Not quite the Grim Reaper
but I did nearly scald my eyebrows off last night.

I was so busy telling the dog to get away from the oven that I was about to open (because it was hot), that I ignored my sound advice, forgot to let the heat out first and stuck my own face right in to the 220c steaming inferno.

I know... I'm not doing a lot to improve upon my somewhat 'blonde' image on this board!
( Mrs Trouser is probably annoying Dave just by being here on, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 22:17, Reply)

why child locks are a good thing
Many moons ago in the spring of 87, I was on a visit the long distance relatives family holiday. One evening when traveling from one house to another by taxi, with me in the passengers seat behind the driver. The next thing I remember is waking up next to a lit fireplace with a grazed ankle.

From my folks I found out that this bored sprog had decided to play with the door lock, and that thankfully, the car was going round a roundabout. It turns out that I flew out of the car and some how managed to survive with nothing more than a small graze.

Since then i'm less inclined to play with switches on dangerous things before having read the instruction book. It hasn't stopped me from having daft accidents, though none of them have yet to bring me as close to death.
(trainee mad doctor is currently trying to build a secret laboratory, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 22:02, Reply)

Happy Toast
My favourite bread is too small for my toaster.

I always use a marmite encrusted knife to fish it out.

Been dicing with death for the past 20 years ya know...
(lurkylurklurk swings more, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 22:00, 6 replies)

Technique
While not exactly fatal, this story is still a favorite at pubs and the source of my only visible scar.

To set the scene, TheManWhoWas 19 at the time, trying to impress a cute girl, going to a local spring with her and a mutual friend for some swimming and drinking. Good times all around, gorgeous location, great conversation, all that jazz.

Then someone noticed the rope swing.

TheManWhoWas had never been on a rope swing, mind you, but this wasn't about to get in the way of impressing said cute girl. So off I go, get in line, grab the knotted rope and leap!

Now, I'm not sure if you all are aware of this, but there is a good and a bad technique for rope swinging. Good technique (with a knotted rope) involves grabbing a knot firmly with both hands, lifting your legs off the ground with perhaps a slight kick to get your momentum going, and then letting go when you are over the water. Pretty elementary.

Bad technique involves grabbing just above the knot, then leaping into the void, putting all of your (not insubstantial) weight on your hands, having your hands slip down the knotted rope, twisting your fingers painfully and belly-flopping into the water with cute girl watching and laughing.

Bad technique also involves noticing pain in your fingers, assuming they're dislocated, then promptly popping them to more pain.

What's better is that because of the previously mentioned cute girl and mocking friend, I ended up staying at the spring, painfully grasping beer cans, having dinner and being made fun of for yelping in pain when using a fork, going to a concert and trying not to grimace too badly when shaking people's hands, and then going to bed.

The next day I woke up with fingers black with pooled blood.

One much-postponed hospital visit, two half-arm casts, five weeks with one usable hand and over $10,000 in reconstructive surgery for matching spiral fractures in both ring fingers later, I'm left with a three screws, a wicked scar, a funny story and a new-found phobia of rope swings.

The funny part? I ended up still getting the girl. Nothing like a cute new girlfriend when you have only partial use of both hands!

Apologies for length, etc.
(TheManWhoWas SlightlyKnackered, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 21:36, 1 reply)

Inappropriate explosives.
I've sat on this story for a LONG time. More than 25 years. Now I live in a different country, on the other side of the world. So perhaps it's time to unburden myself of this tale. It is a story of stupidity, near-death, mayhem, soldiers and more. How I survived, I will never know. But here goes. It's a bit of a long story, with a 20-year-later twist, so apologies for length and girth, if not volume.

Back in the early 80's, I was an 11-year-old South African kid somewhat adrift in the world of English private boarding school. I'm not going to give any more detail than "the school was in the south of England". I was bright and nerdy, so they put me in the Scholarship Class. This class had only seven kids in it, and we were all quite bright. Science lessons were our favourites. They were conducted in a portakabin-type of classroom just outside the main school building, which was an old 1800's-style stately home affair.

Our science teacher decided that, since we were the "bright" kids, we were also the "responsible" kids - and stupidly gave each of us a key to the science lab, carte blanche to spend our time in there whenever we wanted, and a signed pad of requisition chits. These chits could be filled out and passed to the school secretary, and because they were already signed, we could - and did - requisition whatever we damned well liked. Can we spot a recipe for disaster yet? Read on...

A couple of the kids got into making beer and wine. I helped them and we made a still. Then we had a great trade going, selling beer, wine and moonshine to all the other kids in school (the oldest kid in our school was 13). This helped us raise some money. Another couple of kids used the science lab's darkroom to develop folks' films (for money, of course), pocketing the profits. I tired of the still once it was made, and didn't really care for the taste of the moonshine. But I did like the way it burned when you set fire to it... You will already know from my previous post to this QOTW that I'm a bit of a pyromaniac, so it was inevitable that I started experimenting with explosives.

From the boring (phosphorous in a shower head) to the exciting, I spanned the gamut of lethality. I then found a book called the Anarchist's Cookbook, which led me to my ruin. My first real achievement was to create almost a kilo of gunpowder. I used one of those huge science-lab mortars to mix the ingredients, with a large stone pestle to crush everything together. Once the mix was made, I poured a bit more than half away into a storage container, and then decided to "test" my mixture. On this occasion, I was alone in the science lab. So I lit a match, tossed it into the stone mortar (which had about half a pound of black powder in it) and legged it to the other end of the science lab.

From this "safe" distance, I watched as... nothing happened. Meh; I started walking back towards the mortar, when there was a blinding white flash and a spectacular "FOOM" sound. Yay! It worked! I was about 10 feet from it when it blew, and I still felt the shock/heat wave - cool! As I walked towards the mortar, this huge (10-15 kilo) stone mixing bowl slowly and silently cracked in half... and the pestle (itself a good 10 inches of granite) had vanished. Looking up, I noticed a perfectly round hole in the ceiling of the science lab, with powder burns all around it, and a matching hole in the roof above... Cue a chit from the pad for the school handyman to fix the roof. I explained it away as "a science experiment". Phew - got away with that, eh? Did I learn? Did I buggery.

The fascinating publication I had found then told me about nitro-glycerine. Chit for the ingredients? NO! Of course not - I'm not that stupid. I spread them out over three chits. So a little while later (wavy lines) there I am with three large beakers full of nitro, wandering about the lab showing me mates (I still shudder and get the cold sweats thinking about this). I took a pipette and squirted little drops onto the floor, where they amusingly exploded with little petard-like flashes and bangs. Cool, eh? Enough for me? Oh, no. Oh, no - not even slightly.

Turns out that you can use (unstable) nitro-glycerine to make much more stable dynamite sticks, which can then be used for wholesale destruction. And my faithful book told me what to do. Off to the woodworking shop went I, coming back with two large bin-bags full of sawdust. Then off to the kitchen for a roll of brown waxed paper. But that wasn't all. The other thing I needed was a method of ignition. Fire or impact will do it, and I couldn't get or make electric detonators. So I decided (on the advice of my book) to make fuse (or detonation) cord. Off to the school laundry, where I blagged three old threadbare sheets. Back to the science lab with my haul...

You make dynamite sticks by combining sawdust with liquid nitro-glycerine. This stabilises the nitro, so it's harder to ignite by accident. You can make them sturdy by wrapping the gooey mix up in wax paper. You make the fuse cord by taking long strips of bedsheet, coating them with glue, coating them with a fine layer of the gunpowder you made earlier and then twisting it (before the glue dries) into a long string. You then cut 12" lengths of this string and insert it into the middle of each of your dynamite sticks, before you roll it all up and sellotape it tight.

Before long, I had 15 and a half sticks of dynamite, looking exactly like something you'd see on a Wile E Coyote cartoon (only without the ACME logos). I also, by this time, had an accomplice - Tim. Sorry, Tim. So what on earth do we do with this stuff now? This was a dilemma, to be sure. So Tim and I went for a walk outside to consider our options.

Outside the science lab was the stump of a massive old oak that had died many years before and had been chopped off, about 15 feet above the ground. The oak was wide enough around that we couldn't reach each other's hands if we both hugged the tree; it was a bit big, then. The stump was next to a barbed-wire fence, which was made up of wooden fence posts about 6" across, with barbed wire between them, at about 8 feet apart. Inspiration struck! Wouldn't it be awesome to use the massive, old, dense, heavy tree to absorb our explosion(s)? So - off to the woodworking lab again for a hand drill with a sufficient diameter bit to drill holes to take our sticks of dynamite.

It was exhausting, this - drilling holes in this old tree. The sticks that I'd made were about 10" long and 1" across, so each hole needed to be at least that size. However, we persevered, and over the next week or so, we went out and drilled holes until the tree was ringed with holes, about a foot from the ground. Unfortunately, we mis-counted, and the tree got 14 holes. But we had 15 and a half sticks... What to do? Well, there was that tempting fence right next to the tree... You guessed it; the post nearest the tree got a hole and so did the next one in line (toward the science lab).

So, now begins the Darwin part of the story.

I carefully inserted a stick into each hole in the tree, leaving the fuse cord sticking out. Each snicked home with a satisfying "thunk". The fence posts got, respectively, the spare full stick and the last half a stick. I then got my long roll of fuse cord and started at the side of the tree facing the science lab, tying each stick's cord to the roll and then moving clockwise around the tree to the next one. Soon enough, I had reached the fence, so I attached the full stick and then the final half stick. I ran the remaining cord to our shelter. Our shelter was, and I want to be completely clear about this, utter shite. It was a low (18 inches or so) berm of earth with grass on it, about 25 feet from the tree. Our plan was to lie on the ground behind the berm, light the fuse and watch the fun - if things got too hairy, we'd hide behind our carefully-chosen shelter.

With the inevitability of all really really stupid decisions, we lit the cord. If you've ever seen the little spark run down Wile E Coyote's fuse cord, I'm here to tell you that yes - in real life, it looked just like that. Only it moved a great deal faster than we were expecting. The spark jogged merrily along the ground to the first fence post, where the half stick was waiting. Exactly as planned, and in true Mythbusters style, the spark reached the knot, split in two and continued a) towards the next stick (a full one this time) in the second fence post, and b) into the drilled hole at the bottom of the first fence post, while we peeked over our berm like a pair of retarded Chads.

Then all sound ceased. The earth below us heaved, and the bottom of the first fence post vanished in a bright, blinding white flash and a huge cloud of splinters (tiny, tiny splinters that were also very much on fire). The shock wave knocked the wind out of us and flattened us to the ground, while the first fence post whizzed straight up, to be restrained by the barbed wire (I imagine a comedy "bwoinnnnngggg" noise).

Unfortunately, the shit train had, by now, well and truly left the station. That was, you will recall, just the first stick - and a half stick at that. It was about this time that the second one went off, followed by regular THUMP-THUMP-THUMP explosions as the remaining 14 full sticks - confined in their dense, wooden lairs, started to blow. The crushing, overwhelming force is impossible to describe. The earth beneath us was bucking and kicking. We couldn't hear a fucking thing; all hearing was gone. We couldn't breathe; there was a rapidly-expanding fireball full of wood splinters that engulfed the air around us. We were completely flattened behind our pathetic little berm and totally convinced that we were going to die.

When the concussions stopped, I risked a peek up, to see something even more horrifying, if that could be possible. The tree stump - all 15' of it - was rising majestically into the air atop a huge fireball. It was slowly corkscrewing, too (remember, the sticks went off in sequence, not all together). I will remind the gentle reader that we were not very far at all from the science lab... When you're 11, and deaf, and on fire, and you then see about eight tons of flaming tree rising into the air, your brain just kind of shuts down. I just lay there, mouth open, watching like a mong as the stump reached its apogee, and - gravity being a harsh mistress - began its inevitable return journey. My memories of the time have it going at least ten miles into the air; measuring the lateral distance later, I reckon I got it a real 200 to 300 feet up. When it began its downward journey, still burning like an Apollo rocket, I couldn't move to run out of its path. If it had landed on me, I wouldn't be here now. Luckily, it headed in the direction of the school pool, but didn't reach it. It crashed to earth (with another huge concussion) about halfway between the science lab and the pool, and began smouldering.

Now came the aftermath. Neither Tim nor I could hear ANYTHING. We looked at each other, and we could both tell we were talking (screaming?) because our mouths were moving, but neither of us could hear our own voices, let alone each other's. Tim was on fire, with burning sawdust and splinters on his back, so I quickly batted the flames out, and then he did the same for me. Then we thought to look around; take stock, if you will. Behind us, the science lab...

The wall facing us was scorched black and peppered with chunks of wood and splinters. Every single window was gone, and all the desks and tables inside the lab had been swept clear. Beyond the lab, the old school building was also in a bad way. Every window facing the science lab had been blown out, and - what was this? There was a flood of kids and teachers leaving the building very quickly indeed. I imagine they were screaming, as many mouths seemed to be wiiiiide open. The music teacher (male) was running like a girl, all flappy hands and arms and such, mouth wide open, trampling kids in his haste to leave. So Tim and I looked at each other; we stripped off our (burned) school jumpers, flung them into the science lab, and joined the screaming exodus. Just merged with them.

Then the police came, along with the fire engines, and the Army, too. We were all interviewed - every one of us - and the school was closed for two weeks. Once Tim and I could hear, we agreed on our story (we were in the science lab, doing homework, when - BOOM - and that's all we knew) and swore that neither of us would breathe a word for at least 20 years AND only if we'd emigrated. We were both absolutely shitting ourselves that we'd be caught. I mean; blowing up your school? That's Borstal for sure, right? The thing that bothered me the most was the incriminating trail of ingredient requests...

The Army posted a guard on the school for the next six months; we had nice squaddies with Landies and guns looking after us and the girls' school next door. The bomb squad came out, and they analysed the residue. They concluded that the IRA had targeted the school, blaming them for the home-made explosive and for trying to kill the poor widdle kiddies. It turned out that the chits went in the bin as soon as the stuff was ordered, and the overall bill for "stuff" drowned out my ingredients; nobody put two and two together at all. Impossibly, we got away with it.

To this day, I have a small glass vial with some of that gunpowder in it. I keep it to remind myself to NEVER BE THAT FUCKING STUPID again. Doesn't always work though.

EPILOGUE
Still with me? Thanks! So there is a final chapter in this story. A couple of years ago, my wife and I were living in California, next to a really nice American family. They invited us around for Thanksgiving dinner, and after a lovely feed, the cigars, brandy and stories came out. So I told this one, to general acclaim, horror and so on.

A week or so later, my Mum came to live with us (different story, don't ask), and the same family invited us all to Christmas dinner. At that same dinner, the family's son-in-law also attended. He's a fantastic sort; a practical joker, and exactly the sort of person with whom I should DEFINITELY NOT associate. So he started telling HIS stories. Then his father-in-law uttered the fateful words... "Lustfish! Tell Zak the story about blowing up your sch...." But it was too late. Me, standing behind my mother, making throat-cutting motions and mouthing "Ix-nay on the ool-skay"... My mum turned around, and with a look of pure frost, said "yes, why DON'T you tell us that story...?".

All those years, and I never told her. Never breathed a word. She had had to come and take me out of school because of the nasty old IRA, and she never knew it was me... She didn't speak to me for weeks (WIN) and still hasn't quite come to terms with the whole thing. Mouth like a cat's bum or what!

This whole episode made the front pages of all the rags in England that year, until the government put a media blackout on it. They didn't want the IRA getting the publicity, apparently.

How I'm still alive today is a complete mystery, to be honest.

Apologies once again for length!
(lustfish, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 21:17, 20 replies)

Alcohol + stairs = a&e
I have a habit of taking the "free booze" element of the work's xmas party too far and making a fool out of myself every year, without fail. This past year (2008), I swore would be different. And it was. Just not as I intended.
The last thing I remember properly at the party was drinking red wine straight from the bottle. I was later informed that I drank 6 bottles of wine, 4 of which where in this manner. All with Guinness chasers. Needless to say, when I got home (a journey I have no recollection of) I was just a tiny bit sick. However, as in keeping with the other countless times I have gotten hammered, a quick throwing up session makes the world of difference and so to bed I went, mindful of the fact I had to be in work the following day (I live within walking distance so no fear of drink driving). It was as I climbed the stairs that things went pear shaped. I clearly remember seeing my feet in front of my face and then nothing. Nothing until I awoke in a&e. Rather spectacularly, I had slipped whilst going upstairs. Slipped on the very top step. And then fallen, backwards and head first, down the stairs. My fall was luckily broken by my head as it connected with the wall at the bottom of the stairs with sufficient force to put a whole in the wall. Cue a panicked girlfriend calling an ambulance, and them arriving and not being able to elicit a response from my prone form. Not through being knocked out, just pissed and fallen asleep.
Spent the night in hospital being x-rayed and having tests done to see if there was any permanent damage, none of which I remember as I slept through the whole thing. And despite a very impressive hole in the wall there is not a mark on my body.

I'm thinking of buying a cape and fighting crime. Clearly I am bulletproof.
(animal252 last activated his kitten hammer on, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 20:57, Reply)

I once had to re-wire a plug
i did it incorrectly, which resulted in me falling over and landing 100 feet away.

thanks for the heads up MatJ.
( Mr Nerdy-Speccy-FuckNuts Ouchy ouchy wa wa!, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 20:46, 1 reply)

One detail that seems to have passed a lot of people by
Is that electricity doesn't "blow" you anywehere. No matter how much there is of it. What happens is that all your muscles spasm and you throw yourself somewhere. This is why people sometimes can't let go of whatever is electrocuting them.

But as for "I was blown 10ft". No. No you weren't. You might have made 5ft at most, but it's more likely you just fell over.
( MatJ LOOK, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 20:40, 10 replies)

Bitches & Gentlemen
Don't fight bears.
That is all.
( Mr Nerdy-Speccy-FuckNuts Ouchy ouchy wa wa!, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 20:36, 1 reply)

optimism rather than stuppidity?
My first car was a 1275cc Mini Metro in metallic puke green- haad been my mums, then my sisters, and in the fullness of time, came to be mine when i passed my driving test.

After a year of mucking about with it, 'tuning it' (badly), driving as many miles as I could and generally abusing it, it started making funny noises from the engine department. My old man was slightly concerned, and had someone who was in the motor repair trade to pass his considered opinion over the sad wretch of a car.

"Big end's gone mate. Not worth fixing, not worth even getting a recon engine. Just eke out its last few pitiful miles and let it give up the ghost gracefully.".

hah, bolox to that. I took it back down to London where i was staying as a student and proceeded to drive it around, screeching in agony and drawing disapproving raised eyebrows from passers by. But it got no worse and I learned to ignore it.

Then I had to come back up to the Midlands, up the newly constructed M40 motorway and set off, full of unconcerned empty-headedness.

About 50 miles in, the rumble and screech turned into the sound of a handful of bolts being shaken in an empty tin can. This noise got progressively worse over the next few miles and then got really, REALLY loud, even as I was overtaking someone in the inside lane at 70.

*BANG* all the warning lights have come on the dash, I'm slowing down rapidly, there's a noticeable absence of sound from the engine and things are pelting up behind me at 70 and possibly going to smack me up the arse. I'm going to be a statistic by the morning news.


In a panic, I head for the hard shoulder, as I don't fancy being stationary next to the armco. I grab a handful of steering wheel and lurch off at an acute angle towards the presumed safety of the grass verge. Luck is on my side, I swoop across all three lanes with no motive power and only dying inertia to assist me, and proceed to apply the brakes (no servo assist without the engine going of course) to slow to a stop when

**BLAAAAARREEEE!!!!!!!!* a juggernaut had just come within a few feet of twatting my right rear bumper, spinning me around and possibly driving OVER my car with me in it.

I like to think I'm a somewhat calm and (possibly repressed) human being but at that moment when the realisation dawned on me, at the closeness of my mortality et cetera, I felt the uncontrollable urge to howl in fear until my lungs were empty. So I did."HAAAHHHHRRR!"

Stumbled to a motorway emergency phone, a recovery van came to pick me up and deposited the worthless husk of my Metro back at my folks place.

I wasn't a member of the AA so to end the evening off I was presented with a recovery bill for £130 (in 1990's money it's probably twice that now).

*Animal howl times two*
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 13 Feb 2009, 20:21, 4 replies)

"Brush With Death"? I'll comb my hair with it and then some...
I had of late lost all my mirth.

I went to the local train station to drink Gin, take 6 weeks of anti-depressants, listen to monged music for a bit and then intended to off myself under a train.

As I sat on the bench I was thoughtful for a bit and then became impatient. Nothing seemed to be coming. I looked down the platform. A couple addressed each other and then walked back through the ticket office, leaving me alone, sitting there. Bit weird, I thought.

After 2 hours I heard the rushing sound of a train. I jumped off the platform and dashed out. But by the time I got to the middle of the tracks the express train was whooshing by in front of me.

I walked down the track, no trains, and then finally clambered over a fence. I got served in a bar.

Next thing I remember I woke up in a police station. Drunken and Disorderly. They let me go and I called an ambulance declaring overdose. As I sat down in the mental hospital to be seen by the duty psycho my eyes met the newspaper on the table.

"Rail Strike To End"
(bodnotbod2, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 20:16, Reply)

Two things you should know about electricity:
Turn the power off when changing lightbulbs. Otherwise you just might end up ramming your swearing finger straight into the socket and leaping around the room swearing in front of your astonished parents.

When connecting a car battery to a mains charger, correct procedure is to connect the negative terminal, then the positive terminal, then turn on the charger. Not to turn on the charger, grab both leads by the metal parts and attempt to connect both at once.
( MatJ LOOK, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 20:11, 2 replies)

too bad
that by definition, we're not going to read the best answers to this qotw.
(Poezestrepe, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 19:58, 1 reply)

Vomit
On more than one occasion I have woken up to find I've vomited in my sleep. Take that Hendrix.
(B3taByter Meh, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 19:52, 2 replies)

Bombs away...
A while back now I went on a camping trek through the North Sahara. It was a great place to go even if we camped one night in scorpion valley, a place you can only go through for a couple of months a year due to the overwhelming number of scorpions there.

Worries about being stung on the arse cheek when having a sneaky crap behind a rock were eclipsed when we went to Bou Gaffer, which if I remember rightly was the site of a battle in the 30's when the French decided they wanted to kill all the Berbers. They did this by rather nicely trying to drop bombs on them, but something along the lines of 600 unarmed Berbers beat a few thousand armed French as they knew the ground better and threw rocks on their head. We had an old boy on our journey and he demonstrated this by throwing big boulders of the summit into the valley below, and it was great.

On the way back down, we came across an unexploded and rather rusty bomb. Big thing, just lying around catching some shade amongst a bush. Cue old man (he was insane, energetic and ace) running over and picking Bomb up, bouncing it around and showing us what a bomb exploding should look like. We all crapped ourselves, and not wanting to die took a step back (clearly 1 extra step back being sufficient safe distance).

It never went off, and we just about convinced him not to throw it back down but to put it down gently. He just laughed at us, but at least he posed for pics too..
jtst.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/pb073602.jpg
( Jimbuktu See? Right here, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 19:37, 6 replies)

Ha ha lol
OMG!!!!! Yuve got SUCH a kool site!

this one time i was out l8 rite an me da give me a chance 2 tri his beer an i drank so much i pased out an i nerely died an it wuz so cool

kan n e1 help me wit web dezine cuz im no gud an i wnt 2 make a sit as cool as this 1

thnks lol ure so cool
( MatJ LOOK, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 19:27, 7 replies)

My first electrical plug wiring
New electric drill needed a plug.

I didn't know which wire went where.

Trying different configurations to see which one worked - trial and error stylee - seemed the best course of action.

To save time I decided not to bother replacing the back of the plug between tries.

First attempt, pushes plug into place with palm of hand.

Luckily for me it was an explosive 'push-away' result, rather than a 'grip-tight-and-fry' result.
( zacherynuk @echo off, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 19:25, 3 replies)

Sweet sticky death
Many years ago while at college and slightly drunk at a party i decided to play the odd game with some friends. Most involved drinking but the last one I played was to eat a whole jar of the first thing you pull out of the cupboard. My friends got Jam, marmite, pickled onions and I got the peanut butter.

On the shout of go shovelling it in to my mouth with a spoon as fast as I can. Unfortunately fueled on alcohol and barely swallowing before adding more I slowly come to realize I can't breathe. Peanut butter lodged in my throat causing my head to pulse and I black out.

I woke up smelling awful with concerned drunk people all holding bottles and looking like hell. Apparently noticing my distress (Hitting the floor dribbling peanut butter) someone comes to my aid by scooping the goo out of my mouth with his fingers and the using milk as a rinse to clear my throat. Everyone chips in to help with milk being poured in to my mouth until they assumed it was clear and I was breathing normally.

Unfortunately I appeared to stop breathing again so they all huddled in closer to check on me.

That's when peanut buttermilk was projected from my stomach at the speed of sound on to them.

Moral: Never play drinking games which involve food.
(kentmoron, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 19:06, 2 replies)

Not strictly a gene pool darwinism
but mind bogglingly stupid all the same.

I'm accident prone. There are a few classic darwinisms I have pulled off over the years, but this one needs to be shared with you fine people.

A few years back, 'twas the Sunday night at Reading festival, back at the B campsite after Green Day had finished playing (paled into insignificance notorious, rofl inducing 50cent incident).

As is the norm for the final night, it was a boozy affair. Everywhere you looked revellers were burning pretty well anything combustible; tents, sleeping bags, gazebos, gas canisters etc.

I noticed a crowd of (say, 300?) people gathered round a particularly large fire, exploding gas canisters in quick succession. Lots of 'ooos' and 'aaaahs'.

In my infinite wisdom, which was backed up with a hefty dose of dutch courage and a not inconsiderable blur of recreational pharmaceuticals, I decided that the thing to do would be to participate. With my 10litre gas canister. Which was full. And still safely installed in a large metal stove.

I waited for the last canister put on to explode (after all safety is key) before approaching the fire and lobbing the piece into the fire pit.

The bang and fireball was spectacular, and I was astonished to witness the large black object flying towards my face, hitting me in the right eye with such force it knocked me to the floor with my ears ringing.

Sitting on my arse in the dark with my mates gathered round, I complained whilst holding the eye that I had been hit and could see nothing but a milky glow. 'Bollocks have you!' they proclaimed, until I showed them the offending oculus which by now had blood pissing from the edges and a strange translucent gloop oozing from the iris.

The pain was EXCRUTIATING.

Rushed to the nearest fire engine, a quick explanation saw me bundled in and hurried to the medical tent, where I got to skip the queue of drunk/high/passed out people.

After a multitude of saline eye baths and many concerned examinations from the doctors, I was ordered to hospital at once. Not wanting to miss the rest of the night's merriment, mcuh to the doctor's disgust I politely declined and arranged for an early collection in the morning and an eye patch.

So off I went, covered in blood, blind in one eye and as pissed as a fart to rejoin my comrades, wearing an eye patch and going arrrrgh! like a pirate to passing folk.

Having had a great time, the morning after sobriety brought home the reality that in all probability I had blinded myself in an intoxicated moment of sheer stupidity.

Thankfully, several clinic visits later to have the eye repaired and as much of the fragmented steel removed, my sight returned (although I need glasses now). What still gets me now is the karma (and good fortune) that of all the hundreds of people stood round that night, the one who got injured was the one who threw the gas stove on.

The moral is this kids - don't chuck gas canisters on bonfires. Or lynx cans. Or fireworks. Not unless you have your safety goggles.

*I heard that the year after some poor lad blew his knackers off jumping over a fire laced with canisters at Reading, so I suppose in a way he has removed himself from the gene pool......
(Sir General ***WoW***, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 18:26, 2 replies)

the wasp nest
a while back, i lived in a house with a lovely big garden. rockery, the works.
one day, whilst enjoying the taste of a fine jamaican rollup, i noticed a wasp. well, i say a wasp, this was a Wasp. capitalised. one of those angry germanic bastard wasps, with the red bits like a dwarf hornet. it was following a very specific path, every few minutes (may have been more than one in retrospect) under a big slap of the old garden path in the rockery.

a day or two later, there could be seen a pinky-sized hole, under the rock, and three or four wasps. in and out.

a day or two later it was like fuckin heathrow.
me and the landlord decided it was time for ACTION!

we decided to try and flood them out.

sneaky hosepipe action later and suddenly there is a 2ft across ball of furious wasps chasin us as we leg it into the house and slam all the windows.


so we leave it a couple of days. a plan is formulated.

we return that night armed with a funnel, a length of hose, and a half-pint of petrol. end of hose gingerly fed into now 2.5" hole. petrol poured in.
how to light it? flick matches until one catches.

unfortunately, we did NOT count on the propulsion effect launching a cloud of angry, flaming, wasps out like some kind of hideous death cannon. interesting facts, wapss are pretty nippy on their toes if de-winged... also the huge cloud of wasps that followed told us in no uncertain terms we had a BIG nest. at this point, really, we should have called in pest control. did we? did we fuck as like. one of them stung my buddy, this was WAR.

a couple days passed, a tense standoff. we'd stare out the window at our now wasp-run garden, they would ping off the windows periodically, and now and then make incursions into the kitchen.

eventually, we decided the best course of action was to get the big bit of concrete path off the top, so we could see what was under it. after some coin-tossing, prevaricating, my mate got kitted up in a home-made wasp-proof suit wheelie bin liners, duct tape, bandanas, tin of raid) ran in, hooked a big crowbar over the back edge and flipped it over. a few wasps came out and we scarpered, but it wasn't as dramatic as we hoped.

then muggins here decided to lob a head-sized piece of granite at the hole to 'block it'

the rock hit the soil, and disappeared out of sight. i was afforded a brief glimpse of a seemingly endless papery fortress like the fuckin death star before an anbsolute raging TORRENT of these bastards came out, we ran like fuck for the house, slammed the door behind us, heaved a sigh of relief.
about that time the neighbour started screaming blue murder... poor cow was out in her garden, sunbathing with her earphones in.

the swarm was i kid you not, filling the entire back garden and the neighbours. when we finally got the pest people in the nest was one of the biggest they'd seen, a 4FOOT across underground chasm with a couple of ante-chambers, ours was the latest in a series of entrances to open up.

i kid you not, even for normal non-wasp allergic types, there was EASILY enough wasps to kill us stone dead.
so take note folks
if wasps were a couple inches longer, we would ALL be their bitches.
(UppityDamnPrimate LET'S OPEN THIS F*CKING PIT UP, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 18:19, 6 replies)

Let go of the fucking kite, Brian!
Possibly not quite Darwinian. But it definitely must have fucking hurt.

A few years back I had a colleague called Brian, an extremely funny bloke with a propensity to throw himself into anything and sod the consequences.

One day he decided to try kite surfing on the local beach. Attaching his feet to the board, he waited for the wind to waft its magic. Sure enough, the wind caught and off he went along the sand, giggling like a mong and generally feeling very pleased with himself.

Until, that is, a particularly strong gust caught in the kite, and lifted him quite high off the ground; certainly higher than he had expected...

...Before depositing him back on the sand, the front of the board burying itself in the soft, golden granuals. At which point, due to the laws of physics, he stopped moving.

Trouble was, the kite didn't, and the wind suddenly decided to change direction. This had the effect of jerking Brian in a completely different direction to the one he was pointing in. Worse still, he was still firmly attached to the board, albeit by only one foot at this point, and still holding onto the kite...

Legs tend not to like being bent in directions that they are not supposed to go. Unfortunately for Brian, what with the board being buried nose first in sand, and not having the quick thinking to let go of the kite ("I didn't want it to fly off; it belonged to a mate", he later remarked), the rapid change in direction coupled with an immovable board conspired against his still strapped in ankle. His ankle did the only thing it could do under the circumstances, and snapped with a bone crunching crack.

It was at this point that Brian decided he should probably let go of the kite, before collapsing in screaming agony on the beach and in the knowledge that his mate's car was about half a mile back in the car park.

Length? Six months on crutches...
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 13 Feb 2009, 18:08, 3 replies)

Under Pressure
Not my story but my brother's. Sadly, he's not here to tell (unrelated) and so I feel duty bound to do the honours....

Picture a GCSE CDT workshop a few weeks before practical projects need to be completed and Pencil (for such is sort-of his name) is staying after school to work on his electric golf-trolley. This will require various lengths of metal tubing to be bent, cut and brazed together. And tonight is to be bending night.

"You can't just bend it, it'll kink" he is informed by thoughtful CDT teacher. "Fill it tight with sand and that will support it from the inside while you heat it and bend it" quoth he. Pencil being relatively trustworthy, the teacher then sods off and leaves him to it.

The following half-hour sees Pencil fill his tubes with sand and ram wooden plugs hard into both ends with a club-hammer, little considering that the sand is just a shade damp. He then begins to attack the first with a lighted blow-lamp. Now, if my rather rusty physics serves, a liquid upon vaporising expands to 42000 times it's original volume, and so a 500 degree blow-lamp applied to damp sand trapped tight inside a metal tube develops quite a pressure.

Had he been standing at the end of the tube when the wooden bung finally shot out, it would surely have passed straight through him. Fortunately, however, he is standing just to one side as a monstrous bang sees this cellulose bullet issue forth at about Mach 4.

Roused by the noise, teacher re-enters the workshop to see Pencil in a state of shock and a thick layer of red dust gently settling over the entire room. The collateral damage resulting from this unintended WMD having been the instant annihilation of a huge tub of powdered flux. Teacher then proceeds to practically piss himself laughing, and Pencil spends the next hour wiping flux from every imaginable surface. We lost him early, but it could so easily have been 15 years sooner.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 18:06, 4 replies)

Dont tell my mum...
One of the best things instigated by my local council was the open air swimming pool. Every summer as a child I would accompany my family in our daily trips during the summer to cool off.

Parents are very useful at making sure you rember to bring a towel and carrying a packed lunch but they sure know how to ruin your fun.

"dont dive in the shallow end!"

"stop ducking your brother!"

"don't hide under the flume to surprise people on the way down"

So naturally I was more than happy to go on my own once I reached the age of 10. Me and my then best friend went together, and free from adult supervision we did the most stupid thing imagineable...

We only waited 15 mins after eating our chips before swimming instead of the half hour our parents assured us was necessary to prevent SUDDEN DEATH!
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 17:57, Reply)

Its amazing how many of these stories start with a lot of beer
or some other fun beverage. A few years back after a long winter day of drinking many beers, we decided we needed to play in the snow that so many people pay so much money to go skiing on.

Not having skis or money to buy them (all of it spent of beer) we decided to go snow canoeing. My friend’s house was built on the side of a mountain (in a ski resort town) with a very large cleared hill directly behind it. He also had a 17 foot long aluminum canoe. We reasoned (our reasoning skills not at all affected by the beer) that if we waxed the bottom of the canoe as people wax their skis, it would go faster. We therefore proceeded to melt five or six candles over the bottom of the canoe (drinking several more beers while doing this).

Once the bottom of the canoe was as slippery as any Olympic Downhill Ski (or so we reasoned, again, our reasoning skills unaffected by the beer) the three of us trudged up the hill pulling the canoe (with beers in it) behind us; through a good two feet of snow; the beer not at all affecting our ability to climb.

Amazingly, we made it up to the top of the hill where once we could breathe again, we realized we didn’t bring any paddles to steer the canoe with. Not wanting to be unfair, (or trust leaving anyone next to the canoe with the beers we had so arduously dragged up the hill), the three of us trudged down the hill to the house to get the all important steering paddle. Once back at the house we celebrated our accomplishments to date with several shots of whisky.

Back we trudged up the hill (our reasoning ability still as sharp as tacks). When we got to the canoe, caught our breathe, opened some beer, and looked down hill, we realized the only potentially successful canoe run ended at the large propane tank at the side of the house. Other than that there was a cliff we could go off of or the back of the house to run into. Our reasoning in perfect working order, we decided no problem, we will just jump out before we hit anything or go off the cliff.

We also decided the best way to start down the hill would be to run along side the canoe and then jump in, just as they do with bobsleds. Thankfully, this is easier said than done in two feet of snow after a lot of beer but we pushed on, running as fast as we could, then flopping into the canoe. We went no where. The snow was too fluffy. We did it again, same thing. Our reasoning ability just starting to be affected by the beer, we kept doing this all the way down the hill until we hit the propane tank.

Once we got to the bottom, we realized we had just compacted made a great track in the snow, and if we just get back up the hill, we would really fly. Fortunately, we were too exhausted from the first attempts, said f--- it and went inside to drink more beer as all of this exercise had ruined our buzz.

If we had just made it up the hill one more time, it would have been spectacular and we would have had no problems at all. The desire to get more beer ruined our chances yet again.

Sorry for the length, but this is much shorter than trudging up that damn hill.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 17:53, 1 reply)

You take the high road and I'll just slide down the side of this mountain, if it's all the same
It was a cold and blustery day and we'd been walking for hours. Reaching the peak left us with a huge sense of achievement and pride, but the wind threatened to blow us off again, so it was decided that we'd not hang about longer than necessary.

We sauntered down for a bit when our guide, a Scotsman who'd spent much of his 60 odd years clambering over the mountains of his beloved country, pointed to a drop off in the distance and challenged us to a race, before setting off at a speed that bewildered his far younger companions.

We charged after him and were still some way behind when he leapt over the edge and seemed to plummet to a certain and bloodied death. It was only when we reached the edge ourselves that we could see him sliding joyfully on his back and hear the playful cheer that was coming from his mouth.

We all did the same without a moments hesitation, and a chorus of "Weeeeeeee" was carried away on the breeze.

Somehow I managed to take a different route from the rest of the gang and it wasn't long before I noticed a very cold looking pond racing towards me at a frightening rate. I was enjoying myself too much to arrest my descent straight away, but I tightened my grip on my ice axe and took solace from its presence in my gloved hands.

Once I felt I was close enough to the freezing puddle of shivery death that awaited me, I rolled onto my stomach and thrust my axe into the snow above my head. It slipped immediately from my icy gloves and disappeared from my reach before I'd even realised I wasn't holding it any more.

Quite suddenly I was within drowning distance of the pond, out of earshot from my friends and flailing uselessly at the snow, which seemed to mockingly crumble in my hands as I grabbed handfuls of it, while my feet kicked stupidly at the ground.

A final, determined kick at the ground finally allowed me to lodge my foot in the snow and I stopped a few feet short of the pond.

I almost did a little cry to myself, before remembering that my mates would take the piss endlessly had they found me not only with my jacket full of snow and my ice axe lodged somewhere back up the mountain, but sobbing like a small child who'd just tripped and hurt their knee a bit.
( Moey, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 17:45, 1 reply)

Stony cove rocks................
Not as hard as my head apparently.

Some years ago I was spending a happy day with a few of my thirty-something mates all round Stony cove, a popular scuba training spot in the midlands. With us was my mate Spence, an ex-Marine mountain and arctic warfare specialist. He'd brought along ropes and climbing gear for the afternoon's fun.

And fun it was! Loads of abseiling and rock face scrambling, all done under the supervision of an accredited expert in the field. The last thing we were to learn was "the pendulum". In essence, this manoeuvre sees you at the end of the rope, half-way down the rockface, running/swinging across to find a handhold. I elected to go first.

The first two swings were a bit hesitant so my mate encouraged me in his gruff marine way by calling "RUN YOU MINCING CUNT!"

So I ran.


As fast as my legs could carry me, bearing in mind I'm 60' down a 120' sheer rock face with a deep, cold lake at the bottom, but I sprinted!

Did I mention that I'd elected to do this without a harness? Just a strop, looped round my legs and waist and fastened with a carabiner? Rope looped through a descender? No?

Then read on.

10 yards before the end of my run I realised I was going WAY too fast so, I tried to slow down. Unfortunately the friction between my boots and the rock was even less than that between fresh poodle poo and parquet so my legs flew out in front of me. In accordance with the laws of physics, my head then rushed towards the rock with equal speed. It seemed to take about two hours from my slide to the impact, but imact it did. I blacked out.

My friends watched me hit and they thought at the time it was unsurviveable. Within seconds, one had called the ambulance, two others abseiled down to me and found CP unconcious and gripping the rope like I was pulling Gary Glitter off one of my daughters*.

The ambulance arrived in minutes, by which time I was already at the top, sitting up wondering why my head hurt. At the hospital I was X-rayed to buggery, had all sorts of reflex tests and kept in overnight.

1 bruise. Didn't even break the skin.

I was so proud of my new-found indestructibility, I strutted to the nurses station to get discharged (insert smutty comment here), basking in my superheroness. They gave me back my clothes minus my trousers and grots.

"Where's my trousers and pants, did you have to cut them off me"? I asked, still swaggering a little.

"No, we threw them away 'cos you'd shit yourself" she replied, beaming.




Bugger.


*Original euphemism deleted due to extreme non-PCness
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 17:40, 2 replies)

because Marlboro reds are childrens fags!
www.thetobaccoshop.net/images/lucky.jpg
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 17:32, Reply)

Nine lives (but there's only one left!)
My other half has had more than his fair share of brushes with death.

1. When he was a toddler, he fell out of a moving car, and his teddy cushioned his head from being smashed onto the road.
2. He had been thrown across the room by an electric shock not once, but twice, on two separate occasions. The first time was a Teasmade (we're going back a bit here) and the second by a washing machine.
3. He fell off a mobile classroom backwards and landed inches away from a spiked tree truck, his friend went white with shock when he saw how close it was.
4. He had slashed both wrists, accidently. Once when a glass door rebounded and smashed, cutting his wrist; then when he was carrying a bottle and fell, again cutting his wrist. Both wrists are still scarred.
5. He overdosed on LSD as a teenager, and lost consciousness (and suffered flashback and panic attacks for years afterwards.)
6. He sat in a booth to get his photo taken, and it blew up, spewing flames and smoke. He was oblivious to it all, he heard an explosion but thought it was outside. It was only when a passer-by pulled back the curtain that he realised.

I'm amazed (and very glad) he's still alive.
(Pushka, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 17:31, 2 replies)

The white chalk cliffs of the west country
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Harry_Rocks

Take it form me they are more interesting if you walk along the edge alone at night when there is a strong wind.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 17:28, Reply)