What's the dumbest thing you ever did?

[Big Dave]

Years ago I was working on my FireChicken (FireBird for those not in the know) with some of my Friends. When I went to undo the Battery Cable my ring touched the Wrench and I welded my hand to the fender of the car (I don't wear rings now). I jump back trying to feel better (I was just electrocuted), when I looked at my hand I had paint from the car welded to my skin (it took months to wash off). Of course everyone laughed at me.

That's not all.

Not 15 minutes later and another car. We used to have this race car with the two batteries in the truck, well one of the batteries were already taken out. My Dad asked me to remove the other one while he was at work. I made sure the battery switch was off, and I proceeded to take the battery out of the car. I went to move the other cable for the battery, not realizing they were connected and a Bolt of Lighting came out the back of the car. Once again I got electrocuted. My Sister came running out of the house only to find me laying in the yard behind the car, trying to talk. All she said before she started laughing was "I say a bolt of lighting, so I knew you had to be involved".

I'm not sure if it was the dumbest thing I've done, because I sure learned my lesson.

[Frog]

Well, let's see... Used to live in Pullman, WA, and would occasionally ride with a few others on bicycles down to Lewiston, ID and back...one day a handful of us hammered down the hill and decided we were thirsty when we got to Lewiston. Most of us were in our tallest gear, keepin' up with traffic when we got to the tav. Dehydrated, tired, and thirsty, we stayed a bit longer than we shoulda, figurin' we'd just sweat it out going back to Pullman, which is mostly uphill from Lewiston and about 35 miles away. One guy comes outta the bar, hops on his bike, "clicks" in and promptly falls over on his side - between the heat, exertion, and drinking, he's too pooped to turn the crank, which he'd left in his tallest gear. Being the kindly souls that we are, we 'bout laughed ourselves sick, with me braying as loud as any... then I hop on my bike, and do the same damn thing - ouch!

[Abax]

My friend and I had started skydiving before college. When we were working, money was no object, so we skydived all weekend, every weekend. But as we got a few years into college, funds were a little tighter, so we began to look for ways to skydive on the cheap (each climb to altitude in a plane was about $15 back then). We looked for some mountains to run off the edge of (like we did in Alaska a couple of times), but couldn't find anything high enough and steep enough with a good landing area. So I got the idea of towing our parachutes to altitude behind my friend's Suzuki Samurai.

There was a precedent for this. The round parachutes you've seen towed behind boats were actually adapted later for skydiving. In fact, my friend and I had both learned to jump on the skydiving version of these things - ParaCommanders. So we were just reversing the process by taking a parachute and adapting it to be towed behind a vehicle. I bought 500' of ¼" nylon rope, rigged up a quick disconnect for the parachute end, then we set off for the nearest deserted county road.

It actually took a little more effort than we thought to find a road that was absent a lot of wires crossing it, even out in the country. But we finally found a stretch of dirt road that was clear of obstructions for almost 2 miles. Since it was my idea, I got to go first. I hooked up the rope to the bumper of the Suzuki, attached it to my risers, and gave my friend the go ahead. At first, I was taking about 25' strides down the road, not quite able to lift off the ground. But I soon figured it out and pulled on the brakes and my square parachute pulled me into the air. I experimented with a few very gentle turns, mainly concentrating on keeping behind the Suzuki. As the wires at the end of our select road became more obvious, I figured it was time to make sure the release worked properly. I set myself free from the tow rope quite easily, about 200' above the road. "Hey, this isn't too bad!" I yelled.

But that was about to change. Towing the parachute had pulled it out of shape - far from the shape it would normally assume while flying. My canopy rocked far back, then rocked far forward as it changed back to its normal shape. That maneuver cost me most of my altitude and airspeed. All of a sudden, I was landing hard and fast. I didn't even have time to line up on the road. I drilled into the hard mud and corn stubble of a sun-baked ditch. Those jumps under the old ParaCommander came in handy, as I performed what's called a "parachute landing fall" to use up the tremendous amount of energy that was trying to pound me into the natural adobe. I came to rest on my back, the wind knocked out of me, but otherwise unhurt. I turned my head a little to the right, and lying just inches away in the dirt and corn was a big chunk of tilted concrete rubble, perhaps a piece of some now-defunct irrigation system. I had missed hammering into this 3' x 4' piece of concrete by the tiniest margin!

Just seconds after I landed, a man in a faded yellow Cadillac traveling in the same direction as our brief flight came upon me in the ditch. He stopped on the road in a cloud of dust and hollered out his window. "Are you Okay son?" It was all I could do to muster enough breath to tell him I was Okay and "just resting here while my friend comes back to pick me up." A few moments later, my friend had retrieved the rope and returned to my landing site.

"I don't think I need to do that!" my friend exclaimed.
"Me neither!" I replied. From that point on, we resolved to stick to jumping out of airplanes, a much safer endeavor.

Here's my friend and I after jumping out of a perfectly good airplane:



Abax

[SoldierSpike]

You were actually able to get a samurai to go fast enough for that?!

[mbhandy]

My middle brother John and I had made up a big bowl of black gun powder and were tossing it on a candle to watch the Woshhh of the gun powder at night. My brother not to be out done by big brother gets a big handful of powder and toses it at the candle. The woshhhhhhhhhh needles to say was big and followed the powder all the way back to the bowl of powder and John and I did not have eye brows for some time. Mom took all the chems. for making gun powder we thought that was not fair. We were both in Jr. high at the time.

MrBill

[CelticRanger66]

My unit was training for urban warfare in a MOUT center in Ft. Hood Tx., I was in patrol sneaking through the sewer line to effect basement entry into a building. When all of a sudden my digital watch starts alarming!!!!BEEP BEEP!!
Next thing I know off come the manhole covers and in come grenades and machine gun fire. I get my whole squad waxed. To this day I dont wear a digital watch and have yet to live this incident down. CR66

[Abax]

You were actually able to get a samurai to go fast enough for that?!

Aye, and in Ft Collins too!

Abax

[LK-13]

I'm sure we can all guess from what you posted...it happened to many of us I am sure ( just not with Jody...we hope)

you have no idea the depth of the depravity.
particularly since i have such open personal boundaries.

[Doc]

Does waking up this morning count.

[Kilted_John]

Done too many things to count. But, one of the most memorable things was when I was trying to hollow out a bamboo stake with a pair of garden clippers. Jammed the blade into the index finger on my right hand. Didn't feel pain, until I looked down and noticed the purple blood coming out of my finger. Went into shock...

-J