When I was a kid, I made a set of ‘nunchucks’ from, as I recall, a pair of croquet mallet handles I’d cut down after finding them in someon’s trash. I connected them with a piece of chain and went into the front yard to start my ninja career. Of course, I instantly cracked my head so hard I fell down.
Another time, I was riding a bike to summer school and had this large wire rope and padlock on the handle bars. I was in about 7th grade and running late, riding fast. The lock swung into the spokes of the front wheel and I went over the handlebars. I was pretty cut up and sustained a blow to the groin that, luckily, could have been a lot worse. Some construction guys saw me fall and laughed thier asses off. When I got to school, the teacher took one look at me and sent me home.
Had a coworker named Betsy Rake, and I saw her go toe-to-toe with the owner (who was being a jerk). She got in his face, and said menacingly said through clenched teeth: “Wherever you go, whatever you do… never step on a Rake.”
I thought of one from wayyy back in the day-- High School. For most of my time in school I had been pretty nerdy and socially awkward. This started to change in my Junior and Senior years as I became friendly with some popular kids and started becoming more sociable.
My senior year I had a car, and somehow it happened that 3 of the popular girls went on a lunch run with me. I can’t remember if I had asked them, or if they just needed a ride and I was there, but as it happens I’m driving with 3 cute, popular girls. And I was trying to be as cool and funny as possible. In a fast food drive-thru when I gave my order and the person asked “do you want fries with that?” I replied, in my snottiest voice, “did I ASK for fries?” Which got a laugh.
We get back to the school parking lot and all get out of the car. I’m still so focused on being too cool for school that I manage to lock my keys in the car-- with it still running. When the girls realize what I did, and see me standing there flummoxed, their laughter was much louder than it was for my smart ass comment in the drive-thru, as they walked away.
I was walking around the lobby of the National Gallery in D.C. while looking at a map of the museum. That came to an abrupt end when I hit my head on Lever No. 3 by Martin Puryear:
It made a comical BONGGGG!! sound and a security guard nearly fell out of his chair laughing.
Another time I was walking around a Japanese temple with a heavy backpack while reading a map (sense a pattern?) when I hit my head on a low gate lintel. I fell onto my back and flailed my arms and legs like a turtle while my wife pretended she didn’t know me.
I stopped at a red light for a pedestrian/bike crossing on my bike and rested my foot on the base of the post for the light. When it turned green I pushed off with my foot, only my boot was caught underneath the weirdly sticky out bolts so my foot stayed behind while my body and bike moved forward, until I off course collapsed into a painful mess.
And in the funnier (at least to me) vein. When assembling a new IKEA kitchen I put one of the handles on the inside of the door and spent a couple of seconds trying to figure out what was wrong with the picture.
I once stood, warm drip coffee pot in hand, trying to make room for it in the fridge after having put the milk carton on the counter. I thought it weird that I had to move stuff around, because it had just come out of there, hadn’t it.
In the same vein I walked past the trash can with a bag of trash and on to the mail box, opened the box and wondered what was going on with the opening being so much smaller than the bag.
Related: When I first started riding with clipless pedals, I stopped at a light and put one foot down while leaving the other clipped in (normal). It was a long light and at some point I decided to put my other foot down while forgetting it was clipped in. It’s hard to stop gravity once it takes over. I think it looked something like the video below. Apparently I’m a quick learner because I have repeated that move in 20 years.
I didn’t have the excuse of clips. I was on a bicycle just barely rolling, as I’d waited for a car to ooze past before crossing the intersection in the little village. I let go of the handlebars and overbalanced forward and could not get my center of gravity to cooperate and let me balance or re-grab, and I topped forward then flopped over sideways in exquisitely slow motion.
