Your biggest mistake ever?

geepondy

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 15, 2001
Messages
4,896
Location
Massachusetts
What is yours?

We probably all have our serious ones such as the girl we let get away, etc. but here is a lighter hearted one and I swear, completely true.

I was 19. Mid summer on a hot day. Had a job at restaurant ten miles away from home. On this particular day I hitchiked to work. I was picked up by three gorgeous girls in a convertible with no guys present, on their way to a concert some hundred miles away. They asked if I wanted to come along with them. I said no, I had to work.
 

AlexGT

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 15, 2001
Messages
3,651
Location
Houston, Texas
Finding CPF!!!

Now I can't stop looking at flashlights and buying the lattest bright gadgets /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Seriously, almost shooting myself with a handgun was the biggest mistake, the shot went thru my shirt and on to the TV. Stupid mistake indeed.

Alex
 

The_LED_Museum

*Retired*
Joined
Aug 12, 2000
Messages
19,414
Location
Federal Way WA. USA
When I was somewhere between 2 and 4 years old, I plugged the speaker wires of my brother's loudspeaker directly into a 120VAC outlet. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

8 ohms.
120 volts AC.
60Hz.
You figure out what happened. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 

Saaby

Flashaholic
Joined
Jun 17, 2002
Messages
7,447
Location
Utah
If we're going for lighthearted:

Several years ago, around Thanksgiving time, when "Who Wants to be a Millionare" was really popular--it was on TV. Well my dad was trying to nap on the couch. We have a nice big sub on our surround sound system and of course WWTBAM has that nice bass beat. Yes, this is going somewhere.

We had purchased a turkey that came with soup base.

My dad mumbles "Turn down the stupid bass"
what? I ask
"Don't argue with me, just turn down the stupid bass"

Well I don't remember exactly what he said, but I thought it was something along the lines of "Turn on the soup base" I thought it was a little strange (It was like 9:30 for heavens sake!) but I didn't dare anger him, so I went down to the kitchen and started to make...the soup base from the turkey.

10 minutes later, I'm down there chopping and dicing and heating and he's like "What are you doing?"

Yeah, we had a good laugh over that one.
 

raggie33

*the raggedier*
Joined
Aug 11, 2003
Messages
13,453
well i grew up near water well we lived on a lake at one point as kid well every day id swim but when i was very young hell id say 5 or so i barely remeber i was in lake and had one what is known as water wings. they go on ya arms to ya are a better swaimer and keep ya floating well i figured if i put em on my m knees i could stand on the water well needles to say it wasnt a good idea
 

mut

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 13, 2003
Messages
1,281
Location
OK
[ QUOTE ]
raggie33 said:
well i grew up near water well we lived on a lake at one point as kid well every day id swim but when i was very young hell id say 5 or so i barely remeber i was in lake and had one what is known as water wings. they go on ya arms to ya are a better swaimer and keep ya floating well i figured if i put em on my m knees i could stand on the water well needles to say it wasnt a good idea

[/ QUOTE ]

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gifI did almost the same thing when I was 4 or 5 in a pool with noone else around. It definately is not a good idea. Feet go up body goes down. When I finally started to make it to the ladder and up here comes MOM and is she scared and pssssd off. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dedhorse.gif
Needless to say I never never did that again.

mut
 

Greymage

Enlightened
Joined
Feb 19, 2002
Messages
406
Location
Austin, TX
Back in college I used to heat soup in the can (so I wouldn't have to wash a pot) by boiling it in water . One day I forgot I was doing this... the water ran out... KaBoom! Beef soup all over the ceiling. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

Luckily no one was in the kitchen, else it would be a sad story and not a funny one.
 

robk

Enlightened
Joined
Mar 11, 2003
Messages
608
Location
Near Daytona Beach, FL
Way back, maybe 22 years ago, I was working on modifying a Radio Shack Color Computer. The mod was to output to a monochrome monitor instead of a color TV, giving better resolution. I did the mod, and was admiring my jumpers and rewiring real close, it was still plugged into the wall socket. Well, I took a real close look and there was 2 exposed terminals on the power transformer with 120VAC that hit me right in the nose. Needless to say, I threw the circuit board across the room, but it got me right in the nose! I'm a lot more careful now, cause it hurt a lot and I still have a scar!
When I was a teenager I used to play with Vacuum tube Tesla Coils and other HV projects, I got so many shocks that I'm surprised I'm still here. A few shocks knocked me across the room, I never followed the "keep 1 hand in your pocket" rule. Maybe that's why my ECG's have been abnormal for 40 years! Kept me out of the Army in 1972!
Rob
 

Flying Turtle

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Jan 28, 2003
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Location
Apex, NC
It may not be my biggest, but it's at least honorable mention. I couldn't have been older than five and was playing with a bow and arrow that belonged to my older brother. The arrow had its tip removed, but was otherwise the real thing. I took aim at a tree and the arrow somehow shot off to the side and bounced off a police car that happened to be going past. I was escorted smartly home where the officer told me and my mother he ought to break the bow and arrow over his knee.
 

flownosaj

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Joined
Feb 24, 2003
Messages
1,235
Location
Fayetteville, NC
mine involved me as a young PFC, a fragmentation grenade, earplugs and a mis-understanding of "no" for "go".

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohgeez.gif

-Jason
 

Gandalf

Enlightened
Joined
Jul 3, 2001
Messages
802
Location
USA
[ QUOTE ]
robk said:
<SNIP>
When I was a teenager I used to play with Vacuum tube Tesla Coils and other HV projects, I got so many shocks that I'm surprised I'm still here. A few shocks knocked me across the room, I never followed the "keep 1 hand in your pocket" rule. Maybe that's why my ECG's have been abnormal for 40 years! Kept me out of the Army in 1972!
Rob

[/ QUOTE ]

D*mn! I'm glad you're still here! at least you didn't get shot or worse in 'Nam. My number was too high to get drafted. Four boys in the family, and we all got numbers above 250.
 

Rothrandir

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 17, 2002
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7,795
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US
don't diss the superthumb /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

yes, it was a carefully crafted part of my master plan. muahahahahaha.
 

DieselDave

Super Moderator,
Joined
Sep 3, 2002
Messages
2,703
Location
FL panhandle
I have so many it would crash the server again.

How about turning down a job managing the sales dept. of a start-up printing company that occupied 2000sf. Last I heard they had sales of $160,000,000 for the year. The guy that took the job happened to be a friend of mine and was given a 2,500 sf house as a Christmas bonus one year.

Or,
Walking backwards through a door at a rodeo and knocking Barbara Mandrell down right before she went on stage. I was not treated well by security for that mistake.

Sad part is...I'm not even scratching the surface. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 

TOB9595

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Joined
Aug 3, 2002
Messages
988
Location
UNDER GOD
Lots of chuckles here.
"no for Go"
Can't you just picture it /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Ahh the mistakes I've made....
Could make for an interesting book
Tom
 

James S

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 27, 2002
Messages
5,078
Location
on an island surrounded by reality
well, if you're willing to skip over girlfriends in high school

One day, about 2 weeks before the internet stupid stock bubble burst I had the pleasure of looking at my portfolio and thinking, "boy, if this keeps up for another 10 years I'll be a millionaire!"

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif lol, why there wasn't someone to suggest to me to "oh my god sell out NOW" I'll never know /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Then there was this time I was installing some under cabinet lighting in the kitchen of our first apartment. Since we were renting I wasn't going to do a permanent install, just use some lamp cord and run it to 2 nice little fixtures and plug or unplug it to turn them on and off. So I mounted the fixtures and decided to cannibalize an extension cord for the plug and cable. In order to get the length right to the plug, I plugged it in and measured it to the first lamp. At this point something happened to distract me from the next step, which should have been unplugging the cord, and I skipped right to the next one of cutting it off at length with my wire clippers. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif I was surprised, and embarrassed but was not hurt. Did spend a few minutes walking off the adrenalin rush from the very impressive plasma ball that erupted in my face though...

(I think I've told that last story here before, this kind of thread pops up every so often)
 

B@rt

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Land of Tulips and Philips
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