Boneheaded Things You Have Done

[Sylvanfan]

One morning I mindlessly grabbed the Cayenne Pepper to put in my oatmeal instead of Cinnamon. Thankfully this was before I had Covid and could smell things well enough that I realized the error before dumping too much in.

I'm always taking my glasses off to read and misplace them all the time. The other day my wife found them on top of the cat food after I slugged thru a day of work without them. Even spent like 30 minutes trying to find them. I need the old person lanyard for them.

[Table 5]

This is my kind of thread, as I've sadly had more than my fair share of space-case moments. A few lowlights:

• Back in high school, I went to a house party at a new friends house. When I rang the bell, nobody answered the door so I went around the back. No response either, but I heard music and assumed they were in the basement, so I opened the sliding glass door to let myself in. That's when the house alarm went off....and it finally clicked that I was in the wrong house. The party was next door. I got the hell out of there and found the right house, but spent the entire night skulking in the corner, nervously expecting the cops to show up.

• In college, went backpacking through Europe with friends. During a stopover at a hostel in Amsterdam, I was offered a baggie of recreational goods by a random fellow traveller. Not wanting to appear uncool in the moment but also not a partaker of recreational goods (especially from sketchy randos), I took it for "later", and put it in my backpack with the intention of throwing it out at some point...which I promptly forgot about for the rest of my trip, and thus carried through multiple airports and security checkpoints. The funny thing was that I distinctly remember dogs sniffing around our backpack at some point, but having completely forgotten about it, I was always cool as a cucumber with border security.

• Was at the airport, and got an important call from a client just before I got to the security line. I stopped for a few minutes on a bench with all my stuff, took my call, and then proceeded through security and to my gate. Just as they started boarding, I noticed my camera bag was gone. Turns out, I had left about $5K worth of gear sitting on that bench for a solid 45 minutes. Had to explain my idiocy to security so they'd let me back out.

• Was on a work trip to NY, and the night before my 7 am flight back home, I hesitantly decided to meet up with a couple of old college friends for a quick drink. Well, that quick drink turned into an epic night across several bars. Stumbled back to my hotel room, glad to at least salvage a couple hours of sleep before leaving for the airport...when it hit me that I was no longer in possession of my passport. I guess I had already put it in my coat to get ready for my flight, but then took that coat to get my drink, and promptly lost it. I spent the next couple of early-morning hours slogging through the East Village, still drunk but now also dragging a suitcase, going from place to place trying to recreate our night. I knew I found the right place when I walked into a bar to see the bartender looking at me, slowly waving the passport and shaking his head like a disappointed parent.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by manwiches

- Growing up in Signal Hill, "luging" on my skateboard from the top of the hill to Mac's with my cousin in the middle of the road.

Funny, we used to do something similar in Huntington Hills...except with a GT Racer. For summer fun, we sketchily fastened some skateboard wheels onto the GT, and then took it down the biggest streets we could find. When that got too easy, we started raced them, gladiator style. Each GT had two people on board...one to drive and the other to try to push/bodycheck/whatever the other GT crew over.

The fun stopped when one kid broke their arm, and his mom found out. It's probably for the better.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Funny, we used to do something similar in Huntington Hills...except with a GT Racer. For summer fun, we sketchily fastened some skateboard wheels onto the GT, and then took it down the biggest streets we could find. When that got too easy, we started raced them, gladiator style. Each GT had two people on board...one to drive and the other to try to push/bodycheck/whatever the other GT crew over.

The fun stopped when one kid broke their arm, and his mom found out. It's probably for the better.

Of course the one kid ruins it for everyone!

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Locke

Of course the one kid ruins it for everyone!

In hindsight, considering that those things had no functional breaks and we were screaming down public roads, it's probably a minor miracle that nobody smashed into a car (parked or moving). That kid's ulna probably saved us some major pain.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Funny, we used to do something similar in Huntington Hills...except with a GT Racer.

My younger brother and I took the runners off our GT's, melted and reshaped the backs so that they could run in either direction (instead of just forward) and then scraped/burned/melted the ski grooves off, so they were smooth as glass on the bottoms...

We nearly killed ourselves dozens of times on those deathtraps.

[Sainters7]

Just thought of one. More about the ongoing Murphy's Law I have than anything dumb I did, but may be both: back in the early 00s I had to upgrade a class at Chinook College. I went to write my final exam in my housecoat, slippers and full pajamas for whatever reason. Get to my car after, driving home, it feels like my engine is dragging on the road. Pull over to look at it, someone slashed my tires, they were so flat I was driving on rims (I had beefs with a couple guys at school there, I mean who else slashes a 1988 Ford Tempo L's tires? (the L did stand for Luxury though...)

So I pull up to this gated area in front of a building and call AMA. When he shows up, he looks VERY concerned at my appearance. I end up finding out the building I pulled up to the locked gate in front of...was a mental institution. I'm in my freakin pj's, housecoat and slippers with major bedhead hair, full blast looking like an escaped patient from the Elsinore Brewery or something (this is 2001, views on that stuff were different back then).

I could tell he didn't want me to leave, he definitely thought something was up with me. Took some convincing, he was on his radio for a bit, I think he was trying to figure out if he should try to prevent me from leaving and calling his bosses to figure out what to do. But I eventually managed to convince him. So ridiculous, of all the buildings to break down in front of in your pajamas...

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Moons ago I wanted to learn how to chop things very quickly like professional chefs.

Reminds me of another one for me. Years ago my then wife gave me a kitchen mandolin for Xmas. But this stupid POS didn't have a guard. Just the blade. But I was excited as I had been watching Chopped a lot.
So I grabbed a cucumber and started slicing it.
I remember pausing and saying out loud "boy this thing is sharp I have to be REAL careful" and then continued to slice away until I sliced the skin of my knuckles.

Off the to the ER. And into the trash with that thing.

When we got home hours later, we found thinly sliced shavings of my skin on the counter.

My middle finger still has the scar. The rest of the fingers weren't bad, but that finger was some of the worst pain I've had. The had to put a tight bandage around it, and that thing throbbed for 3 days straight, to the point that I barely slept.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Reminds me of another one for me. Years ago my then wife gave me a kitchen mandolin for Xmas. But this stupid POS didn't have a guard. Just the blade. But I was excited as I had been watching Chopped a lot.
So I grabbed a cucumber and started slicing it.
I remember pausing and saying out loud "boy this thing is sharp I have to be REAL careful" and then continued to slice away until I sliced the skin of my knuckles.

Off the to the ER. And into the trash with that thing.

When we got home hours later, we found thinly sliced shavings of my skin on the counter.

My middle finger still has the scar. The rest of the fingers weren't bad, but that finger was some of the worst pain I've had. The had to put a tight bandage around it, and that thing throbbed for 3 days straight, to the point that I barely slept.

Are the string really that sharp on these babies?



Mandolins are for Bards not for the kitchen! Yes I know what he was talking about.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Mandoline?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Mandoline?

I dunno. I'm just giving you a hard time because I thought it was funny.

The prospect of dicing your vegetables and cutting your fingers with a stringed instrument. I suppose it could happen...but that would likely take a whole other level of boneheadedness.

You cut yourself with something sharp. It happens.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Reminds me of another one for me. Years ago my then wife gave me a kitchen mandolin for Xmas. But this stupid POS didn't have a guard. Just the blade. But I was excited as I had been watching Chopped a lot.
So I grabbed a cucumber and started slicing it.
I remember pausing and saying out loud "boy this thing is sharp I have to be REAL careful" and then continued to slice away until I sliced the skin of my knuckles.

Off the to the ER. And into the trash with that thing.

When we got home hours later, we found thinly sliced shavings of my skin on the counter.

My middle finger still has the scar. The rest of the fingers weren't bad, but that finger was some of the worst pain I've had. The had to put a tight bandage around it, and that thing throbbed for 3 days straight, to the point that I barely slept.

That reminds me that I need to get a food processor so I don't need to bring out the mandolin for slicing potatoes for scalloped potatoes.

On the topic of sharp kitchen implements, I also picked up a new toy (a Japanese nikari) and used it to do what I normally would with a banana and just hold the banana and use the knife to score just below the stem so it's easy to peel. My old knife would just cut, but it wasn't very sharp so the banana peel offered enough resistance that you could control it. The nikiri slid through the whole top of the banana like a lightsabre through a tub of margarine. Anyway, it didn't do any damage to me, but I realized it was dumb move and that I should use the cutting board from then on.

[lazypucker]

I had a few dumb moments:

(1) I was doing a slow stew on the stove, and then my wife called me to go pick her up from work and then go grocery shopping. I left home and forgot to turn the stove off. We didn't know about it until 3 hours later when we returned home. Luckily our house didn't burn down!! Needless to say, I got chewed out by my wife.

(2) We have a fridge with a bottom freezer, and one time the door wasn't closed properly. So the food was defrosting and the next morning I noticed a huge puddle of water on the floor around the fridge. I was so afraid that we had a pipe burst (because it was like -30 for a week outside) luckily it wasn't. Again I got chewed out by my wife...

(3) We were driving to BC for a week one time, and because there would not be anyone home, in addition to the PIN code lock we use everyday, I decided to lock the door handle as well (the type you can twist the knob and lock it from inside). After a fantastic trip we were back home close to midnight on a Sunday, and lo and behold, I forgot to bring the keys for the locked door handle that we never lock nomrally. So I had to call a locksmith in the middle of the night to drill through the locked handle. And that took a couple of hours. Needless to say, I got chewed out again by my wife....

Now a story from many years ago when I was around 13 years old. We came to Canada for a couple of years and we were having our first family road-trip - driving to BC again. My father was driving for 5-6 hours since the morning until we had to stop for gas at like Revelstoke, he suddenly realized that he forgot his wallet at home!! He had no money and more importantly no driver license!! There is no way to turn the car back to Calgary, and my mom being a new driver at the time didn't want to drive in unknown places. So my father drove for the entire week-long trip without a license!! Fortunately the trip had gone without any problem, but we were pretty nervous the whole time with my dad driving without a license for the whole week! But needless to say, my dad got chewed out by his wife!!

One more story - not my own experience, and I think I talked about it here on CP. Anyways, when you get your Permanent Residency (PR) in Canada, you have to leave the country and re-enter Canada, and a popular route for PRs in Calgary is to drive to the Montana border and come back. One guy decided to do that, and took his girlfriend along to make it a weekend trip to Waterton Park. When they arrived at the border, everything went well, except the officer noticed that the guy's driver license had expired, and the officer didn't allow him to drive (the girlfriend did not have a license). So the guy had to leave the car at border patrol, called a friend to come all the way from Calgary to pick them up. And the guy had to renew his license on Monday and had the friend drive him back to the border to pick his car up. Needless to say the whole weekend was ruined, and of course the guy got chewed out by his girlfriend!!

So the moral of everything is - don't f-up, or you will be chewed out by your wife!!!

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Locke

Are the string really that sharp on these babies?



Mandolins are for Bards not for the kitchen! Yes I know what he was talking about.

Those strings could cut a soft cheese though.

[btimbit]

About 6 or 7 years ago when I was still pipelining, I was leaving the hotel in the morning after a pretty bad sleep. Just a dirt parking lot with nothing in it, other than a few small concrete bollards with block heater plugs on them. Me, tired and absent minded, hops in my truck, put it in gear, hit the gas, make it about two feet and then DONK. Smacked into one of those little 3 foot poles dead centre of the truck.





Didn't feel very smart that day

[Dion]

A few weeks ago I replaced a couple of toilets in my house. A friend and business owner offered me his commercial trash bin to dispose of the old toilets. While taking one to load in the back end of my Escape I tripped and dropped it. Of course there were pieces of porcelain everywhere. I had some boxes and proceeded to put the pieces in. Now stupid me forgot to put on some damn gloves and I when to pick up a piece, I sliced my finger pretty good on a jagged piece. Hospital bandaged it up really well and the stinging from the cut lasted for days.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

I had a few dumb moments:

(1) I was doing a slow stew on the stove, and then my wife called me to go pick her up from work and then go grocery shopping. I left home and forgot to turn the stove off. We didn't know about it until 3 hours later when we returned home. Luckily our house didn't burn down!! Needless to say, I got chewed out by my wife.

(2) We have a fridge with a bottom freezer, and one time the door wasn't closed properly. So the food was defrosting and the next morning I noticed a huge puddle of water on the floor around the fridge. I was so afraid that we had a pipe burst (because it was like -30 for a week outside) luckily it wasn't. Again I got chewed out by my wife...

(3) We were driving to BC for a week one time, and because there would not be anyone home, in addition to the PIN code lock we use everyday, I decided to lock the door handle as well (the type you can twist the knob and lock it from inside). After a fantastic trip we were back home close to midnight on a Sunday, and lo and behold, I forgot to bring the keys for the locked door handle that we never lock nomrally. So I had to call a locksmith in the middle of the night to drill through the locked handle. And that took a couple of hours. Needless to say, I got chewed out again by my wife....

Now a story from many years ago when I was around 13 years old. We came to Canada for a couple of years and we were having our first family road-trip - driving to BC again. My father was driving for 5-6 hours since the morning until we had to stop for gas at like Revelstoke, he suddenly realized that he forgot his wallet at home!! He had no money and more importantly no driver license!! There is no way to turn the car back to Calgary, and my mom being a new driver at the time didn't want to drive in unknown places. So my father drove for the entire week-long trip without a license!! Fortunately the trip had gone without any problem, but we were pretty nervous the whole time with my dad driving without a license for the whole week! But needless to say, my dad got chewed out by his wife!!

One more story - not my own experience, and I think I talked about it here on CP. Anyways, when you get your Permanent Residency (PR) in Canada, you have to leave the country and re-enter Canada, and a popular route for PRs in Calgary is to drive to the Montana border and come back. One guy decided to do that, and took his girlfriend along to make it a weekend trip to Waterton Park. When they arrived at the border, everything went well, except the officer noticed that the guy's driver license had expired, and the officer didn't allow him to drive (the girlfriend did not have a license). So the guy had to leave the car at border patrol, called a friend to come all the way from Calgary to pick them up. And the guy had to renew his license on Monday and had the friend drive him back to the border to pick his car up. Needless to say the whole weekend was ruined, and of course the guy got chewed out by his girlfriend!!

So the moral of everything is - don't f-up, or you will be chewed out by your wife!!!

I'm pretty sure thats actually boilerplate in the Wedding Ceremony now.

"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? Remember, you can never, ever make a mistake again or you will never hear the end of it, so choose wisely. You do? Is that your Final Answer? *Who Wants to be a Millionaire Music Plays* Okay then..."

[DoubleF]

Listening to my dad…?

I think I was 5 or 6. My dad found a bees nest on a crack on the side of the house. My dad inexplicably tells me to come spot him and stay back (vs going into the house like everyone else). I don’t get why I was needed outside because inside seemed safe, but I stand outside like 25-50 feet away spotting him for god knows what reason. Dude goes gangbusters on the next with those ####ing old school Electrolux canister vacuums. He’s unscathed, I get stung, twice. So I rush into the house. I’m sobbing inside the house from the pain and he walks in unscathed with a #### eating grin lol like, “Aww man, sorry son. Here, this will help.” And he rubs some of the honey onto the sting, which I dunno if it was the pressure or the honey, but it made it hurt worse.

Elementary school. Remember that science trick guys showed kids about inertia? You swing a bucket in a circle vertically and don’t spill water. I felt like I should stand parallel directly to his side or slightly back of his position. My dad told me where to stand parallel to him slightly forward that was safe. Except, the wire handle snapped on one side of the ice cream bucket he was using and he lost balance so it launched at the perfect angle into my shoulder and face. When the teacher asked what had happened, I sounded like Sylvester from looney Tunes or Mike Tyson with my reply of “science experiment”.

I was in Jr high or something. We had a relatively new BBQ and he was excited. The built in starter wasn’t working so he decided to light it manually and called me to help because he couldn’t see. I felt like fire and gas should be done by same person. He felt the match could go out before he could turn on the gas. This was before long lighters were a thing, so it was basically dropping matches from a match book into a bbq and controlling the gas to try and get it to light. Dad tells me to see if the match was still lit while he’s controlling the gas. I lean over into the edge of a propane fireball. It singed the top of every hair on my face. Not enough to look weird, but enough to smell like burnt hair for a week.

My dads given me a ton of great advice over my life. But he’s also given me some bad advice I felt I should have ignored before calamity hit.

[Wormius]

I think a lot also involve situations arise when you believe, “I can do this all in one trip”.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Locke

Are the string really that sharp on these babies?



Mandolins are for Bards not for the kitchen! Yes I know what he was talking about.

Are the Mandolin, the rubes Balalaika