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This is a question Real-life slapstick

Fact: When someone walks into a lamp-post it makes a very satisfying and hugely hilarious "Ding!" noise. However, it is not quite so funny when the post is in the middle of town and you are the victim. Tell us about hilarious prat-falls.

Thanks to Bob Todd for the suggestion

(, Thu 21 Jan 2010, 12:07)
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This question is now closed.

Four legs on the floor, please
On a tour to Strasbourg we were required to dine at a swanky restaurant before a concert, hosted by an ambassador and a minister of culture. Myself and a couple of colleagues were a bit late on arriving, thus pulling the short straw and having to sit at the vip table, candidates for boring small-talk and forced table manners.

Whilst waiting for the soup-du-jour, one of my friends, nonplussed by the formality, decided to assume a nonchalant elbow-on-the-back-of-the-chair pose, accompanied by an ever-increasing seat-back-tilt angle. As the conversation warmed, so did the angle. So graceful was his inevitable arrival to the floor that none of us noticed; wine and conversation were flowing nicely, frostiness had abated, warmth prevailed. Until a muffled "Can somebody help me please?" drifted across the table. We all turned to see a pair of Hush Puppies politely, patiently hanging in the air.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 17:29, Reply)
My former boss
was a particularly short and very foul tempered man.
I was present, when it a fit of rage he kicked a flipchart,
which did it's job perfectly as it flipped around and twatted him atop his balding bonce. I pretended not to notice.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 17:10, Reply)
Insult
While driving through a supermarket car park, a rotund lady blocked the passage of me and my mate.
"Jesus, get out of the way, you lazy fat bint." I said.
"That's my mum!", said my mate.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 17:06, Reply)
Shitbeard
On my 22nd birthday I went out on the lash for the second night running. In a pub (before we went onto a rock club) I went to the toilet for a watery, violent poo, and returned to the bar area. Talking to my mate, I noticed him looking at my mouth area - to which he said 'You've got shit on your face'. I returned to the toilet to check the mirror, and I DID have shit on my face, a two inch long smear from below my nose to the side of my face. I thought I could smell it.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 17:02, 6 replies)
Pranks in the biology lab
On one occasion I was teaching Personal Life Skills (aka sex education) to a group of particularly 'difficult' 16 year olds.

For some reason the school was re-fitting the tables in the room and there were bits of table top and iron legs and brackets on the floor.

Anyway I was walking around discoursing on some shite and I trod on one of these bits of iron which swung up like the rake on Tom and Jerry and hit me right in the gonads.

My eyes start to water and I gritted my teeth and made a careful exit to the prep room where I writhed around in agony for ages.

None of this was lost on the kids who just went hysterical.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 16:27, 2 replies)
Pranks in the science laboratory
In the '80s I was a science teacher.

Of a Friday afternoon we would have a couple of pints in the pub and then return to school for the final lessons of the week. In my case, teaching a class of 11 year-olds science.

Anyway I'm trying to teach the concept of volume but being slightly pissed I was not as professional as one ought to have been.

So I'd was saying things like

"Kids, how many sides has a cube?"

Answer - "Eight! Twelve! Four!"

"OK kids lets do that again. You've all used dice to play games! How many sides are there on a dice?"

Answer - "Six!"

"OK!!!! Brilliant!!! So how many sides on a cube?"

Answer - "Eight! Twelve! Four!"

So I was losing it a bit and the kids were getting restless. So I calmed down and said

"Right kids, we'll go all of this again and see if we can get to the right answers!"

With that, I hitched myself onto the laboratory workbench and fell arse-first into the fucking laboratory sink and could not get out.

I had to call the lab technician to pull me out. The kids pissed themselves they laughed so much.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 16:22, 1 reply)
Shopping
I carried the shopping in from the car, and put half a dozen carriers on the floor. I emptied them in turn, and finally got to the one with the 6 pint milk carton in. As I lifted the bag up to waist height or so to take the carton out, the milk made a break for freedom and the bag split. Because I was suddenly no longer holding 6 pints of milk, my arm swung upwards with great force and I succeeded in punching myself in the mouth, giving me a fat lip in the process followed by the milk landing on my foot.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 16:21, Reply)
Aged 15,
I got a decent mountain bike for my birthday, the bike I have to this day actually. It had toestraps on the pedals, as at the time basically your options were standard platform pedals, tiny little cleated ones for the fancy-shoed lycra-lovers amongst us and the halfway-house that was toestraps.

I barreled off on my first ride on it, with a mate and my brother in tow. I was loving the toestraps, they allowed me to vary which muscles I used, made the pedalling motion circular instead of stampy, and generally enabled me to go harder and faster for longer (ooo-er missus).

However, in my haste to get out there, I'd neglected a very minor detail. We pulled up to a set of traffic lights, I went to put my foot down to balance but alas the straps were too tight. My feet stayed bonded to the pedals and a few very long seconds passed in which I fell slowly to the left onto the pavement, felled like a mighty oak.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 14:48, 2 replies)
Alumin*i*um
Many years ago we were working on a project to reduce the amount of Aluminium foil in packaging. Without wanting to get too Geeky, Al-foil is used as both an oxygen barrier and a light barrier in some "cardboard" packages, and is pretty much essential if your fruit juice is going to stay un-tainted for months on a shelf.

Dead end after dead end. Nowhere could we find a solution or Al-alternative. The lifetime of Al-foil in packages was plaguing us with poor results and options. The Al-Life project was in trouble and we hated it. Regular emails zipped backwards and forwards between those of us involved, until someone forwarded it to a friend in management, and it was copied to big boss.

The E-mail that came though filled us with a sense of dread.

Re: Al-Life slurps dick.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 14:30, Reply)
Should have worn a helmet.
I used to live in a little side-street just off a big estate in North London, and as such my evenings were plagued by the scourge of all built-up areas, the Scooter Chav. No doubt you're familiar with this odious creature, his 25cc moped "enhanced" by several strategic holes bored in the silencer to produce a sound that goes through your head like a masonry drill, top speed limited to about 15mph by his gurning mate perched on the back, and with all the navigational skill of a concussed wasp - why else would he need to go past my flat every five minutes for six... fucking... hours?

Our local Scooter Chav at the time was a little different. Rather than the traditional moped, he'd opted for the unconventional and obtained himself a quad-bike. It produced a slightly deeper whine than I was used to, but it was no less irritating. It was thus with tremendous glee that, walking back from the chippy on the corner where I'd been idly watching him attempt wheelies as I queued for my nutritious supper, I heard a yelp over the roar growl buzz of the engine. I looked back just time to see him hurtle past, quad-bike at 90 degrees to the ground, a trail of sparks struck from the pavement, and collide dead on with a rather sturdy wall. With all four wheels.

The sturdy off-road suspension handled this quite well, catapulting him a good six feet backwards before the quad-bike slowly, gracefully toppled backwards on top of him.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 14:29, 3 replies)
Blind Fury
Never insult anyone who goes to ninja school several times a week. It's bound to end in tears.

A few years back I was walking to the pub with some pals, merrily engaging in witty banter of a sort to put Oscar Wilde to shame. I said something off-colour about the gentleman walking in front of me, whereupon he reached back with his foot and clouted me right in the 'nads, without even turning his head.

I'm now waiting for my leaden-footed chum to run across water and dodge bullets by listening for the creaking sound made by the trigger finger. 'Cause, you know, they can all do that, right?
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 13:59, Reply)
Six feet down
Many years ago when I was almost out of my teens I had to visit the hospital for some physiotherapy on my shoulder. Not having a car at my disposal, getting to the hospital involved a short train ride and a ten-minute walk at each end.

At my destination, a station I'd been to many, many times before, I was suddenly seized with the urge to do something I'd never done before. Every visit previously I'd walked sedately down the slope from the platform exit to the street. This time I was determined to vault the railing, one hand on the railing like you see in the movies, and land dexterously on my feet to the rapturous applause of my fellow passengers.

My foot didn't quite clear the top of the railing, pitching me forwards to fall six feet onto the tarmac, to the rapturous laughter and giggles of my fellow passengers. One of them took pity on my stupid self and made sure I hadn't broken anything beyond my pride. My shoulder didn't half hurt, though.

The physiotherapist wasn't impressed when I asked her if I could reschedule the appointment due to smacking my shoulder into the ground while carrying out a stupid stunt.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 13:49, Reply)
Peanuts
My sister-in-law was driving her boss's Porsche to the airport to pick him up. While waiting in the carpark she opened a pack of peanuts to have a snack but, as sometimes happens, as she opened the pack the nuts came spraying out all over the car.

She rapidly cleaned up all the nuts and salt, just before her boss arrived. 'Everything ok with my car?', he asked. "No problems!" squeaked his secretary, and they set off.

It was a hot day so he put the air blower on full blast, whereupon peanuts came blasting out of the air vents, including one which hit him on the nose.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 12:53, 5 replies)
Graceless dive
Mid teens, family holiday in Wales, old farmhouse, several bedrooms,
shared bathrooms.
One morning coming out of the bathroom in dressing gown, drying hair
with a towel I 'found' a suitcase on the floor. When I say 'found' I mean
one minute I didn't know it existed and the next it had rugby tackled me
and thrown me several feet across the floor to wind up in a heap.
I look up and see 2 people, a mother very concerned had her young
daughter trying not to laugh. The mother bent down, apologised and
asked if I was ok, I mumbled something back. Then she carefully
rearranged my dressing gown to re-cover my recently showered lower
half which was now on show! She helped me up and we went back to our
rooms. I never found out if the daughter was laughing cos I fell over
or cos she had an eyeful........
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 12:28, 1 reply)
Avoid...
short, heavily gesticulating Italian people. I happened to be walking past one once and received what can only be described as "Nose Rape".
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 12:19, 2 replies)
Road Trip from Munich to Paris...
...in a fully laden Mercedes Sprinter.
We were critically low on fuel and extremely grateful when we finally pulled into the service station. Still, the fuel stop didn't come quite soon enough, as after we'd had a pre fill up potty break, the van wouldn't start again. "No probs" says I, "I'll push the van to the pumps"
My boss wasn't convinced I could do it, but agreed we should try it anyway. It was only about 50 yards and I'm a fairly hefty person.
I hop out,get my head down and get my legs pumping. We're moving at quite a rate when all of a sudden I hear the distinctive thud of metal on metal and I look up just in time for the rebounding van to smash me right in the face.

My fucking genius boss hadn't put the keys in and as such the servo assisted brakes hadn't worked and I pushed the van straight into a parked bmw.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 12:15, 4 replies)
Biter bit
One morning about 8.30 I was walking along the road near Westbourne Park when I noticed an old guy wobbling along on a bicycle. He looked like a classic boozer - big red nose and flat cap - and was going so slowly I could not believe he wasn't going to fall off. Entranced by this spectacle of early morning drunken bicycle riding I strode on, swivelling my head so as not to miss the inevitable when he fell off the bike - only to walk straight into a lamp-post myself.

When I had recovered from the shock and looked back he was still in the saddle, manically yanking the handlebars left and right, but defiantly ploughing his way down the road.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 10:25, Reply)
As every man will attest
there's nothing like a blow-job. And I'm sure the vast majority will also agree that they never get enough. For me, I tried to remedy this situation. I thought I'd take every chance I got. One evening, watching TV with Mrs SLVA I noticed that she began to yawn, so not missing the opportunity I had whipped my cock out by the time she had her mouth wide open and was on the final approach.

But then she batted it away and told me to piss off. "Slaps dick" isn't all that funny.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 9:26, 1 reply)
Bamboo Warriors
Mr friend has an amazing garden. It's pretty large, and a very interesting shape. In fact, the entire house sits at the wrong angle amid a neat row of semi-detached homes and gardens, which amusingly reflects his quirky and mental personality. (See replies for google map link)

One of the interesting quirks of this garden is that it has 3 sheds. One of these sheds is curiously always full of bamboo canes. I'm not sure at what point I found out about 'Bamboo Warriors', but i'm damn sure it was an excellent idea.

The rules of the game are simple, a duel with bamboo canes, the victor is the first one to snap the other's cane. One fine summer however, we discovered a new toy. LOGS. Of course, we knew what had to be done, we would play Bamboo Warriors, but with 6 foot long, 5 inch thick wooden logs as weapons. Nothing could go wrong.

You would think that the inevitable injury i'm building up to incurred as a result of the climatic battle that ensued, and an epic skirmish it was. Wood clashed, splinters flew, but would you thunk it, neither of us got hurt. That is, until my friend, in his infinite wisdom, decides to *throw* his log at me. 'Catch!' he yells confidently, hurling his log like some kind of caber-tossing loon.

A few things went through my mind as I saw that log arching through the air toward me. Primarily, 'You stupid cunt', secondarily, some kind of primitive fight or flight response was required, and natural selection hung her head in shame that day as I bravely decided to fight. I'd be damned if I was moving! Like a true Bamboo Warrior I would fight this log, and I swung my own log to make contact with the invader, confident I could parry the blow and save my skin. What I did not anticipate was that upon striking the log with my full force, the back end would swing round and fucking twat me on the head.

Me: mild concussion. Friend: near death from laughter.

'Tosser'.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 9:13, 6 replies)
Painful physics lessons (pts 1 & 2)
Chapter 1: Momentum
In the 1980s, aged about 11, and I'm visiting my dad's business partner's house with my dad, I mooch out into their back garden to play his kids and their newly bought mini-motorbike (this is in a village, so the back garden was huge). The eldest son (whose bike it was) asks me if I want a go. "OK" I say and climb on. "Right, to make it go, you twist this backwards" he says. "Like this..?" I reply and never hear how to make it stop as I am now hurtling away from him at pace, heading straight for a fence, unable to stop or turn away I do what the laws of physics demand and demonstrate perfectly the concepts of momentum and inertia (and then gravity) as I hit the fence, go over the handlebars and land in a heap on the other side.

Chapter 2: Levers & Fulcrums
Later, aged about 13, I'm trying to move a tennis ball as far and as fast as I can (without actually throwing it), and I notice that the garden hoe appears to be an ideal cradle for a tennis ball. A few practice throws proves the concept and so I set about creating my amazing garden hoe/tennisball catapult. Fulcrums & levers is what it's all about, I have the lever, and a conveniently place pile of stones provides the fulcrum. With it all set up, all I need is a way of supplying a sharp input of force, that'll be GL jumping on the handle of the hoe. What could go wrong? I jumped, I felt a whack in the face, and doubled up in laughter. Only when one of my mates said "there's blood" did I start worrying about the hole in my forehead the hoe had made, and getting myself rushed to A&E for stitches. To this day I can't forget that physics lesson, as I can still see the scar every time I look in a mirror.

Sometimes I think I must have some cat ancestry, as alongside surviving the above acts of stupidity, I've walked into countless lampposts, been run over and been gassed with chlorine gas, and have yet (touch wood) to even break a bone.

GL
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 8:46, Reply)
Pissed on a moped
Not in the UK but on the Port of Hamilton in Bermuda.

We were in Bermuda for 4 days discharging some cargo and during that time some of us hired some mopeds to get around the island. We negotiated a price for the time we'd be docked there and during periods of inactivity we'd skoot around the island sightseeing. Great fun and very picture skew.

On the night we were to sail we decided to get our monies worth and use the mopeds until the last moment. Unfortunately some of us, who were a little under the weather and lacking inhibitions and sense, started to dare each other to do more and more stupid bike stunts. A crowd of seamen, wharfies and 'ladies-of-the-night' gathered to watch the increasingly daring stunts on the tar chipped wharf surface. From running up a plank resting on a beer crate. to two beer crates, to a shopping trolley sized crate. We were having great fun with a fully appreciative audience and I was bullet proof and definitely over proof.

The plank was placed on a 44 gallon oil drum (about 3 foot high) and the dares started. With a little trepidation, as I didn't have a helmet, I took up the challenge, retreated about 20 yards and gave it full stick. I hit the plank cleanly, kept to the centre and flew off the end of the jump. I of course lost total control - the reason for this post, and fell to the ground cradling my head.The back of my hands and forearms took the majority of the impact and through the haze and pain I could hear the crowd laughing and clapping their hands. Shame.

The ship sailed an hour later with me in the sick bay and the 3rd mate digging hundreds of tiny stones out of my arms with a hypodermic needle. Pain.

The funny thing is 20 years later I was in hospital for an x-ray as I'd twisted my right wrist and on the x-ray were 17 little points of light (missed stones) that had the doc intrigued. I've still got the x-ray somewhere, my souvenir of Bermuda.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 7:45, 4 replies)
AWESOME Arse
T'was popping down to the nearby greasy fry with young work collegue in the passengers seat. Lovely day it was all warm and excellent short skirt weather for the young lassies.

Anywho young cheeky chappy spots a vision devine in the distance and leeringly leans from the cab for a better look. "Ewww Errrr, look at the arse on that!" exclaims workmatey with full on rapist facial expressions, "I'd give that one" et al

The young lady chooses said time to turn around and spots mately in full flow. She smiles widely

Apprentice blokey suddenly stops and goes bright red. He lurches back in to his seat and sits up straight, going VERY QUIET.

'What is the matter," I ask "Are you a tad embarrased for getting caught out?"

"No" says he "That was my sister..."
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 7:02, Reply)
At the school place
Whilst at merry middle school we had many a playground game that mutated from a group of friends, to a school wide event.

We had the digimon battles and the stickey weed fights, even the mud bomb wars (an invention of my group of chumolas no less Huzzah!) but the one that turned out to be so, so wrong was stick wars.

Oh no, not the point a stick and make a gun noise kind of war, the pick up a stick and throw that bastard at a fellow pupil.

As you can imagine, acts of violence on the playground very quickly get noticed and acted upon, by the students of course not the teachers.

So started a huge volley of sticks being lobbed at each other, no specific teams...or even goal, just pelt the shit out of someone before they do to you.

Whilst hiding behind a tree throwing the odd twiglet, I spied a variable WMD of this war...the branch.

This branch was covered in twigs and leaves, the whole shabang, I saw this and it was good.

So picking up said cruise missile, I spy my target and swing it back full steam to twat them silly....not noticing that all of the girls were taking refuge in my proximity.

I smacked (in my defence a stupid bint of a twonk) straight round the side of the head, and in full girly fashion she burst into tears and ran off to tell. I was left with the branch in the ready position shiting my pants for the prison that now approached, as she was in her words "deaf"

In the end she was being OTT and we all got our asses handed to us but GOD DAMN it was funny :D
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 3:00, Reply)
Mate of mine was at a party...
Standing on a balcony type thing (it was a terrace house in need of a renovation so there was a patio of sorts at the back, looking over the garden) when he saw the rather fetching actor Arkie Whitely* standing below, looking up at him.
He smiled, she smiled. He nodded and raised his glass, she smiled back. He thought "brilliant! I can take her a drink and she'll no doubt sleep with me!" so he picked up a bottle of wine and walked... straight off the edge of the balcony.
The roughly two metre drop into the garden left him in hospital with a broken leg and even worse, the report from others there that she'd not been looking at him in the first place and hadn't even seen him fall.
* Sadly she died a few years back, but remember the hot blonde in Mad Max 2 who ends up with The Sky Captain at the end? That's her.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 1:33, Reply)
BMX Track
As a child, I had a BMX. I used to take it down the BMX track near my home. As 16 year old, I was too big for my BMX, but one day I took it down the BMX track anyway, for old times sake. Randomly, there were a couple of cute girls there, who were watching me ride around the track. So I decided to show off.

The start of the track is a big, steep hill. At the bottom of the big steep hill, just as it flattened out, was a jump. I was going to do an awesome big jump. So I caned flat out down the hill, hit the jump, and got serious air. As I landed, the back wheel broke clean off my BMX, and bounced away. The rest of my BMX and I slid to a halt some distance down the track.

Miraculously unharmed, but sans dignity, I recovered my back wheel, put it back on my BMX, and rode straight home.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 1:03, Reply)
A sidecar named desire
There's something fundamentally slapstick about motorbikes and sidecars, never mind the fact that one holds the outright lap record for Brands Hatch, that makes them irresistible to sitcom writers. I'm ashamed to admit my headline has also been used for a Last of the Summer Wine episode. You never will get the comical separation of bike and chair, as so frequently depicted, but they are a hoot to ride.

It's nothing like a solo bike - you'd be amazed how many bikers don't imagine that third wheel will make a difference. The handlebars are there simply to provide something to hang onto, they're not much cop for steering purposes. No, to go left, you open the throttle. The bike accelerates around the sidecar, and hey presto you're turning anti-clockwise. To turn right, hit the brakes, and the sidecar finds itself moving faster than the bike. Pretty soon you'll be drifting round right-handers and waggling the sidecar wheel in the air round left-handers. Doesn't half impress other road users, that one. Especially your passengers. George and Mildred, my arse.

But the first time you try and ride one, blimey, Charlie. It's worse when you get that tiny bit of confidence, think you've cracked it, and decide to show off to your mates. You belt off round the block, whack open the throttle to get you round the last left-hander, with nonchalant grin under your piss-pot helmet. Then you realise the sidecar wheel isn't actually on terra firma, and nobody's written a post on an online forum telling you that's ok, it happens now and then, and whatever you do don't back off when it does. Your grin takes on something of the rictus, your ingrained habits kick in and your foot stomps the brake pedal while your hand takes a death-grip on the brake lever. If you were paying attention in the previous paragraph, you'll know what happens next: the bike slows, the sidecar slews round, and suddenly your mates are looking much less impressed as a ton of metal, patently out of control, heads straight for them on the pavement.

They jump out of the way as the outfit ploughs into the wall, leaving a huge dent in the brickwork. Bike, sidecar and rider all miraculously unscathed - truly the gods smile on drunks and fools, and, no, I'd not been drinking. All I can say is, there was some pretty impressive forward planning when it came to choosing the site of Bradford Road Safety Centre.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 0:29, 6 replies)
Spoilt Bastard
I hate this guy, so this slap-stick moment is what cheers me up when I'm reminded of him
This guy fucked me over and did well out of it.
We went to college to do Software Engineering together and had been in school together before then.
He was an only child (adopted) who verbally abused his slightly elderly parents to get all the computer games and expensive electric guitars he wanted. I was naive enough to think he could be alright given a chance, or some such bollocks.
He stole my girlfriend at a party when we were 16.
When we were at college I debugged his programs and showed him step by step how to create simple computer programs.
He stuck to me like glue for this purpose, he couldn't program a video recorder to record channel 4.
My programming lecturer and I didn't get on well (that's another story) so when our programming assignments were seen to have similarities, he pulled us and basically we were being watched so assignments had to be done separately.
Dickhead came to me to request help, begged to see my homework, I caved in and gave it to him on the strict proviso he did not copy it.
He copied it.
We were pulled for cheating. He stood there silently until I made excuses about working together on it. I got my grade lowered.
He got a typo on his certificate making it look like he was very good at programming. He's now a programmer in the civil service (where I live nobody gets fired in the civil service because the management are so weak), and I'm still struggling to find a decent job.
So anyway, back when I was a poor teenager, spoilt bastard would buy himself take away food on nights out and eat it all himself while we poor kids (who didn't bully our parents) looked on.
one night he bought a Pizza with ham, as he bit in to the fresh hot pizza a full 4x6 inch slice of ham slid off the pizza and stuck to his chin and neck burning the crap out of it.
I laughed so hard that tears rolled down my face.
(, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 0:07, 1 reply)
Not me, but
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7816336.stm

The man dangled for seven minutes.

Always makes me chuckle.
(, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 22:53, 4 replies)

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