I’m With Stupid (And He’s With Me)
My 10 dumbest moments.
10. After accidentally turning off my car with my knee while driving on the highway, I instinctively put the car into park while doing 60. The transmission was completely ruined.
9. I almost yelled at an old guy who took my seat once in Tokyo's Narita Airport. I had gone to the bathroom and returned to see some dude just plopped down in my seat. He turned out to be former US Speaker of the House (and current Ambassador to Japan) the Honorable Tom Foley (D-WA).
8. While shooting a rifle for the first time in rural Pennsylvania, I was so worried about the noise that I forgot about the recoil. The rifle scope smashed me in the forehead and left a semicircular scar above my eyebrow which is still visible. According to eyewitness accounts (I blacked out for about 8 seconds), I stood up, dropped the rifle, and started wandering off.
7. In college, I signed up for a class and then forgot I was taking it until more than two months had passed. Oops.
6. The original kitchen floor in our apartment was this really ugly stick-on linoleum tiles. One day I pulled one off, just out of curiosity. Underneath was more crappy linoleum tile, but it was slightly less ugly. So, I stayed up until 6 AM removing the top level of the kitchen floor. The result: the underlying tiles were actually much uglier than I realized, and now they were incredibly sticky. We had to pay someone $850 to redo the floor.
5. See blog entry for You've Got a Retarded Friend in Pennsylvania
4. Unfortunately redacted
3. Sitting in the common room of my dormitory in high school, someone threw an empty soda can at me. I caught it deftly with one hand and crushed it. It would have been kind of cool, but the can collapsed in such a way that my right thumb was nearly severed. I still have that scar.
2. I came down with a severe allergic reaction in 2003, and broke out in terrible hives. It made sleep nearly impossible, but for the few hours of sleep I did get each night, I would scratch myself nearly raw. After a few days, we decided to duct tape tube socks over my hands at night. That night, unable to stand the itching, I apparently went to the kitchen and got a fork and scratched my legs, arms, ankles and feet as hard as I could, and got back into bed. When I awoke, the sheets were red with blood and I was taken to the hospital.
1. See Oneonta Chronicles, Part 1