Comments (115)

1. My buddies and I in college went joyriding one night during spring cleaning in the neighborhood. We came across an old rusted out 10 speed Huffy mountain bike. The best part? It still worked! (Barely)

   Anyway, after a few turns riding our newly acquired bike (we named him Rusty), we decided to up the ante so to speak. We built a shoddy ramp and started jumping furniture from our dorm out in the lawn.

   I was the last to go, and with some confidence provided by Uncle Jack Daniels, I sped down the lawn and hit ramp perfectly, or so I thought. I ended up performing a yard sale and faceplant in front of all my friends and the one cute girl I liked.

   To this day I still have the chip in my front tooth. I couldn’t bring myself to ask the dentist to fix it!

   posted by Scott on 1-8-2009 at 9:30 pm

2. In eighth grade I was with my brother in the church parking lot. I don’t remember why we were there alone, but we were. He had just gotten his driver’s license, and we decided it would be a good idea for me to sit on the trunk of the car, and for him to drive around.

   He started doing donuts, FAST! I fell off the back of the car and broke my arm. We drove back home quick, I told my parents we were playing tag, they never questioned why two teenagers were playing tag alone at church, and how it got so intense that I broke my arm.

   We kept it a secret for several years, I finally confessed to them at my wedding, I figured there wasn’t much they could do to us at that point.

   posted by Witty Nickname on 1-8-2009 at 9:31 pm

3. I had written the perfect college essay. Metaphors, real life examples, purpose, meaning, heart, it had all the necessary components to be successful. With an above average GPA and more than satisfactory SAT scores, my essay was the cherry on the ice cream. I submitted my application to my first-choice school.

   Not too many weeks letter I received a letter in the mail. I had been awaiting a large priority mail envelope, but I received quite the contrary. A rejection letter awaited my eyes and I was determined to find out just how exactly I didn’t get in. The credentials were all there, just like I had known before. I asked myself, “What could have possibly kept me out?” What I discovered was that in the final paragraph of the last component of my application, the personal essay, I had mentioned always wanting to go to Boston College since I was very young.

   I was applying to Boston University.

   posted by Eric on 1-8-2009 at 9:32 pm

4. Not start reading Mental_floss until I was 12.

   posted by Linda on 1-8-2009 at 9:40 pm

5. My husband and I leave for work at the same time each morning, but drive in separate cars (our workplaces are in opposite directions). He usually exits the garage first. One morning he turned his car on and put it in reverse without opening the garage door. I honked, then laughed when he realized what the problem was.

   Then I turned on my car, put it in reverse, and hit the gas pedal. Without opening my garage door.

   posted by Jess on 1-8-2009 at 9:40 pm

6. Alright, I’ll go first. Although I’m not particularly proud of this, I got a good laugh out of it (and still do) after the shock and fear wore off.

   This past October I went with some fiends to the Pumpkin Festival in Keene, NH. We left early in the morning and drove the couple hours up, walked around all day, and left late that night. By the time we got back to my friends, it was around 10 PM or so.

   With nothing to do until late afternoon the next day, I kicked back and drank (this is the important part) about a beer and a half while watching a movie with them. When I left a little after midnight, I was a combination of very sleepy and just slightly buzzed, but by no means drunk. There’s an underpass right down the street from their house that I have to take to get back to the highway for my drive home. That night it had started pouring buckets, and the streets were starting to flood. With the rain and the poor visibility, I could see that the road under the underpass was slightly flooded, but I didn’t think it would be a problem for my SUV.

   While this all sounds pretty typical, I’ll not forget to mention the Darwin part. Instead of driving verrrrry slowly through the puddle, I pulled up to it, checked it out, backed up about 50 feet, and FLOORED it. I must have hit the puddle at about 35 mph.

   A huge tidal wave crashed over my car, and immediately everything shut off, engine, electrical, everything. I couldn’t open my door, nothing. I had to climb out my window and wade through, get this, WAIST DEEP water. Yes, my “puddle” was a three-foot-deep OCEAN.

   The worst part? There were already two cars stuck in there, on either side of the ocean. (One would think think that this may have deterred me, but my reasoning was that my SUV was OBVIOUSLY higher than a dinky little car and would therefore not get stuck.)

   Tears in my eyes, I called the friend to come wait with me until good ole Mom and Dad came down to bring my sorry behind home. Said friend hugged me as I cried, and then proceeded to take pictures of my submarine car for “posterity’s sake” (which I’m proud to say I can laugh about now. Who needs enemies when you have friends?).

   Needless to say, the car was totaled. But, things did end well. Miraculously, the payout was more than the car was worth, therefore giving me my down payment on my next vehicle, albeit with one very cold, wet, and miserable lesson.

   My German father still to this day calls me his “unterseaboat captain” and has dubbed my poor scrap-metaled Chevy Blazer the “S.S. Cassandra.” (However, when he suggested I hang a picture of it in the new car with a big black X through it, I drew the line.)

   This is so much more embarassing than I had originally thought!! :)

   posted by Cassie on 1-8-2009 at 9:49 pm

7. I was having a particularly bad week at work, so I decided to have a few friends over for gorgonzola stuffed pork chops. In my preparations, I dropped the entire pan on the kitchen rug. I picked up the chops, dusted them off (don’t give me that look, cooking kills germs!) and put them in the oven. Just then, the doorbell rang. there was still a large smeary pile of cheese on the rug, so I threw it in the bath tub to hide it while I entertained. Later that night, I was tired and clearly not thinking right. I turned on the faucet and scrubbed the rug in the tub, washing all the cheese down the tub drain.

   The next morning while showering, I learned that cheese and hair form a bond unbreakable by human means. I was far too embarrassed to call my landlord to explain that I’d washed cheese down the tub drain, and couldn’t think of a plausible story as to how it could have happened by accident, so I showered in standing water for about two months until I worked up the courage to ask my dad to come out and fix it for me. Seven years later, he still occasionally calls me ‘Cheesy-Pants’.

   posted by Keri on 1-8-2009 at 9:49 pm

8. Obviously, not first. Took too long to write!

   posted by Cassie on 1-8-2009 at 9:51 pm

9. When I was three, my mom went outside for a moment while I was left inside in my booster seat. I somehow managed to wiggle over to the door and lock it. When my mom attempted to get back in she realized what had happened and tried to get me to open. I reacted in crying violently and in the end, my dad had to come home from work to unlock the door.

   posted by gdbeal on 1-8-2009 at 9:55 pm

10. I am a television news producer. Part of my job duties are to order the graphics you see in the show. I had this “oops” a few months ago and I still feel like an idiot!

    Me: Hellooooo?
    Art Guy: Stupid arrested?
    Me: Yep. He sure was.
    Art Guy: No. Do you want your graphic to say “stupid arrested?”
    Me: Why would I want tha—oh. Did I write “stupid arrested?”
    Art Guy: Yes.
    Me: Well, when I said stupid, I meant STUDENT. (I might have spelled it out). It is stupid.
    Art Guy: Yes.

    posted by Nicole Perez on 1-8-2009 at 10:00 pm

11. It was time to paint. We put down the tarps, taped up the edges, laid out the brushes, and carefully opened the can of paint. We opened up the ladder, and I climbed up to begin on the ceiling. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn off the ceiling fan. Fifteen stitches later, I have a constant reminder of my stupidity staring back at me in the mirror everyday.

    posted by Lisa on 1-8-2009 at 10:01 pm

12. When I was 15 I decided to dye my hair purple the night before we went to Ozzfest. I was at a friends house and I didn’t have any clothes that I could wear while dying it so she let me borrow her grandma’s moomoo. the directions said I needed to use petroleum jelly around my hair line so my skin didn’t turn purple but we didn’t have any… so we did the next best thing: duct tape (it’s the cure all, right?)- so I duct taped all the way around my hairline. As we’re washing out the dye the entire tub turned purple, so we had to run outside and use a garden hose. There I am… in a moomoo, with duct tape on my head, on my knees as my friend is getting the dye out with the hose. Any onlooker would have thought she was about to take me out in true mafia style.
    So then we had to rip off the duct tape… every little hair at the back of my neck ripped out, with thick purple lines on my forehead from where the various pieces of duct tape overlapped. After scrubbing nearly all my forehead skin off the lines were faint enough to go out in public.

    I’m 7 years wiser now and, as a result, I’ve learned that duct tape is only a solution for MOST problems…

    posted by Sue F on 1-8-2009 at 10:04 pm

13. My mom’s office has season tickets to the Washington Redskins, and the seats are in a really good section that’s way up close, and you get free hot dogs, soda, peanuts and cookies. The first time I went with my mom, I ate about 6 hot dogs (because they were free!), but they were skinny, little anemic hot dogs, and I would have been able to eat more if I hadn’t just recently gotten over the flu.

    Fast forward to a year later. My mom gives me and my sister tickets to the game and tells us that we’re going to be sitting with a young man from her office and his wife, who are both very nice. I tell my mom to tell this guy (who I’ve never met) that I’m going to eat more hot dogs than he can. And he accepts the challenge.

    We get to the stadium, sit down and get our first hot dogs, only to discover that this year, the dogs have been upgraded to JUMBO size! “Ok,” I think, “I can still do this”. We’re matching each other dog for dog through the middle of the second quarter (up to four hot dogs each), when he gets up to buy himself a beer (which you can’t get in this section). I decide to take advantage of the situation while he’s gone and eat another hot dog so that I will be one up on him for the next round. His wife sees me do this, and thinks it’s hilarious. I promise her and my sister not to tell him when he gets back.

    The ten minutes it took him to get that beer were the shortest of my life, but I managed to get the last of the hot dog swallowed by the time he sat down. I was feeling really gross at this point when the wife says, “Hey – now that you’re back, why don’t you have another hot dog?” She looks at me pointedly, and guessing how competitive I am says, “Do you want one too?” Not wanting to give up, or admit that I was one up on him and could watch while he ate in order to save my stomach, I say, “Sure, I’ll have another.” Famous last words.

    I eventually finish the hot dog and am now feeling completely terrible, like I’m going to burst, or like I have sand filling my stomach. I’m acting so oddly that I decide to confess my secret move to the guy. He is vaguely impressed that I thought to get a heads up on him, but I feel so terrible that I concede that he can eat two more hot dogs in the course of the entire second half and beat me, which would be easy compared to what we did in the first half. My sister and I leave to visit the lady’s room, and I’m sure that not only have I lost, but that I’m going to be sick but can’t bring myself to vomit in a public restroom. We walk around the stadium to try and get my digestion started, but I can barely walk and am hobbling sideways clutching my stomach.

    We go back to the seats, ready to face my defeat and sip on lukewarm sprite for the rest of the game when the guy tells me that because I had the guts (literally) to finish that entire extra hot dog while he was gone, that HE concedes to me. Also – he saw how terrible I was doing and didn’t want to end up like that. He even lets me sit in the front seat of their car (we carpooled) on the way home so I could stretch out. The eighteen hours that followed while my body absorbed bun and hot dog meat were some of the worst of my life. I learned my lesson. 6 jumbo hot dogs is too many.

    But I might be willing to try for 10 dinky hot dogs. Especially if they’re free. :)

    posted by Maggie on 1-8-2009 at 10:17 pm

14. In college, I was sitting on a ledge on the third story of a building when a group of friends approached me from behind. The first one clapped me on the should and said “hello” and I let myself fall off the ledge, much to the horror of my other friends who thought they had seen me fall to my death.

    Little did they know I had only fallen a few feet to a small ledge in order to fool them.

    Little did I know that climbing back up would be harder than I thought. What a great way to go, falling off of a building while trying to convince people that I had fallen off of a building. (Can you imagine how bad the guy would have felt who touched me on the shoulder in the first place?)

    posted by Adam D. Jones on 1-8-2009 at 10:20 pm

15. Not sure if this counts as the stupidest thing I’VE ever done, but it’s probably one of the stupidest things my mom has ever done and we still laugh about it.

    I was little…maybe 7 or 8, and my two adult front teeth had just grown in. I was wearing jelly shoes, and pushing a merrry-go-round with my older cousin. She was bigger and faster, and I slipped in the stupid jellies while trying to keep up with her.

    I fell and smashed my teeth against the metal bar on the merry-go-round. Both of my teeth had the bottoms chipped off…not a huge break, but definitely noticable. So I was screaming and crying and our parents came running over and decided that while it wasn’t an emergency room kind of thing, it was still time to end the day and go home.

    On the way home, to make me feel better, my mom decided to stop and get me some ice cream. Turns out ice cream is not the best treat for a kid with broken, super-sensitive teeth. I had just calmed down and I started crying all over again, and she felt horrible for not realizing that cold ice cream and chipped front teeth don’t mix!

    posted by Rachel on 1-8-2009 at 10:50 pm

16. Freshman year in college, rolling around on the floor with boy interest & nose ring = snagged nose ring and bleeding. I wish I could say that I had been drinking (alas I cannot). Did not want to get an infection so I decided to treat with alcohol. Picked up the alcohol bottle, laid on my bed and proceeded to pour rubbing alcohol up my nose. Burned out my nasal membranes and still have difficulty smelling with my left nostril.
    I currently teach biology to pre-nursing students and somehow manage to share this story every semester.
    I debated sharing this story or the one where I set myself on fire my junior year of college. But, I figure everyone’s done that at least once. :-)

    posted by Charlotte on 1-8-2009 at 10:55 pm

17. Back in high school a couple of my friends were hanging out driving around and such, and we ended up at an elementary school so we’re walking and we come up to this wall where the corner meets pointing inwards.So one by one we just started running up and jumping and trying to bounce off each wall and make it up like on some kung fu movie. I feeling confident of my skills decide to get a big head start and make it up.So I take everything out my pockets give it to a friend and say “check this out.” then I ran as fast as I could and went up and bounced once twice then bounced off a little to hard and lost my footing and fell straight down landed right on the bottom of my back and slammed my head on the wall giving me a huge knot a bad back and a trip to the hospital. It was silent for a few seconds and then over my yelling I hear everyone laughing.

    posted by Kenneth Py on 1-8-2009 at 11:03 pm

18. I was working in a kitchen at the time, chopping up a bunch of jalapeno peppers to make salsa. Immediately after, i went to the washrooms without having washed my hands. Imagine the heat of a jalapeno in your mouth when you eat it, then multiply that by 10 times and imagine it on your penis. Not fun!

    posted by Marc on 1-8-2009 at 11:07 pm

19. Okay a bit of setup first. My house as a kid was the only one that was below street level. The road was almost level with the roof. We were positions perfectly with the street lights so that no light hit the porch area.

    Well in summer it would get so hot we would sometimes take front yard showers. We would turn off all the lights, strip to our undies and take turns on the patio with the water hose and a bar of soap.

    Well I had been as school that day so I missed a few things that happened at home. So that night I grabbed a towel, wash cloth, soap and headed for the patio. There I was soaped from head to toe and standing in my all togethers. I heard a clicking sound.

    That day they had changed the street lights. They added a security light to the pole nearest my house. There I was on all my soapy glory right in this nice bright spotlight. And wouldn’t you know that all the neighbors had come out to see how bright the new lights were.

    posted by Patrick B on 1-8-2009 at 11:08 pm

20. When I was 4 years old, I was walking with my family in this nature preserve in Oklahoma. My parents were a little ways up the trail and came across this very large, green caterpillar in the middle of the trail. They stopped and were looking at it and commenting on how unique and pretty it was. I ran up, saw the thing, thought “bug!” and quickly stomped it dead with all my might.

    After a quick reprimanding and explanation of the difference between bugs in our house and bugs outside our house, we walked on. Further up the path, a sign was posted commenting on one of the rarest creatures in the park that was at risk of becoming endangered. Pictured was the same caterpillar I had so eagerly stomped minutes before.

    posted by Chris on 1-8-2009 at 11:09 pm

21. Several years ago…we were bored and decided to play mailbox baseball. With my car..which was actually my mom’s. Everything is fun until this car starts chasing us. I’m freaked out and driving like a maniac to escape this crazed person. We finally lose this guy..all is well…

    Until…the next day a police officer calls the house and leaves a message for my mother to call him back. I am mortified and terrified that I am in some BIG trouble. But my mom never said anything to me. It was several months later that I realized my mom had been in a wreck recently and that’s what the call was about.

    Learned my lesson!

    posted by Aimee on 1-8-2009 at 11:16 pm

22. I have pretty much always had poor vision, and started wearing glasses when I was seven. When I was in sixth grade, aged 11, I went through a bubble gum phase, and always tried to blow the biggest bubble I could. Needless to say, one day it popped and got stuck all over my new lenses. Knowing that my parents would disapprove, I tried to wash it off – no dice. I tried to peel it off – again, no improvement. My friend suggested peanut butter, which did not help and just made the glasses less appealing to wear. Then, with all the wisdom my eleven years had given me, I decided that glasses + gum + steel wool = noting could possibly go wrong. Aside from having destroyed, scratched lenses, I still didn’t remove the peanuty gum. My mom was pissed.

    posted by Kate on 1-8-2009 at 11:22 pm

23. A few years ago, I met this girl at a bar. We talked, we danced, it was a great night. I asked her for her phone number, and she gave it to me as long as I promised I’d call her. I did so, and entered her number into my phone. Then it came time to save it under her name. Which I had forgotten.

    I thought I’d be ultra smooth, and ask her “So, how do you spell your name?”

    She looks at me blankly for a couple moments (believe me, it felt like longer) and furrows her brow as she asks “Liz?” Why, oh why couldn’t it have been, well, any other name?

    It took a lot of guts to call her after that incident!

    posted by Nathan R on 1-8-2009 at 11:41 pm

24. One day, while I was cooking in the kitchen of my first apartment (I was very naive and did not know how anything worked), I was irritated that the microwave kept shutting off. I realized that the circuit breaker might be involved, so I checked it. Sure enough, the breaker kept switching off. After reseting it several times only to have it switch off again, I came up with what I thought was a bright idea. I got some duct tape and TAPED the offending breaker switch into the “on” position so that it could not switch off. I’m very lucky that I did not burn the place down! I’m embarrassed about that one!

    posted by Lisa on 1-8-2009 at 11:44 pm

25. I was a mall rat in my own right during the first part of high school.

    I also didn’t reject a dare.

    I also have the power of persuasion to include other people in said dare.

    So, what’s a bored teenager gonna do at the mall on a slow sunday night?

    Streak, of course. What the heck else?

    And knowing that all the mall cops could do was call the REAL police, me and my accomplice streaked down half the length of the mall, past several confused shoppers (thank GOD this was before the camera phone and YouTube) and right the hell to our cars. Giggling like madmen on crack, somehow we managed to get our clothes on while driving and proceeded to the local Waffle House to relive the tale and have our coffee and pie bought for us (yes, this is in the south. everything can be celebrated with pie).

    Ahh, to be young again.

    posted by Anne on 1-8-2009 at 11:53 pm

26. I once was working a school project with some friends on a floor somewhere and while moving across the floor I wound up with a staple in my finger.

    Also, opium. That was pretty stupid.

    posted by Zach on 1-8-2009 at 11:56 pm

27. I was taking a class on Russian Women in Lit at an extra-liberal university. We were discussing a short story about the experiences of black people in Russia. Since political correctness was the norm, I didn’t want to refer to the black people in Russia as “black,” so I made some comment about the “African American experience” in Russia. The teacher, a visiting professor from Russia, held back laughter when she informed me that “there are no African AMERICANS in Russia.”

    posted by jub on 1-9-2009 at 12:13 am

28. Ok, so this needs some backstory. Senior year of high school, there was a big huge blowup with my grade’s play for the annual one-act competition. Basically, it boiled down to this: I was commissioned to write an entirely new play EIGHT days before the performance, since I had written the previous year’s play and we had taken the Best Play award.
    That’s not even the stupid part.
    By the end of the next day, Friday, not only was I also directing the play, I was playing the character that the previous director (who left in a huff) had taken on.
    Still not the stupid part!
    That Sunday night I started to get some nasty stomach pain. It was going on for several hours, but I wrote it off as stress and eating something bad.
    So on Monday, all throughout school I was getting serious, and I mean SERIOUS, horrible, unimaginable, stabbing pain in the right side of my stomach. I’d be fine, then just double over in suffering. I joked all day that it was “Probably just my appendix exploding, ha ha.” Despite warnings from teachers and nurses, I absolutely refused to call my mom to pick me up and bring me to a doctor, because the first rehearsal for the one-act was that day, and considering that we were only going to have four rehearsals, I HAD to be there, no matter what.
    Eventually I reached eighth period, second to last in the day, and had a horrible bout of pain. I folded over at my desk, panting, pale, and sweating. When my calc teacher asked if I had called my mom I told him I hadn’t – I didn’t want to be a burden, plus I had STUFF to DO! This was NOTHING! Just…gas or something! WHATEVER!
    But, God bless the man, he convinced me to call her. What I didn’t know at the time was that he had helped diagnose another student’s appendicitis in the past.
    So I called her, went to rehearsal until she could pick me up, and made arrangements: “Ok you guys, I gotta leave in like half an hour because my appendix might be bursting. If it isn’t, everything goes on as planned. IF I have to have surgery, I’ll probably be out for the week, so here’s what I want you to do…”
    By five I was at the doctor,I spent all night at the hospital doing tests, by midnight we had a diagnosis, at one AM the next day I was in another hospital where I was gonna have me surgery, and the next morning I had my appendix out. If I had let it go much longer, my appendix would have burst and I would likely have gone septic and died. I literally almost won a Darwin on this one.
    Oh, and here’s some bonus idiocy. That Friday I went to the one-act performance, still somewhat hopped up on Percoset. I had just popped a couple more after a nasty hit of post-surgical pain when I discovered that my calc teacher’s very attractive younger brother was in the building to see the show. I went to say hello, pretty much introducing myself as “Hi, I’m Becky, I just had my appendix out and I’m totally high on painkillers right now!” The conversation did not go well.
    On the bright side, defying all laws of probability, my class won Best Play. So my near-death experience was pretty much worth it.

    posted by Becky on 1-9-2009 at 12:18 am

29. After living in England for four years, I moved back to America in a very stupid way.

    My plan was to fly from Heathrow, London to Charleston, WV where a friend of mine was waiting to drive me home. It was a long flight and I was so happy to be back home that it didn’t bother me too much that my friend was late picking me up. After an anxious hour of waiting, I got fed up and decided to rent a car and just drive myself home. I hadn’t been there for many years and quickly got turned around and lost trying to find the main road to home. So, I stopped at a gas station for directions. The clerk had a hard time giving me directions because he’d never heard of my home town. So I actually asked, “Okay, how about you show me how to get to the main road leading East. I can take it from there.” He pulled out a map and replied, “If you go East from here, you’ll go into the ocean.” It was a map of SOUTH CAROLINA. I was in Charleston, SC…not WV. When I bought the plane ticket in England, I failed to notice the state abbreviation.

    When I returned the rental, I found out that I’d left my military ID at the counter. In the end, I had to rent a hotel room and take a flight out the next day. And wouldn’t you believe it…the airport looked way more familiar and my friend was right there to pick me up.

    posted by Matthew C. on 1-9-2009 at 12:19 am

30. Growing up in the country, my friends and I would sometimes go squirrel hunting. Predominantly out of boredom I promise, I don’t actually recall us ever hitting one. We would ride a four wheeler up a mountain and than just walk around. Well, one time as we were riding up the mountain I saw a group of squirrels running from tree to tree. So, I removed a rifle from the rack and turned around on the back of the 4 wheeler while my friend was still driving it. I raised the rifle to shoot, and wham-a combination of the kick back of the rifle and the 4 wheeler hitting a bump knocked me backwards and off the four wheeler, my head hitting a rock. I actually blacked out momentarily, woke up to a gash in my head and my friends all laughing at me. And no, I didn’t hit the squirrel either.

    posted by AndrewH on 1-9-2009 at 12:29 am

31. One day in the Navy, the entire squadron was on what was called Safety Standown. When the base is on Safety Standown, there is no work. No flights, no maintenance, no nothing, except for safety discussions in each department of the squadron. We bombloaders got our safety stuff covered in record time, but were forced to stay in the shop all day. Appearances, you know?

    [Flashback]

    I used to wow the other kids at the community pool with my impersonation of a shark. I just put my hands behind me in the shape of a shark fin, and swim underwater toward them like Bruce at Roy Scheider.

    [Flashforward]

    About hour number 5 of the “Safety” Standown, near quitting time, I had turned a rolling chair around to sit backwards on it, and due to some giddiness on all of our parts, shouted out, “Look, I’m a shark!” and proceeded, from memory, the shark swimming position.

    The slipslam was instantaneous, and I got 12 sutures for my stupidity.
    I still have a very Harrison Ford-esque chin-scar. And can’t grow hair there.

    posted by Johnny Cat on 1-9-2009 at 12:35 am

32. On my 17th birthday, two friends and I went out to Hollywood to see a band. It was the first time our parents let us do that by ourselves. Before the show we met a few guys our age and hung out with them the rest of the night. We invited them to get food with us afterwards and they would follow us since they weren’t from the area. My friends and I never did anything like that when we were in high school so that was a big deal to us.

    Me being the rather speedy driver I am (it’s a bad idea to follow me), I took off and realized they hadn’t turned yet. We ended up driving down down Hollywood Blvd for a while and finally saw their car in a parking lot. We pulled into an empty lot next door to turn around when my best friend yelled “there is a driveway on the other side, just go all the way through!” So, I drove all the way through and then realized I ran over a chain link fence in my little Passat. We couldn’t get back over it. We were stuck in a vacant lot on Hollywood Blvd at midnight… Three 17-year-old girls. We had no idea what to do. There was no getting out of that lot. Luckily the boys saw us a few minutes later and helped us out. Six years later, my (very conservative) parents still don’t know about it even though they asked about the scratches on the hood of my car a few months after it happened.

    posted by Lauren on 1-9-2009 at 1:08 am

33. My sister left her phone at my house recently and I spent 20 minutes trying to call her to tell her to come pick it up already because it wouldn’t stop ringing.

    posted by Meredith on 1-9-2009 at 1:28 am

34. OK so the first time I saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I caught in the midst of the scene when Matthew Broderick was narrating, “Cameron must have busted a microchip or something…,” and Cameron was laying in the convertible like he had indeed done just that. So for a while after that (because I didn’t watch the rest of the movie) I was under the impression that Cameron was actually a robot and that’s the the whole movie was about. I even tried defending this belief vehemently in front of handfuls of people before I was eventually proven wrong.

    posted by Ed on 1-9-2009 at 1:31 am

35. @Eric – sucks to BU (couldn’t resist). gets my vote though.

    So I ran track in high school – mile, 2 mile. Occasionally a 4×400m relay. There was a big invitational meet – a weekend trip – that had a 4×200 relay, and some guys decided to get a team together for it. So I’m waiting for the handoff, and usually in the 4×400 you only start jogging a little just before the handoff, since the guy before you is almost dead and not going that fast anymore. The 200m, however, is a hard sprint start to finish. So, while standing pretty much still, my arm reaching back, I get completely plowed by my teammate, knocked head over heels. Needless to say we did not win that race (but I still got back up and ran it). Nice scrapes on my knees and arms too.

    Also, once in frustration after losing a foosball game (for best of 3) I punched what I had always assumed to be our soft couch. What I actually punched quite squarely was the heavy iron bar frame, which did not cushion my hand but broke it instead. And this was just post-college so I didn’t have insurance.

    posted by Colin GG on 1-9-2009 at 1:41 am

36. In college after a few beers (most of these stories seem to start this way), I decided to go sledding on the hill between my dorm and the next one over. Said hill has several light posts on it. In my state, I decided to go down head-first.

    Yep, I ran smack into one of the light poles. I managed to deflect myself slightly with my arms before the impact, so I hit with my left shoulder instead of my head. I was lucky no to break anything, but I did bruise my heart, IIRC. I almost _did_ remove myself from the gene pool!

    posted by Matthew J on 1-9-2009 at 2:18 am

37. Okay, so it didn’t get me killed or anything, but I’d have to say my best moment was about 9 years ago when my best friend and I got locked in a cemetary, alive. I was living in Louisiana and my best friend came down to visit and we went into New Orleans to go check out the cemetaries.

    We’re both very goth, so we wanted to take some cool black and white photos of us gothed out and looking dramatic amidst the mausoleums and gravestones. We got there around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and you can drive into the cemetaries there because they’re so large, so we drove on in and parked the car along a row of graves, got out, and went looking for good photo opportunities.

    After about an hour or so of very dramatic poses of us in black with daggers, draped over gravestones and looking morbid, we decided it was time to go. We got back to the car only to find that we couldn’t leave the cemetary! We were locked in.

    Somehow during our time there, the caretaker had come along and chained across all the drives in and out of the cemetary, and we (as well as one other guy) were trapped inside.

    We ended up having to hop the chains (the fences are too high, and iron with spikes) and go across to the K&B drug store (which I noticed as of last weekend is now gone) to use the phone to call for help. Yes, we called 911 to tell them we were locked in the cemetary (which by this point we were standing outside of). They sent the fire department to unlock the gates with some sort of skeleton key they had.

    We got our car out (so did the other guy) and left, but we have wondered ever since, how often do they randomly lock people in that the fire department has a key? I mean, it’s a cemetary!

    So yeah, that’s my best one. Locked in a cemetary in broad daylight, no way to get the car out. Not life threatening or anything, but we felt pretty stupid for not noticing that the guy had chained us in. We were too busy being dramatic and depressed, I guess. The things we go through for image… I’m not so goth anymore, but I still have the photos :) It’s still my best goth story ever, I think.

    reCaptcha: night ORPHEUM

    cool :)

    posted by Stacy on 1-9-2009 at 2:23 am

38. When I was about 6 and my cousin about 7, we decided to sneak into her neighbor’s property (they had a small ranch) and play with the horse. After about 30 minutes of messing around with the horses, jumping on them, etc. our parents discovered that we were there and rushed us home.

    We got grounded for a few weeks each because apparently horses that are being handled by people they’ve never met have a tendency to get angry and possibly kill the children handling them. I think I got lucky.

    posted by Alex on 1-9-2009 at 2:42 am

39. Invading Russia in the Winter

    posted by Lauren on 1-9-2009 at 2:45 am

40. I live in an apartment complex with a particularly ornery gate. We have pass cards for the gate but when one car successfully opens the gate, it generally stays open enough for at least one more car to go through.

    As I was driving around the corner to the gate I noticed one person driving through and a second following. Not the daredevil type, I crawled up to the gate, waiting for it to close (as I didn’t want to drive through and have it close on the car). The gate remained open, so I decided to drive through. Right as I was about halfway through the gate, it began to shut on my car. So I did what every intelligent person would do:

    I slammed on the brakes and started laying on the horn.

    As if the gate would hear the horn.

    When actually all I did was call attention to myself from the 5 maintanence people, the people in the office, a golf cart taking people on a tour of the complex, and a now barking dog.

    Incidentally, the gate reopens when it senses the weight of a car there. Sadly, it was not the power of my horn.

    posted by Sarah on 1-9-2009 at 6:22 am

41. When I was about 12yrs old, I played little league baseball and loved to have some big league chew. I shoved the gum in to my mouth by the handful.

    Well, one night we had a sleepover at a teammate’s house and of course, we all had our big league chew. I had just taken another large pinch of gum when my friend’s mom said we should get to bed soon. I figured that the gum still had too much flavor left in it to waste so I decided to save it for the morning. Not wanting to choke on the gum, I decided to hold it in my hand while I slept.

    I learned just how much I toss and turn that night because I managed to roll around in the gum so much that it was everywhere. It was along my side and in my armpit so my arm was cemented to my side. I managed to get myself stuck to the carpet. My friends tried to pull me up, but I did not break loose.

    The worst part of it is that like most people, I had to go to the bathroom very badly when I woke up. My friend’s mom couldn’t think of a way to unstick me from the carpet fast enough and I had an accident right there on the carpet. Needless to say, we did not have any more sleep overs. At least none that I knew of.

    posted by Juan on 1-9-2009 at 7:36 am

42. When I was in high school (1986), we used to down pixie sticks in one fell swoop for a sugar high. The embarrassing part is when I tried this with a GIANT pixie stick: the delicious powdered candy proceeded to get stuck in my throat and I almost choked to death. A quick google search proves that this is so stupid that people do it for performace art and comedy shows. So really I was just ahead of my time.

    posted by Diana on 1-9-2009 at 7:58 am

43. When I was in college I worked summers at a company the makes vending machines. My job was to test the prototype machines, including electrical. I was testing an electrical power unit and forgot to unplug the machine. I put a screwdriver in to change a wire and you can guess what happened. (That’s not the worst part!)

    I got quite a jolt but was able to continuing working after a short break and some ice on my fingers. I still had not completed my task, so I started to work on it again. I put the screwdriver in the unit again…and the exact same thing happened, I had forgotten to unplug the machine. My boss sent me home for the day!!!

    posted by Elizabeth on 1-9-2009 at 8:58 am

44. One time, at band camp…we were at a small midwestern Catholic College for the week and we had free time every evening. My three friends and I thought some girls were behind us and, in our brilliant sophomoric humor, decided to moon them as they rounded the corner of a building. It turns out the girls we knew turned off and a small group of nuns got more than they asked for on their evening stroll.

    posted by Jim on 1-9-2009 at 9:04 am

45. Almost went over a deadly waterfall… I was at a river in Mali, West Africa, and we found a place in the river where the water current & smooth rocks made it sort of like a waterfall, but the trick was that you had to swim really fast to the side after going through the slide part to avoid going over a very high waterfall that landed on rocks below.

    I went through the slide part, but couldn’t swim fast enough to the side to get out of the current & was only pulled out at the last minute by friends who grabbed my arms just a few feet before the drop off…stupid!

    posted by Julie on 1-9-2009 at 9:09 am

46. This one is straight out of an after-school special. In high school, my buddy and I were hanging out at my house trying to find something to do. We ended up on my back porch, which is where my dad keeps his pellet guns. Although you already know the end of this story, I’ll tell you anyway. I pick up one of the guns, which must have been made back when it was a good idea to make pellet guns look as close to the real thing as possible. And this wasn’t one of those wussy pump-action pellet guns either. This was a C02 powered bastard that could break the window on my barn from 150 away (yes, I’m sure). Anyway, for some months this gun had actually been broken, so I decided I was going to have some fun with my good ole’ pal. From about 2 feet away, I very casually pointed the gun at his stomach, smiled, and pulled the trigger…..without knowing that my dad had indeed fixed the gun and loaded it that week. When the gun fired we were both too stunned to register what had happened. Slowly, in unison, we looked down to the small hole in his shirt until the recognition finally wiped over his face and he spent the next 5 minutes dancing around my backyard in what I can only imagine was quite a bit of pain. I only thank God that it was only a pellet gun, or I might be telling this story as a public service announcement. As it is, I barely even broke the skin so I don’t know what all of the complaining was about.

    posted by Bryan on 1-9-2009 at 9:18 am

47. I have two…they both deal with cars.

    1) I couldn’t wait to meet my friends my first weekend home from college. I went to a school in another state, so I hadn’t driven my car in quite some time. I went outside, pushed the unlock button, and…nothing. I pushed it again, nothing. I went inside to find my dad and frantically told him my clicker was broken and there was no way to drive my car. I was late to meet my friends and nearly in tears. He took me outside, tried the button, and looked at me. “I can’t go!!!” I wailed. Still staring at me, he inserted the key into the the lock unlocked the car. That night when I got home, I found a new clicker battery waiting on my pillow.

    2) Last year, I was seeing a guy who lived closer to my office than I did, so I spent a lot of nights at his place. Every morning I would stop at the Royal Farms for coffee and a muffin. I currently own a car without automatic locks. That morning, I got out, locked my car, and while I pulled out my money to pay for breakfast, I couldn’t see my keyring in my bag. My stomach dropped and I ran out of the store. Not only were my keys locked in the car, it was actually still running. The locksmith said that very rarely happened, and even more rarely to someone who had been driving for 6 years.

    posted by Caitlin on 1-9-2009 at 9:29 am

48. In college (of course, right? where all stupid deeds are excusable), I decided it would be funny to jump onto the hood of my friend’s car as she pulled into the parking lot. She had her own tricks up her sleeve and decided she wasn’t ready to hang her hat up for the night. She threw the car in reverse and sped down the massive University St hill at speeds that felt like those of a Nascar race. I screamed as I gripped the edge of her hood, face pressed to the windshield, and my belly feeling the warmth of the motor. She then proceeds to turn on her windshield wipers and spray me with wiper fluid – as if the speed and random turns weren’t enough. This must have been repayment for something viscious I had done in my sleep (we were roommates, after all). The “fun” came to a screaching halt when we saw the lights of a firetruck behind us but saw no fire…yes, we were being pulled over by a firetruck. After arriving back at the dorm parking lot (I had practically crapped myself), the firechief pulls up beside us, jumps out of the truck, and proceeds to sternly tell me just how dangerous that was. Oh, I was aware. It was worth the memory of being pulled over by a massive fire engine in front of all my dorm buds, though…totally worth it.

    posted by deanna on 1-9-2009 at 9:35 am

49. It was the last week of my summer job pouring concrete. It was also the last week of work for my boss who was retiring. We had finished work for the day and were just cleaning up and chatting. Being the lazy person that I am, didn’t want to pick up the rake on the ground. Ever see in a cartoon when someone steps on the metal end of a rake and it flys up and hits them square in the head? Yeah, that happened to me. I got 5 stitches just above the eye. It was also my boss’ first workman’s comp claim in his 10 years of owning the company. And in the last week of owning the company. I felt like a total dumbass.

    posted by Jonas on 1-9-2009 at 9:37 am

50. This is kind of along the lines of Ed’s Ferris Bueller story.

    For YEARS I harbored the delusion that the TV show “Perfect Strangers” ended its run with the revelation that Balki and Larry were not actually related. That Balki had showed up at the home of the wrong Larry Appleton.

    This was one of my many trivia tidbits that I shared freely at parties and late night diner sessions.

    In retrospect, I think the creators owe me a debt as most everyone I told this to experienced an increase in their esteem for the show, deciding that it was much funnier for this “fact”

    posted by EMStoveken on 1-9-2009 at 9:37 am

51. I can’t believe im telling this story online.

    When I was in high school i dated this guy for like three years. One sunday i went to his house just to hang out. we were watching tv upstairs and fell asleep. i woke up because me stomach was hurting REALLY bad. I had to run to the bathroom. I ran to the upstairs bathroom to “relieve” my stomach issues. When I flushed the toilet started to overflow. I ran to my boyfriends bedroom and woke him up. He went in the bathroom to fix the problem and the water (along with my relief) was all over the floor and heading towards the carpet. His mom ran up there too and everyone had to clean it up. Thankfully my bf took the blame for me. Turns out his little brother flushed a toothbrush down the toilet right before i got there.

    6 years later and this is still the worst thing ever

    posted by Kait on 1-9-2009 at 9:47 am

52. Another glasses + kid event…

    I had brand new glasses, and wanted to keep them as clean as possible (unlike my previous pair). I knew how to breathe on the lenses to fog them up before wiping, so I tried to super-steam them over a boiling pot of water my mom was heating up–awesome! Then I decided to super-duper clean them by dipping them in the boiling water.

    Ooops. 70’s plastic frames immediately melted. Never did tell my mom what really happened.

    posted by Can you see me now on 1-9-2009 at 9:54 am

53. Okay, I had just gotten my license. My mom let me borrow her car. All was going so well for me! I drove straight to my friend Ben’s house, picked him up, and the two of us drove to our friend Josh’s house.

    We come from a fairly small town, at that time of the night the only thing we could do was go to Walmart. So we decided to go, but Josh wanted to drive his own car. His driveway was wide enough for both of our cars next to each other, but Josh wanted to go first, and asked me to back up so that he could see the road better when he pulled out.

    His driveway was gravel and he thought it would be funny to spray my car with the gravel by pulling out really fast and turning quickly. This really pissed my off (as my window had been open and I got a face-full of gravel, so I slammed on the gas to catch up with him.

    Remember how I had backed up? I didn’t.

    Josh’s brother’s car was behind me and we somehow drove up it so the back of the car was about 2 feet off the ground. I pulled forward, went to check the other car (there was a scratch) and jumped back in the car to go find Josh and tell him.

    About a quarter mile down the road the engine started smoking. I was flipping out, I had hit the car with the back end and now the front was smoking.

    We eventually made it to walmart and found Josh, who called his dad to ask why my car could possibly be smoking (who said we should get coolant) without mentioning that I had hit one of their cars. We walked into walmart to get the coolant and ran into my sister.

    She was of course curious about why the car was smoking in the parking lot, but none of us told her about the accident. She eventually left, we put some coolant in, and everything was fine.

    I never thought to check my mom’s car for damage, and a few days later she came in from the grocery store complaining about how someone had hit her and run, and I was too afraid to admit it was me.

    The best part is that Josh had bought a video camera earlier that day so somewhere there is a very damming tape which my mom would murder me over if she ever saw it.

    posted by Julie on 1-9-2009 at 10:02 am

54. @Bryan: So far, you get my vote, man…

    posted by Kelly on 1-9-2009 at 10:04 am

55. When I was 18, hy dad had a newly restored Mustang Convertable that he rarely let me drive. One day, he let me take it out. Everything went fine until I parked it in the garage. I got out of the car and noticed some garbage under the front tire. Being the kind son that I am, I felt I should back up an inch and throw away the garbage. I opened the door and sat on the seat, without fully getting in. The door was still open and my legs were hanging out. I turned the car on and threw it into reverse, planning to do so just for a second. Well, anyone who knows anything about cars knows you need to use the brake to change out of reverse. When I realized this, the car was moving pretty fast backwards. I threw my legs in to try to stop it, but I was too late. The open door slammed into the divider between the two garage openings, bending it so far forward it was barely hanging on. My dad heard the bang and came running out as I slowly pulled the car forward into the garage. Needless to say, he never let me drive that car again.

    posted by Ryan on 1-9-2009 at 10:21 am

56. My list of stupid is quite long and not particularly funny, so in good spousal fashion, I’ll share an incident from my husband.

    My husband called me at work one day and asked “What’s the stupidest thing you’ve done all day?” I was wondering if I left the door open and we’d been robbed blind. Did I leave the curling iron on and burned down the house? My God! What happened?

    He says “I bet my stupidest thing is stupider that your stupidest thing.” I had a sudden sense of relief and dread at the same time.

    “What did you do, Dear?”

    “I glued the garage door shut”

    Silence from the now relieved but confused wife.

    “Well, you see…I was thinking that bugs were probably getting into the garage around the track for the garage door and so I went and bought Great Stuff (for those of you who aren’t familiar with great stuff, it’s foam that expands to roughly a million times it’s original size and hardens to somewhere between stainless steel and emeralds) and I opened the garage door and went over everything with it. My brain told me ‘you probably shouldn’t close the garage door’ but by God I did it anyway.

    “I was going to take Cairo (our very cute and highly energetic border collie) to the park, I hit the garage door button to go out, but it just made this horrible screech and the bars started to bend, so I hit the button again to stop it.

    “I had to take the blade out of the hacksaw and go around the whole door. I couldn’t use the saw because it was too wide. It took about 3 hours to cut through it all.”

    Still, about 8 years later, there are remnants of Great Stuff ineradicably stuck to the garage door. Great Stuff is no longer allowed in the house for ANY reason. And, the border collie has never forgiven him for not taking her to the park.

    posted by Kendyl on 1-9-2009 at 10:21 am

57. Before I get to the story, I have to put you in the right mindset. You are a Freshman in High School. Your sister is a star athlete & you have a very distinct last name, so everyone knows you are “Heather’s little sister.” You have joined the Junior Varsity cheerleading squad, & it’s the day of the Homecoming Pep-Rally. This will be the first time you cheer in front of the whole school, since your experience is limited to those parents who actually show up to JV football games.

    So there I am, at the edge of the gym with my squad & the varsity squad, the bleachers are packed, & the band is high stepping on to the court. After a short performance, the band changes formation, & the drummers create two lines, facing each other, a sort of runway for all the athletes that will be called onto the court. First, the cheerleaders. The varsity squad is called out one by one, & each girl cartwheels & flips down the aisle of drummers, then run to the center of the court. Finally, time for the JV. Alphabetical order, & I’m first, & nervous as hell. My name is called. I take a running start & begin my tumbles between the swaying drummers. It goes perfectly, until I get towards the end… When I backspring directly into the last drummer – on the huge bass drum. Slow motion as both the large Senior on the bass drum & I crash onto the court, the crack & thud of the drum hitting the floor, & the ear splitting eruption of the entire school cracking up with laughter.

    I sprung back to my feet, & I had no idea what to do. Every eye was on me, & they were all laughing & hollering & taunting. So I did what I thought a cheerleader had to do. I cheered. & I finished my cartwheels. & I ran to the middle of the court & joined the rest of the girls with a shocked smile on my face, trying to pretend it didn’t happen. It took almost 10 minutes for the crowd to quiet down enough to continue the pep rally, & I was mortified.

    I did not hear the end of that horribly embarassing screw up until my senior year, when all those upperclassmen who saw it happen had already graduated. The awful nickname of “drummer girl” stuck like glue. & lucky me, the yearbook staff managed to get a picture of the debacle, & commited it to history by a half page in the annual with pictures & commentary.

    15 years later, it still gets brought up when I run into classmates.

    I guess you have to be remembered for something…

    posted by kathryn on 1-9-2009 at 10:24 am

58. One time I went to Canada without telling anyone. I was 17 and wanted to see a concert that was playing in Toronto so I told my parents I was staying with a friend and took off. The show was sold out, but I figured I could weasel my way in. Well it was winter (December or January) and I didn’t have heat in my 1984 Ford Escort. It took me a half hour to find free parking that was quite far away from the venue. Then I had to walk in the cold, by myself, in a city that I had never been to before. I got to the venue, saw the line wrapping all the way around the building and started to have doubts about my ability to find tickets. But I was a determine little f**ker and proceeded to walk about the line, inquiring about extra tickets. To no avail. Not a single scalper in the bunch. So there I was: 17, alone, freezing, no cell phone, no place to stay, a car with no heat. I got back to my car, drove around until I found a convenience store and looked up a bunch of hotels in the area. Little did I know that you have to be at least 18 to rent a hotel room in Toronto. No one would rent me a room. I went into a bar/restaurant establishment near the last hotel that I tried and sat down at the bar. I asked the bartender if he knew of any place where I could get a room. He gave me a beer (!?!?) and said he knew of a place. Very shady, but I was desperate since I couldn’t exactly go home due to my original lie. He gave me directions and I found the motel he was talking about. As I walked in the lobby, I quickly figured out why it wouldn’t be a problem to get a room: there were many “ladies of the night” lounging about and some rather ragged men slumped in the lobby chairs. The whole room reeked of sweat and alcohol. The guy at the counter was really surprised when I wanted a room for the whole night. Once in the room, I locked the door and bolted it. I couldn’t sleep, it was the noisiest hotel I have ever been in and the scariest: the sounds of the city outside coupled with random yelps, arguments, etc., within the hotel. There was even a sign in the room warning occupants to not open the door at night due to the large number of burglaries in the area.
    But all ended well, I survived the night and got home safely and no one, to this day, knows that I ever did that (except for whomever reads this).

    Not sure if this qualifies as Darwin-worthy or if it is just reckless youth, but I very easily could have been taken advantage of, hurt, raped, etc., and no one in the world would have had any idea what happened to me. Not exactly smart.

    posted by CRM on 1-9-2009 at 10:29 am

59. A friend of mine had a conversation about how we both like when women wear black pantyhose.

    Later that day we went to the mall and at one point I said to him “Look, black hose” while motioning in the direction of a women in black pantyhose.

    What I didn’t realize was that in between us and the girl I was talking about were two African-American women who heard what I said – and heard ho’s instead of hose.

    I left quickly.

    posted by Colin on 1-9-2009 at 10:29 am

60. Well one time when I was in college I returned home from the local pub quite inebriated. I lived on the second floor at the time.

    Well, this particular evening I thought I would be able to scale the outside walls of my building and enter my apartment through a window (spiderman was the big movie that summer)

    I got 1 and a 1/2 floors up and fell into the bushes (an evergreen type number). I was picking needles out of my butt for about two weeks.

    posted by Patrick C. on 1-9-2009 at 10:30 am

61. This happened to a friend of mine. He is from Pakistan and is fluent in Urdu and English. He came to America for his Master’s degree and would often comment in Urdu in front of the girls he thought were attractive (discreetly) so they couldn’t understand him (and thus saving his from embarrassment). Well, one summer vacation he went back to Pakistan for 2 months, and out of habit, at a fast food restaurant commented to his friend how ‘hot’ a girl was…in URDU! He forgot that everyone around him could understand him, and needless to say he got a lot of stares and looks. He was very very embarrassed.

    posted by Pink Coat on 1-9-2009 at 10:32 am

62. Of course mine stars a car. Well a ‘77 Dodge van (nifty two tone blue), actually. I drove said van to meet my family at a campground. So I pull into the gate and “park” by the office to go find out where they are. While I’m in the office, I hear a small commotion down the hill. But it’s a campground full of kids, so whatever, right?

    When I exit the campground office, my van is gone. Obviously, someone stole it! Right here in a campground!!

    Turns out, it wasn’t actually in park. It took off down the hill, narrowly missing several people. Unfortunately, it did NOT miss the vintage AirStream camper parked in its way. Did major structural damage to the camper. Basically, it destroyed a very valuable camper. Whoops. The owners of said AirStream were extremely pissed. My glib 18 year old recation was, $hit happens. Not a favorable response.

    later in the camp out, we went to a flea market and one of my friends bought me a cap that had that senitment on it. The owners of the ruined camper got even more pissed.

    Guess I was REALLY lucky that no one was killed.

    posted by qt314159265 on 1-9-2009 at 10:34 am

63. Out of the multitude of stupid things I have done, this one was potentially the most risky. It happened many years ago when tensions were at a temporary lull but still…

    I was working on a Kibbutz in Israel [of course in Israel as that is only place you can find a Kibbutz) in the Negev desert near Eilat. I had a bad week and was anxious to get away to visit a friend at a Kibbutz in Ein Gedi, near the Dead Sea. Through an error by my supervisor, I was booked on the wrong bus and would not be able to make the right connection to get to Ein Gedi. I decided to get on the only bus available and go any way. This led me to being dropped off about five or so miles from the Kibbutz in the area called the West Bank (yep, the one you hear about in the news). This left me in the middle of nowhere hitchhiking on a Friday evening. Fortunately, I was able to get a ride with some soldiers and arrived safely.

    I did not realize until several years later how utterly stupid this was.

    posted by Cynthia on 1-9-2009 at 10:35 am

64. The stupidest thing I have ever done occrued on a nightmare family roadtrip vacation to South Dakota during the summer in between my fourth and fifth grade years.

    My stupid event occurs at the very end of the story, but let me preface that with the events leading up to it.

    All things went smoothly leading up to our arrival in Rapid City, SD. The first morning of the vacation started with our van not starting, so we proceeded to spend the whole first day of vacation in the auto shop.

    The next day my mom, who was pregnant with my brother at the time, started having complications, and went into premature labor. Four and a half months premature to be exact. So we picked up all our stuff, took my mom to the nearest hospital, and checked into a new motel closer to that location.

    My mom was in the hospital for a few days, and during some of our down time my dad was determined to take the rest of his family, my sister and I, on some form of vacation activity. So we took the drive to go see Mt. Rushmore and the beginnings of the Crazy Horse monument. On the way my dad was pulled over and ticketed for tailgating a South Dakota State Trooper.

    On the last day of our trip, the day we were to take my mom and sister to the airport to go back home; my dad, sister and I had some down time in the motel. I asked my dad if I could have the keys to the van to go get my basketball cards, that I had bought at a card shop not far from the hospital, to look at. He gave me the keys and yelled out not to lock them in the car as I rushed out of the room. I went to the van grabbed the cards and shut the locked door without taking the keys. I returned to the room head down and reported the news. With all that had happened on the trip thus far this was the boiling point for my dad. He erupted into a volcano of rage. I had never seen him this upset. For a second there I thought I was going to die in South Dakota. He screamed at me to go the the front desk and call a locksmith. Embarassed and teary eyed I made my way down to the front desk were I somehow got out the words that we needed a locksmith for our van. All this trouble over a couple decks of stupid Upper Deck basketball cards. On the bright side my brother wasn’t born for another three months, and I got to watch Ken Griffey Jr. tie the Major League record for home runs in consecutive games on the highlights on Sportscenter every night on a different TV in a different motel as my dad and I drove the van back home.

    P.S. I have never been back to South Dakota

    posted by Jake on 1-9-2009 at 10:39 am

65. when i was in junior high, my buddy and i decided to cut down a big patch of trees in his backyard (his parents said it was ok). He had a pretty large backyard and all the trees were in kind of a island in the middle of it. we decided to use his riding lawnmower as transportation to and from the trees and also as a means for dragging the trees in the pile.

    The way that it went was my friend would drive the lawn mower and i would sit on the hood while we cruised around the yard (he was a rather large dude, so he always drove). it was all going fine and we were making good progress and having fun at the same time. That was until we had to drive the saws back to the “tree island.”

    Instead of just walking over to the trees with the saws (we had about 4-5 of them for some reason), we decided that we would drive them over there. Rather, my friend would drive and i would sit on the hood of the mower with a bunch of saws on my lap.

    My friend then started up the engine…and for some reason he decided to put it in 5th gear right away. Unbeknownst to me, the wheels were slightly turned. so when he popped it into 5th, the mower fiercly jerked forward, causing me to go flying off the front with a bunch of saws.

    Lucky for me, i had the instinct to chuck the saws as far as i could as i was being heaved from the hood of a riding mower. If i hadn’t, i could have ended up slicing myself wide open. I still ended up breaking my wrist from landing on it. I told my parents that i was running and tripped on a tree stump and broke it because i didnt want them to know that i was riding on the top of a lawn mower with saws in my lap!

    posted by andy on 1-9-2009 at 10:41 am

66. It was my first week in college (Cornell in Ithaca, NY) and I needed to drop off some financial paperwork at a hall about a 10 minute walk away from my dorm. Since the campus was so beatiful and the day was so nice, I decided to try out my first (and only) pair of rollerblades. The trip to the hall was mostly uphill, a steep hill, but I finally made it. I switched my rollerblades for shoes and dropped off my papers. I then put back on the rollerblades and proceeded to head back down the steep hill. I tried to stay slow. I weaved back and forth and I was almost constantly applying the break. I made it a little over half way down the hill when I wiped out really, really bad. I knocked the wind out of me, and I was bruised, but I got up and kept going.

    Right before my dorm, there is a large bridge that goes over a gorge, Ithaca is famous for people committing suicide by jumping into the gorges…

    I head down the rest of the hill, gaining more speed that I should have, and hit a crack in the pavement and went flying forward, and landed on top of the bridge wall overhanging the gorge, one foot dangling over the precipice.

    I crawled back on the pavement, took off my rollerblades and walked the rest of the way to the dorm terrified.

    I am a Cornell Graduate with an MBA from Hofstra, and I was less than a foot away from falling into a gorge freshman year. I probably would have made me a darwin award winner.

    True story.

    posted by Melanie on 1-9-2009 at 10:50 am

67. Committed myself to 5 yrs of graduate school with an insane lunatic as my “mentor.”

    posted by M. Anne on 1-9-2009 at 10:51 am

68. Bored in Baghdad

    I was in the “great beach without a sea” in 2003 (right after the initial invasion) and my unit (2d ACR, D Troop) had seen little or no “action.”

    We had been training for years for a battle that would never come and we were all high-strung. We often griped about the cowardice and lack of organization portrayed by our enemies. This may sound strange to the average civilian, but we craved that challenge that would truly prove our mettle.

    While complaining loudly, as soldiers will do, I was absent mindedly sharpening the bayonet I would never use, let alone attach to my rifle. We were in a police station that needed to be guarded after renovations from a previous bomb blast. We were exceptionally frustrated because an Iraqi police officer had shot a fellow officer two hours earlier while twirling his handgun around his finger like an “American Cowboy” (his words, not mine). At the highpoint of my grousing I exclaimed that “we should just stand back and let the idiots accidentally shoot each other!”

    To punctuate this I promptly threw my bayonet at a Date Tree thinking it would stick and I would look like a pseudo Rambo. Instead, my bayonet rebounded off the tree and came hurtling back at me. I flung up my arms and shrieked like a school girl when the butt of the bayonet struck me in the chest. The bayonet clattered harmlessly to the ground leaving behind only bruised skin and a battered ego.

    The worst part was that I was right outside the clumsy officer’s cell and he had been watching us. His howling laughter still keeps me awake at night.

    posted by Josh on 1-9-2009 at 11:12 am

69. In the Bahamas wandering around the straw market and I notice people haggling for everything. I saw a shirt I liked and it was $15 but I figured I’d wait to buy until I was ready to leave.

    Fast forward 20 minutes… I see the same exact shirt at another place and I decide it’s time. With plenty of haggling observation under my belt I pick up the shirt, walk over to the woman selling it and say… “I’ll give you $8 for this shirt.”

    She looks at me with the biggest smile and says “Honey, that shirt is only $5.”

    Deal…

    posted by Dan on 1-9-2009 at 11:15 am

70. Let’s just say that rapelling during an earthquake may not be the most intelligent thing to do.

    posted by Steven on 1-9-2009 at 11:22 am

71. While chopping up some habanero peppers for chili, I had to go to the bathroom. Not thinking, I just went in and did my business, immedietly regretting it afterwords. The pain was so bad after wipeing, I filled up my tub with whatever milk I had left, poured in flour and water and soaked in that untill my lady parts were no longer feel like a blow torch. The worse part is that my best friend came over, just to see me sitting in white pastey water with nothing on but a tee-shirt, shouting like I was dieing the most horrable death ever.

    It wasnt fun.

    posted by Cassandra on 1-9-2009 at 11:41 am

72. Getting caught.

    I was in the local Target one night with a female friend- one I was pursuing to be a girlfriend but was not yet there. We got in line behind a VERY attractive woman who had two children with her. Being a male who enjoys a beautiful view, I took in the scene from behind while waiting in line. All was fine until the little boy pointed at me and asked his mother “Mommy- why is that man looking at your butt so much?” This was 7 years ago and I STILL don’t have a good answer for that question.

    posted by ScottR on 1-9-2009 at 11:45 am

73. This is actually a story my mom loves to tell, not my own. It’s also the opposite of the Darwin Awards – something stupid that probably saved a life.

    During my mother’s senior year of high school, one of her close friends bought a brand new motorcycle (probably a Harley). One weekend afternoon, someone dared this friend to ride his motorcycle, while naked, all the way from his house to school and back. He took the challenge, and set off. He might have made it except for the fact that the only way to get to the school was to take the local freeway. A CHP (California Highway Patrol) officer spotted him, pulled him over, made him get off his bike, then arrested him for indecent exposure.

    My mom must’ve had some pretty clever friends, because this guy was able to defend himself at his trial by bringing in the motorcycle seat and proving that the indecent parts of him were not actually exposed until the CHP officer made him get off the bike. The charges were dropped, although the arrest stayed on his record.

    A couple years later it was 1969, and the Vietnam draft starts. My mom’s friend was ineligible due to his naked motorcycle arrest, saving him from being sent to war and possibly dying.

    posted by Kathryn on 1-9-2009 at 11:49 am

74. I watched “Witless Protection,” one of Larry the Cable Guy’s movies. It was a little more horrendous than I’d expected, which is pretty bad. The really stupid thing is that I volunteered to write about it, and in order to do so, I have to watch it at least once more, possibly twice.

    Probably not the stupidest thing here, but still kind of bad.

    posted by Sillstaw on 1-9-2009 at 11:54 am

75. Let me start by saying this happened more than 20 years ago when I was young and stupid was my middle name. I’d also like to clarify that I’m now a law-abiding citizen, mother, webmistress, etc. and, hopefully, the statute of limitations has long passed ;-) The scene begins here in Toronto, just before Christmas, I’m making jewelry for a living and barely existing in a cockroach motel with my guy. Said guy has a court date looming that would have netted him maybe a month in the hoosegow, but he’s scared to go back inside (I picked some real winners back then) and hatches one of his infamous plans. Let’s hitchhike to Hawaii! We’ll live like kings in the mountains, grow our own pot, and sell jewelry to the tourists! Right on, baby, you da man, let’s go! And we did. Not before tucking a little envelope into my backpack, which will become important to our cautionary tale soon. It contained, hand to God, 6 pot seeds. Why we felt we had to take seeds *to* Hawaii is beyond me, must have been a kickass strain. Skipping ahead, past the unnerving ride that picked us up (supposedly he was driving to Florida and flying back, but his lack of proof got us turned away at the Rainbow Bridge), it’s now 2AM, I’m wearing a thin denim jacket plastered in patches, freezing my butt off as we walk across the Peace Bridge (our ride was going to meet us on the other side, which I doubted). I can still hear the snow crunching under my holey sneakers in the silence of that dark December morning, the rush of the mighty Niagara below our feet, so close, so cold. Scared crapless, I was, and with good reason. Short version, they were bored to tears in that little security hut and we were a dream come true. Bail jumping, pot smuggling hippies, yeeha! I’d never been frisked before. Titillating, but terrifying, that woman was built like a linebacker. I’ll give my guy credit (long gone now), he practically leaped out of his chair and yelled, “That’s mine! Whatever’s in that envelope, it’s mine!”, to save my skin when they found our “stash”. They didn’t believe him when he insisted they were tomato seeds, go figure. My linebacker had to search for the keys, but she opened up the border jail for us, put my guy in the only cell and sent me to the waiting room where I drank coffee and cried on and off for the three hours it took for the Toronto cops to get there. Four coppers, two cars, one for each of us. They dropped me at Under 21, part of Covenant House, an outreach program for street kids, and took him right where he’d been trying to avoid. My mother was beside herself, but all that’s another tale along the riverbank. Moral, kids, don’t always follow your heart, give the brain a chance to lead sometimes.

    posted by Tiny Dancer on 1-9-2009 at 12:00 pm

76. Holy cow! Sorry about that size of that puppy, never written it down before.

    posted by Tiny Dancer on 1-9-2009 at 12:03 pm

77. Sure, I’ve done some stupid things. But compared to my husband, I’m a piker. One day, he decided to test the density and strength of his teeth by applying a toenail clipper to them. To increase the stupidity level, he decided to clip a front tooth. And clip it he did. It’s still chipped today.

    Now, that’s the kind of stupidity you’d expect from a kid. He, sadly, was 16 at the time.

    posted by loripop on 1-9-2009 at 12:03 pm

78. When I was about 15 years old I was big into water skiing. My friend and I decided we should build a pyramid on water ski’s. Our parents were somewhat accomplished so they tell us to practice on land first, as you have people climbing up your body to stand on your soldiers. We commandereed our little brothers and cousins to make the climb and were getting the hang of it or so we thought until one fell and tumbled through ropes and crashed to the ground. He would go to the Emergency room.

    Somehow we conviced our parents that afternoon to take the show off of land and onto the water anyway just with different kid on our shoulders. So by this time the first climber has returned with a broken ankle and the we are on the water. We got the pyramid up, and we start to have the kid on top climb down, except people are slippery in the water. and he fell forward onto my ski’s, which had metal plating riveted to the front, and then I tumble over him. Needless to say the kid had blood coming out of his head and went to the emergency room for stitches and had the same doctor.

    To this day my dad still cannot believe social services were called on us that day.

    posted by Jake on 1-9-2009 at 12:04 pm

79. Last summer my husband and I were going to have a easy night of grilling, a few drinks and some friends. As it was getting later a few of our friends wanted to go to the bar and a few of us did not. It ended up being me, my husband, my friend Wendy and the 2 neighbors that we just met that night. So now there was 5 of us and a few too many drinks later we remembered that we had a canoe that was given to us recently and we didn’t know if it leaked or not. We decided we should test it out and we all grabbed life jackets which is the only smart thing we did. We had to walk 2 blocks with it and realized when we got there that we only had one oar. We ended up cutting between 2 yards to get it down a rough terrained hill into the river. Once we finally got it down there we oared over to the other side to cheer on the Relay for Life walk that was going on. This turned out to be a bad idea because when we finally made it back and got back up the hill we were met by 3 cops. 2 of us had lost a shoe and the neighbors husband took off on us. It was quite embarrassing being in our late 20’s and not a great impression on the new neighbors. Luckily we didn’t get any tickets just lectured on cutting through someone’s yard but laughed at because we had life jackets.

    posted by Des on 1-9-2009 at 12:10 pm

80. I was waiting for time to pass so I could go work out at the gym on base with my husband when he got off. In the mean time, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and brilliantly locked my keys in the car.

    I thought, no biggie. There’s a spare in the house. That’s locked up. I walked home because I figured if my husband could climb up to the patio to get in the sliding door, I could too (we lived in a condo on the 2nd story). BIG mistake. I remember trying a few times and failing, then giving it one more go.

    The next thing I knew, I woke up with doctors telling me they had to cut my hair in places to stitch up my skull. Apparently in my last attempt, I had fallen and hit my head on the concrete stairs, had enough sense to call a girl friend to come take me to the gym, at which point she found me passed out in the patio of the neighbor below us. I also apparently was so out of it with the concussion that I was screaming obscenities at the doctors and nurses who admitted me to the hospital, and they had to tranquilize me.

    Moral of the story: this kat does NOT climb into high places anymore.

    posted by drumnbasskitty on 1-9-2009 at 12:17 pm

81. The summer before my senior year of high school I was working as a camp counselor. We took the kids on a trip to a beach for the day. We were taking turns being with the kids and during soem free time I was walking around with some fellow counselors when we happened across a bunch of kids diving off a bridge. We thought it would be fun to try but decided to do it on the return of our walk. Well, luckily for us on our return we found we had the bridge to ourselves…the crowd had disappeared. The three of us dove into the water in succession. Two of us emerged with cuts..me on my wrist and another on his head. We had hit bottom!

    We then realized why we had the bridge to ourselves: It was low-tide!

    posted by deej on 1-9-2009 at 12:19 pm

82. In high School we were pretty stupid and thought like most we thought we were invincible, so here goes. It was 1993 my friend Rob and I got our licenses and we drove everywhere in his (his mom’s) yellow Datsun pick-up truck that had really large side mirrors for towing. One time we gave our friend Bert a ride home from school and he rode in the truck bed. When we dropped our friend Bert off at his house he walked up to say goodbye and put one hand on the mirror and another on the door, I grabbed them both, and Rob mashed the gas. Our improvised plan was supposed to go like this; Rob speeds off, I hold onto Bert for a second, he freaks out, I let go we drive off laughing our heads off. It went more like this; Rob speeds off, I hold onto Bert for a second, he freaks out, I let go, he hangs on for dear life screaming, we drive off with him dragging next to the car screaming his head off. We stopped immediately and picked up our bloodied and bruised friend up from the street and took him home. Luckily his injuries consisted of road rash and we patched him up with peroxide and gauze. His parents were on vacation so my girlfriend stayed behind to take care of him. Needless to say, we almost killed Bert and my girlfriend cheated on me with him. To make matters worse Rob and Bert pulled the same stunt on me in Bert’s mom’s big Chevy conversion van a couple of years later. I walked away with road rash and a mashed hand.

    posted by Anthony on 1-9-2009 at 12:53 pm

83. Although I wouldn’t call myself a tough guy, I like to think I’m at least pretty manly. One “manly” thing about me is that I currently have six tatoos (with more to come). Here’s a little story about a time when I was getting one of my tattoos.

    For those of you who have never been in a tattoo parlor, although clean, they’re usually as tough and gritty as you might imagine. Most of the (male) tatoo artists I’ve met have been very nice, but also real tough guys.

    So this one time, I was getting some work done on my back and the artist is telling me about his weekend plans. This big, burly guy is telling me about his plans to go to Ozzfest and how excited he is.

    Now, call me crazy, but I thought it was kind of strange that this guy was interested in Ozzfest but, by coincidence, I had recently spoken with a guy at work who was also planning to go to Ozzfest.

    I said to the tatto artist, “Yeah… I work with a guy who’s going to that. He sets up a booth and sells his artwork. He’s got tons of paintings and sculptures and stuff.”

    He had a strange look on his face. “Really? I’ve never seen anything like that, but I’ll be sure to look for him,” he says to me.

    He continued to talk about his plans for at least 20 minutes, while he dug the tattoo needle into my back. While doing my best to ignore the pain, I was perplexed that this big tough guy was interested in Ozzfest. Finally, I had to ask him about it.

    So I said, “I don’t mean to be rude, and I’ve always enjoyed the movie, but are you really that excited about The Wizard of Oz?”

    There was a moment of silence in which he stopped tattooing, leaned back, and glared at me before he burst out laughing.

    I should point out that, at not time did he actually mention Ozzy Osbourne. Also, I did just have that conversation with my co-worker, who informed me that there was a big Wizard of Oz convention that same weekend.

    We both cleared the air on what we were talking about, but it didn’t make it any less embarrassing. My tattoo artist had a great time with it all. He felt the need to call over all the other artists and share the story with them, and he had to take a laughing break every 3-5 min.

    I just sat there and closed my eyes, and thought- “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…”

    posted by Mike on 1-9-2009 at 1:11 pm

84. I met a girl in a bar one night in college who looked just like the singer Jewel. I was a little drunk and next thing you know we were slow dancing to ‘Paradise by the dashboard light’. Next morning I realized she was just an ugly girl with bad teeth.

    posted by Joe on 1-9-2009 at 1:24 pm

85. I’m not going to go into a long spiel- I slipped on a banana peel in high school after lunch one day.

    posted by erin on 1-9-2009 at 1:25 pm

86. It was the week before our high school graduation, and my friends and I wanted something to remember our highschool experience by. The Friday night before our graduation we went to the senior keg like everyone else, except ours was non alcoholic as none of us drank.

    My friend asked if he could give me tattoo, I said yea, thinking he meant later on, or a professional one.

    Nope, he pulled out his makeshift tattoo gun. It was a pen tube, sewing needle, rubber bands, an RC car motor, and some craft ink and ran on two AA batteries.

    I threw my foot up on a tailgate of someone’s truck and he went to town. Shortly there after, instead of calling it quits when he ran out of battery power, and I had a zero on my ankle, we rounded up more and finished it by firelight.

    Probably not my brightest moment, but an awesome story.

    posted by Rob on 1-9-2009 at 1:32 pm

87. When my dad was a kid, he and his buddies used to go out to the middle of a field with their boyscout bows and very real arrows and then proceeded to shoot the arrows straight into the air. Last one to move “won”

    posted by John on 1-9-2009 at 1:45 pm

88. ‘Way back in the late 70’s, I went to Red River, NM with my family. We went on a jeep tour, and our guide took us up a mountain. He stopped at one point and indicated the sheer cliff off the road: dropped about 100 feet, then terminated in an ever-gentling slope to the bottom. He mentioned that he always wanted to jump off to see if he would survive the fall.

    I thought it sounded like a good idea, so before anyone could stop me, over I went. I plummeted the first hundred feet, then hit the slope skidding. Lost control and tumbled a few times, then regained my feet and slid the rest of the way to a stop. It took the guide and my parents about 15 minutes to race back down the hill (on the road, of course). I met them at the bottom, with only a skinned elbow to show for my stupidity.

    It was awesome, but to this day now, I’m acrophobic. Dah…

    posted by Jon Campbell on 1-9-2009 at 1:45 pm

89. I was 12 years old and walking around Baltimore harbor with my father. Every 100 feet or so are are life preservers in white metal boxes with a big blue light on the top. Being a curious kid I see one, and walk over to it. The top says PULL DOWN TO OPEN. So I did. And the blue light goes off, a screaming alarm goes off and the police came and surrounded me. I pushed the box closed, and looked at the bottom of the metal box. I guess I missed ALARM WILL SOUND at the bottom of the box. My father pretended not to know me until he realized I was in real trouble. I think he called me his ‘neice’ and got me out of there by telling them I mentally ill sometimes…and I dont blame him.

    posted by sandy K. on 1-9-2009 at 2:42 pm

90. Oh goodness, these are too funny.

    I have to share this story about my father. When I was little, about 3, we switched our regular timeshare for a place outside of Disney World. My poor dad tried to do the dishes, but used I think regular soap instead of the actual dishwasher detergent. Apparently there were bubbles EVERYWHERE.

    Then there was the time he asked my mom if an apple was a dairy product. He was on medication where he couldn’t have dairy and wanted to make sure.

    My father has a PhD and is generally a very smart and reliable man.

    My own personal favorite story was the time I clogged the toilet. Yes. I clogged it. My boyfriend (now fiance) was both horrified and incredibly amused. Now everytime there’s something wrong with the toilet I get blamed.

    But one more-my mom always told me growing up that she knew everything I did, had eyes everywhere, etc. Of course, I believed her knowledge had limits. I was 17 and worked at a movie theater with a group of guys a year older than me. Awesome guys, but a bit mischievous. I think just to be funny, they invited me out to a friend’s birthday party at a strip club. Well, I went in an attempt to be the cool girl they could hang out with. I told my mom I was going out with friends after work, then spent a very uncomfortable hour sitting as far from the bar as I could while still being social. Even more embarassing, one guy decided to get me a dollar dance. Red as an apple, I not only got a lapdance but also a face full of boobs. I was glad when we left.

    A few years later, I found out my mother knew where I was that night-one of her friends was there too. Learned my lesson-never ever doubt my mother’s ability to know everything (at least while I lived at home).

    posted by Kate on 1-9-2009 at 2:45 pm

91. This won’t win, but I once used a propane lantern as a leaning post while camping with my family. It was dark (duh) and I got up to go to the cooler and put my hand out to lean on the lantern which was on a 4-5 foot stand. I turned around to find my entire family staring at me and my father shushing my mother. We continued to stare to stare at each other for abour 10 seconds when I smelled my burning palm. The washer/nut combination on the top of the lantern had become so hot that when I put my hand on it, I didn’t feel it and my dad wanted to teach me a lesson, so he wouldn’t allow anyone to tell me. By the time this whole thing was over, I could read the name of the manufacturer in my palm.

    Not to be outdone, I once came home from school to find that my dad had hooked his thumb to the arm of the couch with a fish hook. That’s right, the hook went in through the tip of his thumb, out the pad of the thumb and into the couch, barb and all. It took him half an hour to ask me for help.

    posted by Sean O. on 1-9-2009 at 2:49 pm

92. This isn’t my Darwin award, but my mother-in-law’s. She’s a Black Belt Six Sigma accountant for a major insurance firm and I have 3 specific accounts:
    1) My wife’s parents live out in the woods, and she called my father in law up in utter hysterics because she was certain she saw a werewolf.
    2) We were watching CSI and they found a gorilla skull in the trunk, later they found peanut shells underneath the gas pedal, and she exclaimed “OH!!! PEANUT SHELLS! you know- peanuts… gorillas?!” so my father in law pauses and says “Honey… elephants eat peanuts, not gorillas.” So she stopped, thought for a moment and said “Oh… AN ELEPHANT!!!!!!” – An elephant what? Drove the car?
    3) We were having a conversation and somehow walking on the moon came up. She said (I swear I’m not making this up) “Stop joking! You couldn’t land on the moon!”- we all thought she was kidding, but as the conversation pressed on we saw that she was completely serious and sought to defend her rationale by saying “How could someone walk on the moon?! HELLO! IT’S ROUND!!!” and proceeded to motion with both her hands a man falling off the side of the moon.
    It was at that point where I realized even incredibly stupid people can gross over 150k annually.

    posted by Colin on 1-9-2009 at 3:31 pm

93. Why is it that the best stories involve personal injury? I could tell one about getting lost and driving for 10 hours, but it’s just not quite as good….

    For my birthday one year, my friends and I went out for dinner and drinks, and then decided to go back to a friend’s house to continue the celebration. My birthday is in February, and it had snowed earlier in the week. The streets were all clear, but most yards still had snow, and in many cases, the snow had started to melt and then re-frozen once the sun had gone down. My friend’s house is on 11 acres of land, so after several more celebratory drinks, we decided to take his 4-wheeler for a spin around the property. That was fun for a little while…until we remembered the sleds we had just bought for the last snowstorm. They were those plastic dish-sleds that let you slide in any (and every) direction. We tied a tow strap to the back of the 4-wheeler and began being pulled along behind it, one at a time. All was well until the intoxicated driver made a game of seeing how fast and sharp he could turn the 4-wheeler, thus making the sled dart out at a breakneck speed. We were all drunk, and thought this was awesome! And it was….until my second or third turn. My arms had gotten tired from holding on, and I lost it in a turn! MY sled went flying sideways, hit a slight rise in the snow and flipped….I landed on my head on the ice. I woke up to murmurs of “don’t move her head” and “give her some room” along with peals of laughter. Needless to say, that ended my birthday sledding adventure, and I spent the rest of the night with a pounding headache! They call me Murphy for a reason…

    posted by Murphy on 1-9-2009 at 3:44 pm

94. To gdbeal :

    Same thing happened to me with my 3 yr old Son about 10 years ago. Who knew the automatic locks would engage when I shut my door to walk around and get him out of his seat? I freaked. It was hot out too. Couldn’t get a hold of anyone, and didn’t know what to do because he was just sitting there staring at me in is seat, wondering what the hell is Dad doing running around the van like that. Finally, right before I was going to attempt to put my elbow through the passenger window, I got a hold of my ex-wife who left work to come to the rescue with the extra key. I still feel stupid to this day.

    posted by T.J. on 1-9-2009 at 3:57 pm

95. My best friend, Bruce, had been dating his future fiancée for about 3 months. I wasn’t privileged enough to meet this new girl until his 27th birthday party, with a few other choice guests. Before the party, Bruce made sure to remind me to “be nice to this one… she’s really special.”

    Our initial introduction went smoothly. The dinner went smoothly. It wasn’t until cake time that things went horribly wrong. After a resounding chorus of “Happy Birthday,” Bruce asked if I would do the honors and cut the cake. When I handed his new girlfriend her piece, she giddily declined, “No! No!… a smaller piece… I’m can’t eat that whole thing!”

    My awkward response:
    “Oh Come, on! You’re a big girl!!!”
    “I mean… you’re a girl… who’s big!”
    “I mean… you could probably eat a lot of cake!”

    She slowly set the piece of cake down, walked her TINY frame into the next room, sat down by herself, and didn’t say a word to me for the rest of the night.

    posted by tom on 1-9-2009 at 4:02 pm

96. Left a gallon of milk in the car after a trip to the grocery store.

    For a week.

    To this day (two years later), the car still has a lovely smell on warm days.

    posted by Amanda on 1-9-2009 at 4:03 pm

97. Like many newly independent college students in their first apartment, I became quite the Ramen aficionado. It had become my obsession and needed a noodle fix at least twice a day.

    On this particular day I had a meeting with my history group for this project that counted for 50% of our grade. Very big deal. Knowing I would be trapped in the library for at least 4 hours I decided that I would get one more Ramen fix in before I left. Being that time was limited I couldn’t bother with waiting for water to boil so I decided to cook it in the microwave. Genius, I thought, Ramen in 1 minute and 30 seconds!

    The bell dinged and I reached in for my steaming hot bowl of pain. Not being well versed in what “Microwave Safe” meant in terms of bowls, I failed to notice that this bowl was NOT microwave safe and proceeded to melt the pads of my fingers onto the bowl. I jerked my hands away in pain and got drenched with the scorching hot water. My hands and toes were completely seared.

    In a panic I searched for the first aid kit my mom gave me when I moved in. I slathered on all the Neosporin I could find onto my hands and toes and bandaged myself up like a mummy. I realized I would be late meeting my group for the project and instead of walking to the library I decided to drive. Holding a steering wheel with just the palms of your hands because your fingers cannot bend is extremely dangerous and I do not recommend it. I finally meet my group 15 minutes late and the look on their faces was a mix of horror, annoyance and shock. I don’t blame them, my reaction would have been the same if I saw a girl walk into the library with mummy bandaged hands and feet sporting an orange hoodie and pink pajama bottoms with ducks on them.

    The healing process was awful; all the skin on my fingers up to the top knuckle peeled off and I couldn’t hold a pen, let alone type for about 2 weeks without wincing in pain. Needless to say, I never microwaved my Ramen again.

    posted by Missy on 1-9-2009 at 4:18 pm

98. My best friend had finally saved up enough money to buy a used Firebird on a Saturday during our senior year of high school. (Let me point out that before this Firebird our only ride was my puke green Pinto.) We were 18, we had wheels, we were cool! That night we are being too cool for school. We have two 6-packs of Mickey’s, a muscle car and more testosterone and horse power than brains.
    So we are cruising around and it is about 1AM as we pay more attention to being cool than the way my friend was driving. A cop pulls up behind us to advise about the driving habits being exhibited. Friend lokks at me and I look at friend. Two years of driving a stupid Pinto comes to a head and he floors it. Yep- we are running from the cops. In a new car. With open drinks in the car. We had a good run, whooping and hollaring our way to our neighborhood and its winding streets. We pull into my driveway which led to the garage in the back of our house. We now have the house between us and the road and so NO WAY can the cop see us as he drives by.
    We sit there all proud of ourselves for having out run the cop and avoiding a reckless driving, drinking in public charge that would have resulted in our losing the Firebird. We wait a minute, decide we are safe and crack open another round of Mickey’s to toast ourselves.
    Next thing we know we have a spot light on our car with 6 VERY unhappy cops telling us to get out. We are out, on the ground.. dogs are barking… cop radios blaring… all kinds of parent-waking activity.
    We learned later, after we were back to driving my POS Pinto, that the cop saw our brake lights reflecting on the trees at the edge of our driveway. Had he not seen them we would still be cool dudes in a Firebird instead of two non-dating idiots riding in a Pinto for the rest of what was supposed to be the coolest year of our life.

    posted by Scott-O on 1-9-2009 at 5:00 pm

99. Let me preface this story by stating that I am a Master’s educated woman that works at a fantastic research institution.

    About five years ago, on a trip to Flagstaff, Arizona, my now ex-boyfriend and I made a trip to the Lowell Observatory with two of his friends. (The friends were nice, but a bit out there, and I was a touch intimidated.) We all sit through and enjoy a short presentation on whatever events we were to be looking at that night with the telescopes. After the film ends, the group ventures outside and finds probably 10 telescopes, of all sizes, in different areas leading up to THE telescope, the big guy. We meander through the smaller stations, and are standing in line for the giant telescope, chatting, when one of the friends mentions an interesting fact about the Hubble Telescope. Without missing a beat, I hear myself say, “Where’s the Hubble again? Florida?”

    After processing the looks on the faces, I realize that I’ve goofed. Majorly.

    In the most disdainful voice possible, a friend of the ex replies, “Umm, yeah, it’s in space.”

    posted by Megan on 1-9-2009 at 5:06 pm

100. One summer my mom asked me to clean the deck furniture. I tried with very little success. The next time my mom asked I told her this. She said to use elbow grease.

     A few days later she asked me again why I hadn’t cleaned the chairs. When I told her it’s because she hadn’t bought me any elbow grease she hit the floor laughing.

     For the next few weeks she continually told this story enfuriating me.

     A few weeks ago she sent me a comic about Elbow Grease to which I could finally laugh…15 years later.

     posted by erin on 1-9-2009 at 5:10 pm

101. My vote is for Meredith.

     posted by Leah on 1-9-2009 at 5:49 pm

102. How about this one:

     It’s the night of my senior Prom, so I get all dressed up in my tuxedo, go pick up my girlfriend, and we head off. At the time, I was driving an clunker that burned oil, and I knew when the “Check Engine” light came on that I needed to get oil pretty quick. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any money on me, so I had to go home to get some cash from my parents.

     I pull up in front of the pump at the gas station, run inside to get a quart of oil, and go back outside. I distinctly remember looking at the free paper funnels sitting right there and thinking, “Nah, I don’t need one.” At this point, I had been driving for about 30 minutes, so the engine was good and hot. I start pouring in the oil, but it glugs a bit and some pours down into the engine. My first thought was, “Oh well, no big deal,” but little did I know that right underneath was the exhaust manifold, which I learned later is the hottest part of the engine. Thus, my indifference quickly became fear when I heard the puff of the oil catching on fire. So now I’m standing there in a tuxedo at the gas station with my car on fire.

     My first reaction was to blow on the fire as I could snuff it like a candle, but of course that didn’t work. I then decide to run inside and get a fire extinguisher, but on the way I thoughtfully tap on the window to tell my girlfriend to get out of the car, as if a few feet of distance might save her from disaster. I duck inside the gas station, grab the extinguisher, and the clerk gives me a funny look, so I tell her, “I’ll be right back with this.” I go out, put out the fire, and thankfully nothing bad happened. Unfortunately, now I had to call my father and get him to come get us because I had set my car on fire. Needless to say, that didn’t go over well.

     In the end, I drove my mom’s ugly tan station wagon to our Prom, and we were over two hours late.

     Moral of the story: Use the stupid funnel.

     posted by Tony on 1-9-2009 at 5:54 pm

103. So, I’m dead. I died several years ago, almost too many now to count.

     It was the summer after I graduated high school before everything changed. those were such carefree days! I had little responsibility, a lot of spare time, and I knew everything. Days were spent at a McJob of some hourly sort and evenings were blurried events tinged with essence of Boones Farm and wine coolers.

     On one particular evening, I was out hangin with the girls. We were celebrating someone’s birthday that night and I was off to college the next morning for placement exams. Summer was almost over and we were sad and happy at the same time. We managed to find our way to a local park. As were swinging on an old tire, I thought I would ‘let go’ of the chains and reach up and grap the top of the swing set. I didn’t expect simple physics to swoop the swing out while I fell back hitting my head on the edge of the swingset pit. Wood chips found their way into crevices I didn’t even know I had. Laughing, my friends took me home and made sure I hadn’t broken anything. I figured everything was fine despite the growing bump on the back of my head.

     The next day, we drove the 2 hours to the state university and I checked in. I attributed the headache to too many wine coolers. Asprin helped, but the headache and nausea lingered. I took tests for math/calculous, chemistry, english that day (I did alright placing into advanced classes despite my stupidity). I went on to graduate college with a degree in Biology and went on to a successful career in information technology. One morning, I slipped and fell hitting my head again and died.

     posted by CM on 1-9-2009 at 6:32 pm

104. I went in against a Sicilian when death was on the line. On the other hand, I’d also built up an immunity to iocane powder, so I had the last laugh on that one.

     posted by As You Wish on 1-9-2009 at 6:33 pm

105. I am a short, skinny geek with glasses. I look so young that I was asked for ID at R-rated movies until I grew a goatee at 25 years old.

     When I was 19, and only 135 pounds soaking wet, I decided that it might be a good character-building life experience to work as a prison guard and court bailiff in my home city of New Orleans. During my tenure there, I faced:

     *A schizophrenic paranoid drug dealer. It took four of us to stop him from jumping out of a fourth-floor window in the courthouse because there are no bars on the upper floors.
     *An ex-marine rapist.
     *A three-time cop killer and escape artist.
     *An open dayroom in a violent crimes tier with 30 prisoners. I had to go into the room alone because one of them had fallen and was injured.

     posted by Paul on 1-9-2009 at 6:37 pm

106. About 8 years ago, I was working as an “exotic dancer” (read stripper) in a club on Bourbon Street in the New Orleans French Quarter. It was good money, but not usually very interesting, as you’re always dealing with drunks and guys who don’t want to hand out their cash unless you let them get their hands elsewhere.

     I did meet a perfect example of natural selection one afternoon though — a guy and his buddy came in and were talking us (myself and a friend who also danced) up for dances. They bought us a few drinks and proceeded to tell us their highly intellectual theory about why drinking beer is the best thing you can do for improving your intelligence:

     It seems, according to Bob or whatever his name was, that the more beer you drink, the smarter you’ll become. This is apparently because the alcohol, as everyone knows, kills off brian cells. What is not so common knowledge is that it kills off the SLOW brain cells first! So what’s left is all your fast, smart brain cells to make you a genius.

     He’s living proof!!!

     Well, we were definitely enlightened to learn about this helpful way to move natural selection along, and we hope Bob (or whatever his name was) continues to experiment and hone his theory to perfection. I doubt he’s got a brain cell left by now, but there certainly won’t be any slow ones :)

     posted by Moira on 1-9-2009 at 6:46 pm

107. You know how when you go to a restaurant and they bring you your food and warn you not to touch the plate because it’s hot? I touched the plate.

     posted by Jenn on 1-9-2009 at 8:03 pm

108. I was with two friends, headed to a movie theatre. We took two separate cars. Thinking it’d be fun to race, the idiots raced as they approached the movie theatre on a one way street, then sped through the stop sign right before the movie theatre. One of them goes speeding off across the parking lot, and the guy whose driving the car I’m in just skids through the stop sign and starts peeling down the aisle. I look up and see two police officers standing right there at the front of the movie theatre, having seen the entire thing. Me, being the quick thinker that I am, says “Dude, slow down, I’m gonna bail”. He looks at me puzzled, but it’s too late, because at 30 MPH, I’m already leaping out the door of the car. I am not sure what I thought this would solve, because the policemen immediately begin racing at me and pulling their weapons, screaming at me to drop to the ground with my hands on my head, not to move, etc. Finally, having ascertained that I am not in fact, on any drugs, only an idiot, the cops gives me a lecture on leaping out of moving vehicles (”You know that’s not safe, right?” were their exact words), and lets us go without a ticket of any kind. So I guess there was a point to what I did after all. The art of misdirection, I suppose.

     Then there was the time I got stuck in the flame broiler at Burger King…

     posted by Dave on 1-9-2009 at 8:05 pm

109. I was in 7-11 one night getting a cup of coffee for the drive to work. I come out and get into my Honda and suddenly realize there is an old black man in the back seat. I tell him to get the “heck” out of my car and ask what kind of friggin idiot he is. I yell at him to get his “heiney” out of my car before I go back and throw him out and beat the snot out of him. This goes on for about 15 seconds until he finally jumps out… and runs to the other side of a green Toyota parked in the next spot over and starts yelling for help. I think “what a lunatic!!!!” Then I hop out of the car to close the back door he left open when he jumped out. Then I notice the Toyota between us looks like my wife’s car. But it can’t be her car- I borrowed go to work tonight. Uh oh.
     Luckily the police came quick before the mob advised me on my social skills.

     posted by Chowderhead on 1-10-2009 at 1:16 am

110. I spent 3 years planning a thru hike (end to end) hike of the Appalachian Trail. One of the common practices was to mail a package to a post office in a town further up the trail so that you didn’t have to carry everything you had. For example, rather than lug an extra sweater for the next 40 miles of hot weather, you would box it up and mail it to the Post Office 40 miles up the trail.

     The first time I did this I mailed a bunch of socks, clean underwear, water filters, and so on from a post office in Georgia. No problem until I got to the next town and realized I had mailed it to my house… in Virginia… with nobody there until my room mate returned in 3 weeks. Oh, and I also sent my wallet with my money and credit card because what am I going to buy on a trail?

     posted by ScoJo on 1-12-2009 at 2:34 am

111. my dad had just bought an expensive new anchor for out boat. as we approached our destination, he asked me to throw the anchor in. i did, but i should have checked first to see if it was tied to the boat.

     posted by kc on 1-12-2009 at 2:37 am

112. I worked at a wildlife rehab in Oklahoma and we had a bobcat cub that was somewhat human socialized and we just did not have the space or facilities to keep a bobcat long term.

     It was decided that the bobcat needed to be sent to a larger rehab down in San Antonio that I had been dying to see, so I volunteered to make the drive.

     I planned everything perfectly and went and picked the bobcat up, then had to make a quick stop back at my house.

     Not wanting to leave the cat in the truck, I brought it in with me (it was in a large kennel). When it was time to go, my roommate’s boyfriend carried it back out to the truck.

     I have a horrible habit of leaving my keys in my vehicle and leaving the doors unlocked.

     Well, the guy locked the door on his side seconds after I had locked mine for some reason. The keys were still inside.

     With the bobcat. It was over a hundred degrees in the shade and I immediately started thinking that the cat was going to die of heatstroke any minute.

     I’m freaking out, standing on the hood of the truck, trying to provide some form of shade for the cat, telling the guy to break the windows. Then I would say no, don’t break the windows I might still have to drive to San Antonio.

     I was frantic, but luckily my roommate was inside calling AAA. They came within minutes and let me into my truck.

     The cat was fine, but I swear my hands were shaking all the way to San Antonio. I think I stopped probably ever thirty miles to make sure the cat wasn’t suffering delayed signs of heatstroke.

     I don’t think I ever told my boss about that. I don’t think I ever will.

     posted by Amanda on 1-12-2009 at 2:42 pm

113. My husband and I were meeting my friend to watch college football on a Saturday. We arrived around 3pm and when I pulled in the parking lot, my girlfriend had pulled in at the same time. We proceeded to get out of the car and went inside for beer and food while we watched the games. Well, 6 hours later, we emmerge out of the bar. Well, while walking out, I was digging in my purse for my car keys. I begin to panic, as I think I have locked the keys in the car. Well, as we approached my car, my husband pointed out that my car sounded like it was running. Well, low and behold it was!!! I had left my car running for 6+ hours in the parking lot!! (And, just to make note, when I arrived, I didn’t have one alcoholic beverage in me yet..) My husband still tells that story to everyone who will listen…

     posted by Sunshine on 1-12-2009 at 4:14 pm

114. During the summer after I graduated from undergrad and before I headed to law school, I worked as a research technician in the pharmacology department of a medical school. I worked pretty hard but still experienced a lot of lag time while waiting for my tests to run. I thus spent it surfing the internet and soon discovered Google’s satellite earth application. I was immediately fascinated and enjoyed looking up my relatives’ addresses. Indeed, I was so overjoyed that I decided to give my coworkers a little satellite tour of my grandfather’s property. Indeed, I happily pointed out that he must be home since the satellite image showed that his pickup was parked in his driveway. I became a little perplexed however at how overcast and dark the image seemed to be on an otherwise sunny, clear day. That’s when I happened to look up and see my coworkers smirking at me. One then commented on how special I must feel to be monopolizing the satellite to spy on my relatives from space and in real-time while the rest of the world patiently waited its turn. After he said that I instantly realized that I’d been “spying” on my relatives via composite pictures taken by the satellite as it made its circuit around the earth day in and day out. Ugh

     posted by Lindsay on 1-12-2009 at 10:44 pm

115. Some time back I went on a banana boat ride with friends. The guard guy dropped us into the sea about 2 kms from the coast. Now this was my first time. I had a panic attack just when we were thrown in because I could not find a strong foothold, or even anything remotely hard to touch the soles of my feet!

     posted by Tunafish on 1-14-2009 at 4:04 am

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