I can’t take it anymore. Admin’s stories are putting me into a deep depression. So I have decided to fight back. Following are a few stories from my life that always bring a smile to my face when I think of them. Perhaps they will lose something in the retelling. But I will smile to remember them.
1) I was brought up around guns. We had all kinds of guns come and go through my home – rifles/handguns/shotguns/single shot/pump/semi-auto – you name it and it passed through. We were always trading guns with friends. It was sort of like the way some folks trade baseball cards.
One day, a friend of my dad’s was around, and of course wanted to see what new (not new new, but new to us) guns we had. We had a new semi-auto shotgun. The brand I have long forgotten. This particular gun had a particular little quirk – the loading mechanism was self-loading. You put the shell to the magazine, and ‘ka-ching ka-ching”, the shell would be loaded. Two pointy prongs would grab the shell and load it into the gun. It would also grab whatever else came near and load it into the gun as well. It was particularly fond of loading fingers – which was something you wanted to avoid owing to the pointy prong things.
My dad duly brought out the new shotgun, and handed it to his friend, who began examining it. He started to probe around the loading mechanism with his fingers. My dad said “you want to be careful of that or it will get you.” His friend replied, “It’s ok, I have one just like it at home.” This was immediately followed by “‘ka-ching ka-ching” and a loud howl – the friend had loaded his thumb up past the second knuckle into the gun. Without missing a single beat my father replied “And I bet you do that all the time, too”. (My old man was funny as hell.). Blood poured out of the opening – the sharp prongs had done their job nicely – down the man’s hand and arm and onto the floor. He was screaming “get it off get it off!” But my father and I were totally incapable of helping him – we were laughing so hard tears were streaming down our cheeks. It was by far the single funniest thing I have ever seen. It was the “I have one just like it at home” comment that was the cherry on top.
We finally stopped laughing long enough to get him loose from that gun (we got rid of it ASAP as it was a man-trap, for sure), and sent him for stitches. But every time we got together my father and I retold that story and would laugh like it had just happened.
2) One day I was sitting in my car outside a grocery store. I was in my early 20’s. In the parking lot and on the adjoining sidewalk there was a group of teenage girls talking. A boy of the same age was riding his bike back and forth – one of the old stingray types – and obviously decided it was a good opportunity to impress the girls. He began to do wheelies up and back along the side walk. He was pretty good at it, but the girls were feigning disinterest. After several passes, during a wheelie, he hit a bump in the sidewalk, which flipped him backward and sideways onto his back – and into a large pothole about a foot deep full of water. He climbed out of the pothole covered in mud and muddy water, and red-faced – with the girls snickering of course. I was perhaps 10 or 15 feet away.
Being the kind soul I am, I rolled down the window of the car, leaned out, pointed, and went “Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Bwahahahahahahahaha!” He turned an incredible shade of purple and started cussing me, and picked up his bike and stalked off. The girls went from small snickers to full-on braying at this stage. Maybe you had to be there, but it sure was funny.
3) When I was a young teen – perhaps thirteen – a friend and I set out one summer day in search of adventure. We carried with us the holy grail of all boys of our age – a bag full of firecrackers. We had everything – black cats, cherry bombs, and the big daddy of them all – the mighty M-80. An M-80 would take down a mailbox or take your hand off if you weren’t careful (seriously). We loved M-80s. So off we went, in search of adventure, armed to the teeth with a bagful of fireworks.
We were country boys, and so there were lots of things to blow up, which we duly did. During our wander, we came upon a stack of irrigation pipes. These pipes were perhaps 20 feet or so long and maybe 8” in diameter. The stack was quite long – perhaps 20 yards long and over 6” high – in other words a huge wall of irrigation pipes. As we came to the wall of pipes, we noticed Farmer John on the other side of the wall working – we could see him through the pipes, but he had his back to us. We immediately hatched our evil plan. We took out one of our prized M-80s, and put it into one of the pipes as far as we could reach, at approximately Farmer John’s head height, and lit it and stood back several feet.
Anyone familiar with M-80s knows that they are loud – and I mean really loud. However, I simply cannot explain the way a stack of irrigation pipes is able to magnify the sound of an M-80 going off. It is the single loudest thing I have ever heard. It was simply ground shaking. And it went off at head height of poor Farmer John, who was only 3 or 4 feet away from the pipes.
We immediately crapped ourselves, because it was way more than we had expected, and took off across the field lickety-split, continuously looking over our shoulders (Farmer Johns were known to carry shotguns, and weren’t afraid to use them in such a situation). We had gotten well and truly away when Farmer John finally made it around the corner of the pipe stack, clutching both hands over his ears.
Nothing ever came of it – although he must have known it was us. We made ourselves scarce from Farmer John’s farm for quite a while, though. And my friend and I laughed about it for years afterwards. And it still makes me smile to this day. Sorry Farmer John.
OK – so there is a start. Let’s hear some of your stories that make you smile. We need a good laugh. And if you do a good job, I will tell you my “cherries” story, which is my family’s favorite story (largely because I am the butt of the joke). Enough of the Admin’s doom and gloom. Time to fight back. OK, let’s have them.
I’ll tell one. When I was sixteen, I needed some money to go to McDonalds with friends. So I collected a bag of stuff from my room and took it to a pawn shop. My friend wouldn’t go in with me. she sat in the car saying “I wouldn’t do this if I were you.” I thought she was just trying to discourage me.
So I went in, and the two young men working in there did want to see what I brought in. So I reached in the bag and got out my small teddy bear, my alarm clock, and some other small things. By this time one of the guys was doubled over laughing, and the other one tried to keep a straight face while telling me “It needs to be something OF WORTH. Something like jewelry, guns, musical instruments, that kind of thing.”
I left feeling very sheepish!
Lisa – very funny! Embarrassing but funny!
Not sure if this is funny but it’s one of my favorite stories of growing up.
Like most youths of 16 or so my friends and I were always looking for ways to purchase beer. Sometimes we were lucky enough to find someone going into the convenience store who would buy us a six pack or more . Most often than not it would be me going into the store to buy the beer. I was always the one that had to do it because at 16 I was 6′ 2″, a lot taller than most of my friends.
I would go into the store we’d picked out,pick up a few six packs and take them to the counter. If the clerk asked for ID I used the old ” I left it in the car ” excuse . I’d hop back into the car and away we’d go .We did this until we scored some brew.
One evening I went to the 7-11 to get some beer for me and my buddies . I grabbed a six pack and walked up to the counter,ahead of me was another customer . The clerk asked the guy in front of me for his ID. When the guy showed it to the clerk,the clerk remarked,” I have a great memory for faces,if you show me your ID once you’ll never have to show it to me again”. So when the guy in front of me walked away I placed my six pack on the counter and the clerk asked for my ID. I said,” Dude I thought you had a great memory for faces,I was just in here buying beer a few days ago “. As I reached for my wallet (faking it of course) the guy replied, ” I remember you “. He rang up my beer and away I went.
I told the guys in the car what had happened and told them we needed to come back to the 7-11 in about 2 hours so that I could buy some more beer and imprint my face in this guys memory.
We returned a few hours later and I bought a case and chatted with the clerk for a few minutes telling him my name and of course getting his . I bought beer there every Friday and Saturday for about 6 months until he quit working there . I bet I made 200 bucks buying beer for friends and of course getting free beer from them too . It made me pretty popular with the gals,which was an added bonus .
Buckhed – Nice!
I was pulled over by a black highway patrolman in Texas (black only enters in the story because it was unheard of to have a black highway patrolman in that part of the world). I was with my brother, and was doing 70 in a 55 or some such. He managed to pull over a white van at the same time, which was parked behind me on the side of the road. I had had a couple but was fine. He put me through a sobriety test which I passed and told me to wait outside the car while he talked to the guys in the van and would come back to give me my ticket. He opened the van door, and the drive proceded to fall out of the van face down onto the gravel, and then struggle to get up because he was so drunk. The cop stared at this for a few seconds, and then, he swivelled his head to me, and didn’t move any other part of his body, and said “Boy, you can go now”. Well, daddy didn’t raise no fool so I was off like a shot. I expect them good ol’ boys in the van were in deep doo doo.
I was raised on a ranch in Southwest Missouri. Growing up, Dad had square bales (hay for you town folks) until we were 10 or so. I say we because I’m a twin. He’d back that truck up to the barn and throw a bunch of bales down out of the loft. Then he’d climb down and restack them in the back of that old Chevy. Needless to say, he was happy when he could finally put up round bales.
He’d put that truck in low range and in 1st gear and let it drive itself while he got in the back and spread the bales over the field. We enjoyed going with him because we could drive. We’re talking maybe 5 mph. We thought we were hot stuff! I remember one time we were around 6 and I was doing the driving. I told my brother to push on that long pedal down there. We felt a lurch and heard a thud which was Dad falling out of the back and hitting the ground. When he ran up and opened the driver’s door, I heard many words I had never heard before. Needless to say, we didn’t do that again. But I did learn some new vocabulary to try out on the other 1st graders.
Vinnie – Dad’s are like that. Don’t know why!
I was helping my dad work on a car once. He managed to short circuit his watch (had a full metal band) across the solenoid. It instantly turned red hot – no joke – and blistered up a full ring around his wrist. As you would expect, I laughed like mad. He chased me round and round the car. I am real glad he was getting a bit old and had slowed up by then. He never wore a watch with a metal band after that. Not ever. Really very funny.
i hope no one paid for these sad stories—sorry that its such a slow news night—hope something blows up tonite-really
This may not be so funny but certainly amusing. Many years ago while traveling thru Georgia I managed to pick up a heavy duty supply of M-80’s and Cherry Bombs at one of those road side stands when fireworks were still legal in that state. After blowing off a number of the M-80’s it became not so much fun anymore so I decided to make a more powerful version. By taking a roll of brown paper shipping tape made a cylinder about 3″ in diameter and filled the center with the contents of 10 – 15 M-80’s & C Bombs, plugged the ends with epoxy and used a fuse from a M-80.
To test this thing out I took it way out in the country. Because of the very short fuse I had to get rid of it fairly quickly. Without looking around to clear the area I lit the fuse and threw it as hard as I could and was amazed at how far and high it went. About the time it reached its peak I noticed a flock of Canadian Geese in formation heading south for the winter. It blew up right in front of the lead duck, putting him in a spiral dive with tail feathers smoking. Another duck immediately took the lead position and the flock flew on a if nothing had happened.
The lead duck was evidentially just stunned because shortly after hitting the ground he managed to get airborne again minus a few feathers and was last seen rejoining the flock but now in the last formation position working very hard to keep up.
FTL -Nice M-80 story.
My bad for trying to lighten the mood around here. I guess if it isn’t gloom and doom it won’t draw a crowd. I thought there would be tons of stories up.
Either that or you are all boring couchpotatoes. .
Ok, llpoh, you’re right. Your stories are fun in the midst of the looming deluge, so allow me a lttle fiddle while the world burns…
I was 15 in a shit-kicker town south of Sacramento and my buddy… a little older… drove a fabulous, gargantuan black ’64 Bonneville. The thing was a fucking 24′ yaught. Spectacular. Fins and bubbly windows, white-walls and a beast of an engine. Anyway, late at night we’d drive around bored as hell and he’d scare the shit out of me. He would boast that he was “one with his car” and other psuedo-zen bullshit and he’d pull through tight spots at 40 mph with inches to spare leaving me wide-eyed and white-knuckled. Power poles, oak trees, newspaper machines and best of all, garbage cans.
Usually, if it was early in the morning and the trash had been collected, he’d add the bonus of clipping the empty garbage cans and sending them to the moon. Hillarious. Good times. One night, with some girls in the car, he decided to put on his show. Away we went. I was in the back so he could have a girl up front (poor dude always struck out) and knew what was coming. He went full bore and clipped a can.
This time it was full. It was loud. It went flying. It littered a yard with a nasty rain of refuse. There was some guy in his yard at the time. Oops.
We took off, he turned off the headlights but it was too late… we were being maniacally tailed by the poor bastard. The girls screamed. I yelled. The pedal was to the metal. It was like a bad movie.
He knew the neighborhoods well… always took back streets to avoid the sherrifs so he took to losing the assailant that way. When he thought he had for a second, he pulled into a court and tried to hide the whale behind a truck. The chaser wizzed by… and slammed into reverse, tearing around and trapping us. We were caught…
Oh hell no.The guy got out with a stick or whatever and before I knew it we were tearing over a sidewalk and cutting the corner through someone’s manicured lawn… fucking burning some tracks past their window.
Anyway, it bought us time to get away. Nothing came of it except ringing ears from shrieking girls and a new passtime on our bored-in-podunk midnight drives. He hit the same lawn at least another half a dozen times and many more lawns to boot.
Short cut!
Colma – glad to know things haven’t changed much over the years in shitkickerville.
I was out on a date once in my old man’s car. Good old family car with one of those huge V8s. Pulled up alongside a hopped up ‘Cuda at a set of lights. When it went green I floored it and burnt rubber for a few yards.
I hadn’t noticed the cops in the lot across the street. They chased the other car down and gave them the ticket. It pays to be incognito.
Good old EG.
This was a few years before the McMansions sprang up in the fields and the population tripled. Summers at 4 am were exquisite. The smell of shit notwithstanding.
I never got a hot rod, but that’s for the better… everybody who did have one tended to get in trouble or get dead.
I had a hot rod growing up, I had a car too.
All your funny stories involve people getting hurt…. I’ll bet you’re a big fan of these guys.
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I have a short funny story. At least, it was funny at the time.
Back when I was 19 I took a road trip with a friend of mine, a month long trip around the country. We spent a few days in Arizona hanging out with a friend of my family, an old Native American who had lived in Maine for a while and then moved back to his home state. Great guy, great stories of life on the reservation. He had an orange tree in his back yard that was full of ripe juicy fruit. After two weeks of fast food and restaurants and other “on the road” eats those oranges were quite tasty and we took a bag full with us when we left.
Wehad a good time there but the road was calling to us so we took off for California. We had purchased an ounce of the brownest, shaggiest most pitiful weed you would ever see at some point along our journey and had smoked about a half dozen joints on the drive along highway 10 out of Phoenix. Its about 2 am, just about to roll into Cali, we were just lighting up another cigar sized doober when we saw a sign on the highway saying
“INSPECTION STATION 1 MILE”.
Well, we shit our pants and stuffed the bag up into the dashboard and tossed the joint out the window. Rolled down the windows and each lit two cigarettes. Not that it would have fooled anyone, we were so freaking high you could have caught a buzz just looking at us.
So we roll up to the inspection station, looked more like a toll booth, sure as shit that we would end up in some hell hole backwater prison for the rest of our lives, dreading the phone call to our parents explaining how we had been arrested for drug smuggling. The lady sticks her head out and says…
“You got any fruit in your car?”
“Fruit?”
“Yep, no unauthorized fruit allowed in California”
“Shit, we got some oranges here, picked em off of a tree in Tuscon”
“In Tuscon you say?”
“Yes Mam.”
“That’s fine, Arizona fruit is allowed”
We laughed all the way to San Francisco.
Colma
I had a friend with a 72′ charger. That baby would melt tires like no other car I ever saw. Took all of a week for every cop in central Maine to pull him over. It was a Florida car and apparently they do not need inspections on antique cars, or at least they didn’t then. The cops were not impressed.
Punk – SSS is gonna skin you for that one. Re oranges, I had a huge slingshot thingy that would throw an orange several hundred yards. On day we went to see a friend whose parents were away. We decided to shoot an orange at the front door instead of knocking. We underestimated the power of thing. It blew the door completely off its hinges. We spent the next couple of days getting it fixed before the oldies came home.
Punk – slapstick (ie someone getting hurt) is the most basic form of humor.
But I guess I was a bad kid. I won’t tell you about the time we were throwing strawberries at cars. Oh well – why not. To cut to the chase we were bombarding cars with straberries as they slowed to take a hairpin. My brother let fly with a giant strawberry that flew threw the open car window and hit the driver right on the earhole. We scattered of course. The cops were everywhere shortly thereafter. We got away – again.
I was bad – but my bro was another story. His crowning glory was when he accidently burned down Farmer John’s barn. He had help from the farmer’s son, or he would have gone to juvie over that one.
How about when we spent 40 of our last 80 dollars buying a bag of fake weed off of some guy on Haight Ashbury in SF. Fucking homeless hippie bastard ripped us off.
The shit looked so real we brought it back to Maine and gave it to our regular dealer as a “thank you”. For being so honest and reliable.
Poor guy smoked half a joint of it before he realized what it was.
Punk: Got the tourist treatment? Never go to Haight… it’s a nostalgic joke ridden with squatters and yuppie boutiques.
Didn’t Maine install checks for seafood?
Fuck me. SSS will probably tear me a new one for my shitty spelling and grammar. To many mistakes in my story to even try to amend…
Colma
Some kick ass record stores, though. Found a copy of Paul’s Boutique on vinyl, my favorite Beastie Boys album.
Three of my friends in HS decided to streak the school cafeteria. They drew lots to see who streaked and the other two drove the getaway car. The streaker was to run thru the cafeteria and out the back door to the car.
The streaker put a bag over his head to hide his I’d. Like we all didn’t know. He cut holes to see thru. He was blind as a bat and wore thick horn rims. As he streaked thru with the principal and teachers in hot pursuit one of the girls tripped him – on purpose of course – and the bag flew off. He got up and made it to the car. His good friends laughed at him, locked the doors and bolted. The teachers caught him and escorted him back thru the cafeteria covering him up with a lunchtray. Everyone was howling. He was suspended for a few days.
Funny enough he and the other two remain friends to this day. Who needs enemies when you have friends.
Amoeba Records by the McD’s?
You’re right on that one, Punk. There’s some fun bars… you have to wade through fat, over-pierced hipster chicks but they have smoking sections in back. Hippy dungeons galore too.
Llpoh: Funny you should mention that… friends. Most of my HS buddies are still friends, the mischievious bunch anyway… except the ones who went batshit overseas. They’re institutionalized now, trying to talk to them is like talking to a zombie. They’re just not there.
Is the storm going to die down before it clips Maine?
Here’s another bit of high school high jinks .
I started out my Freshman year of high school in Spring,Texas and after completing the first semester I decided to give living with my dad a try. The courses I was taking as a Freshman in Texas were Junior level in S.C. so in order to keep the continuity in my studies the folks at my new high school placed me in classes with the Juniors . I was in heaven because as a 14 year old kid all of my peers were older and being fairly tall I fit right in without a hitch . No one but my closest friend new my age .
I wanted to be thought of as cool so one day I decided to play a prank. I stole one of the dissection frogs from the biology lab,placed it in my back pack and went to eat lunch in the cafeteria .
I ate lunch and when everyone started taking their trays to the tray window I went into action. My buddies watched as I opened the pouch with the frog and slide him onto my empty plate. I made sure his belly was open,exposing all of his brightly colored organs . I then placed a huge amount of napkins over him and waited for the mass of students that would run to the tray window at the first bell.
As I got up from the table my buddies were beside themselves laughing in anticipation of my prank. Now the ladies that worked the window would put the paper products in the trash,the food down the disposal and then slide the tray to the dish washing station.I took the tray and slid it amongst all of the other trays without anyone paying attention to me. I got about 4 steps when I heard the most blood curdling scream of my life. It seemed to go on for forever. I beat a hasty retreat from the lunchroom with out ever breaking into a run. The next day over the school intercom the principle asked that anyone with info on the frog incident to please come to the office. Luckily no one turned me in ! My buds and others…. well they talked about it for a long time and they still bring it up when we talk about the good ole’ days .
LLPOH-
I can’ believe you are letting some of these assholes try to change the subject.
Trending towards more doom I would add.
These fuckers need to be delt with,
It is your thead, kick them in the balls and be done with it.
Buckhed – I did something similar with frogs. I won’t go into detail as I am somewhat ashamed. But the result was 4 girls and 2 teachers fainted and the school from that time forward no longer permitted lab assistants access to the frogs. Although it is still talked about to this day per my teacher friends.
Ivan – I am waiting for your stories. You must have heaps from your flying days. Come on down.
Hope – very funny. When I was about 4 the local preacher asked me how I got so many freckles. My response: I peed in my face when I was a baby. Kids will say and do anything. My parents were mortified.
Sometime in the Eighties……
Coming home from Ohio:
While forging ahead in my Pawnee sprayplane along I-94 somewhere in South Dakota, reading all the billboards started to make me feal hungry. So I decided to visit the upcoming Stucky’s truckstop and get a burger and refuel.
So I landed on the upsloping off-ramp made a hard right at the crossroad and taxied up to the pump. Now for those not aware of it, those car gas hoses are pretty short. In order to pump into an airplane you have to get pretty damn close. More than one idiot has fucked this operation up.
Surprisingly this all went without “bad shit” happenning. (except the girl at the gas window wouldn’t take my check, so I had to pay cash).
I pushed the Pawnee out of the way onto the gravel and went into the cafe portion to get fooded.
These people were friendly and being pretty nice to me.
Just after my burger arrived so did a SD state trooper in the parking lot. This was not my first encouter with troopers and airplanes and public roadways, so I new immediate action was paramount.
He circled the Pawnee , slowly… very slowly.. giving me time to gather up my burger and throw a ten on the counter. He made his way to the fuel shack to inqure (I suppose).
From there he was out of sight of the Pawnee I hustled out, jumped up on the wing (dropping the fucking tomato on the wing walk got in and didn’t even close the door/window.
Nauntchalantly,(to avoid any charges of recklessness {to be avoided at all cost}) I slowly taxied between the pumps and his cruiser untill I was in the clear and reached the crossroad. After a hard left squealing turn (pavement now, you know), I made for the on ramp. Somewhere during the tail-up turn down the on-ramp my burger fell from it’s impromptu site between my legs, past the non-exsistent flooboards to the very nasty region in the belly of this airplane. I was fucking horrified.
Just after I broke ground and I could (aeronauticaly speaking) afford to turn around and see what had transpired back there, I did just that.
Sure enough, there he was making the corner to the on-ramp with lights a-flashing.
BWHAAAAA.
I took a more direct route home, avoiding all roads.
OK, the statute of limitations has expired. At about 18, I drank a fair bit, and when a buddy dropped by and asked if I had anything to drink I said sure, most of a bottle of tequila. We finished the bottle that afternoon, and I just didn’t realise how drunk he was-he was a pot-head more than a drinker. So when he suggested we drive over to another buddy’s place, I didn’t think much of it. He was driving his dad’s 400 CI El Camino-smog motor, but still had some stones.
Everything was fine till we got to our destination, when he decided to pull through the alley behind buddy’s apartment. He had to show off, burned rubber, side-swiped a dumpster and went straight into the end of a cinder block wall. I saw the wall coming up and braced for it-got a few bruises, but nothing serious. He got intimate with the steering wheel, knocked out a couple teeth and got a bloody nose. This was, of course, before the days of airbags. The El Camino suffered pretty bad damage, but not as bad as the wall-it was fucked up for 30 feet or so. My buddy backs the car up and hauls ass, and we park a few blocks away and walk to buddy’s apartment.
Turns out buddy’s girlfriend is there, heard the crash, ran to the window to witness our “escape” and called the cops. We feign ignorance, and offer to help look for the miscreants who did the deed (with my bud’s face still bleeding-I don’t recall how we explained that, but she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer). We finally gave up the search, and convinced everyone that the evil-doers description was nothing like ours.
Next day I told my dad (career law enforcement) what had happened. After assuring him that I hadn’t been driving, he said “Are you sure you weren’t asleep when it happened?” When I said no, he said “I’m pretty sure you were asleep at the time”, and we left it at that.
The “I was asleep” defense. My cop acquantaince said most non-crook types who come into a bit of trouble can avoid it if they follow the investigating cops lead. Ie you were afraid for your life, weren’t you sir? The drunk jumped in front of your car, didn’t he sir? Etc etc.
Well, the fact was that I wasn’t driving and I did not intend to snitch my buddy out if the cops had come to call (which I expected, being the paranoid SOB that I am). So I had my alibi-a pre-Reagan version of “I do not recall”. Thankfully it all blew over, but my buddy was broke as a joke for some time getting his old man’s ride fixed. Good lesson for him, and for me too.
There was a guy/investor that had contracted with a company that I worked for to design and develop a product that he of course believed was going to make him rich. He had invested all his net worth plus all he could borrow, and he had convinced many of his friends and relatives to also invest there life saving in his venture.
The day came when we were to give the first demonstration of the completed system. Everyone who had worked on the system was there plus a couple of company big shots and of course the guy that had his entire future riding on the success of this product. The system was on one end of this long work bench and I was down at the other end.
Just as the system was being powered up, the engineer next to me (who was somewhat hidden behind the work bench) whispered to me “watch this”. He started taking puffs on a lit cigarette and was blowing the smoke into a long piece of shrink tube that he had place along the work bench and into the back of the system card cage. In no time smoke began billowing out of the card cage. Now imagine the investor who one minute before was quietly standing there anxiously waiting to see his dreams of success come to life and who is now jumping up and down, waving his arms as though he’s trying to fly, and screaming “turn it off!!! turn it off!!!” The poor guy just about had a heart attack, and the practical joker engineer was laughing his ass off.
The practical joker and the investor had become pretty good friends is probably the only reason the engineer wasn’t fired.
“The “I was asleep” defense. My cop acquantaince said most non-crook types who come into a bit of trouble can avoid it if they follow the investigating cops lead. Ie you were afraid for your life, weren’t you sir? The drunk jumped in front of your car, didn’t he sir? Etc etc”
That is entirely fucking right.
That is exactly why I insist on a roadie when I leave the local saloon
Sir; ave you been drinking?
Not very much….. Sir.
Sir, would you step out of the car!
May I ask why; sir?
Because I detect an oder of alcohol on your person, please sir- step out of the car.
This is excactly where all niceties break down.
Your ony chance at this point is to throw your go-cup on him and lurch for th right hand door.
Then, if you get away….. the next day proceadigs meltt down to a HE said/ SHE said thingy.
Except the video of assault and battery…
It’d make a great movie scene, Ivan…
Your story is awesome. Fucking grabbing a burger and darting into a figgin’ plane. You crack me up.
here is a story from my days in the Navy on a US submarine.
This happened more then once.
Toilets on a submarine are bit different then in Civilian world. They don’t have traps, no fill tank with a floating value. Instead it just a ball valve at the bottom of the toilet with a large handle, that lead straight to a sanitary tank. there is also a small seawater valve above the toilet to help “flush”.
Well after awhile the Sanitary tanks fill up. To empty the tank, we would use high pressure air to blow it out to sea. between the toilet ball valve and sani tank there are no other valves.So when the sanitary tank were being blown you could not us the head (bathroom). They would but signs on the stalls “do not use toilet blowing sanitaries.”
But at least once a patrol you would have an idiot ignore the sign. Either there were half asleep and stupid, or they thought they would be slick and go pee and not “flush”, but of course the “natural” instinct would come in to open the ball valve. no matter why, always at least once someone would forget and open that ball valve.
Then “WHOOOOOSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH” feces and pee would go flying hitting the person that opened the valve., and spaying it all over the head (bathroom). This was called “blowing sanitaries inward.” that person regardless of rank would then have to clean the entire head.
I knew guy who did that twice. Fortunately i was so paranoid about doing, that i stayed away from the head when they were blowing sanitaries.
I think we have a WInner!
I’ve always had a slightly…..ok, severely, skewed sense of humor so maybe you had to be there to enjoy this one. I’m 44 and to this day I’ve never laughed so hard or long in my entire life. I was fresh out of high school working my first job in a service station. Remember those? A guy pulls up one day complaining about the obvious noise coming from his car. He was about 45 or so. I knew exactly what was wrong so I had him pull it into one of the two bays we had. The car was an old GM Cutlass if I recall correctly and the noise was caused by a failed alternator bearing probably due to the belt being over tight. Those old GM alternators had a very stout little metal fan on the front which turned at a high rate of speed. He leaves the engine running, pops the hood and comes around front to “show” me where the noise was coming from. It seemed like it happened in slow motion as he said “the sound is coming from…….right………here! His saying the word “here” coincided perfectly with him sticking his finger in that little fan which proceeded to grind nearly all the meat clean off of his index finger up to the second knuckle. It happened in the blink of an eye.
I instantly began to HOWL with laughter. I had completely lost it despite trying very hard to regain my composure. After about a minute I walked into the other bay which was separated by a block wall and continued to howl. I was laughing so hard and loud that I walked outside, around the corner and proceeded to stumble as if I was drunk, towards the back of the building laughing all the way where I collapsed onto my knees still howling with laughter. I just could not stop. The absurdity of the whole thing just killed me. After several minutes I walked back to the garage with tears streaming down my face and a sore chest still half laughing. I walked into the bay to find find the guy holding his severely mangled digit. I helped him get it cleaned up and bandaged and offered to give him a ride to the ER while simultaneously apologizing profusely for my laughter. He sort giggled a bit and admitted that from my perspective it probably did look rather funny. He brought the car back a week or so later and I repaired it for him while he described having to get a skin graft to repair the damage. With all of the noise, wind and obvious motion it is beyond me how he could have ever stuck his finger in there!
I_S
I have a memory of an LSD induced fit of laughter that lasted longer than my previous story. However, it involves a guy nearly being killed. I shall skip that one but it was bizarre!
I_S
During my sophomore year of high school we lived just outside of Madrid, Spain. Mom did not feel like cooking one evening so she sent me downstairs (we lived in an apartment) to get two kilos of the absolute best chicken wings you ever tasted! I was to acquire said wings from a local Tasca which is a family friendly sort of bar/restaurant combo. The place probably sat about 30-40 people plus a dozen more at the bar and it was PACKED! My Spanish was ok, having learned it on the streets during the previous two years. Naturally, learning a new language on the streets, you learn the more colorful words first and my experience was no different.
I walked up to the proprietor at the bar and confidently, if somewhat loudly, announced my desire for “dos kilos de alitas de polla”. I realized my mistake almost before the word came out of my mouth but it was too late. You see the Spanish word for chicken in “pollo” and you’ll notice the subtle difference in the spelling of what I actually asked for which was “polla”. That word is slang for a man’s dick so I had ordered two kilos of “dick wings”. Upon announcing my order the whole place went completely silent and all eyes were on me. It was like an E.F. Hutton commercial! The proprietors face shifted slightly as he asked “seguro?” (are you sure?) to which I replied “not exactly” and the whole place erupted in laughter. For the next two years the old guy regulars provided plenty of good natured ribbing whenever I arrived.
I sure miss the experience of living among the locals in Spain. It was probably the best time of my life.
I_S
ID, great story(ies), I can relate to both of them.
I’ll only relate one. Back in the early 80s, times were tough and many a day/night was spent pooling change and hunting for bottles to get beer and sit around and play cards.
One day, an impromptu party started up at a friends house. This “friend” was pretty wacky (he went by the nickname Outlaw) and had some of his friends their, friends like The Claw. Don’t ask, ewww.
Anyway. Outlaw was pretty nuts, but his beer was good. He bet us that he could jump back and forth between his house roof and his garage roof. We pooled money and then were delighted to find you could step up on the roof from the backside of the garage. About six or seven of us climbed up there and sat back to enjoy the show.
Outlaw made it, multiple times. He was jumping the car width drive, running over and jumping off the house and generally amusing us greatly. The Claw, jealous of his friend’s new place of honor, and his winnings, staggered up and wanted us to bet him. The joke was now old, and most of us thought he was gross, so we passed. He decided to do it anyway.
He got off to a good start and not only cleared the driveway, he landed all the way up on the roof with his hands only a couple feet from the peak and really close to the edge. He was barefooted and his feet started sliding down the roof. It felt in slow motion, with the rest of us jumping up and yelling, “DROP THE BEER,” “GRAB THE EDGE,” “DROP THE FUCKING BEER!” while he slowly skidded down, down, down the roof.
He fell straight down onto the cement driveway. At that point we are all laughing our asses off. Outlaw, laughing, goes up to the edge of the roof, looks down at The Claw, turns around with tears streaming down his face says, “he’s ok.”
After we start to settle back down, we hear moans coming from the driveway below. Which just set us all off laughing again. Seems when his foot hit the ground, the cement won and it pushed his heel up over a half inch. I snickered all the way to the hospital. Couldn’t help it, how dumb can you be?
Guess you had to be there but nearly 30 years later and the mental picture of him sliding in slow motion down the roof and refusing to let go of his beer can still crack me up.