stupid things to look back on and laugh (thank god we are alive)

[Zeuk in Oz]

Posting on this forum.

Seriously though, the beauty of old age is that you are allowed to forget the stupidity of youth - until the kids ask for the car keys - then it all comes flooding back !

[BillionPa]

the stupidest thing i have done lately is use a bottle jack to push my strut assembley in the car up on the upper brake carrier bolt area...

it OBVIOUSLY pushed the bottle jack over, although i was about .2s too late in realising what was going to happen, went something like this:

"i wonder if this is a good ide.."
and as my eyes open wide and my brain shouts NO!..
BAM!!!!!

strut pops off the suspension and hits me square in the face.

that was last Friday.

luckily i was holding on to the bottle jack when it started to move or i would have been another half an inch closer to the strut.

and that would have probably killed me, I got away with JUST a minor fracture of the skull and a concussion, some scrapes and bruising, and my teeth hurt a bit.

[F4Phantom]

One time ( i am not proud of this and it really is stupid stupid) I was on a date. In dads honda accord 1997. Was a work car so it only knew full on, or off. Went around a blind corner with large natural walls. Got up to 170km/h approx 110miles? So i am in a corner at high speed, the car could not hold it, i go into the other lane without choice knowing if someone comes it's a high speed head-on. Still the car could not hold it, I get the 2 outside wheels in the gravel the inside on the blacktop. In the end the curve ended and I slowed down to comtemplate what I had just done. The chick had no idea of what just happend, she talked the whole way through and I did not metion it agian. As I say, stupid.

[rob101]

The chick had no idea of what just happend, she talked the whole way through and I did not metion it agian. As I say, stupid.

lol didn't have an idea of what just happened? i think any women i know would force me to pull over if i went faster than 140

[tgrandahl]

lol didn't have an idea of what just happened? i think any women i know would force me to pull over if i went faster than 140

I agree, most girls i know would start to flip out and probably try to jump.

[clhorton]

I had a nissan 200sx at one time that I really used to dog out it was my second car I remember what time trying to show off to a friend how cool it was to have rear wheel drive. I spun out and the exhaust from the cat back fell off in the middle of a busy highway. We had to stop about 30 cars to get my exhaust out of the road. Then another time in my first car my ford tempo i tried to jump a railroad track and broke the front sway bar links and both sides of the tires slammed back into the tire well. It sucked big time.

[chris_e34]

LOL, jumping railroad tracks...wow....

lol didn't have an idea of what just happened? i think any women i know would force me to pull over if i went faster than 140

i would have to agree although i am lucky enough to have a girlfriend that enjoys some competition at the track, shes looking into an e36 m3.

[genphreak]

I had a nissan 200sx at one time that I really used to dog out it was my second car I remember what time trying to show off to a friend how cool it was to have rear wheel drive. I spun out and the exhaust from the cat back fell off in the middle of a busy highway. We had to stop about 30 cars to get my exhaust out of the road. Then another time in my first car my ford tempo i tried to jump a railroad track and broke the front sway bar links and both sides of the tires slammed back into the tire well. It sucked big time.

I once piloted a Mazda 1300 2-door station wagon -what mum thought was a sensible first car- into a helicopter spin. These are super small, Rear Wheel Drive cars, the 'best' of which was the 'RE-12' rotary variant. All others were 1.3 OHC, had drum brakes all round, a full box-section steel chassis, and this was the heaviest version; the 3-door mini-wagon body. It was much closer to a horse-cart than a drift car. I knew enough to know it wasn't LSD and had pissant power so figured that I couldn't get into any trouble smoking the inside wheel around a few times.

Wrong. The road had a good and gradual hump (due to the camber) in the middle. I went round smoking the inside tyre (for the first time) with my mates all looking on. Going into the second circle adn everyone was cheering. Then somehow it must have spun both wheels (I was keeping it at 4000-5000rpm in first gear so as 'not to let it grip and thus avoiding any trouble'. But that little 1300 alloy-head 4-cyl was truly an unbelievable motor): All I know is one moment all was fine and fun and the next it was heading one way then the other and it took inside 1/billionth of a second to reach the far side of the road the opposite way and several times reversed to what my senses expected. The dangers of this result were worse than I can describe for reasons that cannot be public knowledge for fear of prosecution... not that I hit anything or caused any loss/damage- (and that was sheer luck).

Nothing like learning the extent of one's own stupidity has no bounds to make you realise that perhaps neither does humanity's. It makes you realise you are more than stupid, and perhaps more than mortal; one is are more accurately doomed and temproarily lucky. And happier for it. I cannot imagine why the head gasket needed replacement shortly afterwards...

[calmloki]

For some reason fire has always been my friend. The way booze is an alchoholics. Set several VW bugs on fire when testing fuel pumps without disconnecting the coil (pull the line at the carb and see if it squirts gas while your partner cranks it over). This gets even more fun if you get a good gravity flow leak going, flame goes to the puddle under the car, and you try to push the car out of the shop bay and off the big blaze. NB: fire follows the trail of gas. Stop pushing to put out the fire and the flowing gas pools and makes another big blaze under the car. Push car faster. Dodge flame trails. Hilarity ensues.
At a younger age I tried to clear a flooded truck engine by having my kid brother crank over the engine as I lit a slug of gas in the throat of the carb, thinking sucking in the flame would burn clean the sparkplugs. Blew the valve cover completely off the engine.
Got into a nest of groundwasps and tried to burn it out. Fire was fading so sloshed a stream of gas onto the waning fire. See above regarding fire's ability to follow said stream. To the can yers truly was holding.
Currently missing most of an eyebrow, my hairline is a 1/4" further back, and the hair in my left nostril is neatly removed by the flame from my moustache. When trying to clean the orifices on a gas range with carb cleaner it is best to blow out the pilot lights. Only a couple minor burns from the melted hair as I attempted to wipe the blaze off my head.
Don't even get me started on black powder splitting guns, blasting caps as fireworks, shooting arrows straight up (they disappear - you get one chance to see which way they will fall when they make their turn at the apex), hitting cartidge primers on an anvil with a hammer, safe and sane driving....
Tom "Mr. Safety" Walrod

[angrypancake]

i don't know where to start. most of the dumb things i did involved being drunk. there was the period where i did way too many drugs, and of course there was fire. from the age of 10 til about 18 fire was my best friend, then there was college. oh wait i'm still in it. from being found passed out at the intersection of 114th/broadway at 7am, to almost burning down my best friend's house. if i had 9 lives i've probly burned (pun slightly intended) through 7 or 8 of them. someone's looking out for me.

Two car accidents, one involving 3 trees and the loss of a 525.
The honda I used to have, don't know how I didn't wreck it and kill myself.
WD-40 + lighter = make your own fireballs
The stick of dynamite I got my hands on....
The blood alcohol level of .4 ("Let's buy a breathalyzer and see who can get the highest!!!!" Worst idea ever...)
The list continues....