train eventually came to a stop (it had been going 35mph). The train company accepted full responsiblity, we called my uncle, the car was totalled, I flayed myself daily for the accident, and at 17 had another accident when I tried to get across some empty tracks, but was going too fast and rear ended some lady. I had freaked at the thought of being so close to another train.

And that, gentle readers, is the account of Lyllyan and the train.