Well, I feel stupid....

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

A couple weeks ago my husband, our 3-year-old and I travelled to my hometown to visit with my high school friends. We’ve been doing this every summer more or less for the past 6 years. I didn’t get a hotel room because I’m still within driving distance, but others, who had come from out-of-state, did.

Since it was hotter and more humid than the very center of hell it was suggested we leave the park for the hotel and swimming pool. I brought our suits in hopes of this very development. Since we needed a place to change, my friend’s wife hands me two key cards, tells me the rooms they are in, and we head off to the rooms. She gave me both because card-reader wasn’t working properly, she said. We leave, along with another friend’s daughter, to change in the room. The daughter goes in the bathroom and my family and I mill about stark naked in the room. The 3-year-old’s pullup is drenched; I remove it and toss. We get on our suits, I pee, we leave.

When I get down to the car I realize I’d meant to grab some towels, so back up I go. Neither key card would work. I tried repeatedly, thinking, “shit, now they BOTH don’t work.”

Maybe you see where this is headed.

Yes, yes indeed, I did enter a room assigned to, and filled with the belongings of, someone I do not know. Further, I left a heavy sodden diaper to be found by these (presumably) good folks. I did, however, flush, and altered none of the items in the room, except by taking the iron from atop the ironing board and placing it on the floor so my son wouldn’t knock it off.

How we entered in the first place was due to the door actually being ajar! I sort of thought it popped open, but discarded that theory when I noticed the arrow indicated which way the key should be put in – and I clearly remember not putting it in that way.

:smack:

82

:eek: :smack: :smack:

83

I had a 69 Chevy Impala. About 1979 I come out of Kmart in Madison and go to put my bags into the trunk. I have a couple siblings along, so I’m making sure they get to the car ok. I close the trunk and go to unlock the driver’s door. The door doesn’t unlock. I pause a moment and see a car two spaces over exactly like the one I’m standing by, I had just put my bags into the wrong trunk. The car two spaces over was mine. I go and open the trunk and get my bags, hoping the owner doesn’t come out at that time. Since that time I occasionally have dreamed about being caught driving a stolen car that I’d accidentally driven off with, because it looked like mine.

84

I have a small but quite visible scar on my left thumb. I was making dinner and needed a large quantity of some spice out of a brand-new bottle. Instead of shaking it out, I figured I’d pop off the holey plastic shakey part of the lid and use a spoon. I decided that I would pry it off with a butterknife. You can see how this ended. Did I mention I was in my third year of law school at the time?

My husband doesn’t manage to injure himself, but he does make some boneheaded moves in the kitchen. A couple of months ago he managed to put salt on his cornflakes. Kosher salt. Just last weekend, he fried up a couple of slices of bacon so we could crumble them onto a homemade pizza. The next morning, I looked all over the place in the fridge for the bacon for breakfast. He swore we weren’t out of bacon yesterday and tore up the fridge looking for it. He finally started looking in the freezer for it, thinking he’d accidentally put it back in there. Where did I end up finding it? The pantry, of course.

85

I did this once while using a mag(netic) drill. In my defense, the drill was set up so it was running towards me, and above me, and the buttons were labeled weird: green for reverse, white for forward, red to stop. I assumed green was forward.

86

Hey, welcome back!

87

When I was in college, I had a part-time job in the High Energy Physics department. One day, I asked if I could use their (huge, three-phase) drill press, and was told 'sure". I started to drill some holes, and it wasn’t drilling very fast, so I decided to check the drill bit, which was fine. I turned to press on and off a couple of times, and noticed it was running backwards. I mentioned this to the Prof in charge and he said “Oh, we wondered why it wasn’t working very well, could your re-wire it?” :smack:

88

One for me, one for my mother.

once, I was using that expanding spray foam to insulate around a door frame. I accidentally spray it on my fingers. I can’t get it off so I get a paper towel to try to wipe it off. now the towel is stuck to my hands. Hands, because now it’s on both hands. I don’t have any fingernail polish remover at home, so I had to drive to the store using my wrists and buy the acetone.

Now my mother - once she was staying overnight in a hotel room. She turns the light on in the bathroom and takes a bath and washes her hair. As she’s towelling her wet hair, everything goes black. She’s absolutely sure she’s died. She’s thinking “this isn’t so bad. My poor Bob (my dad) - he’ll be devastated when he finds my body.” Then the seconds pass and she thinks “I didn’t realize you could have wet hair when you’re dead.” Eventually she figured out the bathroom light was on a timer, and she was really alive. :smack:

StG

89

She obviously never saw "Beetlejuice "

90

Don’t feel too bad. Thank Og I realized in the nick of time with this one.

You know how when you’re chopping up a whole chicken or something, you sometimes chop in with the chef’s knife, and pound on the back of it with a fist to force it through a joint, or do the same move to get through a touch winter squash or something?

And you know how some recipes call for you to flatten or tenderize something by pounding it with the back (dull side) of a chef’s knife?

That is how I found myself with a very sharp blade, facing up, resting on the counter (I don’t remember what stubborn food I was pounding with it), with my fist raised in the air, reading to come smashing down, which most likely would have caused some life-threatening bleeding, severed tendons, and so forth, not to mention a monumentally embarrassing conversation with the ER doctor.

I actually had a flash of that cartoon where Wile E. Coyote has set up some rocks to fall on the Road Runner, but instead of falling they stay suspended, jammed together, so he runs underneath and starts poking them with a long stick, then stops, turns to the camera, and holds up a sign saying, “In heaven’s name, what am I DOING?”

91

I don’t really cook too much. My husband has pretty much done all the cooking since we moved last year. But a few months ago he was asleep and it was dinner time, so I figured I could boil some pasta. I’m not some helpless child, after all. Hell, I taught him how to cook! I could handle this!

But the thing is, the stove in our apartment is gas. And I never really realized how hot the area surrounding the stove could get. So the water is boiling, and I add the pasta, and I reach for the plastic spoon sitting nearby to stir it.

“OUCH! FUCK! What burned me?!” I’m not sure what is burning me, all I know is my finger hurts. I immediate drop the spoon into the pan of boiling water, examine my finger and…

Grab the spoon again. It was already hot enough to really hurt, and now it’s been in the water.

This time I don’t drop the spoon. I jump back, spoon in hand. The bottom of the spoon is in the water. Suddenly I have a large spoonful of boiling water soaking my shirt on my stomach.

It hurts a bit, but now I’ve realized what the problem is, so I get a new spoon and finish cooking dinner. Then I eat dinner. I don’t change my shirt, I just let it dry, because hey, it doesn’t really hurt.

After dinner, I decided to take a hot shower.

Now, something is really starting to hurt.

I look down and realize it’s probably the giant fucking blister on my stomach.
Another time, I couldn’t turn on my laptop. I just couldn’t get it to work. It was at the end of a long day, and I was tired, and I just wanted to check my email. But my laptop would not. turn. on. I was literally in tears. My husband came in, patted my back comfortingly, and then calmly turned on my laptop. I didn’t realize it was possible to push a power button the wrong way, but apparently it is.
Oh one more. I couldn’t get my laptop to connect to the university’s wireless network. So I made the trek across campus to visit the library, brought my laptop to the bored looking kid at the library’s computer lab help counter and he…flicked the switch on the front of my laptop to turn on the wireless card.
:smack:

92

And this is exactly why I own two colours of socks - black and white. I almost never wear the white except when I am performing. My partners are trained to check me over before we go onstage, just in case.

93

One time when I was moving I ended up, for reasons that are far too complex to go into, spending all day Sunday taking the bus back and forth between my old and new apartment with a shopping cart which was empty one way and full of books the other. After the last trip I managed to force myself to eat supper before collapsing into my bed in complete exhaustion. The next morning I woke up with every muscle in my body screaming, so I filled the tub with hot water and settled in for a relaxing soak. Shortly after I got in there’s a knock on the door. I yell to ask who it is, and the following (approximate) exchange took place:

“Uh, I’m in the apartment next door. You left your keys in the lock.”

“Oh, sh…(or mutterings to that effect). Mmm…could you open the door and toss them inside for me? I…uh…can’t come to the door right now.”

“Sure” The door opens, I hear the jingle of my keys hitting the floor, and the door closes.

“Thanks”

My apartment was literally at the end of a hallway, so “the apartment next door” could have been either of two apartments down that hallway. I never had the nerve to knock on either door to see which of my neighbors it could have been, and neither of them ever said anything about it. Oh, and it was a female voice, which is why I was even more reluctant to try to get out of the tub and answer the door in nothing but a towel.

94

Did you know that no matter how hard you try you will NEVER be able to peel off a label if you have, in fact, put the sheet in the printer upside down?

I have a pie chart tacked to my wall. 25% sleeping; 8% eating; 17% working; 50% looking for things I had in my had just a minute ago.

Years and years ago I learned to check for the obvious (Complainant: “I can’t hear anything!” Me: <turns up volume>.) but it’s funny how many simple things can bite you in the ass.

Sis got a new AV system and asked me to come over to help her hook it up. Wire A to Hole A; receiver to output; TV to receiver. Everything’s good until we put in a CD and nothing. Recheck the wiring. Recheck the diagram. Recheck everything there is to check. Still nothing. Two hours later I finally thought to hit the CD button on the remote.

And on a related tangent a friend installed an inexpensive noise system in his shop and all was well for about six months until he stopped hearing noise. He futzed with this and futzed with that and futzed with the other; no joy. Went back to the actual unit and turned up the volume all the way; still nothing. Hit the mute button purely out of frustration and heard LA LA LA LA right before the speakers blew. He apparently accidentally knocked in the button while messing about in the back room.

95

I came out of the post office with my hands full of mail. I go to my blue Jeep and try to open the door. Locked. Damn. I never lock it here, but still. Locked. I juggle the mail and fish my keys out of my pocket. Push the button. Reach for the door. Locked. Push the button. Reach for the door. Locked. Push the button twice really fast. Locked. Damn.

I start to pile the mail on the hood so I can get a hand free enough to use the key in the lock. Then I see there’s another blue Jeep parked next to the one I was trying to break into. Push the button. The other Jeep’s lights flash. I hope no one was watching.
The other time happened to my father, on his very first date with my mom. They went to a square dance not far from where Dad lived. They went out to leave and he couldn’t get the car to move forward. It would only go in reverse. He drove the car backwards home, borrowed his brother’s car, and picked up my mom at the dance.

The problem? He had the parking brake on.

The funniest part? He had commented to the same brother the day before how he wondered why his car would run in reverse with the brake on.

She married him anyway.

96

My poor mother lost a book she was reading once. It drove her nuts. The next morning she went to the fridge as she was getting ready to make breakfast. There was her book on the shelf. She must have set it there when she got a snack the day before. :slight_smile:

97

I had a bitchin’ stereo and speakers installed in my car. However, the speaker wires were jury rigged, and I was always kicking them loose.

One morning i hopped into my car and fired up my stereo only to hear… nothing.
“crap” sez I. “I must have kicked the wires loose again.” So I carefully trace the wire from the back of the stereo along the carpet, next to the door jam… eventually I found where it was disconnected. “Now” thought I, “I just have to find the wire this was connected to.” So I keep searching and searching. “Crap, it has to be around here some where.”

Um Yeah… eventually, out of frustration, I decide to trace the opposite way from the speakers out to where it was disconnected from the stereo wire. Only then do I realize my car’s been broken in to, and someone stole the speakers out of my car.

dirty bastards

98

I have, more than once, discovered a warm pint of ice cream soup sitting on top of the fridge a few hours after I had to dig around in the freezer for something or other.

99

Just for a second I thought “You too…?”. It was right before my son’s cubscout camping trip and it had been mentioned to me that a sieve would be useful where we are going as there were fossils on the beach. So, I go to HD & buy some screen and I cut up a board in the basement into 4 equal length sections. Then I pull out some graphite screws and put a phillips head bit in my hand-drill and start making a square frame out of the pieces of wood. I attach the first two pieces and then turn the frame to attach the third. That’s when the pain in my thumb stopped me. I dropped the frame and turned to see a nice circle with a tiny cross in the center branded into the ball of my thumb. Too late I learned that when you hand-drill a screw into a hard wood like oak, the screw gets Hot.

Yeah, and if I ever hitchhike I’ll be safe from Vampires too…

100

Sort of along the lines of jsgoddess: A couple of days after Razorette got a new car, I went to Bigboxstore to buy the usual (mayo, jewelry, landscaping stuff); come out of the store, cannot find the damn car anywhere. I stood there gaping around for a green Malibu – any green Malibu – and finally remembered there’s a “panic” button on the key fob. Pressed the button. Nearly wet myself when the bronze Impala I was standing next to went off. My wife’s new bronze Impala. Which we had traded in a green Malibu for. The fact that no one else saw this did not make me feel less stupid.