From Rob, who will pay for this...
What are the five most irredeemably stupid things you have done, so far.
I mean things that had you change your name to Mr/Mrs/Miss Thick Astwoshortplanks, no face saving possibilities, no head in the sand denial helped and no 'All's Well That Ends Well' solutions. Come on, cough up. Rich description is required.
This seems like a question that someone else should answer for me, like my wife or my parents. It is a shame I don't have my sister around anymore, as she had my myriad screw ups memorized, sorted and cross referenced. Let me just say that every day I feel like I screw up something, so this was a tough question to wrangle.
1. The Fish. Sophomore year in High School, I am in a musical called Sugar, which is a singing/dancing version of Some Like It Hot. I played a tap dancing gangster. Anyway, we needed a stuffed fish for one of the scenes. I thought my grandfather had one, so I volunteered it. I wanted until the last week to go to my Grandpa's house and get the fish. Except, Grandpa did not have a stuffed fish, I was remembering somewhere else. But, My Grandpa told me (at least I am 95% sure this is what he told me) that all I had to do was get a fish from the supermarket and spray it really well with hairspray. So, I bought a fish, took it to the school theatre and proceeded to spray it down with massive amounts of hairspray. The theatre erupted in the worst smell in the history of the universe. Two weeks later and the smell still lingered in the theatre. The choir, band and theatre classes all met in that building and were quite annoyed with me. And the hairspray thing didn't work at all.
2. Northern Ireland. I suffer from an unreasonable compulsion to have people like me and find me interesting. And I have been known to stretch the truth to fulfill this compulsion. The worst time I was when I told a substitute teacher who worked in the same room I worked in that I had been to Northern Ireland while on my 70 day European Trek. Now, I had been on a 70 day European Trek, had visited nine countries, including Ireland, and seen lots of cool things. I had not, however, been to Northern Ireland. And this sub seemed very interested in Northern Ireland. So I told her I had been, and described it in rich detail (I have read quite a lot about "The Troubles" so I could sound knowledgeable. Later, after the sub seemed very impressed, my wife paid me a surprise visit.
Sub: Hi. Your husband was just telling me how you went to Northern Ireland.
Merideth: No, we didn't.
Me: (Panicking) Yes, we did.
Merideth: We only saw Southern Ireland. We didn't go anywhere near Northern Ireland.
Me: Um, Umm. Honey?
Merideth changes subject, and then leaves.
Me (unconvincingly to sub): Weird, she forgot we went to Northern Ireland.
Yes, brilliant I. It did shock my system somewhat and I no longer do that sort of thing.
Well, at least I no longer fib outright to get someone to like me. Now I have other means of attempting to make everyone like me.
3. The Broken Arm. In First Grade, I was playing on a big concrete pipe that was part of my school's playground. Not paying attention, I one day walked off of it, did a cartwheel in the air and broke my arm. This was not the stupid thing. A week later, my arm in a big cast that left only my fingers visible, I went to the restroom at school. For some reason lost to the cosmos, I decided I needed to stand on top of the toilet to do my business. So, I climbed onto the toilet, high as I could get, slipped, and landed on my arm, breaking two of the fingers sticking out of my cast.
4. Bad Lighting. In College, a friend of mine reserved a small theatre on campus called the Utopia to do a play. He was not a theatre person, and so wanted my help with the technical part of the show, mainly lights. So, I went in a week before his show went up and I put together his lights with a small lightboard that came with the theatre. The last show had some bizarre lighting, so it took me a while to arrange everything. This involved moving lights and rewiring a few things. Except that, unknown to me, the show with the bizarre lighting was still running. I got a phone call late at night from the techie of that show, yelling at me. So I ran down and together we fixed most of the lighting (although not all, we had no time). I later became friends with the techie, but for a long while, she gave me dirty looks in the theatre hallway.
5. Burning Porn. My freshman year in high school, roaming around the woods behind my house, my friend and I found a huge stash of porn, just laying around. So, being fourteen year olds, we grabbed what we could and ran. I hid the magazines I took in my room, but became obsessed with finding a better hiding place, as I was terrified that the magazines would be discovered my Mother. After a week, I could not deal with the pressure anymore and I decided to get rid of the magazines. But then I could not figure out how to get rid of them. My parents used these cheap, white trash bags that were see through, so I felt I could not throw them away in our trash. I also felt I could not transport the magazines, because I was sure I would get caught with them. For some reason, taking them back to the woods did not occur to me. So, I decided to burn them. I gathered them up, put them in my fire place and lit them, all the while terrified my mother would come home early. The problem was, these were glossy magazines and they did not burn well. So instead of the easy to dispose of ashes I had hoped for, I now had hundreds of pieces of porn, singed but still obviously porn. At this point, my sister got home, and found me huddled over the fireplace with burned porn. She laughed at me, and then helped me get rid of it.
And there are more. Yes, stupidity has been my constant life companion. Runners up would include rafting down an uncharted river (a three hour trip to 24), letting my Bronco roll into someone's yard, prompting my parent's to get a call from the police, daydreaming during middle school math to the point where I would start adding sound effects to my space adventures and getting laughed at by the class. I also feel stupid for not having any stupid girlfriend stories, because I was too shy to freakin ask anyone out, which was pretty stupid.
Other Fivers:
Adam, Adrienne, Fionna, Gina, Gord, Jon, Julie, Laura, Marvin, Melissa, Merideth, Mojave Sixty-Six, Morgaine, Ray, Rik, Ritu, and Roganda
