How Stupid Can You Get?

[manthing]

when i was 4 or 5, i lived in a house where the lightbulbs were placed halfway up the wall, say 5 feet off the ground. and they were the big bayonet ones, not the small fancy ones you get nowadays. in this case there were 2 sockets for 2 lightbulbs, placed next to each other.

one night grandma asked me to switch on the lights. unknown to me one socket was empty.

fumbling in the dark, i managed to ... yup you guessed it ... stick my fingers into the empty socket. and yes the power was switched on. electrifying experience or what!

where we come from, we NEVER tell our parents/any adult when we do a boo-boo as they would slap/hit us to show how stupid we had been. no need to get punished twice, right?!

anyway, after picking myself up off the floor, i still had to switch on the lights, which i managed to do second time around.

so far so good.

so as i was standing there half dazed from the electric shock, i started to THINK. and you know what happens when one starts to think ...

i had never experienced an electric shock before. and i couldn't ask an adult. so what could a little boy do ... except ... STICK MY FINGERS INTO THE SOCKET AGAIN!

whatta-twit

well there are many ways of learning, and learning by rote/repetion is one of them i guess ...

[manthing]

now if you thought that was stupid, wait until you read this.

again, being the bright spark that i was (geddit? electric shock? bright spark? no?), i got myself into another self-mutilation episode.

loved toy guns when i was a kid. those that would shoot small, plastic bullets.

one day, as i was inspecting the gun to see how it shot the bullets out, i placed the gun right up against my eye ... gulp ... and yes, squeezed the trigger!

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

all i saw a red mist.

of course i couldn't tell an adult. better to be blind than get beaten, right?!

semi-luckily for me, after an hour or so, my eye recovered. i wasn't blind but i had damaged my vision.

but you now what is the weirdest thing ... i never found that bullet. it must be lodged in my brain somewhere ... and that would explain a hell of a lot of things!

[manthing]

and now for the next installment of how to attempt suicide, poorly.

lets move forward 10 or so years. i'm now in my mid-teens ... but still as stupid as ever ... abd is that bullet still lodged in my brain?

anyway, one day dad is mowing the lawn, whilst drunk! yes the whole family is cursed with stupidity.

and of course being in the state he was, he cuts the power cord. so he tells stupido jnr (me!) to fix the power cord.

can you guess what happens next?

yup-di-doody, i go and pick up the power cord at the exposed point, WITHOUT SWITCHING OFF THE ELECTRICITY FIRST! simply stunning.

as you know, you're not in control of your body when you get an electric shock. body/muscles go limp/close up?

amazingly, though i had the exposed wire in my hand, and my hand had closed around it from the shock, as i fell to the ground, the bump of hand to ground knocked the wire away.

phew that was a close call.

moral of the story, rote/repetition learning ain't what its cracked up to be!

[lordsmurf]

I'm sure there there's a joke here somewhere... I just can't think of it.

[manthing]

back to my childhood. other than trying to blow my brains out with my toy gun, i loved playing with FIRE! what a combo - guns & fire.

loved to see things burn. would stack up all the matches i could find, light one and watch the chain reaction. and i would be an inch from the matches, just to be right in the action. an inch was a safe distance, right?

anyway, one day i thought it would be fun (?) to burn some plastic wrapper (the one around a cigarette packet).

so i had the plastic wrapper in one hand and a burning match in the other. this time, i thought a bit more and was ready to drop the burning plastic into the ashtray as soon as i lit it.

can't go wrong, right? WRONG!

as the plastic started burning, i let go thinking it would drop into the ashtray just a few inches below it. unfortunately, not being and einsteinien kid, and not having a grasp of physics/dynamics, i hadn't counted on variables such as the plastic spinning in mid air, slight gust of wind etc.

all the elements conspired to move the burning plasctic onto my palm!

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HH

man-o-man, i had never felt such pain ... (well second only to catching my "little brother" in my zipper!)

does any of this remind you of those darwin awards that are handed out?
however, since i'm still alive & kicking, i'm not even qualified for that.
need to invent a new category.

hey, whilst on the subject of fire, fast forward to my early twenties. can vote, can have sex legally, can drink alcohol legally ... but still nada between the ears!

doing garden chores. brushed up all the dead grass, leafs etc. had one of those incinerator devices, thing shaped like a dustbin, but allowed you to stuff it with grass/leaves and burn it.

now to help the burning process along, thought it would be good idea if i used some kerosene as some of the grass was still damp.

but, i was adding the kerosene WHILST THE GRASS WAS LIT & BURNING. i was practically putting my hand & head right over/into the incinerator as i added the kerosene, straight from the bottle!

man-o-man, how on earth the bottle of kerosene didn't blow up i still don't know.

must have used up all my nine lives by now. or do i have an angel watching over me ...

[manthing]

ls " I'm there there's a joke here somewhere... I just can't think of it."

you're not suggesting the "muscles go limp" is a double-entendre are you?

dirty old man ...

[MagnificentMarcus]

Manthing, it scares me that you can vote and may be driving a car. Please tell me you have no children or at least married a woman with a high I.Q.

Of course, I had a younger brother who stuck a car atenna in a fuse box out at the farm. He blew the fuses and got one hell of a shock. He got spanked right after my mother made sure he was OK. I had another younger brother who hooked a heavy Tonka Toy Truck with a small chain with a clamp on the end to a cat's tail. The cat wound up in a tree with the Tonka Toy truck hanging from it. My sister tried to get it down and got bit, so did my mother who wound up going to the hospital. He got spanked twice by my Dad. I also had another younger brother who got two speeding tickets in the same spot 30 minutes a part.

My point is- absolutely nothing! Sort of like this whole thread.LOL!!!

[cp32]

@ Manthing.... Are we related ?

[manthing]

not sure cp32, what's the most dumb-*** thing you did?
you didn't vote for GW Bush did you?
now that would be silly!

MM, i made sure i married a woman much, much stupider than me ... but with massive knockers and a bigger bank balance

[wayshway]

quote:Originally posted by manthing

not sure cp32, what's the most dumb-*** thing you did?
you didn't vote for GW Bush did you?
now that would be silly!

MM, i made sure i married a woman much, much stupider than me ... but with massive knockers and a bigger bank balance

I voted for Bush

[lordsmurf]

quote:Originally posted by wayshway

I voted for Bush

Doesn't get any dumber than that!

[MagnificentMarcus]

I don't know if that is dumb LS, but I almost voted for Kerry! Dodged that bullet!

[Tcel93]

I did something like that in physics class once... I didn't want to take the test, so I bent some solder into a "u" shape and stuck it in the socket at our lab table. BOOM! it was awesome, no evidence for the teacher to find as it was completely obliterated. AND no test as they needed to make sure the breakers and such were ok ..... By the way, I didn't use my hands to stick the solder into the socket, I used my notebook. Ah the good ol' days of high school.