A few years ago my wife and I were heading down to Summerfest (a HUGE music festival). They offer park and rides from all over the county. Pay $8 or so to get there, but the ride back is free. So, as many people do, we park the car at the park and ride and have someone else drive us down to the grounds. Then we can take the free bus back to the lot and go home. Well, I won’t need my car keys while I’m there…lock doors, toss keys under seat and head down to Summerfest.:smack::smack::smack:
A buddy of mine bought a house, in the attached garage was an odd build in, but unopenable cabinet sort of thing. They wanted the space so they tore it out. Upon doing that, they found it was actually the remnants of a flush mount oven that had since been removed. They found out because one of them reached in and got a nice 220 zap from some live wires hanging around inside. Okay, easy mistake for a new home owner to make. Here’s the stupid part…In order to cut the wires off, they decided it would be a good idea to take the junction box that was dangling inside and smack it against the wire to cut the wire (why cut the wire, I have no idea). Worked fine at first, then they got to the copper and had sparks flying all over the place. Finally they called a semi-electrician who came over and got it fixed up.
I told them that next time they need to do electrical work they have to do three things
1)Get a cheap voltage detector and not work on live wires (part of the problem was that they couldn’t find the breaker. I think what they were doing was turning off a breaker then shorting the wires to check for sparks)
2)Don’t do your own electrical work
3)Call me or the other guy or the local drunk or a monkey or someone that isn’t them.
I spent many a time looking at my mouse, trying to figure out why it wasn’t working, only to find out that I hadn’t actually plugged it back in after returning my laptop to my desk…
At work we have many computers on or near one desk. We’re big on multi-tasking. It’s funny when someone will come over to my computer, grab the mouse of the computer next to it, and spend at least 5 whole seconds moving it about trying to spot a moving cursor. I know straight away they’ve grabbed the wrong mouse, but I let them continue, because it’s funny.
More on my original post - Not only was I moving the mouse, I was moving it vigorously and genuinely wondering why the contols on my little 6 inch ipod screen weren’t appearing.
At work we have a unattached garage with a padlock on the door. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pointed my car key fob at it and wondered why it wouldn’t unlock.
Over drinks, we were discussing a project I was working on, and he volunteered to put pressure on some other folks to get some related stuff done. I declined, and said that I’d get him involved only if they proved recalcitrant. “You’re the big tool I pull out only when I need it,” I said. As the words left my mouth, I remember my brain shouting, “whatthehellareyousayingstopstopstopohfuckwhatdowedonow?youmoron!”
He either didn’t notice, or shrugged it off. I was unwilling to explore the topic further to determine which.
Try to leave the campground with the towed car in “park”.
Try to leave the campground with the stabilizers unretracted.
Leave the car key in the ignition in the ‘on’ position and in the morning find the car battery so dead that I couldn’t even unlock the doors. This in the middle of Canada.
And you know what? No matter how much you scream obscenities at the stupid computer and at the bullshit wi-fi setup in the RV park and the morons that run it, it still won’t connect if the radio is turned off. :smack:
I have an '08 Prius which has the “magic key” thing, i.e. the fob just has to be close to the car to unlock / start it.
Where I work, we have keycard badge thingys that are also proximity-based; you swipe them on the sensors near doors to unlock the door.
After a long day of work, I have a 25% chance of attempting to unlock my car with my work badge. And since I have my keys in my backpack, this appears to “work” – which really freaks me out!
A few weeks ago I went to Seattle for 5 days for work. I was rushing around trying to get everything ready for the trip, this was Saturday, left on Sunday. I get back on Thursday. Friday I wasn’t feeling well, so stayed home. Saturday and Sunday was just puttering around the house and out to dinner in the wife’s car with the kids. Monday rolls around, I’m feeling not so sick, good enough to go to work. Need to repack my backpack (put all the stuff I had removed for the trip, back in, that I’ll need at work). Hmm, where are the car keys? Damn, I know I didn’t take them on the trip since I wasn’t going to need them. I put them somewhere “safe” for sure. Arrgh. Where did I put them!? I look all over the house, tearing stuff up, getting later and later for work. I have a spare key, but I’m a little freaked because that set of keys has the housekey, the car key, the fob for a car at work, and a couple other random keys.
Finally I’m going to be so late, I just grab the spare car and house key. I go out to the car, and… oh, there’s the keys. In the center console, staring up at me. With the window rolled down 4 inches. And all the doors unlocked. Same way it’s apparently been for over a week, on the street, in front of the house. :smack:
VERY happy we moved to a new, much nicer, neighborhood, 6 months ago.
My husband did similar in the kitchen - sprayed a perforated pizza pan with spray oil. Over the linoleum floor. I thought I’d wiped it up sufficiently, but soon discovered I hadn’t - when I nearly did the splits down to floor level. The only reason I didn’t was that our kitchen is small, and so I stopped at about 6" above the floor, one foot jammed against the base of the stove, the other against the baseboard opposite.
In college we used to put Pledge on the linoleum, if you know it’s there, you can slid across it like it’s wet ice, as if there’s no friction whatsoever under your feet. If you don’t know it’s like that, plan and falling on your ass…hard…harder…keep going, it really freaking hurts when you aren’t expecting it.
I work construction in a factory, we have to harness up whenever we’re working over six feet up. The harnesses are basic fall arrestors, similar to this one. I generally shrug into it over my head, and sort of thrust my hips to cause the leg straps to swing towards me so I can grab them and buckle up.
I was partnered with a new guy and didn’t want to look stupid thrusting like Elvis the pelvis, so I bent over at the waist to grab for the dangling straps. Only problem is I didn’t count on how close I was standing to a metal cart next to me when I bent over. I managed to clock myself between the hard hat and safety glasses right across the bridge of my nose. Partner hears a loud thunk and looks up to see me staggering to stay upright, blinking rapidly and utterly refusing to explain what that noise was.
Swelled up like a damn Bajoran from Star Trek, and still have a small bump there a month later.
Getting new tags for your automobile in Missouri is a horrible, time consuming process made worse by people who don’t give a rip about customer service and a farcical process called an automobile inspection. (Auto inspection could be a whole other thread…)
I got my tags for my previous car (Ford Aerostar) several years ago and decided to put them on the plates in the parking lot. When I tried getting in the car my key wouldn’t work. “WTF…”, I thought. Then I saw the baby carrier in the back seat.
Wrong car. Two red Aerostars, same year and model, sitting next to each other. I had put the tags on the wrong car. :smack::smack::smack:
Although thieves manage to remove tags in one piece, i shredded mine while trying to take them off. The harpies in the DMV laughed and mocked me when I came in to get new tags. Head harpie must have been in a good mood as I did not have to pay for the new tags.
Conversely, I have a keyfob for my apartment building’s common doors and a key to unlock the front door of our office suite at work. I will often get my key out when I get home, only to pause when I realize that the giant work key won’t fit in the lobby door of my apartment building. Sometime I also take my apartment key out when I’m trying to lock or unlock our suite entrance door.
I also frequently attempt to open the work mailbox with my home mailbox key (“What the… hey, that doesn’t fit in there!”).
Why just this morning I walked in from the parking lot and was greeted with a frantic phone call from my husband telling me he couldn’t find his car keys. I looked in my hand, and said, “I found them!”
And I don’t know how many bottles of sunscreen, toothpaste, lotion, etc., I’m going to donate to the airport screeners before I finally figure out that I need to pack this stuff in my checked-in bag. And sunscreen isn’t cheap!