She's lucky she wasn't "clinging" to a booze bottle at the time.

Thank you for reminding me how boring my life is. [:(]

I worked at the University-owned airport in college.  In an effort to boost morale, the management bought us a BBQ pit, picnic table, etc. to use while on duty.  A bunch of us threw together a bunch of groceries to char and it was my job to light the pit.  I dumped in the charcoal but soon realized we had no lighter fluid. "no problem", I think, "a little Avgas will work just fine."

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the properties of 100LL Avgas but it is, shall we say, light.  It evaporates VERY quickly.  Oh, it doesn't go away, though, just airborne.  Well, I dump the ol' Avgas on the coals, let "soak in" for a few seconds, then proceed to light 'er up.  About the time the match struck I realized my folly but, alas, too late.  I remember, as clearly as if it happened five minutes ago, watching the fireball develop toward, and ultimately around, my head.  Fortunately, in that split second epiphany I closed my mouth and my eyes and began to dive away, posthaste.  

Once the smoke cleared I discovered that a coworker whad noticed what I was about to do and summoned everyone to the window to be witnesses.  Everyone was rolling with laughter, a condition only intensified by the smoke eminating from the remains of my mustache and eyebrows.  Everyone had a good laugh, myself included, once I recovered from the near-death thoughts.

As you say, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Easy question for me.  All four times I got married!

Damn girl, you need some new friends!

In Southern, that's expressed as "Hold my beer and watch this!"

[:D] Wheeee!
LMAO!

sounds like a pretty fun friend to me.

Ahhh.. [:D]  I LOVE threads like this. Exactly why I come to AR15.com. I was having a bad day up to this point. Wheeee! (chuckle). I have a pretty vivid mental image of that one. Great description. Thanks Tatjana!

My own "seemed like a good idea" stories? Well, the statute of limitations have not run out on most of them yet [;)]


Aviator  [img]www.milpubs.com/aviator.gif[/img]

That sounds like one for the pinup calendar, along with that pic of Miss Magnum with that fellow in the headlock.

"Women of AR15.Com 2002 Implied Violence Calendar"

Please tell me your friend was nekkid also as this will rank way up there as a "sweet dream"...[^]

I have so many of these they have to be divided into categories. Let's see:

Explosives
Sex
cars/boats/motorcycles/lawnmowers
gullible friends
alcohol

I'm pretty sure I can fit most things into the above.

Ditto! You know, sometimes I really HATE the fact that I LOVE this board so friggin' much!

My father not long after WWII at Bay Meadows was dared by a friend to go out on the race track and run around the track.

The 9th race was held up while he ran around the track. He received a standing ovation from the crowd but for some reason was asked to leave and never come back again.

My dad and one of my brothers have many more stories that are at least this stupid and some of them are very funny.

THISISME

Seattle,

Spring '97, college had just ended for the summer.

between 12 and 2am.  A group us were at a boring party, so we decided to ditch it and go swimming.  We decided to swim in the Montlake Cut by the UW football stadium.  

Well we are only in the water for a few minutes before someone decides that we should swim across the Cut.  One girl declines but the rest of us go.  We get to the other side and decide to walk back across the Montlake Bridge instead of swimming back.  Did I mention we were all naked?  So as we're walking back to our clothes we see a police car hauling ass across the parking lot, right toward our stuff.

No big deal we thought as we walked towards our stuff, then we see the 6 other police cars already sitting by our stuff.  Oh crap we thought.  So we ran back and hid in one of the big Christmas type trees that was along the path.  So 7 of us are freezing at 2 in the morning hiding from the cops in this tree.  After a half hour or so we decided that they weren't leaving so we all walked down to the cops, leaving one girl and another person in the tree.  

We get down to the cops as a Harbor Patrol boat pulls up, and the cops are calling in a K9 unit.  Great we thought, we are all going to jail.  Well lucky for us the cops didn't feel like hauling all of us off to jail, so we just got questioned, and threatened with a littering ticket.  Oh yeah, they made us pour out our case and a half of Rainer Beer.  So we got dressed ran to our cars and got the hell out of there.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

When I was about 12 I had the idea stuck in my head that a primer was merely a spark that ignited the gunpowder...but I just had to know(I thought at the very most it would be just a little pop).  Well, about 11:00 p.m.(didn't want my parents to catch my little pyro ass messing around with gunpoweder) I pried open the crimping on a .410 and removed the BB's, and then I pulled out the wadding and dumped all the powder.

Then I cut off all of the plastic up to the brass, and I got a hammer and a nail...

..hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time...anyway back to the story...





[size=6]KA-BOOM![/size=6]

I was taken completely by surprise, the primer actually was [b]louder[/b] than a .410 being fired! The blast kind of disoriented me for a second, and then I realized that there was about 1/4 of the brass casing stuck in my thumb, which was bleeding profusely.  Upon further inspection, it came to my attention that not only was the casing stopped by the bone, but strangely, there was not much pain.

I pulled the brass out of my thumb and went upstairs to get a band-aid. Then I discovered that the noise had woken up my mom, who seemed to be concerned that my thumb was bleeding.  I told her that I had smashed it with a hammer, and after the bleeding subsided she went back to sleep. I cleaned up the incriminating evidence, and went to bed...I finally told her what really happened that night a couple months ago.  

On the plus side I learned to have a healty respect for primers.[BD]

The reply to doesn't show your tag line -but - that story and your tag line just well. The irony is powerful

It seemed like a good idea at the time to quit college before I graduated because I had a good job.  I was promised great things by my employer, and most of them were coming true.  Until this spring.  now I'm unemployed, wishing I'd stayed in school, and planning to sign up for the ANG so they can pay to fix my mistake.

Ben

well, mine seemed like a good idea at the time, on nite me and a friend were really bored, nothing to do, couldnt think of any thing to do so we decedied in all our wisdom to go out side and beat on the heavy bag for awhile, well that lasted about 5 mins till me being the idiot i am asked him "hey you want to box" of course this lead to a lot of pain and stupidity on our parts since we used bag gloves, to make a long story short, i got nocked cold and he ended up with a broke nose and a lot of bruses,and black eyes, and one chiped tooth. seemed like a good idea at the time.Ronald

1987. My college roommate and I were both 2LTs in the same reserve unit in Michigan (prior to our active duty assignments).  We were on patrol one evening and both our squad-sized patrols linked up at about 2am (very difficult to do this correctly without everybody shooting everybody up).  Anyway, we received a Frag Order to conduct a hasty assault on a relatively small position (about 10 guys).  When we reached the objective, we broke into support and assault elements, and began the assault.  About 2 minutes into the assault, my roommate is asked to provide (simulated) LAW fire in the vicinity of some vehicles.  Now, pointing an empty tube and yelling bang wasn't good enough for [i]him[/i], so he opens his ruck and pulls out a magnesium parachute flare (the kind where you break the seal, pull of the top cap, place it over the bottom, and give it a WHACK).  Before anybody can stop him, he holds the thing out in front of him, parallel to the ground and aimed at a group of 2 1/2 ton trucks, and gives the bottom a WHACK.

The flare (now an AT rocket) proceeds about 75 yards into the side of the deuce and a half, penetrates the canvas cover (about $2000) and into the center of the truck bed, igniting various tents, dunnage and equipment.  THEN the flare deploys and the magnesium proceeds to burn a hole in nearly [i]everything[i/] in the truck bed.

When we put the fire out (and luckily saved the truck, sans canvas cover), the OIC in charge of the exercise asks my roommate why he did it.  The answer, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

The damage report/statement of charges said that the flare was aimed upward, but struck an unseen tree branch and ricocheted into the truck, all on accident.  The unit picked up the replacement cost for the cover and gear.

A Leading Cause of Death, around Heeyu!

The scary thing is that my IQ is estimated at 129, and if I am supposed to be so damned smart, and yet I can still do something as stupid as that...well, I'd hate to see the "It seemed like a good idea at the time" list of somebody with an IQ of approximately 90. [:E]

DeBary, FL Summer of 1986.

My then girlfriend was an active competitor in "Eventing," the olympic equestrian sport of taking rider through three tests of discipline and endurance.  (Dressage, Cross Country, and Stadium)  Dressage is like watching cement set to the audience, Cross Country is the exciting stuff where you run the horse and jump over large fences, and Stadium is a combination of the two.

Anyhoo, she was preparing for a major competition and decided that I could help her by taking her large, beautiful, powerful, $20,000 Thoroughbred gelding for a nice run out on the powerline roads.  We didn't have a track, so the large square (about 200 yds each side) made by 4 lines intersecting is as close as we could get.  Good plan right?

We got out there, put the stirrups (the things your feet go into) up nice and high, like a race jockey.  Got him into a nice gallop on the first leg...wind in my ears...big horse thundering along...life is good.  

We got to the first turn and he charged it, running wide of the trail.  No problem, I thought,  I will just rein him in BERFORE the next turn.  He took the bit in his teeth and charged the next corner and took it way too wide at a fast run!  I was looking at a guy wire (sp) leading to one of the power poles coming up fast.  I tried to pull him over and bring my foot up as high as possible, but still ended up hitting the wire.

As I was flying 15' through the air, I heard the loudest "BOOM" of my entire life.  We had broken one of the ceramic insulators on a high power line!  My gf told me that she saw a huge blue/white ball of fire.  I had a mild concussion and badly sprained ankle for my effort and the horse had a bruise on his chest.  

As soon as my girlfriend and I got back to her house, I had her take my new riding boots off. (Nightmares about medical scissors cutting it from my leg)  I called the power company to tell them that I had broken their powerline, but they thought I was nuts.

Anyway...it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Ft.Campbell, KY, spring of '63, we had been running night ops excercises and had been given the afternoon off but remained in the field.  Bored and restless, take a 105 recoilless shell casing and bury it half it's length in the ground, add all you can find of 4.2 mortar propellant packets to the bottom of the casing after stripping the insulation from one end of a long piece of commo wire and laying it in the casing.  Insert a slightly modified practice round from a 3.5 rocket launcher, touch the other end of the commo wire to the battery of the "mule"....no one in hell would have believed how high and how far that thing went...no one was killed...

 Many years ago as a bored teen in the dogdays of summer my friends and I decided to make a lifelike dummy and hang it from an overpass on the highway.  After several hours of work we had a GOOD looking dummy and no rope to hang it with, so we used some old 30lb fishing line.  When we pulled up to the overpass one guy tied the line to the railing and the other guy was supposed to gently lower the dummy, instead he threw it over the side and we took off.   About 10 minutes later we recon the site and find some really nice skidmarks and a car on the shoulder of the freeway with a lady in tears talking to the police. Thank god we didnt cause an accident or even worse.   I cannot imagine tooling down the road at 55 and seeing a body fly off of the overpass and hit the road in front of you!
  Good idea at the time, but I cant believe that we were that damned stupid to do such a thing.

Back in 1985 when I turned 16, my uncle gave me his '68 Torino GT to fix up for my first car. The car had a cherry 289 in it, but the rest of it was a wreck to say the least. He had used it as his company truck and beat the hell out of it. It had holes in the floorboards that you could stick both feet through, non-functioning rear brakes, missing the passenger's seat, the headlights didn't work, etc...

With all these problems, I decided in my sixteen year old wisdom that what this car really needed was a little 8" chrome steering wheel. So I saved up some money and bought one of those $20 chrome Pep Boys specials, the problem was that I had only saved enough for the wheel and the install kit. I didn't have anything left over to buy a steering wheel puller.

So I get home and start trying to take the steering wheel off. I pull on it, beat it with a hammer, pry on it with a 2"X4", the damn thing just won't budge. So I get behind the wheel and begin to pull as hard as I can, pushing my feet through the rusted floorboards, until finally the wheel pops off and hits me right in the bridge of my nose and knocks me unconscious. I woke up a while later, I don't know how long I was out for, covered in blood, with a splitting headache, and two black eyes.

The steering wheel never did fit either.

In 1979 I bought my neighbors husbands (he passed away a couple months before) 68 Caddy 2-door Coupe DeVille with a 472 engine for $400.
Being the dumb-ass I was I dropped a set of 3.40 rear gears in it. One Saturday evening I went out with a couple of friends to go cruising. We ended up at the local Stater Brothers market to buy some munchies. Since we were in a "silly" mood my friend Ron hopped into a shopping cart and we wheeled him over to the front grill of the Caddy. I started pushing him around the parking lot, getting up to about 30 mph or so. He started to make noise about what a sissy I was, so I started him and the cart off in the direction of the main street (probably a good  1/4 mile in the parking lot and service road).
I floored it and that Caddy lit up the Uniroyals. There was tire smoke, rubber and pavement being flung all over the palce bhind the car. The rear wheels finally hooked up and I launched hard. I hit about 60 mph when I saw Ron going crazy. About that time my friend Ken saw a cop head over at us with his lights on.
I slammed on the brakes (Hey, there goes Ron!) and wheeled over and stopped. About that time I heard a squeeling, looked over and saw Ron and the shopping cart heading out the exit of the lot and onto the street doing probably 40. He crossed over and hit the center divider. He went end over end into the landscaping in the center of the island, the shopping cart flipped and self-destructed. The cop looked at me and sped away over to Ron. Ron was laying in a bunch of bushes. When the cop got there he looked at Ron, and that's when Ron got up and started running! I put the Caddy into first gear and took off in the other direction. that cop didn't know what to do. I went home and parked the car in the back yard. About an hour later I get a call from Ron telling me that he was ok.
The next day my dad gets a call from the local PD and wants to know if his Caddy had been stolen. They tell him thay have the remains of a shopping cart and there is the front liscense plate from his Caddy tangeled up in the mess.
I ended up having to replace the shopping cart and apologizing to the cop.
Ron still gives me shit about that.
 

Sorry but that's not the way it works.
Imagine a baseline stupid stunt (BSS). Baseline or average IQ is 100 (by definition). So the guy with an IQ of 90, is really only capable of a stupid stunt of say 2^(90/100), or 1.87 BSS. You, OTOH, with your IQ of 129, are capable of a 2^(126/100), or 2.39 BSS.

I was 19 and at a keg party,the hottest girl you can imagine asks me if she can sit on my lap to quote "make her boyfriend jealous"
Well it seemed like a really good idea at the time (she was wearing short shorts and a halter top)I remember thinking that if he got really mad and they had a fight she might like to go somewhere real private and let me console her,
well like all beer induced "good ideas" this one turned to shit real fast,her boyfriend was a biker and he had several friends with him.
It turns out that the girl was a stand up chick and quick with the explanation that i was her cousin and that if he laid one finger on me that he would not be laying one finger on her.
I look back at that night and said "it seemed like a good idea at the time" LOL

Ok, here's mine. When I was 15 years old, I had built this way cool mini bike. It had a 4 stroke Briggs in it but, it was kinda doggy. So I had this idea that  I could put this really fast, 2 stroke, go-cart engine in it. It fit in the frame good, but the output shaft was a different size than the one on the Briggs so the clutch could not be used. Bummer. Then I found a gear that was the right size, installed that sucker, hooked up the chain,(it is now direct drive) and pushed that bad boy, and away I went. That was on Saturday. I had tuned it to run about 45 mph!(scrub brake only) On Sunday, me and my bud Willie,(he, had a real dirt bike) went ridin' and for some reason I could only muster 'bout 35 outta her. I figured that something must have "happened" to the carb adjustment.(it had a case reed type set-up on the BACK of the engine)So I lean down, reach THROUGH the chain,(I'm ridin' the damn thing fer cryin' out loud!)adjust the FIRST screw on the carb, I never got to the SECOND screw, my finger got caught in the chain,(all this happened in nano seconds)blood was flyin' in my sunglasses,(had to look cool)the bike quit moving,(broke chain)I dumped it and then went to the hospital. First finger, left hand,(trigger finger) whacked off just above the first knuckle. Talk about STUPID!!
AB

Mine is dumber, than some but not as bad as most.

When I was 15 I bough an old Russian single shot .22, for gophers you understand [:D]

I bought the cheapest ammo I could find, and went hunting with it. I was sorely saddened by it's performance. So I though I would make it a bit "peppier"  I used my leatherman to pull a bullet off, which I proceeded to push through the chamber and actually into the rifling bit, then I pulled more bullets and started dumping powder into the chamber (Now here comes the really stupid part) I put a full ROUND into the chamber, it did not want to go in so I used to bolt to force it in. then I waited, eventually I saw a gopher, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger............


needless to say I do not have that .22 anymore, I went home with a bleeding cheek, and a numb hand. I do not think it was the extra powder per se, I think it was my being a dumbass and having an obstructed bore


Glad I am smarter now [grenade]

Well there was this one time when I tried to bring a small set of tools on the airplane with me...
[flame]

Here is mine.

I was 15/16 at the time and heavy into rocketry. Used to build the Estates rocket kits all the time.

My friends and I decided that small rockets were boring, so we got a 55 gallon drum. One of the guys placed an aluminum nose cone on the top of the barrel. Wings were also added for stability.

We saved up our money for a few months, and bought out the heavy duty rocket engines at 2 hobby stores.

We then lines both the inside AND outside of the drum with said rocket engines. We also had some electronic ignition switches, so we wired several engines into each switch.

One afternoon after school in a field... 5,4,3,2,1, LIFTOFF!

Amazingly enough all the rockets fired at about the same time, there was very little yaw for about the first 20 to 30 feet up or so. The barrel then started to tip to the left, and after another 15 feet up, the damn thing started to tip over.

I don't think I have ever run so fast.

The barrel hit the ground and skipped all over the field, eventually slamming into some trees and getting caught up in ground clutter.

The barrel in now in my buddies back yard, being used as a planter.

Av.

In 1975 while in college the city (Pittsburgh)was installing new traffic lights at the intersection outside our dorm room.  The new ones were activated but the old ones remained, shut off, for several weeks.  One Sat night full of liquid courage my roommate and I planned a heist of one of the old traffic lights.  I got a pair of diagonal cutters and a coil of rope from my trunk and about 03:30 we went for the light.  I climbed the light pole and slid out the horizontal arm to tie off the rope on the light and cut the bands holding the light to the arm.  My roommate took up the slack and I cut the bands.  That's when we found out that traffic lights are considerably heavier than they look.  Chuck lost his grip and the light crashed to the middle of the intersection.  I slid off the horizontal light support arm, hung there by my hands, and dropped to the pavement alongside the now-smashed objective.  Chuck was long gone, and I had the presence of mind to pick up the dikes and the rope and lit my own afterburners.   ISLAGIATT.

Noah

Another, the day I took the bus home:

In 1976 (IIRC) the Port Authority Transit drivers went on strike one afternoon.  I had ridden a PAT 61 bus downtown (Pittsburgh) from CMU to get drafting supplies for a project presentation, and darned if the PAT bus driver didn't pull over in the 1400 or 1500 block of Forbes, not a nice neighborhood.  He shuts off the bus and gets out with a "On Strike" sign and stands on the sidewalk.  On the bus are about a dozen or 15 people, most senior citizen and a couple college kids like me, and most looking scared.  I was pissed.

To this day I can't explain what posessed me, but I walked up the aisle and ducked under the chromium pipe and hit the starter and the door closer at the same time.  The driver turned around and started banging on the door saying I can't do that, and I hollered out that I paid for a f***ing ticket and I'm getting the ride.  I checked the mirror and pulled out into traffic, got on the mic and asked the other passengers to hit the bell cord and I'd stop at their stops.  Much cheering and clapping.  I took it all the way to Braddock to drop off the last passengers, a retired couple, and returned to the PAT bus stop at the corner of Forbes and Morewood, parked it at the stop right beside the ATO frat house, got my stuff, and went to the dorm.  A PAT wrecker came later and hauled off the bus.

Noah

I have always enjoyed Aggie stories and Aggie jokes -Bill

Suggested subtitle:

"Aggie meets Fuel-Air Munition, up close and personal"


Noah

Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
That doesn't deserve to be in this thread.