Confess your dumass stunts here

[Tom Adams]

Back when I was just getting into dirt bikes, my riding friends & I would search out anything that looked like it would get us airborne.

A new street was being developed and the land on either side of the new street was much higher than the street by about 6 to 8 feet. And it dawned on us that by riding down the street, then peeling off and riding up the dirt embankment, we could get some air. Trouble was, the land was higher only a short distance from the beginning of the street, so one couldnt get a lot of speed up. And since speed equated to air time and distance through the air, our jumps werent that great.

However, I reasoned that if I started on the street across from the new street, I could get a bigger run going before peeling off. The only problem with this was that I would have to cross a street that saw a fair amount of traffic. Again no problem. I would have one of my friends stand at the crossing street and let me know when the coast was clear. Did I mention that due to houses/trees/shrubs I wouldnt be able to see any cars coming until I got to the cross street?

With friends in place and getting a coast is clear sign, I start my run. 1st, 2nd, 3rd gear.Im up to about 40mph and within 50 feet of the crossing street when my friend at the crossing street starts frantically waving his arms. I lock up the brakes and skid to a stop before being smushed. After I managed to break the suction between my *** and the seat, I concluded I should try it again.

Once again, the clear sign is given and Im off. I blast down the street, blow across the crossing street, and fly down the new street. I see the mark for me to peel off the street and hit it. I start up the dirt embankment and feel the bike starting to lift-off. Whoosh Im airborne!

Now.its about this time that I realize that Im higher in the air than Ive ever been. And carrying more speed too. So in a moment of brain fade I panic and go YIKES and let go of the handle bars. Well, the bike & I obey Newtons laws of motion, but at different rates. However, I come to my senses when I notice that the bike is now ahead of me. So I grab it not by the handle bars, but by the back end of the seat.

What goes up must come down, right? And so we did. THUD! I should point out here that my bike was made back in the day when the government wasnt concerned about saving us from ourselves. Hence no throttle return spring. Thats right ladies & gentlemen, the bike & I come back to terra firma with the engine still WFO!

The next few seconds are still a blur, but Im told my bike proceeded to drag me several feet before I let go and it flopped over. Thank God for helmets. After regaining my breath, I looked up to see my concerned friends on the ground in the fetal position laughing so hard they were crying.

Personally, I believe my jump distance shouldve been from the point of lift-off to when the rear wheel hit. But my friends argued it was when my feet hit the ground while being pulled through the air.

How that bike never killed me Ill never know.

Tom

[Myhamish]

Back in the old days, there was a saying - 'the bike is a write-off and you walk away' or 'the bike is fine and you don't walk away' Couple of friends that have been gone since 1970 and 1983 are proof to the second part. Glad to hear you are proof of the first part.

Now my dumbass stunt - a year ago in May, I went down to Peterborough to help my brother renovate his place. There was lots of drywall patching, stripping wallpaper and painting to do. On the way out of the door at my place, I walked right on by my good aluminum stepstool with the grab bar and left it sitting in the front porch.

Later that day, at my brother's, I get the key and look around for a ladder and stool. Only thing around is a cheesey two step wooden folding stool. So I go into the room where I've pulled all the furniture into the middle, covered it and have dropcloths laid out. I hop on the stool with the wallpaper steamer and start working away. First 25 or 26 times, everything is fine. an about the 26th time, the stool kicks out and I go flying backwards into a corner. All the energy of the fall was concentrated in the right leg which hit the top of the stool so the knee leg bent up at the knee instead of back like it's supposed to do. I found myself sitting on the floor still holding the steamer with this big bulge above the kneecap. I tried to move to unplug the steamer but my leg wouldn't move. It was eventually unplugged by yanking on the cord, then by lifting my leg by the cuff and backing out on my butt, I dragged myself out to the phone. The rest was paramedics, hospital, operation and months of braces, crutches and physio-therapy. Now, I can walk but can't put any weight on the knees and have numbing sensations going up and down stairs. So pretty lucky to have that much of a recovery. But I'll tell you - what an experience to go from a relatively healthy self sufficient dumbass to a total invalid dumbass in a matter of seconds. So that's the most dumbass thing I've ever done.

[Ray Garrison]

Aug 1, 1986

I'd just had a very depressing conversation with my girlfriend. Felt very down. Blew a bone. Driving from East Haven, CT to Bloomfield to go to a movie with a bud. 1985 Mustang GT. Driving up Nod Road.

Now, I'd driven *DOWN* Nod Road dozens of times before. Small, narrow road, speed limit 15 / 20 MPH or so on the north end. However, I'd never driven northbound on this road before. On the southern end of the road, I was going, like, 80 mph or so (in a 35 zone.) It was kind of a rush driving on a narrow road through the woods, downshifting for corners and powering back out. At one point, I passed a sign that read "Caution Road Narrows Ahead". I thought to myself "I better slow down..."

Before I could shed any speed, the road took a sudden turn to the left. I entered the corner all out of shape, and the back end came around to the right while I was furiously downshifting and throwing the wheel around to the right to catch her up. Got straightened out and caught her just as the road took another sharp turn, this time to the right. Still going probably 60, back end came out to the left, more furious wheel turning, caught her one more time. Unfortunately, ran out of time and space.

Road took another sharp left turn, and I didn't make it. Hit almost nose first into a dirt embankment on the shoulder.

At this point, things got really weird. I was sitting in the driver seat, and it was like I was watching a movie projected on the windshield. Trees were moving from left to right, then from top to bottom, then from right to left, all in slow motion. There was this horrific explosion, louder than anything I'd ever heard. Glass showering all over the inside of the car. Silence. More silence. Another explosion. More glass. More silence. A final loud explosion. Motion in directions that didn't register. Silence.

I was sitting in the car. Headlights were shining on the woods in front of me. I remember reaching out and switching off the headlights - I have no idea why. I thought "...cops are gonna want to see my license and registration..." so I reached into the glovebox. Weirdest thing, everything was stuck to the top of the glovebox. Couldn't find anything. Every time I took something out, it jumped up to the roof of the car, like there was some sort of weird static charge that was pulling all the papers and stuff up to the roof.

I reached down and hit the seatbelt release...

...and promptly fell on my head. I'd been hanging upside down in my seat. The roof was stoved in to the point where I couldn't crawl out through the driver's window, so I crawled out through the back hatchback (which had no glass left in it.)

Stood up, looked around. Car was upside down in middle of road, with a telephone pole lying partially across it. Paws up in air. Wheels were still turning. Back end was smashed in, in the shape of a big "U". Apparently, car had nosed into dirt bank, got caught up, endowed, hit the telephone pole about 12 feet off the ground and snapped it off, then landed on it's roof and spun around 180 degrees and tangled in wires. First thought - "jeez, I screwed that car up..."

Went looking for phone. Found house up on hill, called 911, reported accident. Walked back down to road. Crowd of people standing around car, cops there already. Everyone looking for (presumably) very dead driver who was thrown out. I hopped up on car, told cop I was driver. He didn't believe me at first, as I didn't have a scratch. Only injury turned out to be bruise where seat belt shoulder strap caught me at first impact.

Cop took widget out of car that he used to measure length of skid marks. He started walking back down the road, then looked up at me, walked some more, looked up at me, walked some more... cop came back, said "Do you have any idea how f**king lucky you are?" I said "uh, yeah..." He said "Mr. Garrison, I have to explain these skid marks somehow. I can write you up for speeding, or for driving with unsafe tires." I said "I'm really sorry I was driving with such unsafe tires..."

Cop took me to a diner a couple miles up the road, and bought me a cup of coffee, left me there. Got a ticket for driving with unsafe tires. A few months later I got a bill from the state for the "utility pole" I'd broken.

I still have pictures I took the next day of the car sitting at the impound lot. Can't believe I wasn't seriously injured / killed.

Don't tend to drive like that much anymore, although I did get a ticket for going throught a speed trap on Route 8 in Stratford at 105 mph in my Mercur XR4Ti a few months later...

[Daddy Dee]

Stayed in a train tunnel with the train coming through it at 70mph. Wow, it was a total sensory overload experience.

[popbumper]

Roughly 1996....I had ben at a new job for about a year, and had spooken much to a workmate who was HEAVILY into mountain biking. Now, while Texas has no REAL mountains to speak of, there are a number of trails local that are quite interesting and challenging, so we thought long and hard about it.

After enough banter, my wife and I decided to "take the plunge" and purchase some new rigs. These were "mid-level" rigs that were great starter bikes, and we started riding on a regular basis.

We had been living in a recently built home, and much of the area around us was still being developed; translation: BIKING OPPORTUNITIES, with plenty of earth piles, rocks, concrete, translation: DANGEROUS STUFF.

One afternoon I spotted a particularly interesting piece of loose concrete, probably about 10" x 12". I thought to myself, "hey, it would be fun to build up some run speed, then hop right over that sucker just as I reach it."

Great plan - until I hit the thing at probably 20 MPH and my front tire stopped DEAD, catapulting all 220 pounds of me direct onto the ground, with my right shoulder as the impact point.

I literally saw stars, and slowly got up, shoulder reeling in pain. I had to walk home with the bike on my OTHER shoulder, it having sustained a bent rim in the process. My shoulder ached for days, and turned a nice "black and blue"; it still makes nice cracking sounds when I rotate it.

THis was when I was "thirty something"...dumb, eh?

Popbumper

PS - "bike stories" seem to be a common thread here.....

[dsantamassino]

lol LOL

U guys sure did some stupid-*** stuff.

lol

[Frzninvt]

This is a tough one, there are so many. I could tell the story about taking my Dad's truck mud racing and blowing the transmission, or even better driving to Frankfurt, GE from Ramstein, GE in my BMW 520 while I was stationed overthere on the Autobahn in the rain and having my wiper blades fly off one at a time and driving the rest of the way there and back in the rain with no wiper blades at over 100MPH, or I could tell about the time 11 catholic high school students and I got arrested for cattle rustling when one of the idiots that I took out to my ranch went and killed a calf that did not belong to us.

Better yet I could tell about the time I rammed the wall of our ranch house when one of the people that left their hunting vehicle at our ranch when I was chasing one of my friends with it. Did you know 4X4 Suburban's can go right over 8'-10' tall cactus trees with ease. Maybe the story of my buddy taking the same guy's Lincoln Continental and doing the most donuts that I have ever seen anyone do in a vehicle to this day. He went through all three gears and created a literal dirt tornado! I will have to think about it and get back when I have the time to elaborate further.

[skonopa]

----------------

On 11/3/2004 12:34:35 PM Ray Garrison wrote:

I still have pictures I took the next day of the car sitting at the impound lot. Can't believe I wasn't seriously injured / killed.

----------------

You ought to scan in and post those up?

Anyway, to share in the fun:

Later winter/early spring 2000

The last weekend Massanutten ski area is opened for the season. I was out skiing with some of the other guys on the patrol, but I was not on duty that day. The place was completely dead - there was nobody but the ski patrol there that night.

So, to have a little fun, several of us decided to have a little race down Pace-Setter, one of the steeper intermediate runs, where the NASTAR sololam course is usually setup, but that night there was no race course setup, so the slope was opened for freeskiing.

half a dozen of us line up at the beginning of the slope, I was on the end, next to the woods. We started off, bombing it straight down the hill in full tucks. We were moving quite fast. Unfortunatly, being stuck on the end, on the edge of the trail, I got hung up in some crud. One ski got caught and popped off. The other ski went wild. Next thing I know, I am eating snow. I did a full face plant, completely knocking my goggles and glasses off my head, and putting a pretty nasty abrasion on my fore-head. I also landed hard on my left wrist, thus fracturing it. I've must've left a good 50-foot furrow in the snow - with one ski going into the woods and the other bouncing down the middle of the slope. Poles, glasses, googles, and one of my gloves, scattered across the slope.

I've spent the next 15 minutes trying to find my glasses in the snow, at night, when I can barely see as is. I did manage to find them, and luckly, I did not bust them up (the goggles must've protected them). Spend the next ten minutes searching the woods in the dark for my ski, which I also did manage to find.

By this time, my wrist is pretty well swollen and hurts like hell. I was able to gather up my gear and ski the rest of the way down. I immediatly went back to the first-aid room at the lodge. As soon as I walked into the door, the Auxiliary patroller that was on duty down there saw me and asked "What the hell did you do to yourself out there, Steve?". I told here what happened, and she started to clean up my abrasion and splinting up my wrist. Since I had no way to get myself to the hospital (try to drive a stick with a bum wrist?), she called for an ambulance to take me there.

Doctor x-rayed my wrist, and sure enough, a hair-line fracture just below my left thumb. I had to hop a $25 taxi ride to get back to the ski-patrol barracks. I then had to bum a ride from one of the other guys that was staying there to get back to the mountain to get my car the next morning, which was still in the parking lot there. Spent the next 6 weeks in a cast, which was also more a pain, since I am left-handed.

I came out of that pretty lucky. It could've been a lot worse. I've could've easily blown out a knee, or skidded into the woods and smack my head into a tree. After that, I tend to keep my skiing to a slower, more managable pace.

Also to add: That was the first time I've ever broken a bone in my life.

[dkp]

To set the stage: My uncle and two cousins are a dairy farmers-currently they milk around 600 cows per day (about 1/2 of them are milked twice, the other half three times-wow). They also farm around 3000 acres, so this is no small operation.

As you may imagine, a couple hundred head of cattle in one location will produce quite a lot of manure, which needs to be removed every couple of days for health purposes (try to get a visual here...lol). They remove the manure by "scraping" it with an attachment pulled behind a small mid-size tractor. The manure is then pushed off the edge of the concrete and into a wagon, aka "the honeywagon," and spread on the fields as a fertilizer. The drop from the concrete to the wagon is around 8 feet, so not all the manure makes it into the wagon, creating a runoff.

Ok, now for my story. Each Thanksgiving and New Year's we head out to see my uncles place with the rest of the family. After lunch, the guys do chores and hunt in the evening and the women do whatever women do when men aren't around. Since I was only 11 at the time, I was unable to go hunting, and I decided to take my BB gun and walk around, protecting my uncle's property from any rascally varmint I came across. Near the end of my "hunt" I came down to the manure runoff. It was getting late, and I either had to go the very, very long way around it, or I could walk across it, as it was frozen.... ahem. And so I took the short way-directly across the runoff. Not a problem at first, just some small crackling of the ice as I sauntered over the outer edge. However, as I got walking closer to the middle, I noticed that the crackling was getting louder...and louder.....and CRASH!!! "Oh crap!!!"

I broke through the top layer of ice and found myself chest-deep in cow-dung!! You can only imagine how bad I smelled. I don't know what was worse, winding up 4 feet deep in cow crap or getting hosed off with cold water in the milking parlor in 50 degree weather and trying to peel off wet jeans!! They tease me about it to this day... lol

David

[garymd]

Not really a stunt but a pretty good story.

I was at Frostburg University (State College back then) in western MD. The Dead were playing in Norfolk, VA. about 6 or 7 hours away. ROAD TRIP! We (my soon to be wife and another couple) had no car. I talked my reluctant friend, Dave, into letting me borrow his VW Rabbit. "Gary," he said, "You are 100% responsible for the car!" OK, fine.

When we left, it was 70 degrees and sunny. Didn't bring jackets. All I had was a short sleeved shirt and a backpack filled with "college party favors" if you know what I mean.

Half way to the show, the battery died. Stopped at a gas station and the Deliverence looking attendant strapped in a used battery from a Caddy for $20. Good to go.

Went to the show. Had a blast. The vegetables and powdered delights from the backpack had hardly begun to wear off when at about 4:00am in Winchester, VA, Cecilia drove a little too fast over some railroad tracks, a battery cable came loose and shorted out against the manifold. Next thing we knew, flames were shooting up through the gear box. After Cecilia's failed attemp to put out the fire with her grapefruit juice, we grabbed the backpack (only important item in the car) and bailed. We stood by the side of the road watching the car become engulfed in flames. What to do. Middle of nowhere at 4:00 in the morning.

All of the sudden, the wind kicked up and it started snowing. Must have been 30 degrees. We're freezing. The wind took hold of the flames and next thing we know, the field next to the road is on fire. After watching about a half an acre go up in flames, I started running toward a farmhouse just up the road. Knocked on the door, dogs barked, chickens clucked, but no answer. Saw a little cottage on the property, knocked and a farmhand who was at least 100 years old came out. I told him the situation and asked to use a phone. "No phones round these parts" he said. Went back to the fire to warm up.

Finally a truck came by with a CB to call the police. Another car stopped and due to the backpack I was wearing, agreed to take me and the wife up the road while my friends waited for the police and fire trucks.

I won't go into the rest of the trip back to Frostburg which was also a nightmare but we made it back at about 9:30 the next morning. I immediately called Dave and told him we blew up his car. He was pissed off that I woke him so early on a Sunday morning and hung up on me.

The next weekend we held a wake for the car. Someone baked a cake and stuck the VW hood ornament in the center. It was the only recognizable item left in the ruins.

[easylistener]

I have done a lot of stupid stuff. where do I start.

first on, my and my buddy used to mountine bike all over the town. We found this sweet spot. I was wooded and going down a steep hill. he took off first and I was hot on his tail. half way down the hill I started to do a stoppy. When the rear tire is up in the air. I held for my buddy to watch. Right when he turned around to look I hit a log. I went over the handle bars and the big went up into a tree. But my foot was still in the peddle. I was hanging about a foot off the ground and swinging. My buddy crashed into a tree and fell over loughing. I was laughing intill I found out I was in poisen ivy.

I spent the next week on steroids because my face swelled up.

I will give you one more.

I bought a ZR700 snowmobile. being a tech and young a put all kinds of fun stuff on it. Put it this way it would do a three foot high wheely intill 90mph. We were on some local trails and there was a ditch that let up to a street. We went over it at about 30 and cought some nice air. So I decided to take my new sled and jump the whole street. I had 14inches of travel, it had to be good for something. My buddy was standing in the street waiting for me to fly over. I got a big running start and hit the ditch at about 80. It was great, I was looking straight down at my friend in the street. He said I was about 20 feet high. This was after the fact. Because when I was comming down I landed on the ditch that was starting to come up. My track went right through the tunnel. My skies bent up to the handle bars, and I was still sitting on top of it all.

I was pissed at first that I totally wrecked one of the fastest sleds ever, but then could do nothing but laugh and say how cool it was being that high and still staying on the sled even though it was a big ball of nothing.

I have so many others.

[Champagne taste beer budget]

Interesting thread, lots of good reading here. A couple shorts for myself...

1978, driving a 1973 Camaro LT with some goodies under the hood, leaving school sometime in the early springtime. (I graduated in 79)

There were two routes to get away from the school, either take the one road to the left or the right. ALL the buses go one of the two ways, so do all the kids that are driving their own cars. About a mile from school, a buddy with a 1969 Cougar runs up behind me in a big hurry. I slow way down, forcing him to do the same, then boot it, hoping to catch him off gaurd since I know he has more goodies than I do. About 3 seconds later, I catch a piece of black ice with the right rear, start sliding, catch it, over correct, sliding again the opposite direction, catch it again, but again overcorrect, next thing I know I'm going mostly backwards down the road at about 70. Slide off the right side of the road, barely missing a huge tree trunk, slip under/through a barbed wire fence, put the back end into a snow pile and stop. I'm fine, no broken glass, door still opens, so I get out, my buddy stops to ask if I'm ok, I say yeah, so he leaves a pair of black stripes about 100 ft long and heads off. Checking the car, worst damage is to the paint, barbed wire under tension doesn't do a fairly new deep black paint job much good, also tore off a top corner of the rear spoiler. About then, the buses start going by with all my friends, intersperced with friends driving their cars, lord knows there was some rib poking at school for a while after that one.

Fast forward to, oh, maybe 1997? Working at a Chevy/Caddilac/Toyota dealership, one of the guys in the used car detail shop wants me to pull a ball off a hitch for him, I hit it with my impact and it won't budge. He says he'll handle it, takes the car back to his end of the building. A couple minutes later I see him wheeling the Oxy/Acy torch setup past my bays and down to his area, think nothing of it. Five minutes later, I'm back there for something, forget what, and he's got the car sitting there with no ball on the drawbar, stops me, asks me how high I think I can lift the bumper by the drawbar. Without putting two and two together, within a second I had grabbed ahold of the drawbar tightly and lifted, only to let go as fast as I could when I felt my skin melting. I think I actually lifted it maybe 3-4 inches before the synapses all fired from the hand to the head. He had an actual look of horror in his eyes, I immediatly knew what had happened, he started apologizing profusly, saying he was just joking about lifting the car, knowing that I had seen him with the torch, that he was trying to remove a ball, etc., and figured that I would simply laugh at him when he asked me the lift question. By the time I had let go of the drawbar, the skin on my palm and fingers was literally smoking, as was what was left of it on the drawbar. Up front to the first aid kit, then to the faucet for cold water, then to the ER. Had to drive myself, luckily an automatic trans. They applied some salve, gave me some ice packs, and told me to watch for any sign of infection. HURT LIKE HELL for a few days!! Luckily, everything came out ok, skin all grew back, even got back my fingerprints. So much for the burglury idea.

[kenratboy]

For being 19, I have done nothing cool, except I nearly killed a man.

When I was like 7, we were on the summit of Mt. Diablo (3500' mountain in the San Francisco Bay Area) and I was wondering around. I see about a 30' tall telephone pole that was off by itself (lying on the ground). I go over to it and wonder what it is doing there - then realize it is at the top of a ~1000' slope, so I kinda put my foot on it and give it a shove (hard) - SH!T, it starts to roll! It starts slow then gets FAST, starts to make a lot of noise, too! I watch it and all of a sudden, I see a head pop up from the grass! This guy looks up, sees the log, sees the look on my face, and just starts running like hell - he just misses this log (traveling fast, and it probably weighted 1000 pounds, it was HUGE!)

Reguardless, I still think about it to this day and am not sure why the log was there, how it moved so easily (for being 30' long and heavy), and why that guy was there (no, his GF was not in the grass ) - but that could have potentially been very ugly.

[garymd]

Speaking of almost killing someone.

I drove the morning carpool, taking my son and 3 brothers in a nearby neighborhood to school every morning. One morning, the kids loaded the books in the trunk like always. I heard 2 doors close so I put the car in reverse and hit the gas (we were always in a rush). I felt a thump as the wheels ran over something and heard a yelp. I can't even describe what it felt like when I looked in the rear view mirror to see the youngest kid (about 8) wasn't in the car. Turns out he dove out of the way just in time as I ran over his bookbag. I honestly thought I killed the kid. I still have nightmares about that morning and NEVER back up without looking about 6 times to make sure the path is clear.

[kuisis]

Here's one for you!

Freshman year of college I get a work study job at the television station as a cablecaster. That's the person who puts the programming through to the college television station. It's a great job to do homework on because you only work about ten minutes per hour and tend to get bored the other fifty. I get bored one of my first Friday nights and start looking for tapes to watch, bad idea. I find some, ahem, adult educational tapes. Well there are three vcrs in the studio, you switch between two of them to change the programs and I thought the third one was to preview the other tapes.

Bad assumption. I put the tape in the third vcr. I watch for about fifteen minutes and look for other tapes and think nothing of it. About ten minutes after that a co-worker calls and asked me to put on another porn!!

Here the third vcr over rides the first two. Our college tv station goes out over the campus plus about fifteen miles in diameter around the campus. On Monday I get called to the president of the universities office. He tells me that they got over three hundred complaints about our new format. I play dumb and since they had the tapes at the studio I get prohbation and have to file a report with the fcc.

When I go back for Fraternity alumni functions I still get called on that. I laugh now but I thought I was getting thrown out of college at the time.

[WMcD]

Not quite a stunt, but I could have been killed because of my act.

Many years ago I got back to ORD well after midnight in the dead of a Chicago winter. 20 below and falling.

The car was parked in the big garage and the battery was dead. It was a small one.

Calling the start up service they told me it would be three hours before they could help. In those days, both the boss and the wife wanted 24/7 of me (both implying termination) and I was desperate to get home and find some sleep.

I had jumpers. I pushed my car over to a truck in a nearby aisle which I'd determined did not have a locking hood.

So I hooked up, started the car, then let it run for a while to charge up the truck's battery. The thought was to repay the Couloumbs stolen and add many more.

Probably the truck owner came back the next day and the truck started up because of my borrow and big repay. But, if the fellow had come by while I was in the act, he could have rightly beaten me to death and it would have been justified.

Mr. Chevy pick-up, I thank you.

I bought the biggest Die Hard which would fit the next weekend. It lasted longer than the job or the marriage.

Gil

[Hardhead]

Married who I used to be married to.

[toddvj]

When I was a little kid, I took a camera, the kind with the little square flash bulbs, put the flash bulb up to my eye and pressed the button. I immediately wished I hadn't done that, It hurt sooooo bad, and my eye instantly closed shut. I couldn't open it for a good five minutes, and thought I was going to be blind.

I've done a lot of other stupid stuff, but most of it was alcohol induced, this one was totally innocent.

[Tom Adams]

toddvj said: "I couldn't open it for a good five minutes, and thought I was going to be blind."

I thought I was gonna be blind for something I did when I was a teenager, but it hasn't happened yet.

Anyhow....as a young kid, I was always amazed at how Dad always knew how to fix things - especially cars. When he worked on them I was always there, sometimes under foot, but mostly watching or holding the flashlight for him or getting him a tool or whatever.

One day my Dad was working on the car and whatever it was, it required that the battery be removed. At some point he saw me looking at the battery and decided he'd give me a short lesson in electricity. He showed me how the battery could supply lots of current, yet wouldn't shock me. Although a bit reluctant, I grabbed both terminals of the battery and lo' & behold, I didn't get shocked. Dad was pleased that his son seemed to grasp the concepts, so back to work he went.

I sat there for a while in amazement that I could grab both battery terminals and nothing happened. A few minutes later my Dad hears this loud ka-POW! Followed by his son's YELP and whimper. He turns around to see me sitting there with two screw drivers and what surely was two very big eyes. Yes folks, my curiosity about resistance and current flow and whatever else he told me that day got the best of me. So I grabbed two of his screw drivers, placed one each on the terminals of this battery that would turn over an Olds 455 cu. in. V8 and brought the steel shafts of those two screw drivers together. It was my first experience in arc welding!

LOL....to this day he still has those screw drivers with a big notch where the metal was blown out!

Tom

[garymd]

When I was a kid, my big sister and I would fight constantly. I got really PO'd at her one day, picked up a dart from the dartboard and threw it at her as she was running away from me. Man did I get a spankin' that night as she ran into my mother's arms with a dart sticking out of the back of her head.

When I was a little older, I chased her around the basement with an axe. I was just trying to scare her of course but got a whoopin' that night nonetheless.