Stupidest thing you've done

[Alaskan Rover]

What's the stupidest/silliest thing you've done lately?

Me....I'm lucky enough to have done MANY stupid/silly things in my life....some with hilarious consequences. Without those stupid and/or silly moments, life might be pretty boring, right?

My latest was just this morning:

I got up early to cook a whole houseful of people a special Sunday pancake breakfast.
This one was an early one, though...way earlier than I usually like on a Sunday....and that must have had something to do with it.

So I get the batter going, get some toast in the toster, pour the OJ, put the cooking spray and spatula on the counter next to the stove, ready to go. People starting to wake up...coming into the kitchen with squinty sleep-eyes. The show's about to start...when I flip pancakes, I like to flip them really high...and my pancake-making becomes a Sunday Morning Show of sorts.

Spray the griddle, pour the batter...start flipping...first batch nice...golden brown...so far so good...pick up the cooking spray again...spray down the griddle again...WAIT what's this??.....what the fuck did I just DO????? I had forgot that I had sprayed my sneakers the night before with shoe/foot deodorant...and left the can on the counter.
Cooking spray = white can, green top. Foot spray = white can, green top.

I fucking sprayed the griddle with foot deodorant spray!! I contemplate what to do for a moment...will anybody notice? keep going? Look around furtively....FUCK, they all saw...I'm so screwed. "OMG...you fuckin' sprayed shoe powder into our pancakes, DUDE??!! WTF???" Luckily, people haven't lost their sense of humor, and hilarity ensues.

Can I help it if a can of foot/shoe deodorant spray looks EXACTLY like my can of cooking spray?? But somehow, I think it'll be a while before I live this particular episode down.

That's got to be the stupidest thing I've done in 24 hours!

MORAL: Don't use shoe deodorant for cooking spray.




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[Ted Striker]

So how did it taste?

[Alaskan Rover]

So how did it taste?

Better than my shoes.

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[concretejungle]

Reading an Alaskan Rover post/thread.

[Big Snowballs]

Marriage !

[G]

Unsmart?

[powdork]

well it had to be better than the garlic olive oil pancakes you were gonna give 'em.

[GeezerSteve]

publishing on the Internet a written account of the stupidest thing I've ever done

[Chainsaw_Willie]

well it had to be better than the garlic olive oil pancakes you were gonna give 'em.

Yah, what's up with that? If Garlic olive oil pancakes are your Sunday morning specialty, I think I'll politely decline breakfast at your place if I'm ever up that way.

As for stupidest thing? I can't think of one really big thing, just a series of gaffs and poor decisions throughout my life.

One thing that stands out was when I was fixing up an old Nova. I put a new cam and lifters in it and had the cylinder head re-machined. When you install a new cam and lifters in an engine you're supposed to run the engine for 20 mins or so at varying RPMs with no load to bed the lifters and cam lobes together, then change the oil and you're good to start driving. I forgot to put water in the radiator prior to the initial break-in. By the time I realized what was wrong the paint was burning off the cylinder head, the exhaust manifold was glowing cherry red and the rest of the engine was so hot that it seized instantly when I killed the ignition. Had to pull the whole engine and rebuild it after that.

[Jethro]

I went to load my sled on my trailer recently. Neglected to latch the ball hitch and when I drove the sled onto the trailer, it pushed the back of the trailer down, and pushed the tongue of the trailer into my 4runner, denting the rear hatchback.

Last summer, I loaded by dirt bike carrier into the rear hitch of the same 4runner. I did it in a rush in the dark and did not slide the carrier all the way in. The cross bolt did not catch it. The next day, about ten miles up the road from town, I saw the bike and carrier sliding down the road behind me. Fortunately it was a slow country road and I was doing about 25mph. Let me tell you, dirt bikes are tough!

[char]

Search function, JONG!

[Alaskan Rover]

Yah, what's up with that? If Garlic olive oil pancakes are your Sunday morning specialty, I think I'll politely decline breakfast at your place if I'm ever up that way.

As for stupidest thing? I can't think of one really big thing, just a series of gaffs and poor decisions throughout my life.

One thing that stands out was when I was fixing up an old Nova. I put a new cam and lifters in it and had the cylinder head re-machined. When you install a new cam and lifters in an engine you're supposed to run the engine for 20 mins or so at varying RPMs with no load to bed the lifters and cam lobes together, then change the oil and you're good to start driving. I forgot to put water in the radiator prior to the initial break-in. By the time I realized what was wrong the paint was burning off the cylinder head, the exhaust manifold was glowing cherry red and the rest of the engine was so hot that it seized instantly when I killed the ignition. Had to pull the whole engine and rebuild it after that.

Not to worry...the garlic/olive oil spray was just some pic I found on the web...as it had a green lid. The actual cooking spray was canola oil...without garlic.

I had a suburban that lost its reverse gear. I decided I could rebuild the tranny myself after reading a couple library books on the subject. I tracked down a friend's garage that had some available shop floor space...rent for the space was basically a few 12 packs of his favorite beer and then after the project started taking longer than anticipated...the rent had to be upped to bourbon and finally scotch.

I poured over my library books and got to work. Got the tranny out and on the bench....only cost ONE trip to the emergency room. 350 Turbo-Hydromatic automatic transmissions are MUCH more complicated than I'd ever thought...and a two-day job extended on to two-weeks!! But I persevered...had the whole workbench and half the floor littered with a miscellany of parts. FINALLY I got all the parts back together..the thging looked about like it showed in the pictures...labored further to get the thing back in the suburban...no emergency room this time.

Finally the big day comes for the test-drive. I back the thing out and onto the street...so far so good...power it up and head down the street....good....then I smell an ATROCICIOUS burning smell...and the suburban comes to a halt...along with my good vibes. What the hell? It worked great for about 1/4 mile. That's it.

We get the Sub back to the shop...and as I'm morosely cleaning up my friend's workbench...underneath a paint can on the bench, I find a race-bearing. I forgot to put the race-bearing back in and didn't see it there was a paint can on top of it. Without that race-bearing...the transmission burns up quickly, and it did exactly that.

I've learned to always check under paint cans and check things off on a list when puttings engines and trannies back together.

Lesson learned.....again.

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[userA]

too many words

that felt good and stupid
bobby

[wooley12]

I don't think I ever learned anything really useful that I didn't screw up first.

[luffski]

I've posted some dumbass videos on the interwebz for sure.

[rideit]

Squandering my considerable fortune trying to market ear-wax as a condiment. My vision was for it to replace mayonaise and vegemite...

[Alaskan Rover]

Squandering my considerable fortune trying to market ear-wax as a condiment. My vision was for it to replace mayonaise and vegemite...

Your problem, perhaps, was one of marketing. One must find the most earwax-supportive culture. Now, normally to sell condiments, you have to go to India....especially New Delhi. For whatever reason, they go crazy for condiments over there. But that is not necessarily the case for earwax. Earwax palettes are so much more cultured. To sell earwax ANYTHING, including condiments, one must make the pilgramage to Japan...they LOVE their earwax. Label it as an aphrodisiac and it will do especially well. As a condiment, that might be a harder sell...but I'm pretty sure if you sell it as an earwax/wasabi sauce, you'll have a mover on your hands. You can call it "Waxabi". It'll sell. Anybody want to invest?

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[Crock]

Aside from spending almost 3 years with my ex, I can pinpoint the single stupidest thing I've ever done.

I was a senior in HS, and had about a 20 minute drive from my house to school. In typical teenager fashion, I'd wake up about 25 minutes before I had to be there, leaving just enough time to throw on some clothes and hop in my car. One bleary-eyed morning I was driving to school, and in my sleepy stupor noticed that the Chevy emblem on my steering wheel was rotated about 45 degrees when I was going straight. My OCD kicked in, believing that the emblem should be straight when the car was going straight and it started to bug me. So I turned the wheel slowly until it was straight, but of course I was now on the next lane on the highway. So I moved back into my lane and this thought sincerely inhabited my brain: Maybe if I turn the wheel real quickly, the emblem will straighten itself out before the car starts to turn...

And so I tried it- at about 70mph on a 4 lane divided highway. I spun around a few times and wound up in the grassy median, thankfully no worse for the wear but needed a tow truck to pull me out. And so now I fully believe that sleepy driving is just a dangerous as drunk driving.

[Kied]

Read the Crass "Violence" thread.

[drboudreaux]

I typically lurk, but had to chime in here. Lame. This thread is lame.

Next time start a thread about your favorite Hostess snack.

[theshredder]

I've posted some dumbass videos on the interwebz for sure.

Ya me too... started posting on TGR.

[Tippster]

I typically lurk, but had to chime in here. Lame. This thread is lame.

Next time start a thread about your favorite Hostess snack.

I'm not sure that's a novella I want to read.

[drboudreaux]

Tippster, meet sarcasm. Sarcasm, Tippster.