What's the dumbest thing you ever did?

[MathGirl]

My aunt and I share a pair of great box seats at PacBell Park with several other people. Today was a game that we had the tickets for. We got all ready, drove to SF, and got there about noon. Plenty early so we could see batting practice, etc.

We parked at a lot a few blocks away and walked towards the ballpark. Didn't seem to be very many people around. Not like usual on a game day. Of course Saturday games are always in the afternoon, start at about 1PM.

Guess what? Today is one of the two Saturday evening games scheduled this season. Says so right on the tickets. First pitch at 7:15. We were seven hours early.

We headed back to the car, trying to look like a couple of tourists who were just looking around.

Aunt Louise is a very successful lawyer, I have graduate degrees, and there we were; two dumb klutzes who didn't have enough sense to check the game time on the tickets.
MG
Ps. Blush
Pps. )(*&^%&*!!

 

[Rainbow Skin]

Fire. Fire on ground. Twigs, that sort of thing. Oh that looks interesting, I like fires.

It's not a very big fire. A bit slow.

Oh look, here's my father's plastic jerry-can full of petrol with a long nozzle. My father pours petrol into the car with this. I believe petrol makes fires burn well. I'll use this to pour petrol onto the fire on the ground to make it burn better.

Isn't it interesting the way the instant the petrol touched the fire the flame began to burn backwards along the liquid arc pouring from the jerry-can to the ground. Look, a couple more fractions of seconds the flame will have climbed back up the liquid cascade into the confined main reservoir of petrol I'm holding in my hand.

I think I don't want that to happen.

I know, I'll try blowing it out. Blowing it out sometimes stops fires. Blow, Rainbow Skin, blow.

Well that worked.

Dumb.

 

[Quasimodem]

I trust that - if not natural - you immediately treated each other to hair bleaching, to help while away the intervening six hours and fifteen minutes.

My dumbest error was to attend - and sit through to its conclusion - a long boring speech by someone whose performance I was cursed to monitor.

What made this unendurably dumb, was that I sat through the speech which - for reasons that defy logic - was given exactly one week before I was supposed to be in attendance.

This numbskull move forced me to sit through the same cosmically unendurable speech twice!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

When you're recrystallizing an organic compound you put it in a beaker and heat up in a solvent to make it dissolve, then let it cool to deposit crystals. I was using ethyl alcohol. I'd heat the stuff up, swirl it around, hold it up to the light to see if all the solids had dissoved. Heat, swirl, look. Heat, swirl, look.

It looked like it was all in solution, but was that a tiny bit of uindissoved solid in the corner? Hold the beaker up to the light, tilt it, tilt it, tilt a little more... Poured the whole saturated solution down my arm.

The compound crystallized out in my shirt.

That's just one that comes to mind.

---dr.M.

 

[jfinn]

It had been such a bad day. Work, which was never very good, was even more excrutiating than usual. I got home to find one of my roommates sitting on the couch, high heels kicked across the room and a half gallon of wine sitting on the floor for easy access. Her boss had been fired and now it looked like her division would be closed.

We sat and drank and thanked god that at least for today it was over. Then we heard the doorbell. I went to the window and looked out. Oh god, it was Aaron, the most boring human being on earth who not only didn't recognize that trait in himself, but indeed thought that we'd be thrilled to feed him dinner and wine and keep him company until at least midnight no matter how many hints we threw out to just go home.

Jen went for the door and I stopped her. "Don't worry, we'll just pretend we aren't here."

It looked like it would work. I peeked through the curtain and watched as he started slouching up the street. Then disaster.

"We're in big trouble."

"Why?"

"Cause I see Linda."

It was true. One of our other roomates was coming down the street. No way would Aaron not take advantage of that, nor was there any possibility that he wouldn't figure out we'd been ditching him. He knew our place well, the doorbell was loud.

Jen looked paniced, I picked up a shoe, threw it at her and hissed. "Hide!"

We ran to the back of the flat. There wasn't time to find the keys and unlock the bolts to the second entrance through the kitchen since that's undoubtably where they'd head. Our only hope was that he'd give up if he didn't find the two of us there since Linda didn't like him and her boyfriend, our last roommate, was expected soon. Brian absolutely hated Aaron.

We got to Jen's bedroom just as they were coming up the stairs.

"Doesn't look like they're here Aaron."

Yes!

"But maybe they're in the back!"

Shit!

Jen and I looked at each other; then we looked at her walk in closet.

"Nope they aren't in here," my strangely helpful roommate told him two feet from where we crouched in between Jen's clothes. "Oh well, I'm sure they'll be back soon, wanna stay for dinner?"

Jen and I looked at each other. It seemed our bad day just gotten a lot longer. Fortunately, I'd remembered to grab the wine.

Jayne

 

[Guest]

Probably not the dumbest but dumb enough. I had just moved to SF w/my two young sons and was getting to know my neighborhood. I noticed a butcher shop one day and deciced to try it out as I thought of preparing dinner for that evening. I "saw" all the words on the window and marquee but did not really compute them.

I went up to the counter and asked the nice looking gentleman behind it for pork chops. His face changed radically and I felt the other customers' not too subtle movements and odd soundings. Finally the nice man pointed to a big sign duplicating the one I'd "seen' before entering: Kosher Meats

I crawled away as fast as possible and went to the nearest Safeway. It pains me to tell this story but that will be my penance for as long as I remember it. Uh, thanks Maths.

Perdita

 

[karmadog]

Perhaps this is more stupid than dumb, but...

I was drunk, very, very drunk. I know it's hard to believe, but there you go.

A friend had just returned from a trip to the deep south and had brought back a bottle of bootleg whisky. Apparently it was 150 proof or better. Tasted awful.

I decided that it would be cool if I poured a little on my finger, lit it, then lit my cigarette off my finger.

Instead, I spilled a bunch down my arm and lit it anyways.

Of course, liquor burns very hot, but I couldn't let on that I was fucking on fire, so I still lit my cigarette off my burning arm.

I carried that scar for a year. I deserved it.

 

[Guest]

not dumb, but mortifying

I know it will be hard for you all to believe, but I tend to graciousness in large group situations.

Last fall I attended a national professional conference. Between sessions one could get coffee and whatnot in the lobby. A colleague and I went out to the lobby with our hands filled with the literature you are always given at these events. We went to the coffee urns and I proceeded to do the one handed coffee cup filling with the urn as I held the papers in my other hand. You know, the impossible feat of pulling down on the hand on the urn while still balancing the coffee cup.

The gentleman at the next urn was similarly struggling. He caught me glancing over at him and smiled. I smiled back, and being the friendly gal that I am said "Kinda like you just have one arm?"

He got a peculiar look on his face. A horrified look passed over my colleague's face that I could see over his shoulder.

"Yes, just like that," he replied as he turned to leave the urn, showing me his empty suit sleeve that was pinned up. He had a slight smile on his face.

I have never been more mortified. My colleague and I, I am embarrassed to confess, laughed until we cried that I stepped in it so thoroughly. Her comment was, "Bridget, why can't you just smile and nod?"

Fortunately, it was a BIG conference.

b

 

[Quiet_Cool]

the dumbest thing?

I don't know if it's the dumbest, exactly, but it was very stupid.
I don't really talk about it, barely make reference to it and for the most part, lie about where the scars came from.
Depression's a bitch, y'know?
I didn't do anything too drastic. No suicide attempts or anything like that. But it was stupid. Really, really stupid.

 

[champagne1982]

Fools seldom differ.

Asked a blind man, "Don't you see it?"
Asked a deaf man, "Why don't you listen?"
Asked a poor man, "Can't you buy a new one?"
Asked a drug addict, "Why don't you just quit?"
Asked a child, "When will you grow up?"
Asked a parent, "Shouldn't you just say, 'No'?"

Even worse, ask the ignorant to understand...

Carrie
My Scribbles

 

[MathGirl]

Good old organic chemistry

I didn't do this, but I was one of the recipients of the consequences.

Organic chemistry lab. Some sort of experiment involving heating and refluxing some stuff. Bromination, I think. The guy across the bench from me got everything ready to go, and started applying heat to the reaction flask. Nobody noticed that he had put the glassware together to make a closed system.

After some heating, the thing blew, of course. HBr spewing all over the place; nasty stuff. I had my back turned when it went, but the back of my lab coat looked like it had taken a hit from a shotgun.

A good reason to be a history major.
MG

 

[oggbashan]

Years ago I use to drink on Friday evenings. You know - drink.

I and some friends decided to have a beach party on a Friday a month away. A nice quiet affair but there were too many men.

So we rang the nurses' home and invited as many as possible. Then we had too many women, so we invited a watch from the Fire Brigade. Too many men ... Eventually the quiet beach party had more than three hundred people. Fortunately we had included some Police, some Military Police and some Royal Marine Commandos. Gatecrashers and troublemakers were swiftly dealt with.

I had been drinking all evening and ignoring the rules about not mixing grape and grain. If it was alcoholic, down my throat it went.

About 2am we decided to go skinny dipping in the sea. The English Channel is COLD. The week before we had built a fire to warm ourselves by. If we were going to have a BIG party, we needed a BIG fire. With help from all those invited, nothing was easier. Scrap wood arrived by military truck, by boat, by Fire Engine until the heap was about 10 metres (30 feet plus).

It was a fire. It warmed us beautifully. Unfortunately it made it difficult to leave the beach by the normal route because it was too hot to get past. That didn't bother most of us because tomorrow was Saturday.

I had met a friendly nurse and had spent most of the evening with her. She had been persuaded to come by some of her friends even though she was due to be on duty at 7am.

At 6am she realised that she should leave. How? She couldn't get past the fire. She could have asked the Firemen for help but those that weren't asleep were busy in the darker recesses under the cliffs. She asked her escort, me.

"No problem," I said. "I'll get you up the cliff."

So I heaved her across my shoulders and climbed 30 metres (100 feet) of cliff. The cliff was shale and very unstable. She weighed 200 lbs. At the top of the cliff was a telephone box. She called a taxi, kissed me goodbye. I returned to the party by climbing down the cliff.

At the bottom I was met by a curious group.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

A Fireman answered.

"In the last ten years we have retrieved seven people who were stuck on that cliff and two people have died falling from it. You climbed it carrying the heaviest nurse I have ever seen and came down it as if it was easy. How?"

I was suddenly sober. Drunk and ignorant I had done something impossible. Every time I see that cliff I shudder. It has killed more people since then. I'm never going to try to climb it again, and certainly not carrying a heavyweight nurse.

Og

 

[DurtGurl]

Dead heat

Dear Og,
I think your story trumped the one I used to start this thread. You were drunk, though. I believe there should be separate categories for 'dumb' depending on blood alcohol concentration.
MG
Ps. That must have been a lot of nurse.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

A new guy had started my class in Folk University. We had lunch together, the whole class, in the cafeteria, and when I came back to the table after getting coffee, the conversation had drifted into homosexuality.

"Yeah," I joked. "I've never told anyone, but I'm like sooooooo gay!"

The new guy looked at me.

"Well..." he said. "I AM gay. Seriously. And I'm open about it."

Could my face have been any redder?

 

[oggbashan]

Re: Dead heat

Ps. That must have been a lot of nurse.

She was. Was she was worth risking my life for? I don't remember. I'd drunk too much.

She didn't get on duty at 7am. Her room mate took one look at her and reported her as "sick".

Og.

 

[Guest]

Ogg:

That's one of the best stories I've ever read, so well told I felt I was there (but am rather glad I wasn't, however much I love the look of firemen).

Glad you're alive,

Perdita

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Dumbest? can't think of it off the top of my head...but among my less brilliant moments...

I was in a hurry to run out of my mom's room to go to the mall...I tripped over my mom's shoe and fell, my head hitting the corner of the doorframe. 75ish stitches later...

At least I was 8...and that it wasn't last week.

 

[Sultan Mad Cat]

Okay ONE stupid occasion....

We are camping.....
There is a HUGE number of people (3-4 hundred)
we are barbecuing.....
One of the cooks is cooking a whole Hog....
I'm standing there bullshitting with my father next to the pig drinking a beer.... and the Pig Explodes in a ball of flames, we stand there dumbfounded.... and suddenly we find ourselves yelling PIG PIG PIG! ......
Finally we were able to........ um figure out that the word we were looking for was FIRE not PIG and we put it out all told it was quite amusing........ but I have a laundry list of stupid things.........


My first Vertical Cave.... we go on a 7 hour trip into a vertical cave not tellin which one or where ...... first drop was 80 feet, then some 50 foot neusaince drops then a 370..... I'm climing up on my way out.......... and my lamp goes out..... and I'm out of battries, and.... I'm hanging on a rope just in front of a rebelay.... total darkness... ahhh..... hrrm........ this is getting entirely too technical...

 

[MathGirl]

Suspense

Originally posted by Sultan Mad Cat I'm hanging on a rope just in front of a rebelay.... total darkness... ahhh..... hrrm........ this is getting entirely too technical...

Dear SMC,
You can't just leave us like that! What happened? Did you get out? Are you still hanging there?
Concerned,
MG

 

[MlledeLaPlumeBleu]

I have my own personal video geek. His name is Emmett. Emmett's hair is like wayward straw, and his glasses are always cantilevered over his nose so that they always almost miss one eye. He has seen literally everything, and he always recommends the perfect film- and sometimes a website or two, because he shares my "de-evolutionist" humor. It was Emmett that first introduced me to that most retarded of solitary online games, the Googlewhack, wherein you enter any two words and bracket them with quotes. The idea is that Google has so many f*cking listings, it's virtually impossible to not find any two word combination listed consecutively somewhere, more than once. If you enter the two words and get 1 listing, well, you have accomplished a googlewhack. Yay, you win. I told you it was retarded. It's harder than it sounds. I finally got one with "Animalcule Shoehorn."

Emmett is kind scared of girls. They make him a little "freaked-out 'n pale."

I had finally, after many months, managed to get Emmett to look me in the eye when we conversed, and then the following occurred.

Emmett (ringing up videos): "Hey, did you check out Real Ultimate Power dot com yet?"

Miss Bloo Pen: "Yes! Oh my fucking god. That was like a 13 year old boy's inner psyche exploded. Christ, the only thing funnier than ninjas are pirates."

Emmett (laughing- snort-snort-snort) "Yeah, it's great. I found it by entering-" (Here Emmett gets brave- lowers voice to nearly inaudible whisper) "ninja porn!"

(laughing, charmed by Emmett's daring venture into near naughtiness with an actual woman, Miss Bloo Pen attempts to encourage)

Miss Bloo Pen (inverting her eyebrows, with faux incredulity):
"You weren't trying to *whack* with that, were you?!"

Mutual redness ensues.

Curse whatever deplorable impulse urged me to truncate "googlewhack"- "hipping up" geek lingo in an attempt to relate...

My boyfriend dragged me out, videos clutched to my breast, still screaming "google! google! google!!!"

 

[KillerMuffin]

This is easy:

Be an asshole is the dumbest thing I ever did. Specially since I lost my killer instinct and picked up a conscience somewhere along the way.

Drat it all anyway.

 

[MlledeLaPlumeBleu]

I think, to be completely serious for a moment, that people misuse their powers a lot- myself included.

If you have a quick incisive wit- as most of the people on Lit do- it is tempting to smack down all and sundry who dare to breathe.

I truly believe the first quote on my signature line, which basically deals with the responsibility of having personal power. Barring that, there is always Machiavelli- Absolutely.

I tend to try and temper my more mercenary instincts under another adage: "Satirize wickedness, but pity weakness."

 

[Guest]

to MlledeLaPlumeBleu

re. today's AV:

Bellissima maxima,

That is the sexiest face with closed eyes I've seen on a woman.

your squeaking Cleopatra,

Trova

 

[MlledeLaPlumeBleu]

Well, thank you! I'm just practicing my opera faces Gotta get up pretty early in the morning to give better face than Callas...

By the way, your new AV is tres hot- lookit those bosoms! It ain't right anyone over 30 should have a set like that


love, Nicola

 

[Guest]

Srta. Azul de mi corazon:

Maya Krasnya Dyevuska,

If only more blokes cooed like you. Thirty is far in the past for this bosomed one (and I wouldn't go back for nada).

Call me babe. Adios y do cvedanya, querida,

Trovabazoomskaya

p.s. Who's the blondie, your accompanist?