This is something that’s been on my mind recently, in a reverse sort-of way. When I read the title, I assumed it meant things we skipped out on and now regret we did. I have two, but the one that was on my mind occured almost 3 years ago.
A friend of mine who was something of a handyman and worked from home was working on his house on a ladder. He fell, cracked his skull, and died less than 48 hours later. I had planned on going over to his house that day, and I can’t help but keep thinking how things might’ve been different had I been there. I skipped it just because I didn’t want to make the 30 minute drive.
In 1996, I wanted to go to Paris. I had just graduated from high school, and was working my ass off to save up enough money to pay for the trip. (I was going along with a group of similarly-aged kids through a program which does these kinds of trips.) I made my reservation for TWA flight 800.
At the last minute, my grandma offered to loan me the money so that I could leave two weeks earlier. I changed my flight to TWA flight 801, went, and had a great time.
When I returned, I went back to work at a little convenience store. I was working the morning shift and was opening up the bundle of newspapers when I saw the headlines. TWA flight 800 was the one which exploded over the Atlantic shortly after takeoff.
I’ve actually had a lot of guilt over it, imagining that some other student took my seat on that flight. I cried when I saw footage of one of the kids’ mothers throwing flowers into the sea-- that could have been my mom.
I now have a terrible fear of flying. I’m talking crying-shaking-uncontrollably fear. I’ve only flown overseas once since it happened. I asked my doctor ahead of time for a tranquilizer and fell asleep as soon as I got into my seat, content in the thought that if I was going to die, I’d sleep through it and never know what hit me.
I had been hanging out with a guy in Toronto. We’d been sent to the same temp jobs a few times, so we were casual friends. Well, one Sunday I was with him, and then I went home in the late afternoon. He went home and killed his mother.
The next morning, his picture was on the front of the Star as I walked by a newspaper box. You can imagine the double-take I did! I could have witnessed that if I’d gone home with him! He showed no outward signs of being psychotic. Well, I still have the story cut out of the Star. What kind of a guy offs his mom?
Nothing like not dying, or getting physically hurt, but my best friend at the time showed me an investment which he was looking at. It looked really good, and I had about $20,000 in it, but then things looked fishy, and I pulled out. Shortly after, it all went under and he was bankrupt.
Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that he set me up. We were friends for more than 20 years :eek: but he was under tremendous financial and marital pressures at the time (knew about the later, but not the former) and used our friendship to try to improve his situation, at my expense. I only lost a few hundred dollars in the transaction fees, but lost what I thought was a trusted friend.
Shibboleth, it was the one that crashed near Pittsburgh coming from Chicago. It was in the mid-90s sometime…I remember being in high school. I don’t recall that there were any survivors from it.
Yet another that wasn’t a near death experience…
The afternoon of my wedding was beautiful and sunny, however, by the time we arrived at the restaurant for the reception, it had started pouring. No matter, we were dropped off under an awning.
I stood under that awning at the end with my groom awaiting to be called in and introduced. I realized how silly it was standing in the damp and told my friends that we should all go in and party and forget the formalities. The minute I stepped through the door way, the awning collapsed and what seemed like gallons of water just poured onto the place where I was just standing. Would have been a good story to tell the grand kids but I was still happy I made that suggestion to go in when I did.
No way really of knowing if my life would have ended or not, but…
When I was in my teens, I had a paper route in the early morning. On occassion, my father could be convinced to drive me around, especially on school days, but if he did “I had to run, and try and beat my time”. We had this ongoing competition thing that’s tough to explain, but it was our way of bonding. 
Anyways, on the shorter streets, he’d drop me at one curb, and wait for me at the last delivery house on that street. I’d hit each of the houses at a breakneck run, and try to get back to the car in less time than I had the last time. I don’t recall what happened, but he had said something irritating, and being the teenage girl that I was, I opted to spite him and walk between the last house and the car door. IIRC, I even stuck my tongue out at him as he waved at me to run back.
I got in the car, and we had just started to pull forward, when at the T intersection about 10 feet ahead of us, a car came barrelling across at about 55 mph (in a residential area) throwing sparks from the bottom where the metal was grazing the street, jumped a curb and slammed into the corner of a house. The guy was totally wasted.
My dad and I are not mathematical geniouses, and without knowing how fast I could have run that last house to car, it’s tough to say for certain…but near as we can tell with rough estimates, had we not gotten into our tiff, I would have ended up in my dad’s lap and in pretty bad shape if I’d have made that last run. We’d have been in the intersection, and the drunk would have T-boned us on the passenger side.
Being the joker that my dad is, he did say, “on the other hand, if you would have run faster, we’d have seen it in the rear view instead”. But we never did play the “beat your time” game again.
I had planned to go watch the demolition of the old Canberra Hospital. The group was going to meet at about the spot where the girl ended up being killed. We skipped out and went to the movies instead.
Can I just ask you where your sig comes from?
Oops! That question was for ArrMatey!
In 1985, Hurricane Gloria hit Long Island. That night was also my friends bachelor party. We were out all night of course. In the wee hours we made it back to my friends house. He offered to let me sleep there, but I declined, figuring my folks would prefer me to ride out the storm with them, so I drove home. The huge tree I was parked under fell in the hurricane, so my car was spared an early demolition.
She doesn’t still have the ticket, does she? That’d have to be worth a fortune.
Check out the thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=376644&highlight=clarinet+hippo
:eek: :eek: :eek: OMG. You people have narrowly avoided the most horrifying situations. Anything that I could come up with would be so lame in comparison.
Yeah, well once I almost drove 30 minutes to the DMV for a license renewal, but right before leaving the house I realized, by a cursory glance at the calender, that it was a government holiday (Columbus Day) and thus the DMV was closed. So I saved myself an entire hour of wasted driving (and associated fuel & vehicle costs), during which time I actually ate spaghetti-O’s and played video games.
BEAT THAT SUCKERS.
When I worked at Wal-Mart, I was one of the only smokers on truck crew. So when a new guy showed up who smoked cigarettes, we started hanging out. One thing led to another and we discovered that we each had a prediliction for smoking cigarettes containing a different plant. We made plans to hang out that night, but then I had to call him and cancel because something came up.
A week later I read in the paper that he’d been arrested for killing some guy the night we were supposed to hang out - because the guy supposedly stole his weed. I don’t know if it would have happened if I had been there, or if he would have killed me, or if I would have suddenly become an accessory to a crime, but it did freak me out a lot. I haven’t smoked pot since.
~Tasha
A new winner! 
Several years ago I was in a work car pool with 4 other people. It was a 60 mile drive on interstate highways. I had to drive by myself that day for some reason.
At about the halfway mark traffic slowed to a crawl, with police, ambulance and a fire truck blocking most of the highway. There was a Ford Explorer overturned in the median. I thought to myself, “That looks an awful lot like Car-Pool Carla’s Explorer. Boy, that looks an awful lot like Car-Pool Carla!”
The Explorer rolled 3 times. They were all shaken but, miraculously, no one was seriously hurt. (The emergency personnel were surprisingly understanding when I parked my car on the shoulder and ran to the accident.) I gotta tell you, I was pretty pumped to have missed the accident.
I can’t beat dodging the DMV, though, Rigamarole.
Hm, you know, getting killed in 9/11 does suck but christ, saving all that time from the dmv is pretty much equal. The spaghettio’s really kicks it over. Gj!
Just happened last week.
Car is pissing antifreeze all week. Kept filling 'er up, finally went to replace hose, grunt, eyeball, grunt, grunt, get $180 hose disconnected on both ends, can’t get it out (hose is mostly metal, won’t bend). Curse, curse, grunt, grunt…and give up. Reconnect hose, blah, blah, blah. Filled 'er up with antifreeze, drove to garage, leaking all the way. Halfway there I decide to bail: got AAA, towing is free. Pull over, call. Tow truck comes, blah, blah, blah.
In driving the car off of the flatbed, the rusting metal brake line for the rear brakes bursts. The brake pedal sinks to the floor
Ho. Lee. Fuck. I could’ve been killed if I hadn’t bailed out halfway through. BTW, don’t think I got shafted by the garage: I personally saw the rusted out brake line. After replacing the brake line, pressure testing the brakes caused another section of the brake line to break. Double Holy Fuck. Speaking of fuck: Fuck you, Ford.