I posted recently about doing this, barring the shiner part. My post cited the worry that I’d get one and have to say, “I walked into a door”, which seems to be a classic abused wife cover-up statement.
Silentbrad As my son would say: “Noooooooooooo.” KEEP POSTING! I’ve got tears in my eyes from laughing so hard.
Here’s my story.
I live in an old house and everything is a bit off. Doors and windows stick shut or don’t close at all. There’s a particularly bad double-hung window in the kitchen that I only open when I’m sure that summer is really here and I won’t have to struggle to open/close it again for a couple of months. It was late June and the time had come. I was ready for the damned thing. I stood up on the kitchen counter, braced myself, and pulled up on that sucker with all the power of my being. It slid as if on butter and both my thumbs got jammed between the top of the lower sash and the muntin in the middle of the upper sash. Searing pain coursed through my body, but that was nothing compared to the horror of realizing that both of my thumbs were stuck and I couldn’t get them out. I was howling in pain and trying to think clearly enough to figure out how to get myself unstuck. I finally lifted my leg and gave the thing one hell of a kick downwards. I was sure I’d put my foot through the window, but I didn’t care at that point. The window withstood the kick but I lost both thumbnails.
When working with pneumatic stapleguns and other people, one must be very careful. And one generally is. If one is the holding-things-for-someone-else-to-shoot party, one is very careful not to put one’s body parts in the line of fire. If one is the shooting-things-which-other-people-are-holding party, one makes goddamn sure that the other person’s body parts are not in the line of fire. The only thing worse than knowing that you have just punctured someone is being the punctured someone.
But when stapling alone, you can be less careful, right? Because you’re not stupid enough to shoot yourself with a staplegun, right? Right?
When I was an undergrad at Caltech, the amazingly loud fire alarms would go off every day or two for false alarms. As they made it difficult to hear yourself think, it was common practice to wedge a spoon into the nearest alarm, to quiet it down somewhat. Ignoring for the moment the prospect of quietly burning to death in our sleep, this is what I went to do.
So I turned to my desk, grabbed a spoon, and leaped out the door into the hallway.
Well, that was the plan. However, as an undergrad I had chin-length hair. Turning to grab the spoon and back to the door left me with obscured vision, so when I leaped I didn’t notice that the door wasn’t fully open. I jumped into the end of the door, catching it in mid-air. Since I caught it end-on it didn’t swing out of my way, but held firm and stopped me cold at the point of impact – my forehead.
So I crumpled to the ground, dazed, where I lay for several minutes as I tried to discover why I wasn’t able to stand.
From then on, I didn’t startle or move suddenly in reaction to fire alarms.
I’ve done that. Twice. In a row. Once on each thumb.
Yes, I am officially a dumbass.
Thanks, you guys.
I still feel stupid for nailing my foot to a roof, but not as stupid, if you know what I mean.
Golden rule for building a tree house #4732
If using a tree with two trunks and intend to place a large fence post between these two trunks, remember to secure it properly.
It is also not recommended to do this whilst it is windy as the chances of the two trunks moving in opposite directions is fairly high.
It is important to note that if a post that just fits will not fit when said trunks move apart.
It is also important to note that if your friends yell out “Heads” that it best to pick a direction and run as opposed to looking up to see what the commotion is all about.
Although from this an important lesson can be learnt, emergency rooms respond well to a child covered from head to toe in blood.
On another silly episode, much older and stupider (26)
Scooting home on my 12" pneumatic wheeled non-motorised scooter (with normal grip brakes) at about 2:30 in the morning with not much traffic on the road, coming down the main road in sydney, australia (george st). Its rained and the road is slick.
As i am approaching the fastest point on the run i notice the lights ahead have gone red. Now i can see all of the way in one direction and most of the way in the other.
Not seeing anything i decide to shoot through (silly i know) anyway needless to say with about 10 metres to go i see two cars approaching from the right… Slamming on the brakes i locked up the scooter which appeared to fold up and disappear from under me, leaving me sliding towards the intersection on the soles of my shoes (at speed!).
I shot infront of the first car much to the suprise of the driver and behind the second car.
Heart rate = techno track on double speed!
I haven’t injured myself much, almost all of my pain comes from Nature and Derivatives. Most of my mistakes aren’t even that bad, no broken bones or the like. Just burns and slashes and electrocutions which didn’t even phase me, plus I think scars are pretty neat.
I’ve had a glass half-globe light-cover from the ceiling nearly crack my head open (missed by about 2", but it didn’t panic me whatsoever hearing the crash right behind me), a light socket electrocution when I was five and pulling out a plug (didn’t really affect me except maybe my brain), playing with cattle shock wire (it was for fun, it wasn’t very high voltage), falling and biting a decent-sized chunk of my tongue off when very little, nearly stepping barefoot on copperheads and cottonmouths, getting a limb covered in fire ants many times (I’m allergic), getting chased by a swarm of wasps (apparently I’m not allergic but I got stung about 5 times in the same…spot by one angry wasp, eck), getting stung by a bee (allergic), many many many many disease related things (fibromyalgia, anti-nuclear antibodies and a bunch of joint problems and psoriasis), being bitten by a hobo spider on my left breast and a brown recluse on my right many years apart, and touching a soldering iron’s tip on purpose when I was about 7 or 8 to impress the other kids during our soldering class (no, it didn’t hurt, but I have a funny little crater-scar on my finger).
I’ve got terribly quick reflexes for catching falling objects, but apparently I’m a little quicker than most as I will catch the handles of knives and the like instead of the blade ends 
Maybe I just haven’t lived long enough to cause myself irreparable damage.
Oh and so I can be the first, welcome to the SDMB, Drakin!
Two of my greatest…
I used to work in a ma and pop owed restaraunt, mostly burgers and fries, and during the later hours, we got kinda bored. So we demonstrated with the fryers… Throwing all sorts of stuff in them before we changed the oil. Kethup packets, (seeing if they’d explode… which they sadly didnt) popcorn seeds (i think someone actually went to the store and picked some up just so we could watch them pop… and they did) crayons… don’t ask… ANd last but not least, my hand. Yes, my hand. I had the ingenious idea to batter my hand in the same stuff we battered our chicken, and see what would happen. Well it worked. I actually ate the batter off my hand w/o it burning me. And I was quite proud of this, so naturally i showed everyone… Until one night i got side tracked, dipped in in milk, forgot the batter, and burn the crap outta my hand. Needless to say… I did it again after it healed. =) I also rock climb, and In the gym, we had this great idea to climb to the top, free fall, and have our partner stop us about 5 feet off the ground so we could see what it felt like. My turn came, my belayer started talkin to a girl right as I jumped, and I faceplanted into about 8 inches of foam from 40 feet up. After 5 minutes and my breath came back, I came out of it with a broken rib. Not bad.
Once while sitting on a beach I had a 3/4 empty coke can that had gone warm in the sun while I was napping. Rather than get up and toss it out in the trash can about 30 some feet up the beach on the little boardwalk thingy (I’m a lazy bastard), I decided to try my luck. Worst comes to worst, I could just pick up my missed shot and toss it out about half an hour later when I had to get up.
A good chunk of my thumb was torn off. Somehow (I’m a clutz) my thumb had barely hooked on the open part of the can.
It didn’t hurt much at first, I barely noticed it… I thought “damn, that stings.” then went to find the can that had gone off at an odd angle behind the little boardwalk that the trash can was on.
I followed drips of blood in the white sand to find it.
Thankfully didn’t need stitches, bled for maybe half an hour then stopped. Somehow it had barely avoided cutting deep enough or wide enough to need that. I spent a good 6 hours in the ER, though. That really sucked.
And trying to explain the cause of my cut was only embarassing.
I was spinning around on my boss’s office at work late one afternoon (three guesses where this is going) when a friend decided to help me spin faster. I let him, cos’ it seemed like a good idea, then pulled my legs up into a tuck position, trying to induce a nancy kerrigan style increase in speed. That’s when i went off the back, causing my tucked up knees to slam into my face. Much to the delight of all present, I ended up with blood pouring out of a split on the bridge of my now broken nose, and a concussion.
Oh, and once i saw a blimp.
I guess this is as good a place to put this new chapter in my book of adolescent embarrassing moments.
A few hours ago I decided to take a shower, I got undressed and thought to myself… “Hrmm…” Well, I decided to give the ol’ short and curlies a trim before I took the shower. Fairly normal actitivity, nothing spectacular or stupid about that. So, I finish my shower, dry off, and forget about the whole thing. An hour later my mom comes downstairs and says “Why is there hair in the toilet?” Shit, I forgot to flush it after I got out of the shower. I’m a friggin idiot. What followed was one of the most uncomfortable conversations I’ve ever had.
“What hair was it?”
“Guess”
“Why would you do that!?”
“Men are supposed to have hair there! Is something wrong!”
“No, leave me alone”
“I don’t understand! Why would you do that?!”
“Leave me alone”
“Was it bothering you!? If somethings wrong tell me”
“Leave me aloneeeeee”
I then crawled into a hole and died.
At least I can take solace in that I’ve done worse and am still able to look her in the eye.
A few years ago, when I worked at the group home, I was at work. It was a Saturday afternoon, so there wasn’t much to do except make sure the guys who lived there didn’t kill each other.
So we were all watching a championship hockey game. (The Portland Winterhawks vs. Guelph Storm, I think. It was for the Memorial Cup, which is the top prize in Major Junior Hockey. OK, all you Canadians are with me, everybody else just go with me. It rules, and its very hard to get)
Anyway, it’s a really close game. Hawks allow the tying goal late in the third. (A goal Belecki would stop 99 times out of 100 to boot). Finally, face off. Todd Robinson wins, back to Ferrence slap shot, pad save, Bobby Russell on the rebound, spins shoots SCORES! WINTERHAWKS WIN! ABSOLUTE JOY!
For no reason whatsoever… I’m SO EXCITED, I get up and start RUNNING! (Keep in mind I’m staff, but this is my favorite team) I run, screaming in joy into the kitchen, and thus begins my fatal flaw. As I run into the kitchen I leap up and hit my hands against the door frame. Now this is no ordinary door frame. The house is old, and the top of the door frame juts out from the wall a good 3 inches or so in this decorative type frame.
As my body goes into the kitchen, the base of my pinky catches on the corner of the door frame. As momentum carries the rest of me into the kitchen, my hand stays with the frame. I end up almost totally vertical as the skin on my hand finally gives way and I go crashing onto the floor… slide across the kitchen and smack into the dishwasher on the other side of the kitchen at full speed.
I actually knocked myself out for a bit of time there. I came to with the guys looking over me. I get up and sheepishly grin and tell them I’m OK. Thats when I realize, the guys have this look of horror on their face. I look at my hand and see a small waterfall of blood coming from it. “CRAP!” I run into the office and discover that our first aid kit is sorely lacking! UI end up using masking tape and toilet paper until another staff finally shows up and I"m able to go to the hospital for stitches. (The other staff working that afternoon had taken one of the residents out for “1 on1” time.)
End result, stitches in my right hand, a lump on my head and a broken middle finger on my left hand.
Oh, and did I mention that the I never did get over the Hawks winning the Cup all day long despite it. I didn’t even mind anybody laughing at me.
Ever press your feet against the step in front of you while you’re going up an escalator? I thought it would be a neat to feel the power of that step rubbing against my toes as it eased down to be level with the step I was on. I think I actually considered the potential consequences but certainly they design escalators with an appropriate idiot factor, right?
Wrong.
Before I knew it I was in that classic ballerina position, flailing wildly to keep my balance with both shoe tips jammed in the crack between steps as I hurled toward the TEETH at the top of the escalator. The same kind of teeth that had bloodied my fingers when I was a kid trying to pick up pennies that were stopped as the steps went under them and back around. I had plenty of time to consider all of the horrible things that might happen, but not enough to actually get my feet out of my shoes.
I was completely freaking out as I reached the top and Wham! The whole freakin’ elevator stopped cold (thankfully), and I fell forward on my hands, still on tippitoes with tips of my shoes jammed into said teeth. Alarms went of, red lights flashing, and I’m looking at the wide-eyed slack-jawed subway station attendant in his booth.
Did I mention I was in France and spoke very little French? Heh Heh, talk about your stupid young american male. The best part was when people kept climing past me looking at me funny as I’m yanking on my legs trying to get my feet out from my now very tight shoes. Probably looked like an ape in estrus having convulsions.
I finally got my feet out and ripped the shoes out, breaking some escalator teeth in the process. I left red faced without even knowing how to say “Sorry I broke your escalator,” or “I’m from Canada.”
I have a habit of reading shampoo, soap, conditioner etc. labels while I’m in the bathroom. I was in a friend’s bathroom once when I was about 14, reading a bottle of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. I saw that it said “No more tears formula” or something like that, and said loads about how it doesn’t irritate the eyes blah blah blah. I remembered all the old commercials for it that showed kids with soap dripping over their eyes and faces while they smiled and laughed, so I took a big glob of it and stuck it DIRECTLY into my eye.
IT HURT LIKE NAPALM!!! It stung so bad, that I stuck my eye under the cold faucet and ran it for a good 30 seconds. Explaining it to my friend when I emerged with one hideous, swollen, red eye was totally humiliating.
Dumb things done to oneself?
I side-swiped a car and took off its rearview mirror. Why is this dumb, you ask? Well, besides the fact that the car was parked, I was “driving” a 10-speed bike at the time. :smack:
Luckily I didn’t get run over when I fall down into the middle of the street - it was empty at the time.
I had just gotten done at the local fair, I won a ton of stuff, like those cheap glass pictures some stuffed animals and some plastic toys. I was like 11. My bike was broken so I had brought my moms ten speed down there. Well money was out and it was time to go home. I had a lot of stuff to carry, so i managed to get it all in my arms and start to pedal away. I took my hands off the handle bars and started to reposition my new found prizes. I had it all set as long as i could ride the rest of the way home no handed. I was pretty good at this. Then being a womans ten speed the seat felt awkward on my behind and just a bit annoying. Instinctively I stood up (no handed) while peddling. Oops. Instantly the wheel swung to make a 90 degree angle with the bike. I must have flown a good 7-10 feet over the handle bars. The glass pictures cut my hand and shattered, the plastic toys crushed and broke, and the stuff animals had impacted to the fall and torn apart. All in all i was ok, but the 40$ i had spent was a waste. That is the stupidest thing i’ve ever done.
Nice non-sequitur. I give it a 9.
I also thought you were going to say you picked your feet up to spin faster and accidentally kicked/kneed your co-worker in the groin. 
My big brother got a new 10 speed bike that I coveted. When he (finally!) got off, I snuck and got on it and pedaled like a mad woman away from him. He ran after me, screaming at me, but I pedaled to the top of the big hill and hahaha I knew he would NEVER catch me now. SO LONG, SUCKAH!
Part way down the hill and approaching the speed of light, I decided I should slow down a bit. So I reversed direction on the pedals, as is standard operating procedure for braking on a single-speed bike.
Nothing happened. Huh?
I continue down the hill at full speed, desperate to find the braking device, to no avail. (Note for engineers: Placing the brakes on the handle bars isn’t user friendly. Would you ever think to brake a car with your steering wheel?)
At the bottom of the hill there was a curb and a driveway. I hung on for dear life and somehow made it past the hump of the curb up onto the driveway and, since braking wasn’t an option, I (reluctantly) relied on the brick wall method of stopping. It was quite effective.
Ended up with a broken nose and my face resembled one of the monkeys from the Wizard of Oz (my cousin informed me of this). And I think I broke my brother’s bike but no one yelled at me, not even my brother.