At 18, in a fit of post-breakup depression, I decided to burn some mementos - a couple of notes, a flyer from a show we’d gone to, and a cd. I didn’t have anything like a grill or a fireplace or a nice metal bucket to burn it in, so I figured I’d use the bathroom sink, my logic being that if the fire got out of hand I could just turn on the faucet. I smashed the cd into little bits, wadded up the paper stuff, made a nice little pile in the sink and tossed a match in. Nothing. Tossed in two more matches. Nothing, no flame, no smoke, nothing. So I decided that I’d use some nail polish remover as lighter fluid, just a couple of drops to get things going. I uncapped the bottle and slowly started to drip just an eensy bit onto the papers - which must have been burning after all, because the steam of nail polish remover caught on fire. The fire traveled from the sink, up the stream and right into the bottle in my hand. I screamed and threw the now-flaming bottle of nail polish remover as far away as I could - splashing flaming acetone all over my bathroom. Now my toilet, shower curtain, sink and linoleum floor were on fire. Running back and forth with cups of water from the kitchen sink, I managed to get the fire put out, with surprisingly little damage. But that was my first apartment and I didn’t have a phone at the time, so if I hadn’t been so quick with the water glass I probably would have burnt the whole place down.
I don’t burn things in the house anymore (except the hairspray and lighter trick. That doesn’t count, right?)
That reminds me- when I was 10 and alone in my grandparent’s house, I decided to light a fire in their woodstove. The curtain of the window behind the couch that sat beside the stove caught on fire. Luckily I managed to put it out- then I cut the curtain to just below the couch, and no evidence remained. I never heard anything about it.
Also, one time when I was 13 I wondered what would happen if you stuck a pair of tweezers in the outlet. I found out. Five years later my dad is inspecting the outlet and remarks, “Mmm, looks like someone stuck a pair of tweezers in here!” How could he tell?!
I got seven subscriptions, of varying time lengths. 3 of the subscriptions were stupid and idiotic, the other 4 were:
Mad
The New Yorker
Discover
National Geographic en Español
I totally love all four of those mags, but I don’t even have time to read them. I renewed my subscription to Discover, because I think it’s the one ‘‘essential’’ insofar as any magazine may be considered essential. And at this point, most of the subscriptions have run out, and I still have 10 payments left.
I can really think of a million different things I’d rather be doing with that $800. This thread is comforting though, truly. I’m glad I’m not the only one with a long history of stupid decisions in my wake.
When I was 11, I was just crossing a field where a game of Fatball (softball using a volleyball instead of an actual softball) was being played. Someone hit a flyball in my general direction, and I thought I’d show how incredibly cool I was by interfering in the game and catching it myself. I was so busy looking cool that I managed to “catch” the ball with my extended pinky. I’ll never know if anyone laughed at me because I was too busy hopping around and screaming in pain.
Stupidty compounded:
My pinky hurt for a long time, although I never really explained to my mom how bad it hurt. I just assumed it was badly sprained. When I still couldn’t fully bend it four weeks later, my mom took me to a doctor. The doctor explained that yes, I had actually broken the pinky, and the only way to fix it now would be to re-break it.
Assuming that only actions taken at a fairly mature age count…
There’s the time I couldn’t lift my arms for several days after carrying too many suitcases at one time, the time I almost destroyed my school identification by using the copier rather than the scanner function on a printer, the time I scraped the paint off a car door by a bad parallel park job, and the time I had to chase a bus for several blocks to retrive my wallet.
I’ve done so, so many stupid things. One memorable happening was when I was 19 and renting a room in a condo (the owner lived there as well). She was very picky about her stuff (understandably) and asked me to kind of keep to my own room and the bathroom.
One drunken night when the owner was out a friend and I decided to start a fire in the ;living room fireplace. We didn’t open the damper and in a matter of minutes the place was full of smoke. We couldn’t find the damper handle for about 10 minutes and in the meantime we hickory-smoked the whole condo. My friend grabbed the fire poker and was using it to fumble around in the chimney and he managed to knock off a very expensive picture that hung over the mantle: cartoon ensued, as it crashed down on his head and ripped so the frame laid around his shoulder with his head through the middle of the canvas.
The owner was estactic when I decided to move out the next month. It still smelled like a smokehouse.
My 2006 Pathfinder had a rattle, sort of a click clack in the dash board (that’s where it sounded like it was coming from). I took everything out of the glove box, and still I would get a click when I turn left, a clack when I turn right.
Well it was time for service anyway…….
Took it to a dealer. Closest one is 100 miles away.
Turned out to be my reading glasses sliding back and forth in the little sun glasses holder compartment in the ceiling. I had forgot all about them.
I did the same thing when I was young (probably 10 or so). My mom left me in the car to go shopping or something. I don’t remember why I did it, but of course it burned pretty good. When my mom came back to the car she asked me what the smell was? I didn’t tell her that it was my burned flesh.
Back in the 60s, my mom mail-ordered some new knives with serrated blades.
It was summertime, and I was home to accept the package. True to my curious nature, I opened the box. Inside, the knives shone in all their stainless-steel glory. A prominent label warned: "Do not test blades on your fingers!! (or something to that effect)
Guess what I did? I required many band-aids that afternoon! :smack:
My stupid little things? Joining the military, and signing up for 24 Hour Fitness. Probably the two worst contracts I could’ve possibly put my John Hancock on.
So it was your lips, not your fingers, that caused the problem? Is there any way to prevent what must now be named Hot Lips Syndrome? This is a matter of grave importance, as it must be by dumb luck that I have avoided accidentally killing a handful of women this way.
Stick to chopsticks. You can’t hurt yourself with chopsticks.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so sure.
If it makes you feel any better, one of my close friends got sucked into the Nigerian email scam and lost everything…
Jeez, I could go on for hours. Er, but I won’t. A few incidents that stand out, from my less than illustrious life:
At about age ten, finding someone’s bagged lunch on the way home from school, and for no particular reason, hurling it as far as I could…nailing the windshield of a car crossing the intersection down the street. Whose driver complained to my local school, which resulted in me writing phrases about not throwing things at cars about 8 skillion times.
The time when I was about 18, and a friend and I decided to play a game of catch…with a bowling ball.
Age, well, old enough to know better, starting up a road grader (that I was not authorized to be on) out at a well site in Colorado, and not knowing that, being a diesel, one had to shut off the fuel flow to turn it back off again.
Lastly, eating breakfast at a local greasy spoon about a year ago. Decided to have some Tabasco on my eggs. Grabbed the bottle to shake it up, the top flew off, and a splatter of hot sauce went straight into my left eye. Took about an hour for the pain to go away and two for my vision to clear.
I was once pretending to knife-fight my reflection, which for some reason entailed hiding the point of the knife behind my left hand and whipping the covering hand away just as I made my lunge.
I will carry the small scar at the base of my left thumb until the day I die. :smack:
One nice evening in a resort town south of Rio de Janeiro, I decided that my newest caipirinha ( a devastating mixture of cane liquor, lime, sugar, and ice) was probably going to put me over the edge and should be diluted. In the midst of some engaging discourse on cultural differences and the state of the universe and the nature of reality, I wandered over to the sink to top off my bevvie with some fresh agua.
Please, don’t drink the water in Brazil.
The remaining few days of my vacation were spent withhin 8 feet of the bathroom.
One time I was making chili during August. I was sweating. I cut up a bunch of jabanero peppers, then wiped my forehead with my fingers. A few seconds later, the jabanero pepper juice on my fingers mixed with my forehead sweat, congealed in my eyebrows, then sent rivulets of extra spicy sweat into the outer corners of my eyeballs.
I ran screaming to the bathroom and dunked my face under the showerhead.
One time I worked as a pressman. I drank a lot Mountain Dews, and used one of the bottles as a container for ink dissolver. My boss told me I better not do that. I might drink it. I blew him off. No way is anybody stupid enough to drink ink dissolver.
I was stupid enough.
I was running a job and took a swig of Mtn Dew and set the bottle on the shelf where I kept my rags, washes, and ink dissolver. Guess which bottle I drank from next.
At that point, I understood first hand how ink dissolver works. It works on ANYTHING liquid. Within seconds, my gums were as brittle and dry as desert sand. I gulped down a scream and calmly told my boss I needed to go home. I didn’t tell him why.
I forgot to add another little stupid thing from my childhood.
I was really, REALLY bored in my eighth grade literature class (apparently, I don’t take well to Shakespeare). The mindless diversion I chose to pass the time was to pick away at the eraser on the pencil I was holding – with a pair of scissors. I kept applying more and more pressure with the scissors until the inevitable happened. The pencil split and the scissor blade went right on down into the palm of my hand.
I managed to stifle a scream, but my jump still caught my teacher’s attention. When he asked me what my problem was, I meekly showed him my hand, which now had blood streaming down it and onto my arm, and my desk, and I quietly made my escape to the nurse’s office.
