Hey, airbeck – is it as cold in Chicago today as it is here in Eagle Grove? Maybe the guy’s coming home from the hospital and he’s covered head to toe just to keep warm. Breathing cold air might not be good for him. ??
I guess something that made my jaw drop was seeing a local at the ski mountain break his leg.
He and bunch of guys had constructed a jump at the top of a steep hill. The jump gave a lot distance, and the hill gave a fair bit of height to the jump. However, there was about five or six inches of powder that day, so it was pretty safe. Anyways, I had just gone off the jump, and viewing others from the bottom when Matt went off. I think he tried to spin a 540, but over rotated and cartwheeled into a tree. It didn’t seem like a particularly hard contact, and I didn’t really pay it much mind until he said he couldn’t get up. It seemed so surreal, I guess that’s what amazed me about it.
Please all breatfeeder arguers please go here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=60401
Wow, lots of great stories in this thread. Here’s my contribution…
Was playing in a volleyball league a few years ago. Our gym was in a church annex and had a concrete floor with tiles. Not the kind of place to do lots of diving for the ball.
I was watching a game from the sidelines when the setter, one of my friends, went to the floor to get a ball. The play was a bit unpredictable, and several others ended up sprawling too.
Well my setter friend was on his hands and knees with his head close to the floor. As he was about to get up one of his teammates stumbled and stepped with his full weight onto the back of his head. His face was forced violently down to the concrete floor and we all heard a sickeningly loud CRACK that turned out to be his two front teeth. He began screaming in a way I’ll never forget.
After everything calmed down and he was bustled off to the dentist for emergency surgery, we noticed that there were two tooth-sized divots in the CONCRETE floor where it happened.
I think one of the more startling things I’ve seen was when I was in college. I got up one Saturday night and went to the dorm bathroom. When I was sitting in the stall I noticed somebody’s taken her used sanitary napkin and stuck it to the wall. Yeggh! I figure whoever did it was drunk or mostly asleep…or both…
Oh, and FallenAngel, if I ever find myself complaining again about how business reporting isn’t as interesting as “life on the streets,” I’ll think of your post and slap myself a few times…
Yeah Pam, it was pretty cold. We pretty much figured that very thing. However, if it was warmth they were after, wouldn’t a blanket be better than a sheet? Oh well, maybe they didn’t have one.
airbeck - hmmmm. Good point.
If you find out what really happened – especially if you find out that a dead person was being returned home for some reason – come on back and let us know. That’d be weird.
rotten.com- don’t go there if you haven’t been there
On the lighter side-
Couple of years ago I was going to school-
I and this other older guy were outside the door having a smoke, having some fun since we were both ‘non-traditional’ students. We were laughing at stuff we were telling that some of the younger guys probably wouldn’t have laughed at. Just being goofy.
The door opens, out walks this cowboy type (Montana) and we think nothing of it till he gets past us- trailing from the top of his jeans in the rear are about 15-20 feet of toilet paper- some of it got pulled off when the door shut behind him.
Both of our jaws dropped- I’ve seen that type of thing in the movies, but never in real life. After he got a ways away, we couldn’t hold it any longer and busted out.
He quite obviously didn’t know about it, and we found it hard to believe that someone could have been so sneaky as to have done it as a joke, so we concluded it was the real McCoy. We had a blast discussing it’s authenticity…
I can still see him, walking away from us, cowboy hat, boots, wrangler jeans and stripey shirt, the paper twistng and trailing lightly in the air all the way across the parking lot.
I don’t think that they could have been dead, because they were sort of sitting up. We have determined that it wasn’t the neighbor or his wife, and it wasn’t any of their kids. Possibly a grandparent? We don’t really talk to that neighbor too much (they aren’t on our favorite people list - long story) besides, I can’t just go ask “hey, who was that corpse the ambulance brought yesterday?”. Oh well. Perhaps the sheet was all they had in the ambulance to cover them up with. At least that’s what I’d like to believe it was. Man I’m starting to feel like Tom Hanks in The 'Burbs.
But why would they be bringing a corpse to a house?
Anyway. Once my English teacher saw a guy jerking off outside the subway train she was in. And she was the only one in the train at the time, I think. That would have been jaw dropping.
Some of the snopes.com urban legends have done that to me. I know- the point is to debunk stories…but still…
Rotten.com. I agree with that.
Oh, and the pigeons my cousin and I saw flying up against the window of his apt. building; they looked like they were trying to fly into the house. Very strange. 
Maybe not jaw dropping…but still.
They wouldn’t, I was just joking. All I know is that the person was completely wrapped in sheets. They looked not unlike a mummy.
Hey, could happen - viewing the body is a tradition still observed in some households here in Scotland, although it’s far less frequent now than it was.
OK, my story. This isn’t a scary one like most of you guys, but it made my jaw drop which is the criterion here -
I was about 13 or 14 years old, and growing up in a small town called Stonehaven, about 15 miles south of Aberdeen in the north-east of Scotland (this is relevant, trust me). I am cycling home from school one afternoon, and walking in the other direction is a huge guy, dressed just like ‘Hoss’ from Bonanza (or was it The High Chaperal?). Sheepskin jerkin, big tall hat, the works. You don’t expect to see that in Scotland! I just stared at him, which he must have noticed as he said (and I’m not making this up) “Howdy!” I think I managed to say “Hi” or something as I cycled past, but it really made my day that a cowboy had said hello to me!
Three items. They don’t really compare to some of the previously posted stuff (the house full of Klan paraphernalia? sweet Jesus), but what the hell.
Jaw dropped and stayed dropped. I’m sitting on a bus on my nightly commute home. The bus is at a red light. This is downtown; lots of traffic, pedestrians, etc. I have a window seat, so I see this clearly:
The light turns from red to green. Simultaneously, one last guy goes running across the street, trying to beat the light change. And simultaneously to that, a car goes screaming through the green light. He had been approaching the intersection, saw the crosswise light go red, and realized he could hit the line at exactly the time the light changed green his way.
Naturally, he intersected the pedestrian. His speed: Better than 30 mph. The sound: WHAM. Not crash, or smash, just a loud metallic WHAM. Imagine the sound of a cow being launched at high speed into the side of a garbage truck. Kind of like that.
The pedestrian disappeared at the front of the car in a blur, hooked around the hood. He was hit so fast that he was jerked out from under his baseball cap, which hovered in midair, spinning, while the car passed completely underneath. The cap then slowly drifted to the pavement.
After a moment, the bus slowly moved forward, pulled through the intersection, and left the scene behind. I don’t know if we were valuable as witnesses or whatever, but the driver decided not to wait around to find out.
My jaw stayed open the whole way hope.
Jaw dropped, then closed to cope. As a kid (maybe eight or nine), skiing with my mom. I’m not such a great skiier yet; my method involved skiing across the slope at an angle, stopping at the edge, laboriously turning around, and going back across the slope.
So my mom was following along, and we stopped as usual. Then I pointed, and said, “What’s that?” We were maybe five or six feet from a small dark spot on the snow. We squint, and realize it’s a glove.
We’ve only been looking at it for a second or two, not having had the chance to really study it, when we hear a yell: “Hey! You there!” We look downslope, and see an alpine rescue team – half a dozen red-clad skiiers, white armbands, etc. (My memory’s a little hazy on the actual outfit, but they were definitely slope rescuers.) They’re maybe forty yards below us, and they’re guiding a stretcher down the slope.
The guy who yelled points up at us and says: “Would you bring that down please?”
We realize he’s pointing at the glove. We both go over to it, and then notice: blood. There’s blood around the entrance of the glove (entrance? hand-hole? ???), and several spots of blood on the snow around it. Slightly freaked out, we look down the slope, not sure if the rescue guy really wants us to handle this thing.
He gestures impatiently. Yes, he does.
I ain’t touching it, but my mom picks it up. From her expression, I immediately know two things: It’s solid, and it’s heavy. More than an empty glove. That’s when my jaw fell open. I don’t know if it was full of snow or what, but ewwwwww.
Anyway, I closed my mouth so I could concentrate on following my mother down the slope. Again, eeewwwww.
Jaw fell open, followed by gales of hysterical laughter. I grew up in Olympia, WA, which is a fine town to be a child in and then move away from. Once you get to 17 or 18, there ain’t a lot of entertainment options. In high school, my friends and I basically just hang out, often (but not always) downtown. This meant Percival Landing, or Evergreen College’s campus, or sometimes the state capitol grounds. Not a lot else to do.
One time, we were sitting on the steps of the capitol building. There’s a clearing in the middle, with flagpoles and stuff, with the justice building across the way. Quite pretty at night, peaceful with just the right mix of light and shadow. One of us noticed movement across the way, and pointed it out. We all focused, and realized it was an owl sitting on a cornice of the justice building. Not just any own – this thing was freakin’ huge.
Just as we start staring at it, it decides to fly. It does that little hop off the edge, spreads its wings, and gently arcs down to fly parallel to the ground, maybe twenty feet up. Totally majestic, powerful, gorgeous; we all held our breath. We were being treated to a rare sight, an enormous owl, beautiful and perfect, gliding silently through the night, the landscape lighting providing just the right amount of illumination for the snowy feathers on the undersides of its wings, on its soft underbelly. Even its large, yellow eyes are visible. And what’s more, the owl is flying directly toward us. It left the justice building and is now coming across the deep-green grass clearing, coming straight for us. Time stood still as we drank in the sight, and then
BOONNGGGG
the owl flew headfirst into one of the flagpoles in the center of the clearing.
Every single one of our jaws fell open. It was like the most exquisite poetry you’ve ever read, and the last line of the poem says, “Monkey poop!”
The owl wasn’t really hurt. It fluttered awkwardly, spun down toward the ground, recovered before actually hitting, and flew away in the other direction. And that’s when we all looked at each other – and busted a gut laughing.
Uh, home. :o
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*Originally posted by FallenAngel *
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*Originally posted by Degrance *
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I find it horrifying that a child nursing caused anyone’s jaw to drop. What were you raised by machines?
I did not post this. Go back and review what I did post. Please quote me accurately if you will quote me at all.
Now my jaw has dropped because I was assigned credit to a quote that was not part of my original posting.
Mine isn’t as horrifying as some of these, but what the hell.
Eleven years ago, my sister in law and I were both pregnant, and due about 3 weeks apart. My SIL was overdue, and kept trying everything she could think of to induce labour. One day we had the whole family over to visit. I walked into the living room, and was told that my SIL might be in labour. I asked where she was. They told me that she and my mother in law were in the bathroom. My MIL was checking to see if she was dilating.
That’s when my jaw dropped.
In case you’re wondering, my MIL is not a nurse. So, my in-laws emerge from the bathroom, and I am totally horrified. I kind of stuttered, and hemmed and hawed, and finally got around to asking them how she checked to see if my SIL was dilating. She said she just looked. Yes, but looked where? Well, she looked. Yes, but WHERE?? I’m getting more and more creeped out by the second. It turns out that my MIL, mother of three, literally just looked at my SIL’s privates, thinking that looking externally was how you checked to see if someone is dilated or not. I couldn’t believe that:
A) My MIL looked at my SIL’s privates
B) Neither my SIL or my MIL had any clue that it’s the cervix that dilates, or where the cervix might be located
C) Hi Opal!
I’m a bit late to this thread and my story really can’t compare with the exploding-head story, but here goes anyway.
I was a junior in high school. The band (of which I was part) was all loaded up into the band buses and sitting in the school parking lot waiting to take off for a Friday night football game. Suddenly we hear a high-pitched whining sound. Everybody looks out the window to see some guy on a motorbike who wants to impress all the band geeks. He revs up to about 50 or 60 mph (I’m guessing here, but it was pretty fast, especially for a parking lot) and then pops a wheelie. Then the bike just sort of fell out from under him – he lost control and the bike basically flipped upside down, launching him 40 feet through the air.
He landed on the pavement and skidded on his face for about 20 yards, leaving a slimy trail of bright red blood behind him.
Two of the parent chaperones who happened to be EMTs ran over and did what they could to help until the ambulance showed up, and then we took off for the game. I never did find out what happened to that guy. (I suspect that he was okay except for tearing his face up pretty bad.)
Nekkid Wimmin Story #1
Navy, about 12 years ago. I was unfit to got to sea for a bit (busted knee), so I get put in charge of our boat’s barracks while I’m healing up. Every so often there’s a periodic inspection by the Base Commander, where he checks to make sure tennant commands are keeping things in order. The usual drill is for the POIC (Petty Officer In Charge, me) to go down the passage, knocking on each door in turn, announcing the inspection, and then opening the door for the inspector, and then I record any comments the inspector has to say. Everything is going well, three SATs, two Outstandings, and a Marginal, when I knock on the door of the room occupied by our newest, and arguably dimest, crewmember. No Answer. Good, that means he’s on the boat, where he belongs. Open the door. Freeze in indescribable horror. Sprawled spread-eagle on the bunk, naked as the day she was born, snoring fit to wake the dead, is the 14 year-old daughter of the Squadron CO. Attempt to back away and close the door, back into the Base CO, who is a good friend of the Squardon CO, and who is begining to turn an amazing shade of puce. Really. Puce.
Later, after the shouting, weeping, and arresting are done, the Base CO looks at me and says: ‘If you’d turned any more grey, I was going to call the corpsman for you.’
Nekkid Wimmin Story #2
On recruiting duty in Jacksonville, FL. for the Nav. I’m bringing a young lady to the office for her final paperwork/briefing before going off to bootcamp, and we’re going over the kinds of things she can and cannot bring to basic. I get to the subject of piercings, the story on which is: Simple gold hoops for her ears. Nothing else until after boot camp. She looks me straight in the eye and says: ‘What about these’, lifting her shirt up to reveal close to the nicest pair I’ve ever been priveleged to see, both pierced, and linked together by a fine gold chain. I nearly wrecked the Gov’t car.
Nekkid Wimmin Story #3
Still on recruiting duty, making a home visit, again a female high school senior. She answers the door in panties and t-shirt (with holes, no less). My Spidey-sense starts screaming ‘runawayyy…’ As I start to beg-off the meeting, she insists that her family is home, and that it’s OK. Spidey-sense still on high alert, I cautiously sit in the living room and begin to make my pitch, when in walks her brother, in boxers and a ‘wife beater’ shirt. He drops down on the couch next to his sister, pats her on the thigh, and launches into their ‘plan’. She’s gonna enlist in the Nav and use her (undeniably hot) body to recruit sailors to their ‘cause’, which turns out to be a particularly vile cross-breed of white-supremacy and the Klan. I passed the word to all the recruiters, form all the services, in the area. She’s still a civilian.
Oh. and I saw Challenger with My own beady little eyes. Not pretty.
Well, my stories can’t compare but anyway…
One time while hitchiking, I was going through Idaho when I was picked up by a freindly young person around my age. We hit it off and ended up going to his house where we met his brother. The 3 of us then went 4-wheelin’ out on this huge old semi-dried up lake. We were having fun, metallica blaring when all of a sudden we skidded and found ourselves halfway over the side of a 15+ foot crevice. It was just like in the movies, only the back tires were conected to the ground. Time stood still for a moment "someone shouted “don’t move!” and then we threw it in reverse and luckily backed out.
Another time hitchiking on I70 I was picked up by this really wierd guy and his evil little dog. He was drinking as he drove (that made me feel safe!) and started mumbling about “the people he had on his farm” and vegas hookers. At a stop light he asked if I wanted to stay the night with him at a motel). I quickly said “no thanks!” and got out. Well a year later I was whatching TV , changing channels and there on the news was his picture and the story was “the I70 murderer.” That freaked me out a bit.
Also one time in Alaska I was hitching and got picked up by this crazy indian guy. He was funny and scary. Talked about his various blackbelts, and then after a bit launched into a dialog with himself (only partly under his breath) as to if he should kill me and dump my body somewhere. The gist of the conversation was that: no this was my lucky day and the great spirit said not to (in my case, for today only). That was pretty scary.
One time my friends and I were stupidly rock climbing without ropes (hey! I was young!). On the way back down when I was about 10-15 feet from the ground some people came by and talked to us from the ground below. They left and then I started to countinue down but found that I couldn’t find a second foot hold. I tried to get back to where I had been, but then there was no hand holds. So I started sliding, fell off the rock, hit the ground and somehow my body did this amazing side roll and I poped up on my feet unharmed. I couldn’t beleive it.
One time when I was young we were at this stop light and this guy on a harly indicated that he wanted to dragrace. The light turned green we floored it, he floored it and then his bike immediatly did a back flip. I hope the cars behind him didn’t run him over. Later that night we pulled up to this stop sign in downtown baltimore. 2 people were beating up a third person. The weird thing was that they all stopped beating each other to drunkenly shout to us (staring at them wide eyed in the car) there positions as to why this was happening. We drove away.
Well, it’s nothing like the head exploding (I am so sorry you had to see that!).
p.s. the owl story had me rolling!