Cycling
You know the feeling you get when you realise you're going so fast over rough ground that applying your brakes will probably serve only to grind you into a paste beneath the frame as it topples, because you're in the air too often?

I had that happen to me. Ahead was an open gate, about a foot wider than my handlebars. Either side were solid wood posts. You can probably see where this is going.

When this incident occured I was 6. I had no helmet on at the time.

Having gone into full reverse in less than second, not to mention having left a charming blood spatter on the post, I got up, cried a little, and rode calmly home with my parents (who had assumed I was well and truly dead before they arrived at my stunned form).

My head should have shattered like a watermelon. Lord know why it didn't.
(bad1dea, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 23:28, Reply)

Back problems
As a child, I have on no less than three occasions fractured my spine:
a) Victoria Park in Bath, attempted to slide off a plaything, landed on back.
b) Rope swing, hit a tree.
c) Jumped on the little train that (used to) go along the pier in Weston-Super-Mare, lifted arms off in classic 'VICTORY' pose, fell on back and got 300 splinters in my legs.

Also broke my toe with a power drill when I was 3 or 4-ish

More to come, but my brain doesn't want to work this evening.
(Affero-Dolor made noodles using a cuppa soup on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 22:43, 1 reply)

Tractor Racing
A few years ago I was earning beer money for Uni over the summer doing farming work. Having spent my first summer there breaking my back picking strawberries, apples and raspberries I was 'promoted' during my second year to the dizzy heights of tractor driver.

The thing you must understand about collecting fruit on a tractor is that it involves about thirty minutes of madly rushing about followed by about 30 minutes of doing very little. During this quiet time much fun involving tractors could be had.

One gentleman I will call Adam (for that is his name), invented a game in which a heavy load was put on the back of the tractor and all the balancing weights taken off the front, and so the sport of tractor wheelies was born. As both rear wheels on a tractor can be independantly braked, steering isn't a problem. Points were awarded for overall distance and how high the front wheels are from the ground.

I was partaking in a particularly advanced game of tractor wheelie when my foot slipped off the clutch, the tractor wheelied, kept on going and tossed me out of the seat onto the ground. It then carried on going wheels pointed skywards as it was still in gear.

Rather than worry about my head which I had just cracked on the ground, 'Fucknuts' I thought, 'how am I going to explain this to the boss?' as the tractor crashed into a tree. Luckily there was no real damage to the tractor and I told my boss I had tripped and bashed my head.

I got the rest of the day off and tractor wheelies was retired as a sport.

Length? The tractor went about 30m before hitting the trees!
( Anthropos Was making beer on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 21:01, Reply)

Unlucky dip
I used to run a very dodgy boozer, patronised by the scum of the Earth, famed for being THE place in town to buy guns/drugs/stolen goods etc. A real shit-hole, basically.
Well, when I first started there, I noticed in the rubbish swept up at the end of the night there were various sums of money, wraps, packets of powder/pills and lumps of hash. This harvest sparked a brainwave and I decided to stick my hand down the back of the seats to see what goodies had fallen down there.

I remember clearly pondering why a load of thermometers were stashed behind the seats as I surveyed the things I had grabbed whilst fishing about. I can also remember clearly the way my legs went weak the moment I realised that rather than "thermometers", I had a fistful of syringes.

Luckily, and astonishingly, the caps were on the needles and I didn't get spiked, but to this day, I don't put my hands anywhere I can't see them, especially in pubs or clubs. Having heard of the way that HIV and Hep has swept through the crowd that used to frequent that particular dark corner of the pub, I'll let them collect the Darwin Award, I'm pleased to be a loser this time.
(Rsoles, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 20:24, 3 replies)

Firework meets sphincter...
While I was a student at university, my mate who we'll call Brendan (for that was his name)decided that it would be wise to launch a firework out of his arsehole. Fortunately, he survived relatively unscathed with only slight powder burns/marks on his young behind. I might even still have the video of it on my old phone if anyone is interested....
(ruud, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 19:46, 4 replies)

argghh no brakes.
A few years ago, I took the family on a day out in the Yorkshire Dales. We travelled the road that leads from Wensleydale to Swaledale and is known as "Buttertubs Pass". It's a rather steep climb and jolly steep down the other side too. There's a sharp double-bend part way down, then after that it's a straight run. You drop 150m in maybe a mile. That's an average of a 1 in 10 slope, and a section of it is a 1 in 4.

Consequently, a combination of no other cars, plus a good view of the road meant that I didn't really bother with controlling the speed. This meant that I got to well over 80mph on what isn't even a B-road.
I could see the junction at the end and began to apply the brakes. Not much happened, so I pressed harder and harder. The car was slowing, but the brakes were becoming spongy and smelt funny.
I was within 200 yards of the T-junction, still running downhill and was still doing over 40mph with ropey brakes.

Careful application of the handbrake and shifting down into 4th meant I took the left-turn at 25mph, picking a good racing line as I could see that nothing was coming each way.

Once I'd stopped, I parked up on the verge and my wife asked me why we'd stopped. She hadn't realised we were at the mercy of gravity and when I explained, it didn't seem to sink in. Though she had wondered why I had been a bit daring at the corner.

Fortunately, after about 10 mins the brakes seemed to have recovered.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 19:05, 4 replies)

Don't Run By The Pool
Pah, thought I, it'll be fine...

I ran. I slipped.

My head hit first.

Luckily my momentum lead to me landing in the water, otherwise I would have been typing this with a head dobber.
( King Ralph is drunk, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 18:46, 3 replies)

Fireworks.
I was about 17 years old. My friend aquired a rather large amount of fireworks, so he decided to do what any 17 year old pyromaniac would do. Make his own explosives.

He rang me up one night

"Xstopher! Come round to mine, I have something to show you!"

"Ok, I'll be round in 15 minutes."

Got round to his house, and he came out of the house with an empty aftershave bottle filled with a black powder, and a string coming out of a hole in the side.

The silly bastard had made his own bomb, complete with fuse.

Anyway, we trundle off to a deserted field area (Seven Arches, if anyone is from Stockport/Cheadle Hulme area) and proceed to plant this thing in on the ground, light it, and run like buggery.

Except I tripped over my own feet about 5 feet away.

Deciding that staying on the ground is a good idea, I wait for the thing to go off, which after about 3 more seconds it does. I can still remember the sound of the glass whizzing overhead.

My friend started panicking, thinking I'd been hit by shrapnel. The only injury I suffered was a dented pride. We went back to check where we'd left it and there was nothing left. Friend later told me he'd emptied the gunpowder from 6 of them Roman Candle things into it.

Fun times.
(Xstopher, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 18:36, 2 replies)

Wiping my own arse
is a pleasure that I almost missed out on...

Once when I was a toddler, my mother was on the phone so I decided to occupy myself by grabbing a knife from the kitchen table and looking for somewhere to poke it. A plug in a live plug socket presented the ideal opportunity so I slide the knife between the plug and the socket. There was an almighty bang.

My mother came running and found me limp, lifeless and covered in black soot. She picked me up and ran into the neighbours house screaming "Is he dead? Is he dead?".

I wasn't as you've probably guessed.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 17:57, 2 replies)

Bindun
has anyone mentioned Francesca Snowmobile? If they haven't I will eat myhat.com
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 17:38, 3 replies)

I posted this QOTW suggestion about 10 weeks ago
and have just had to trawl through the suggestions to find my post so I could pea this.

When I was 18, I tried to abseil down a huge stack of straw-bales using that thin hairy blue twine they use to hold the straw together. I wrapped the twine around my hand and lowered myself over the edge.

My foot slipped and I was left dangling with just the cord which had pulled tight around my palm, preventing me from plummeting the 25ft to the concrete floor of the barn.

Had I coiled the string the other way, it wouldn't have pulled tight and I would have burned my hand, ruined my skeleton and then died.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 17:37, Reply)

Watery Tart
A few years ago in a nice rented flat (seriously it was actually quite posh, big place on Leith Links in Edinburgh) we developed a leak in the bathroom.

Principally this was caused by some slip shod plumber using plastic not copper pipe resulting in an almighty amount of water being deposited in the kitchen downstairs (two floor flat)

The pipe must have broken during the night and being in a cupboard no one noticed until we got up and found the place swimming.

No one knew where the stop cock was either (off tap for you pervs who enjoyed the gratuitous use of the word 'cock' there) so i ended up searching the kitchen in just the shorts i'd been sleeping in.

Bear in mind the floor is soaked, it is about a centimeter deep with water so not just damp, when i notice the central heating thermostat is buzzing.

Both lights for the hot water and heating are on and in a complete brain wave genius here decides turning it off would be good, you know so it doesn't get damaged.

Ireached out and it went with a right crack slamming my arm right back behind me. I didn't fall but had a numb arm for a week. That said, could have been a lot worse, i'd basically stood barefoot in a puddle and touched a metal faced box that was being short circuited.

Clever.

5t.
(fivetide, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 17:25, Reply)

not me but....
My brother is a radiographer in what can only be described as a "very special part of the country". So consequently iv heard lots of stories but this sticks in my mind.

Home made ladder
Jandals
Rain storm
Chainsaw
Night
8 beers
Pruning neighbours overhanging tree

i am sure that everyone can fill in the blanks on this one.
(welgar, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:53, 9 replies)

Valentines Day....
I won't bore you all with a long story, embellishing all the details to the point of obvious fallacy. What I will do is give you a blow by blow account of what happened to make it the most unsuccessful but memorable valentines day in a long time.

1) Wake up and I suprise her with a teddy and lovely red rose.

2) Make her breakfast in bed and have a little 'cuddle'

3) Give her a card and a box of choccies

4) Enjoyed each others company for the day, watching films cuddled up on the sofa, went for a lovely walk as the sun was out for a couple of minutes.

5) Took her out for a nice, expensive, meal which was VERY romantic

6) Got back home and I wanted a shower

Now - this is where things start to go horribly wrong.....

7) I am showering and she is sat talking to me / watching me lather up. We dont have an attachment to clip to the wall so have to hold the shower head and kinda rinse everywhere.

8) I squeeze out a fart - only it wasn't just a fart I squeezed out.

9) She notices the micro poo and gags and leaves. I laugh hysterically, out of hilarity and embaressment.

10) I coax her back in to the bathroom when I have cleared away the mess - slightly more aware that the night of passion was going to be a lot less likely.

11) I slip over in the bath, dropping the shower head and getting her RIGHT IN THE BLOODY EYES with a high pressure jet of water.

12) She gets angry now and storms off.

13) I don't get any sex and nearly get stabbed with a toothbrush.

Bollocks.
(Spangulum nailing your mother since 1824, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:47, 8 replies)

The Grim Reaper and I have a variety of brushes,
varying in length, width, colour and price.
We paint kittens and unicorns.
ITS SO MUCH FUN!
( Mr Nerdy-Speccy-FuckNuts Ouchy ouchy wa wa!, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:37, Reply)

I had unprotected sex once.
Utter utter stupidity.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:30, 11 replies)

Northbound on the A74
Heading towards Glasgow, we'd just passed a service station when I became aware of a car to my right heading in the same direction. This was not good as I was in the outside lane and he was on the other side of the central reservation in the other outside lane!

"What the f***?" I bellowed. I beeped my horn, waved at him etc, but he seemed completely oblivious. Other cars were now having to swerve to avoid him and a serious accident was only a few minutes away. I zipped on ahead slightly and started to flash my lights at the oncoming traffic. A car ahead of me pulled in as the driver grabbed his mobile phone to call the police.

Sure enough police cars arrived in short order - flying down the outside lane of the other carriageway! Eeek!

I was by now too far ahead to see what actually happened, but as it didn't make the news the following day, I can only assume that it all ended safely.

What possesses someone to drive down the wrong side of a dual carriageway? If you want to kill yourself, then on you go, but don't bother getting others involved. Arsehole.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:30, 2 replies)

Not me, butt....
'A German steel foundry worker has been given a nine months jail sentence after poking an air rifle up his friend's bottom and firing it - causing his intestines to explode. Denis Schwarz, 25, said he'd only wanted to help his pal who had complained about sweaty buttocks from working in the Halberg Guss factory where molten metal kept temperatures soaring. He said he had jokingly offered to help his friend cool down by blowing some air over him and said: "We often played around with air rifles - it was just a bit of fooling around - I said I was going to shoot him in the bum. He said he didn't care and I pulled the trigger and he just collapsed."

'The Court in Leipzig, which gave him a suspended sentence, heard that the high pressure air blast had ruptured the man's intestines and he had almost died. His victim said: "I suddenly felt this incredible pain - you can't imagine it. I couldn't breathe it hurt so much, you can't know how happy I was when I got to hospital and they gave me an anaesthetic." Prosecutors told the court: "The blast of air burst his intestines causing massive internal bleeding. It was an emergency operation which the victim almost died from. He was in intensive care for 11 days. A big section of his large intestine was removed and he had to have a bag fitted to collect waste" - Austrian Times.
( DUMBLONDE is a rubber lover girl, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:28, 10 replies)

My social life was somewhat more exciting when I was fourteen than it is now i'm turning twenty
Owing in large part to my best friend at the time, M, who was something of the party animal. (Operative word "was" - she's since sworn off all drugs and whatnot and last I heard was studying law and considering a move to New Zealand. *shrug*)

We made friends at the Saturday school where our respective parents sent us to learn Russian - and learn it we did, to this day I do not know what the word "conjugate" means (unless it has to do with marital relations) but I can recite the mnemonic for a list of terms in a grammatical category that just plain does not exist in English. Also there was poetry and this old guy lecturing us about the Soviet Union, my memories are a bit fuzzy on that bit as I actually spent most of my Saturdays soaking in M's bad influence (by which I mean letting her convince me to let her demonstrate the principles of eyeliner on me using a lead pencil).

Anyway, the point is I would not have met her without the Baconesque limits of Russian cultural circles as her everyday social life was not generally conducted in the same spaces as mine. I wouldn't have traded it for the world though, she was a bitch but she was a lot of fun.

Like the eyeliner pencil there were a number of things I let her talk me into that could probably be considered unwise, suicidally moronic even, but somehow by the luck that watches over children, fools and extremely foolish children nothing terrible ever happened to me. Chief among the scrapes she led me into was the adventure which follows. EVERY decision in this story was a MONUMENTALLY bad idea - and yet!

We meant to go ice-skating of an afternoon, followed by a sleepover. Now the only proper ice rinks in Sydney happen to be in suburbs reachable only be a half-hour train trip, so onto the train we hopped.

"Hang on a sec," she said nonchalantly. "We have to get off here."

"This is not the ice rink." says I.

"It's okay," says she, "there are no ticket gates here, we can just hop off and get my weed and get right back on again."

"Wait, what?" says I as she disembarks, but follow like a little duckling because I am a sheep. (Any relations between sheep and ducks are strictly hypothetical but were I a madder scientist (technically, were I a sciencier madwoman) I would create a Shuck or perhaps a Deep just to test the limits of the herd mentality. But I digress.)

So there we were in a dodgy little suburb named Punchbowl, rather appropriately I thought as it was watery, contained unknown quantities of intoxicants and had little floating bits you don't really want to identify. M's appointment with her dealer was apparently set for the porch of Punchbowl Public School, so on the porch we sat and waited. For over an HOUR before she finally decided her dealer wasn't showing up, so she rang up some other bloke she knew and then said "Nothing to worry about, friend of a friend is coming round, we'll be out of here in no time."

Well the friend of a friend turned out to be a pair of thirty-something highly sleazy Lebanese blokes, one stout and one skinny, straight from a cartoon about a plucky young lad foiling dastardly yet extremely stupid bank robbers. The fat one sleazed at M for a bit as she sent me increasingly desperate looks, which I answered in eyebrow-morse that translated roughly to "I don't know what do you want ME to do about it you got us into this mess!"

Finally she apparently decided they either didn't have any weed or didn't want to accept cash for it if you know what I mean, so made some excuses and we slunk off, drugless and late, back to the station. Where she happened to run into somebody who DID sell her some weed, so at least she was happy.

Anyway, after all that we made our way to the ice rink. It was after dark by this point, but I figured that was okay, it was light inside!

But no. No, she had run into STILL MORE random Lebanese blokes one of whom she apparently knew, thankfully this time a little closer to our age, sitting around outside the rink. So we stopped to chat, naturally. And then we accepted a ride back to the Eastern Suburbs. NATURALLY.

Of course the ride back was interrupted by HELLO THERE SCENIC DETOUR to a suburb whose name I don't recall, only that it started with a W or a Y or some such arse end of the alphabet letter to match its arse end of the world location vis a vis any bus or train routes at all ever. Where, OF COURSE, the blokes and M piled into a little townhouse to smoke some weed.

Now smoke of any sort is not my favourite thing in the world unless it's coming from something I can roast marshmallows on. My Sheepling tendencies were getting a bit strained here, so after a bit I went and sat outside on the steps mentally bitching about my failure of an evening. It was midnight and my parents did not know where I was. I had of course told them about the sleepover, handily skipping the bit where any part of the evening was going to happen anywhere other than M's house. I pouted.

After what I figured must have been a reasonable amount of time for M to get high and feel like going home to make toast, I wandered back inside and suggested we do exactly that. At this point, as my dad likes to say, "oshibochka vishla." Turns out, of course, that the guy among that lot whom M had actually MET before, was no longer willing to provide transport allll the way back to M's place. Luckily one of the other blokes was quite taken with her and offered to drive us instead.

M of course rode shotgun in order to flirt some more, leaving me to climb into the back seat, which was notably lacking in working seatbelts. Once we got on the highway M's paramour cheerfully informed us that he "bloody hoped we didn't get pulled over as me license is suspended."

So there I am, in sum, a sheltered fourteenyearold whose parents think she is currently painting her nails and reading Girlfriend with her best mate (not an activity I have ever actually engaged in), sitting with no seatbelt on in the back seat of a car in some godforsaken suburb whose name I can't pronounce driven by a man who a) is not technically legal to drive because of unspecified road-safety-related offences and b) has just spent half an hour in a small stuffy room inhaling large quantities of a drug not know for making people sharper, and all I can think is "I didn't even get to go ice skating. I hope we don't crash and die or my parents will ground me forever and I really want to learn how to go backwards."

Miraculously we did not crash and die, nor did we get pulled over. We reached her apartment in perfect safety. M exchanged numbers with the guy and sent him off and we went upstairs and made cookies.

Good times, good times.
(Lieutenant Colonel Oblivious brought to you by intravenous sugar, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:27, 1 reply)

When I was a sprightly youth
I used to go on all the hill walking & mountain climbing school trips

One very cold winter we climbed Snowdon in the snow and ice. It was spectacular, it was one of those winter days that make you glad to be alive, bright sunshine but nice and frosty. The views were amazing from the top. We had our sarnies & tea then made our way down.

I didn't much care for the walk down. The reward for the burning calves and lungs was the view, and the walk down hurt another set of muscles. The path we were walking down had banked sides and looked a bit like a mini bobsleigh run and I was wearing waterproofs head to toe which is quite slippy. *ding* went a little lightbulb above my head.

So I sat down a slid down on my ass. I was gonna be down this mountain in no time. I leaned back onto my rucksack and tucked my legs up to get some real speed. As I said the sides were banked so they were effectively keeping me on the path, but because I was going so quickly I flipped out of the banking and started to slide very quickly down a much steeper slope towards a massive drop. I dug my feet in to slow myself but that just caused me to spin around so I was going down backwards, panicking now I dug with hands and feet and scrabbled and tried desperately to stop myself from sliding and eventually I stopped about 2 meters from a cliff edge. I climbed very carefully back up the slope my heart pounding.

I had nightmares about that feeling for about 5 years
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:24, Reply)

That wheelie bin story reminded me of this...
During the hedonistic days of my student youth it became became all the rage to get as obliterated as you possibly could. Be that alcohol or the other substances at our disposal the results were always strikingly similar - a load of incoherent students with designs on taking over the world (and bonking everything with a pulse).

On this particular occasion a small bucket bong was constructed and we hastily set about reaching our preferred state of mind. If you are unfamiliar with the science of such bongs I suggest you contact your local South African embassy who will more than likely be able to post you a flyer or at the very least give you a detailed description of its construction over the phone.

During one of our rare interludes one of our cohorts had a eureka moment - 'Why don't we use the wheelie bin to make a bong and smoke in the pool!'. There was no debate on this.He had said it and now it would be done. Now to give you some sort of idea of the scale of our plan let me make a comparison. Our previous apparatus had contained the volume of smoke that was contained within a 2L coke bottle. We were now going to increase the volume to something closer to 200L. This was a bucket bong on an epic scale.

I won't go into the specifics of the construction, but suffice to say we had now completed a bong that required three people to operate. Two were required to stand at the waters edge and lift the wheelie bin out of the water and create the necessary vacuum and the 3rd was there to operate the small blow torch and keep our lovely plant extract lit.

The action of lifting the bin out of the water sucked the smoke inside. We then took turns to swim into the bin which was now in the water and attempt to stay as long as possible in the claustrophobically smoky bin. We started out timing ourselves, but once everyone had a go that soon went out the window. Being students pumped up on bravado we were also inclined to spend as long as humanely possible in the smoke.

The darwin nomination would come from the fact that it was a wonder no one drowned that day. It was without doubt a splendidly stupid idea and two of us barely made it out the pool before collapsing virtually unconscious on the floor. I guess nothing ventured nothing gained, although I'm not entirely sure what we gained on this occasion. Some vomiting and a feeling like you've just woken up from a 2 day slumber.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:05, Reply)

Inspired by Ramsay Tupper's motorway tale below
I was heading north up the A9 towards Inverness one evening last year, second in line behind a lorry on a single carriageway stretch.

The car in front was evidently driven by an impatient chap, because when we came round the corner just north of Killiecrankie, off he went, overtaking the lorry.

Fine, there was nothing coming the other way.

There was, however, the start of a dual carriageway 200m further on. He realised this too late (it's not like there weren't any signs!) and took to the chevrons, braking hard and skidding on the loose dirt, but incredibly, instead of cutting in front of the lorry, he decided to take to the southbound carriageway.

And what's more, he kept on going, in the fast lane, until he reached the first gap, where he nipped through and back to the right side again.

Luckily it was a quiet evening, but many's the time I've come down that stretch of road, and put the foot down to get past a lorry before the section of dual carriageway ends. And it's on a curve, so you wouldn't get much warning of someone coming towards you.

My arse was knitting socks just watching him. I think he'd have a bill for a new pair of trousers at least.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:05, Reply)

I’m Probably A Candidate
In the last year I decided to take my photography a little more seriously. I could of decided on something fairly sedate such as landscapes but having being interested in architecture I found myself taking pictures of old buildings. Originally it was mostly exterior shots of abandoned buildings but soon curiosity got the better of me and I started venturing inside them.

Numerous dangers are there from asbestos to collapsing floors; I’ve fallen though a few and who knows what’s lining my lungs these days. Add to that the need to take something different I’ve found myself standing on roof tops, climbing old towers, climbing scaffolds in the dark and eventually climbing cranes at night because the view is the best you’ll find. Future projects involve live metro tunnels and maybe a storm drain or two.

Still when you get views like this maybe it’s worth the risk….


(Rev O'Lucian will unfortunatly age on, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 16:02, 12 replies)

Death would have been a relief...
I had my Admiral Ackbar moment on Valentine's night. I should have seen the trap, but I was too slow.

While cuddling your girlfriend and watching 'Baby Moma', the answer to the question 'Which one would you rather sleep with? Tina Fey or Any Poheler' is: 'neither, you are the only one for me'

And under no circumstances is it 'Can I have both?'

I thought she was going to fucking stab me.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 15:45, 2 replies)

I'm far too sensible for a Darwin
...as I'm sure you'll all readily agree. But there was one morning about five years ago...

It was one of those really busy weeks at work when putting in 110% effort could get you noticed enough to make a difference. I'd been getting in at 7.30am and leaving around 7.00pm in the evening since Monday and it was now Thursday. Spending twelve hours a day hunched over a keyboard had given me a hefty dose of back-ache and I'd spend ten minutes lying on the floor when I got in from work. Anyway, Thursday morning I'd set the alarm for 5.45am and dragged myself out of bed before six. I was down in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil and decided to stretch my back. We had (still have actually) a tall kitchen stool, and I was sitting atop it, feet on one of the cross-bars and I decided to lean forward as far as I could to ease my poor back.

If you'd been there watching, you would have seen me slowly topple forward as the stool over-balanced. I was unaware of this as the motion was slow and I thought it was just blood rushing to my head, so I didn't move or protect myself but hit the stove, crown-of-the-head-first as I tumbled from the stool to land in a pile on the kitchen floor with a stool on top of me. Unluckily for me, I'd managed to hit the oven door handle on the way down and it had caused a two-inch gash just above my forehead. The first I knew about this was seeing the copious amounts of blood dripping down off my nose onto the floor as I stumbled to my knees.

I ever so gently woke Mrs G (by bawling up the stairs: "Help! I'm bleeding! Help me!") who summoned an ambulance. As they took a look at my bonce while I was sitting in the back of the ambulance, they asked me how it happened, and somehow seemed unconvinced by my honest account, preferring to believe that Mrs G had spanged me with a fryingpan.

I got into work a bit late that morning to zero sympathy.

I've still got the scar, in fact each year, as my hairline recedes further, it becomes more visible.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 15:40, 1 reply)

Well...
I decided on a holiday in the Northern Territories of Australia and when I landed they were all having a very nice bloke competition.

So I introduced myself everyone agreed that I was indeed a very nice bloke so they gave me an award...

Which was nice.
(Feeb is a smooth operator, operating correctly, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 15:32, 1 reply)

Motorway madness
Whenever I don't win the lottery I always console myself with having used up a massive chunk of my life's allocated luck all in one go.

I was driving back to Edinburgh on the M8 one afternoon. As it was my boss's car I was obviously making good progress ... to the tune of maybe 120 - 125mph. In the distance I spotted a BMW sitting in the outside lane but despite the inside lane being empty it showed no sign of pulling in. As I fast approached I flashed it a couple of times but to no avail, there it sat.

Never mind I thought, I'm not slowing down, I'll take it in the inside. As I flew past I looked over to eyeball the driver. There she sat in her own wee world, completely oblivious to anything going on round about her. Needless to say I quickly tried to catch her eye with various manual gestures of a less than polite nature.

Of course rule number one is never take your eyes of the road when driving, shall we say, so enthusiastically and I was just about to find out why. When I looked back the traffic in front had ground to a halt in the approach to the Newbridge roundabout and here's me careering toward the stationary queue at well, well into triple figures.

Cue extreme braking and snaking all over both carriageways. I managed to scrub of some speed down to about 90 but it was obvious there was no way on God's green earth I was going to stop in time and the way I had fishtailed about the road precluded me from taking the hard shoulder option so I bounced and clattered right across the central reservation and on down the wrong side of the motorway.

Fortunately, and here's where my luck came in, there was nothing whatsoever coming in the opposite direction as I passed the long queue to my left. Eventually after about 2 or 3 hundred yards I had slowed enough to dart back across and take up a space very briefly vacated as a car pulled away from in front of a coach.

About a year later the highways agency took it upon themselves to erect Armco barriers right down full length of the central reservation.

Lucky it hadn't been in place at the time. I probably wouldn't be typing this.
( Ramsay Tupper, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 15:12, 6 replies)

how about
the children of my friend evie and the new object of her lustful affections, who will never be born after she failed to use her new phone properly.

meaning to text him after a difficult day at work, she tried to type "just had a shit day but looking forward to seeing you tonight".

being a cack-handed cow, she pressed "send" a bit too soon.

"just had a shit"

then had to sit for a mortified 30 minutes as the tube went underground before she could rectify the damage.

no number of humiliated explanatory texts and emails managed to recover the magic after that.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 15:08, 5 replies)

Wheelie Bin Surfing.
About twa summers ago I had spent a delightful afternoon trimming the hedges around my garden and was at that stage of the job where I now had to pack all the cuttings etc into the brown wheelie bin.

At first all went well until basically I started to run out of bin.........

Now to make more I climbed in beside the cuttings and jumped up and down on the contents compressing them in a downward manner thus allowing more space for the decapitated greenery.

No problems it will all fit........

Nope it wont, so in a go again slowly but surely running out of bin as I stomp and jump up and down in an effort to get every little last bit in.....

Finally I realise as I sit the bin across the hill outside my house that this will be the last one, even jumping up and down like a demented, tantrum throwing five year old isn't going to get much more in.

What I didn't bother about at the time was that now I'm probably over three feet up in a bin with wheels.

Last load goes in and I climb on once again jumping up and down like a loon.

This gets the attention of my daughter who comes out to see what kind of fun I'm having.

Up and down jumps I a little more not realising that as I'm doing so the bin is staring to turn under me, into a down hill direction.

The first I really caught on was when the tree in my garden gently passed by in what to me seemed like an uphill direction...

Now not being a complete retard I twigged fairly sharpish what was happening as the bin picked up speed with me on top.

However on seeing the daughter I struck the classic surfers pose as I rolled by thinking this will give her a bit of a laugh...

Seconds before I realised that my next stop would be the "busy" main road at the bottom of the hill.......

Well rather than just jumping off I decide to grab some fence on the way by as it will stop me quicker,

Which it did as it also carved a six inch gouge up the length of my arm.......

The bairn turned and wandered of shouting to her mum as she went, "mum get the first aid box again dad's still not grown up"..........

I still have the scar as proof (one of the better ones).......
(Dark Matter All The Wonders In The World & We Invent Boredom, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 14:56, 5 replies)

Sorry for the maudlin tone.
It’s ironic that this subject has come up as I have had to deal with the effects of it for the last few years now.

About three and a half years ago I was involved in a car accident. It wasn’t my fault as such, but my attention had wandered for a split second when driving and a HGV didn’t see me and ploughed into the side of my car. Thankfully it was on the passenger side and there was no one else in the car.

Most of my bones were broken and all sorts of things were ruptured inside me. I was in traction for six months and I still undergo physiotherapy to this day. Amongst my injuries was my spine breaking into three pieces. As a consequence I have been unable to walk since.

Not being able to walk and using a wheelchair has turned everything into a mountain really. Everything that I do now involves loads of planning but I am happy everyday that I am still alive and can enjoy various things. I enjoy the internet so much because it enables me to be level with everyone that I meet unlike in real life. I can get by myself but because people are so nice they always try to help me and I can’t help feeling a little demeaned even though people are just trying to help.

I do always think about the day of the accident and how the different outcomes could play out. Sometimes I lie awake at night and just dream out my divergent life. I think I would have had a different job, a different life. I might have seen more of the world instead of relying on my computer so much. I would never have met my fiancé as well.

But ultimately I realise that this line of conjecture is foolish and that I like my life at the moment and everything is organised and works.

Sorry for the maudlin tone. Bums and filth resume!
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 14:32, 3 replies)