Above Average Intelligence.

[jay-ell]

Yesterday, I performed what is unquestionably the single least intelligent act of my entire existence.  I'm going to share this with you because I am determined that somewhere, somehow, someone must have done something even more appallingly stupid than me, and I'm determined to find out who.  I figure you guys are a pretty good start.  

Picture this in your mind: In my bedroom stands a dresser.  This dresser has five drawers and is approximately five feet tall.  At the time of this incident, there were three things on top of the dresser: A stack of clean clothes, a lamp, and one of those Homedics waterfall thingies with no water in it.  The dresser is in the corner of the room placed diagonally so that there is a little triangular prism of wasted space behind it.  Both rear corners of the dresser directly abut the wall on either side.  

On glancing at the dresser while getting ready for bed last night, I noticed two things: (a) the ##### I wanted to wear to work today were at the bottom of the stack of clean clothes and (b) they were probably wrinkled.  So I put one hand on the side of the stack of clothes to stabilize it, grabbed the ##### with my other hand, and pulled.  The pajama ##### which had previously been on top of the stack of clean clothes fell off the top of the stack and behind the dresser.  

Not wanting to leave the pajama ##### there, forgotten and dry-rotting until we move houses, I determined that I had to come up with a way to retrieve the item.  So, of course, I did the natural thing: I removed the laundry from the top of the dresser, climbed on top, and leaned waaaaaay over to reach the pajama #####.  Throwing them to safety behind me, I began my ascent back over the top of the dresser.  

But wait -- it seemed gravity had suddenly increased in intensity since last my feet had touched ground!  You will recall, at this point, that the dresser is five feet tall.  I am five feet seven inches tall.  I was bent at the waist and my hips were keeping me balanced on the edge of the dresser.  I had expected to be able to raise my head and do a sort of reverse sit-up to right myself, but in my careful calculations I had neglected to account for the wall which I now found to be in my way.  Without a handhold to be found and only twenty or so inches of space in which to maneuver, my options seemed suddenly quite limited.  It was at this point that I remembered that I am in fact claustrophobic.  

To make an already-too-long story a bit shorter, I was forced to call (loudly, shrilly) to my husband, my darling, my…my hero to come and rescue me.  Being, as he is, a good man, he did not so much as chuckle at the sight of my ensnared posterior emerging from behind a piece of bedroom furniture, my sweatpant-clad legs flailing wildly.  Instead, he simply cleared the lamp and mini-waterfall off the top of the dresser (which, of course, in my confidence I had left in place) and tipped the dresser away from the wall to such point as I could slide to safety.  

As soon he assured himself that I was safe and unharmed, my husband looked me in the eye and asked the dreaded question: “How, exactly, did you…?”

[AugustWest]

Heh heh heh.

Must refrain from picturing JL bent over dresser... so sweet... so vulnerable...

I gotta go now.

[andalucia]

Well, the story did make me feel a little better about missing the bench I tried to sit down on this morning, and I'm sure that if I dig a little further back in my memory I'll be able to think of an act of humiliating stupidity to rival that.  I'm not terribly slick, as a general rule.

[jay-ell]

Come on, there have to be some stories out there.  You're killin' me here!

[wombat]

Honestly, I do that sort of thing so often that if I remembered the stories I'd have no room in my brain for anything else.

[Choop]

There's always the story of how I almost overcame my fear of heights.

*clears throat*

The following is mostly true.

My college is located in a beautiful valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the southern Appalachians. One hundred years before I enrolled there (I have since graduated), the mountains were all clear-cut and replanted. None of the trees has been chopped down since, though a few have fallen of their own accord and/or lack of health. The point is: trees are everywhere on that campus.

Being, as it were, out from under the thumb of oppressive parentage, I began periodically to relive parts of my childhood - but only on the weekends. During the week I had work to do, you understand. Some Saturday morning, I would wake up, and tell myself, "Hey! You're not afraid of this anymore! That's for idiots to be afraid of." This tactic would work up my confidence to such a point that I would begin to feel more than myself, sometimes more than a man. If continued weekly, I would have relegated every one of my major fears in just under three months.

One such morning, I decided I was no longer afraid of heights. In such a green environment, what is the handiest way to prove one's loss of said fear? Tree-climbing, of course. I ate a good breakfast of coffee, cereal, and eggs from a box, and went searching for the tallest tree I could reasonably get my short self up into.

Using a length of nylon rope hooked around the lowest branch of a mighty pine, I walked myself up the side of the tree, swiveled myself around, and sat there, ten feet in the air. This was fantastic! Look how far I could see! So far, so good. I balance myself to a standing position, and begin to climb. I look down, but never below where my foot will go next.

Another thirty feet up, I turn to look out and see the entirety of the residential side of campus surrounding me. I pick out the buildings, see some folks I know, and turn around and climb some more.

At the top of the tree (seventy feet? seventy-five?) I see a small seat formed of the narrowing trunk and a couple spindly branches with some sort of unnatural green color. As I hesitantly, though bravely, pull myself up toward it (take THAT, fear of heights!) I can make out why the color seems unnatural: The object in the seat is a Kermit doll. Not just that, but it's wearing a pearl necklace and long false eyelashes.

Needless to say, I burst out in a fit of laughter. Wouldn't you? You're seventy-five feet up a tree, as far from the ground you've ever been without taking stairs or an elevator, and there's a Pop Culture Icon in drag.

The fit proved to be my downfall: laughing so hard, I grabbed my belly with one hand and leaned my head against my arm, which in turn leaned against the tree trunk, now only a couple of inches thick. I stopped laughing in a hurry when I heard a snap. The branch under my left foot had given way. The next snap I saw before I heard. As I reached up to grab some other skinny branches with my hands, the branch under now both feet gave way. I fell straight down.

I felt like Wile E. Coyote, just before he falls off the side of a cliff. I saw myself about to fall, and then, after I had what felt like three seconds to recognize that there was nothing I could do with it, I disappeared from a side view in a wisp of smoke.

Twenty screaming feet from the ground, I landed on a branch. I didn't land on my feet, or even on my ass. You got it, folks, I landed right smack dab on my twig and berries. I hadn't really changed position from when I first fell, and the branch just slid right between my legs. I almost passed out from the pain; I wish I had just gone and passed out.

Due to the anti-gasm, I had no sense to reach in front of me and grab the tree, or to balance myself on the branch. I grabbed my injured bits and screamed again, only a different scream than that which emanated during the freefall. Handless, in pain, screaming, scratched all to hell by pine needles and tiny branches, I fell twenty feet straight down and landed on the ground, flat on my back.

That's when I passed out.

I've gone treeclimbing since, but never so far, and never with such reckless abandon. Ah, the impatience of youth.

[slink]

Well, I'm sure I've done a few other things just as stupid, or stupider. Most of them little things, like just not thinking about something and it not turning out quite right, but often the outcome only involves minor annoyance or huge debts.
I did however manage this...

A few years ago when I was stuck at home, all alone, on a sunny day, I decided to take my skateboard outside. Now, I am fairly proficient on a plank. I can do interesting things with halfpipes, and can skate around a town with relatively few dismounts. However, what I always lacked around the house was a good jump.
All I had as an area to play with was the driveway - a 6 or 7 metre long slope, just over the width of a car, with an apron running along the front of the house perpendicular to the slope, of around the same width (though as depth comparatively).
I had a long stretch of smooth wood, formerly the top of an old desk, that I though would be perfect, so I set it up near the bottom of the slope, propped up on some good bricks. Now all I had to do, after a few good drop offs from it to test, was find a way to make the transtition from concrete to wood a little, well, less like approaching a pavement.
Hindsight being everything, I ought to have just gone for ollie-ing onto the plank, and then coming off the end into a nice kickflip, but I found a piece of thin wood that smoothed the transition.
Hindsight again - I should have tested the above remedy to said problem.
I set off up the slope, prepared, and pushed off. There was no hanging around, I wanted it to be a good jump, so I was going fairly fast.
My front wheels, upon hitting the thin wood, plunged through it, and jammed against the desk-top!
Suffice to say, after measuring the distance from the front of the board, to the shirt and blood marks left on the concrete, I managed to propel myself around two and a half metres!
I guess what's stupider about it is that I am now quite chuffed by it...
I spent half an hour in the bathroom feeling slightly ill, swearing I'd never skate again. Needless to say within the hour I was back outside skating around, ollie-ing badly from the new pain in my legs!
As I say, I have done many many stupid things, since me and spur of the moment common sense aren't always best of friends, but the only ones I can think of are mainly monetary at the moment.
Just always remember, if you do something stupid, I've probably done something like it, or will in the next week! I may be somewhat intelligent, but I'm certainly retarded!

Oh yes, I just remembered the one that has actually crippled me for life - I was climbing a farm gate - 7 horizontal bars, so a fairly high one, and I did it differently to usual, instead of one foot either side for safety, I put both my feet over, seperately, so I was facing away from the gate, with my feet balancing on one bar, on the heels. This meant that as I leaned back for balance, my feet slipped out, and I fell back over the gate to the side from which I came. Thanks to the height of the gate, I came down almost vertically on to the top of my head... On a rock... Ever since, if I sit on the floor, legs straight or crossed, my back is the worst curve shape. I just cannot straighten my spine when sitting with my legs making more than a 90 degree angle to my body. I don't really remember the pain since I was fairly young at the time, and I think the concussion kind of numbed it.

[Asherdan]

Thanks for sharing Choop, I hope you weren't permanently scarred and I'm still wincing over it in sympathy.  As for you JL, well, I'll wrap it up by saying you're married to a true gentlemen.

My recent pratfalls:

My Dalmation is 14 years old and a little more skittishe due to loss of hearing and sight.  She startles easily and usually bolts a short distance if she's really surprised.  I take her for a walk several times a day, and we always follow the same procedure.  I get trash bag for poop, she see's me and hears plastic bag and positions herself by the side door.  I get leash, she sits down and puts her head up so I can attach it.  The side door opens to a stairway that goes down 8 steps, has a small landing, makes a turn to the right and goes down another 8 steps to a small concrete pad which lets out to the local wilderness. So when I open the door, the dog charges down to the first landing to survey her domain.

So, I go to walk her in the morning the other day just before work.  Bag, leash and door opening all proceed as usual.  The dog charges down to the landing and stands on the edge of the step eagerly scanning the area as always.  I clomp down the stairs behind her, already in my damn suit for a client meeting at work.  I get to the landing behind her and the dog still isn't budging, she was engrossed in some smell I assume, since there wasn't anything unusual in view.  Well, she must have been really into it, because I walked up behind her and gently nudged her with my knee to get her going.  At which point she reared up in shock and ran back up to the top of the stairs on my left side.  She bolted so quick it really startled me and I started talking out loud to her, the standard stuff along the lines of "Dang doggo, you really had a fit there, come on down for a walk now.  C'mon."  She stood at the head of the stair with a sheepish look on her face (I swear she does that) for a second and wagged her tail for good measure.  The second time I called her down she charged to the landing, hit the turn and passed me towards the bottom at full steam on my RIGHT side.  I realized a little too late that I had a 60 lb. hound at full flight down the stairs about to reach the end of her leash with a sickening jerk and the cord was now looped behind my knees.  So the dog hits the end of the leash and yanks me right down the stairs.  I remember thinking "Run, you fool!" So I managed to hit the second stair down with a foot and push off.  This did not have the desired effect (who knows what that was, though) since it merely leveled me out horizontal to the ground and accelerated the fall rate that gravity was already helping with.  I manged to look below me and there, on the little concrete landing, was my good ol' dog standing there looking up at me.  She seemed to be a little confused by my unusual behavior and the look of stark terror on my face.  The fifth step came within range of a foot and I managed one more mighty shove which gave me just enough impetus to sail over the dog (still looking confused), over the little concrete landing, and into the delightful mix of tree detrius, mud and gravel beyond it.  I pretty much sailed into it chest first, my arms straight out in front like some kinda Superman pose.  So I hit, skidded, and took tally of the damage.

Shirt: Wiped out.  Gravel holes, mud and my blood.
Tie: Goner.
Pant's: Both knees blown out and my bloody knees showing.
Shoes: Heavy scuffing on both toes, off to the second best pile in the closet.
Hands: Impact scrapes and bloody.
Face: No damage, but still unpalatable.

So I picked my self up and realized I still had a hold of the dogs leash, so I let her nose the trees for a minute and headed up stairs feeling low down and sorry for myself and looking for some wifely sympathy.  My spouse asked the right questions: What happened?  Are you OK?  So I went and related my sad painful tale.  And she replied with the same thing some of you are thinking right now:

Why didn't you let go of the leash!?!

[wombat]

Of course you didn't let go of the leash.  The dog might have run in the street.  A heroic story indeed.

[Asherdan]

Wombat, you are very kind.

But there wasn't a street in sight.

[jough]

Wow, I feel really really smart right now.

I guess the only really stupid thing that I can think of offhand was that I made coffee without first emptying the coffee pot of old coffee, thus filling the counter with java.

And then I cursed, cleaned it up, filled the reservoir, changed out the filter and scooped in some more coffee, and did it AGAIN.  Only this time there was more coffee in there.

[V-Adore]

Sympathies on all of the injuries thus far...

I've managed to get through life thus far without any horrific self-injuries (unless you count the time I took a wrong step on the staircase of my dorm, skidded down on my ass from the first-floor landing to the basement floor, and had to take a second to realize I wasn't dead) but, doing high school theater, I twice managed to "tree" myself and need to be talked down. Both were from landings less than ten feet off the ground, and in both cases I knew about my severe-verging-on-crippling fear of heights, but I decided to climb up anyway.

To be fair, one of them was in my high school's prop room, which was unbelievably ill-designed: a cluttered floor, with one tiny triangulated (rungs nailed diagonally between the corners of the wall) ladder up to the prop loft above. In retrospect, it was probably better to have sat up there mewling about how I was gonna DIEEEEEEE than to have attempted the descent and fallen on old wooden chairs and paint cans.

[AlohaDawg]

I don't tend to have a problem with heights although I do tend to fall down a lot. Most of my avoidable-through-application-of-common-sense mishaps involve chemicals or electricity.

Once when I was 10 I was building a plastic model. This was back when you could get the good kind of glue with the Toluene. Mmmmm. Anyway, there was special finishing glue you could get that had a consistency like water and the tremendous properties of the thicker, sniffin' kind...

I wasn't a glue abuser, I built models. But in this case, somehow, I managed to spill a dollop of the thin kind on the head of my bed. Near the pillow. I lay down later to go to sleep and it was one of those nights where you fall asleep just BEFORE your head hits the pillow.

The next thing I remember is strange. I'm not in my bed anymore, I'm on the sofa. And I can feel my heart slowing down. It misses a beat here and there - and then I'm floating above myself and I turn over and I'm face to face with me. I'm hovering near the ceiling. There is a strange pounding in my head and my heart is missing more beats, then it stops. In the silence I start to float towards the corner of the room and then, all of a sudden, my heart starts back up and I'm sucked back in, my eyes jerk open and I'm sitting up and looking around.

I am still not sure how I got to the sofa. I guess I must have staggered there realizing what more exposure to the fumes would do to me.  And I don't know if the whole thing was a glue hallucination or something way weirder.

Nothing like that has ever happened since.

[Choop]

Feel better yet, jl?

[AugustWest]

OK, here's mine.

When I was in college, I had a red VW convertible Bug.  Like all Bugs it had its idiosyncracies.  There was no floor in the back seat for instance.

The quirk relevant to this story, however, involved the emergency brake.  Thankfully, the emergency brake worked well.  It would stop and hold the car just fine.

It just wouldn't lock in place.

Being the inventive sort that I am, I fashioned a device to lock said emergency brake in place, namely a Coke can that I bent in half and wedged under the brake lever.  Cheap, easy, recyclable and it worked well.

At this time, I lived with my parents and commuted to school.  My parents' house had a steeply sloped driveway which led down to their street, which formed a short level patch.

Since the ground continued to slope, the neighbors across the street's yard was yet lower than street level.  Therefore, they had a retaining wall about 3 feet high abutting the street.  That is to say, there was a 3 foot drop off from the street to their yard.

Here's a diagram (hope this works.)

Code:

\
   \
      \
          -----------
                        |                    ^^^^^^
                        |                    ||||||||||
                         --------------------||||||||||
drvwy    street             yard              house
                                                                       

One fine morning I was, as was (and is) my practice, running late.  Since "wake and bake" was my policy at the time, other factors may have been involved.

I went out to the car, started it, removed my handy-dandy Coke can and prepared to back down the drive and proceed to class.

Just then I remembered what I'd forgot.  I had to run back in and grab it.

So, I hastily shoved the Coke can back under the brake lever, jauntily hopped out of the car and trotted back toward the house.

Only to see the damn Coke can slide out.

Now, I'm not a small man and the VW Beetle is not a large car.

But the laws of physics are pretty damned merciless.  So, needless to say, grabbing the door handle and attempting to slow the car's ever more rapid careen down the driveway was, in a word, pointless.

Until the day I die, I shall never forget the sight of my beloved red convertible Beetle fully airborne, in full majestic flight toward the master suite of the neighbor's house, a mere 40 feet or so away.  I know it's cliche, but time stood still for me then.  The moment had a terrible beauty all its own.

The car landed almost gracefully and barrelled across the grass.

It stopped no more than three inches from the house.

Needless to say, I was stunned by this turn of events.  It took several moments for me to react in other than incoherent syllables and random pacing.

Finally after several deep breaths, a few "Wows", more "Far Outs" than I like to admit and at least three "Holy Shits", I was more capable of addressing the situation.

I didn't know whether to call the police, a tow truck, the National Guard, my Dad or Maury fuck*ng Povich.

Finally, I got in the car and turned the key.

It started right up.

I drove through the yard, across the front walk, over to the driveway and up to the street.

The car ran fine.  Nothing seemed to be damaged.

Nobody had seen any of this.  No witnesses.

I could not believe my luck.  I breathed God's own sigh of relief, sat for a few seconds to gather myself for the drive, then with the cheery manner of a man who has dodged a bullet with his name on it, set off toward class with a song in my heart.

It was 35 minutes later and I was parking in my secret spot next to campus when I realized that I never did go back to grab what I forgot.