What is the dumbest thing you have ever done that DID NOT incur bona fide risk of death or serious dismemberment? At what point did you realize the idiocy of your actions?

What is the dumbest thing you have ever done that DID incur bona fide risk of death or serious dismemberment? At what point did you realize the idiocy of your actions?

No fair answering only portions of this...you must answer all or none.

To answer the first, I would have to say watching porn in the living room when I was 15 while sitting on a glass coffee table. I realized my idiocy when I heard KEERRAAACK!

To answer the second, I would have to say that I've been pretty good about keeping alive and in one piece, clumsiness aside.

I dropped out of school to hitchhike. I should have died multiple times; that was stupid.

I've never done something stupid and gotten injured for it.

OK I'll weigh in -

The non-risk of death stupidest thing:
My friend and I were trying to make this weird freaky movie because we were weird freaky college kids with more time than brains. Soooooo we needed a police uniform. Just the uniform, or a coat even. Yes. I can see the realization on your face now. Yes, we really did. We failed, but we were stupid enough to actually try. Yes, both of us. In a mall parking lot. No, I am not kidding. Yes, I know. The car door was locked. I am SO GLAD it was.

On the way home we said "Damn that was kind of stupid wasn't it?"


The risk of death stupidest thing:
Being a "passenger" in an Escort going through the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. 85 mph or so. The "driver" was, shall we say, smoking something. The "passenger" was, shall we say, actually doing the "driving" while the "driver" held down the gas pedal. Why? Oh well because we had this really cool thing that was kind of like a mask that you looked through and it had a thing you blow into. When you did that, something in the mask would spin around and it looked REALLY freaky. So anyway the "driver" wanted to try it out. We should probably be dead.

No risk to death: I was a teen visiting Germany. We were camping off on the side of the road somewhere near Stuttgart where I snuck off in the dark to relieve myself after many hours on the road. There I sat crouched in the bushes with my pants around my ankles as the Stuttgart Midnight Express flew past not 15 feet away. I remember hundreds of smiling and laughing faces, (probably no more than twenty or thirty people in reality). Why didn't I pull up? Mid squeeze I'm afraid.


The stupidest thing while risking death makes me cringe to this day. I was pissed to the gills having been drinking with friends for hours in a Calgary pub. We all stupidly agreed to taking a ride with an unknown character who had been talking to a few of us in the pub. He was blasted out of his mind on acid AND we all knew it, BUT WE STILL GOT IN THE CAR with him, (I'm very embarrassed to say). So, off we went screaming down the road at high speed where he took a turn the wrong way up an offramp leaving a busy highway. Here's the clincher--we then screamed to a halt to avoid a head on collision with a police car! It was SO close. The rest is very strange; the cop took pity on the kid and arranged for "anyone who hasn't been drinking" to drive him home. One very pissed friend had the good sense to speak up and get us all out of there. It makes me cringe! We could easily have been in the paper the next day.

No risk to death...

Funny story, actually happened.

My kindergarten teacher was showing us on our first day of school the paper cutter. You know, the one with a machete on it you bring down to cut paper with?

Well, as she was telling us how dangerous it was....the blade was up and her hand was on it and she wasn't paying attention. It came DOWN on her hand and pretty much severed ALL 4 FINGERS.

She ran out of the room with her bits and parts and we all sat there in SHOCK. Then you heard muffled cries.....some other teacher came in for the rest of the day.

We had a sub for 5 or 6 mos and she came back with all of her fingers reattached.

I went home and told my mom I didn't want to go back to school as the teacher cut her fingers off in front of us, and she didn't believe me. Mom did find out otherwise later. Apologies ensued.

Mrs McCain, I know you are probably dead now, but you taught me a valuable lesson about paper cutters. We never went near it after you told us how dangerous it was and provided us with a demo, to boot. My palms STILL sweat when I see one and I cannot use one to this day!

Risk of death

1.When I was a vet tech at a convention we met these two guys who we knew NOTHING about at a bar....we were staying the nite....we let these guys in the car with us and went out and ONE went back to the hotel room with us. No one did anything with anyone, but looking back at it all, we coulda all be chopped up as chum for doing something that stupid. I remember my gut screaming that the guy was pretty smarmy but my one gf really liked him.

2. Going deer hunting in Southern Ohio, near the West Virginia border. It is a poor city and LOADED with deer, and you hear gun fire all nite as well. (it is illegal to hunt at nite, but it is like deliverance down there and is NOT policed.) While waiting for my own deer to make an appearance for a shot, I have felt and heard lead whizzing over my head. People down there don't care where the bullet goes or if they miss.

No risk of death: Trying to board a plane in San Francisco. We started walking down the gate to the plane, and then were turned around--no pilot. They hussled us back up, but wouldn't let us back to the waiting area, so we sat in the hallway. I cracked a joke that they were keeping us from hijacking a pilot from another plane. Very, very dumb thing to say.

Risk of death: Hard to pick just one. Driving a little 4-banger with bald tires, on a dirt road with huge washboards and lots of curves, at about 80 MPH. Rolled the car 2.5 times, but walked away from it.

Stupid, but no risk of death: While stationed in Camp Lejeune, I made a change to a program that listed all suspicious vehicles for PMO (Military Police).
To test it I entered my own Licence number and then neglected to delete it.

The next day, I found myself handcuffed in the back of an MP vehicle while trying to explain what had happened. The Commanding Officer of the computer center eventually had to sprung me from the brig by cashing in a favor with the CO of the MPs. He was not happy with me.

Stupid, risk of death: While stationed in Quantico, a bunch of us (maybe 14-15) decided to go to a place called Hammerjacks for a friend's bachelor party. We had all been drinking when one of us (not me) decided to pick a fight with an off-duty bouncer. I did not witness this. What I did witness was about 30-40 big, angry, sober bouncers coming at us. We ran out of the bar, but were pursued. The bouncers gained the upper-hand easily. At one point three of them were busily kicking a friend of mine in the teeth while he was on the ground. Unsure of what to do, one of my other friends grabbed a garbage can and threw it through the plate-glass window of a gas-station to get the police to come. We were all arrested, but I was never so glad to see the Cops EVER.

wooo, you are a marine, eh?? My son travels with you all, as a Seabee. I, myself was a Navy Corpsman....your medic. Ever need any nursin' lemme know. ;)

I think mine kind of fits into both categories. I probably wouldn't have died (category 1), but at the time it happened I thought I might (category 2...sorta).

When I was in the Air Force and stationed in Texas for tech school, I woke up late for class one day. I didn't have time to shower, simply because they did random room inspections in the dorms and I would have had to thoroughly hand dry the shower and clean it afterward. I decided to quickly wash up and wash my hair in the sink, a much smaller thing to clean afterward.

The sink looked to be the same size as the one back home in which I could fit my head completely under the faucet. I turned on the water and lowered my head underneath the faucet sideways. When I turned my head to wet the back, my nose went in the drain hole and the faucet dug itself deep into the back of my neck (I should note now that I was doing this rather quickly and the rush impeded me gauging the fit more carefully).

I immediately went into panic mode, as I could not move my head and get it loose, and the sink was beginning to fill with water and cover my mouth. The obvious thing to do would be to reach up and turn off the water first, but in my panic it didn't occur to me. The only thought that kept going through my mind was that I would die, head pinned in the sink and me wearing only tighty whities, while water is pouring over the vanity and flooding the room. They'd find me like that hours later doing the room inspection. It would look like the lamest suicide ever. I kept thinking of how they'd tell my mom I died.

After a few minutes of desperate struggling, I mentally said "f*ck it" and turned my head to the side as hard as I could, the faucet completely ripped open the back of my neck, but it worked. I spent the day in class with everyone asking what in the hell happened to my neck, as the bleeding never quite stopped seeping through the pillow-sized lump of gauze and tape I covered it with.

I told no one.

ta-da!

Hammerjacks in Baltimore?? The old one? That was a great place, I saw a lot of cool bands there. They leveled it to make a parking lot for the Orioles & Ravens stadiums.

Yes. "The Unfortunate Incident" happened in 1988.

Yes. I was one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children for 8 years. But that was many years ago. I met my wife while I was in the Marines. She said she liked the way my uniform looked on me.

Odd--I always like how my husbands uniform looks crumpled up on the floor. ;)

Stupid things...man where do I start.,,

Non-death related: Tried growing "plants" on my fathers chimney when I was 17...(should be death related), mailbox launching which is a lot of fun..what you do is you and a friend drive down the road at a high rate of speed and your friend flings the passenger door open as you pass mailboxes and then you watch as the mailbox performs a really cool acrobatic triple flip to a quadrupole somersault roll, but probably the stupidest thing I ever did was lie to my girlfriend about petty $hit...if I had been a man about it I wouldn't be in this silly predicament I'm currently in....word of advice to any guys out their who have someone you care about; Be honest and up front, because you may save yourself from one or two little arguments but that one lie that comes back on you from a friend of a friend of a friend who knows your girlfriend, will haunt you the rest of your life..and if you really love your girl like I do mine, it will be the worst feeling in the world when she takes your heart and puts it in a blender, hits frappes, takes it out of the blender and puts it in the toilet after taco night and takes the worlds largest dump on it. I may joke a lot but I am serious when I say that it's not worth the trouble you will go through for one little lie. It will have a snowball effect...trust me

Death or injury related: Taking my mattress for a ride down our staircase..weeeee, and jumping out my second story window with my ninja turtle blanket being used as a parachute (which did not work)....both things were attempted the same day...which brings me to this...don't leave your 12 and 10 year old alone for three hours.

Stupid, but not deadly :
My first summer in the Arctic was an introduction to bad bugs. One day, I snapped at the bugs. I had had enough! They were biting me under my hat, down my shirt, under my sleeves and on my ankles. I was so mad at the bugs! After smacking my hands all down my legs/arms/chest/torso to crush and destroy every bug on me, I discovered a few more blackflies biting me under my watch. I was so mad, raging really, that I went to destroy the blackflies. Picking up my handy 5-pound sledge hammer that I usually use to destroy rocks.......

I broke my watch, nearly broke my wrist, and only realized the stupidity of my actions as I felt pain. It's embarassing, but I've never done anything remotely as stupid since.

Stupid, could have died:
Where I'm working right now, the smallest stupid not-thinking moment could result in my death. I think this every day when the helicopter comes and lands beside me (it's handy in rough terrain to be able to stand up and get in - no couched-walk approach required), or when I get dropped off miles and miles from anyone else. If I get hurt, I am a minimum of one day from medical help and probably two days from a decent hospital. So basically, if I do a little happy-dance, fall and hit my head on a rock and do a bit of damage - I could die. If I fall down a cliff and break something, I probably will die.

That's my reality.

I have to say, I'm pretty safe now, though.

I am curious about you. What do you do for a living, dear?

I'm a geologist. I work all over northern Canada. I like working in the Arctic best, even though it is cold, desolate and cursed with horrible weather and bugs.

That is so cool. Upvotes for the geologist!!

You make me laugh. If I werent married I would snatch you up....I am truly sorry about your gf, though, you are right..honesty is the best policy.

Anyways, my brother used to get all kinds of *plants* shipped to the house when he lived at home....my mom thought it was the coolest thing and wondered why even if the leaves fell off he wanted them all. (I am not sure what they were!)

another bump for newer members who missed out on this

Stupid, wasnt dismembered or died One night I decided to head home from a bar. I was 20 years old at the time...so already underage. On a scale of 1-10, i was at a 10 for being drunk. The good/bad thing about me when i drink, is no matter how drunk i get, I can fully function and not pass out until I am in my bed...or at least on my porch. I had no ride home from the bar, so I decided to walk home. It was probably about a 2- 3mile walk. I walk for about 5minutes and I come to the Car Plant. It is about 5 city blocks long in each direction. However, my street is directly on the other side, straight through the plant. I decide to walk clear through the Car Plant @ 3:00AM. I put my shirt over my head b/c i was under the impression, If i couldn't see the cameras, they couldn't see me. I proceed through the plant and come to about 4 barbed wire fences...which I (somehow) climb over unscathed. I hide in the shadows b/c I was thinking of a video game, lol. Yea i was wasted. WIth two fences left I see that I am spotted by security. I walk out, hands up and surrender. They speak no English. They call the real cops. They arrive. I talk 2 the cops for about 5minutes and end up getting a ride home from them. No disciplinary actions watsoever, never even began reading rights or anything. Oh Yea and i was with Smarty1052 the entire time, which makes it more crazy, lol. I was SOOOO lucky. To this day i cannot believe i did that...and sadly it was my idea.

stupid...chance of death Running from a bull on my uncle's farm in Mississippi when i was like 10 years old. Good thing i was fast even back then. Once again, was with Smarty1052, lol. I dove over the gate, and he dove through the bars of it. It was crazy. FYI - They really do move their hoof before they charge.