What's the dumbest thing you've done recently?

That’s OK – by the time you’re in your mid 30s, you’ll remember all the time. Then, when you get to be my age, you’ll start forgetting again. It’s downhill from there, kid.

In my shop two nights ago, trying to drill holes in a slab of oak for some shelving. Applied the drill bit to the oak, hit the switch, drill whirred to life – nothing. A bit of a dent in the wood, that’s all. Examined the tip of the bit – yeah, it could use sharpening, so I unchucked it, dropped it in the drill bit sharpener – nice and sharp now! Chucked the bit, hit the switch – nothing. WTF, over!? Examined the bit again, examined the oak, applied the bit, hit the switch … ah, but you can see where this is going, can’t you?

The previous day, I’d used the drill with a driver bit to remove a dozen woodscrews from another project. It was still in reverse. :smack: :smack:

Mentioned in another thread recently (link to follow) - A couple of weeks ago I was cooking some steaks on a metal firepit in the backyard (like this - note the little handle on top). Kept the screen lid on as the wood was slowly becoming a bed of glowing coals. Finally everything was ready - carefully I used the long metal hook thingy to remove the hot lid and set it aside, with mouth watering I tossed some more wood on (for smoke) and placed the steaks on the grill. Yum, this was going to be good! Then I reached over and grabbed the metal screen lid by the handle (mentioned earlier).

Ever been hurt where you can’t even cuss coherently? “JEEMFUMBRGLZ!” was, I believe, what I finally managed to get out through clenched teeth.

Baffle in this thread was kind enough to comment

Eleven days later and the blisters are finally starting to heal.

A couple of days ago I tried to open my front door using my car remote. I pressed unlock, tried to turn the knob, and even bonked my shoulder when it wouldn’t open.

The sad thing is I stood back and pressed a *second time * before I realized what I was doing.

Glad to be of service!

Earlier today I was riding my bike through the forest across the street from my house, to go visit a friend. I decided that the tangle of roots in my path didn’t require a reduction in speed.

I think my face print will be in that tree for quite some time.

I got on the elevator today to ride to the ground floor. I was the only one on the th elevator. I got in and waited and waited and waited and waited. I only had to ride one floor down and could not figure out what was going on. I was worried the elevator had gotten stuck…again.

Then :smack: I looked at the buttons inside the elevator. Yup, I got on, the door closed, and I failed to press a floor destination button. :o

A couple of months ago I walked across my girlfriend’s bed, which is right under a Dormer window, to grab something off the bedside table on her side. So I bend down to pick it up, then stand, turn and start walking back in one movement that was both swift and fluid right up to the point where my head smacked hard into the wall of the Dormer and I fell down groaning. The lump on my skull didn’t go away for nearly two weeks.

No one moment of stunning stupidity recently, but a number of minor-league things that I do fairly regularly.

  • Taking my wallet out of my pocket instead of my keys as I approach the door to my building.

  • Conversely, taking my keys out of my pocket instead of my wallet as I approach the subway turnstiles.

  • Leaving the house fully dressed and ready for work, running my fingers through my hair as I’m waiting for the elevator, and realizing that I haven’t rinsed the conditioner out of my hair.

I thought I was e-paying the Sacramento Bee $29.47 for three months of three-days-per-week newspaper delivery. I typed 2947 without the decimal. I mindlessly OKd the transaction.

A few days later I checked my balance online and discovered that both my checking and savings accounts had zero balances. I discovered the error and phoned Bank of America. Surprisingly, the rep said that he could correct the error but that it would take three days before it could be cleared. I phoned the Bee and the rep said that he would watch for the transaction and would reverse it as soon as it came in. Yeah, right.

In the meantime, every other e-payment I made bounced. I had a rent check made out to me for $500 but couldn’t deposit it because it would be used toward my deficient balance. I had to borrow money from my daughter who was more than happy to prove that Mom didn’t always have it together.

Three days later the Bee guy phoned to say he’d been monitoring my account and that the payment had been received and that I could extend my service until May, 2034, or that he could cancel the transaction. Later that day the BofA guy called to say that the Bee reversal had cleared. He also canceled all the bad check charges.

I am more amazed by the actions of the Bee and BofA than by my own stupidity. Despite all my whining about the lack of good customer service, these guys came through.

Do ya’ use a wood plane to shave with now?

Wow, straykat . . . That story is . . . breathtaking! More proof that it is the nature of computers to blow up small mistakes beyond all reasonable bounds.

I’m glad that it all worked out okay!

I love this sentence very much.

Today a co-worker asked me to burn a CD for him, sonce his machine did not have that capability.

He handed me a blank CD, I put it in, I brought up the program, and it said put in a CD. “Hmm,” I thought. Ejected it and tried again. No dice. Told my co-worker that it wouldn’t read the disk. He said no prob, he’d get someone else to do it. I gave him back the CD, and he flipped it over and put it in his drive to check that it was blank.

I had it upside down in my drive.

:smack:

I’ve spent the past week cleaning my house for a party on Saturday. Dusting, scrubbing floors, polishing furniture, etc. Today I decided to dust the ceiling fans.

So repeat all the dusting, floor-scrubbing, and polishing after 4 pounds of dust descended from said fans.

:smack: My mother always told me, clean from the top down. Why didn’t I listen?

Coulda been worse. Imagine being this guy.

I cut the grass without using bug repellant. Now I have mosquito bites that are keeping me up. :frowning:

Wow, someone else had done that too? I can’t believe it. I remember standing in front of the back door pushing unlock on my keyless entry thing and wondering why the door wasn’t swinging open. I don’t know why the heck I thought the door was going to magically open for me but, well, there you go.

I patched my corporate DHCP server at 7:45 am today. It was an idiotic thing to do, and I know better. I didn’t want to have to do it this weekend, though.

I can’t believe I did that.

I made gumbo last weekend. I made a delicious stock out of leftover frozen shrimp shells, then made a roux as the first step toward the gumbo base. This time, I vowed, I was going to make a dark roux like nature and Emeril Lagasse intended. No more of this peanut butter-colored stuff like I had timidly made before. I slowly let it “da culllah of cawfee” as Emeril says. It smelled burnt. It looked burnt. I ignored my instincts (because Emeril must know more than me about Cajun cooking) and slowly stirred in my homemade shrimp stock, let it all come to a boil and tasted it. Yuck! It tasted like nasty burnt toast! I tossed the bad batch out and had to remake the whole shebang from scratch and a couple of seafood bouillon cubes. Next time I trust my nose and instinct and not that “gibbering baboon” Emeril.

I love my fingernails. It’s rather vain and shallow of me, but I like to grow them long and spend an hour every couple of days manicuring them. It’s like a little ritual all for me and my vanity.

So you can imagine how wonderful they look now I sliced one of them off while chopping a bell pepper the other day on turning and chatting to hubby. Left index finger, and I managed to slice half the nail off vertically without actually cutting my finger. No blood, just a very owie finger whenever the remainder of the nail presses into the quick below. That is such an ookie feeling, too. Bleh.