Things You Only Do Once -

[Xcaliber]

Let's see:

My first match, I didn't have much gear so I stowed a magazine in the back pocket of my baggy pants. On one stage, it slipped down deep into the pocket and I had to fish it out. It took a good 10 seconds. Somewhere there is a video of what appears to be a fat guy "digging for gold" on a stage while his pants slowly creep towards his ankles. Ruined a couple people's runs that day because they couldn't stop laughing. Bought a proper gun belt and some mag pouches the next day.

Always check for rocks before you go prone if you plan on having kids at some point. The upside is that I can now hit those high notes.

[GreenDragon64]

One night my nose was all gunked up and I couldn't breathe through it well, so I applied some Vicks Vaporub under my nose and on my chest to help with my sinus problems, thought I might need more later, I left it on the night stand next to the petroleum jelly. The girlfriend happened to be spending the night with me, and we went to sleep early because we had an early morning the next day, lots of errands to run and friends to see. Well, a few hours later in the middle of the night, I was woken up with soft kisses. A few minutes after I was aware of what was about to transpire, I reach over to the night stand and picked up the petroleum jelly, applied its contents to our sensitive areas and things started to get hot and heavy.

Next thing I hear is her moans of excitement get louder and louder until the moans turn into shrieks. Seems that the petroleum jelly I had applied had been the menthol rub ... I found out that Vaporub actually can't be rubbed off, it can only be rubbed in. I was in agony, poor girl was tearing up and in a panic while trying to reduce her discomfort.

Edited February 17, 2013 by GreenDragon64

[Giant81]

I'm on a volunteer fire department NEVER forget to put socks on as you run out the door to a head-on with entrapment, or any other time for that matter. Took minutes for the blisters to form, and WEEKS for them to heal.

In High School, had a car, put in a stereo, ran the AMP's remote wire under some door molding, some happened to be metal. The molding rubbed through the insulation, and almost set the car on fire.

Never do black powder trails on the ground while camping, by the camp fire your friends were just tossing fire crackers into, that black powder line will find an ember that had been blown loose earlier and it will set the can off in your hand. coincidentally, that's the same day I found out I'm completely resistant to morphine (yeah rough day). Deep Second degree burns from finger tips to arm pit and face. At least I didn't scar!! (sadly I was much older than I'd care to admit when I pulled that stunt, old enough the alcohol had been legal for YEARS). I kept the can to remind me of this one, not like it will ever be possible to erase the memory of that much pain.

NEVER jam the leads from a DC multimeter into a 120v wall socket to test it.

Never plug a switch into a production environment because "Hey STP will just do what it's designed to" Even though I verified STP was on, I didn't verify all trunks in the loop were dot1Q, the single ISL trunk messes everything up. Took a multi milion dollar SaaS company off the internet for 15min in the middle of the day.

Never take a UPS offline before verifying all disk shelves are properly plugged in.

I was coming up to a stop light. This light had 3 lanes that went straight with a dedicated left turn lane. I come up over the hill, light is red, single car in center straight lane. As I approach, light goes green, car starts to slowly pull forward. (I'm on my motorcycle) so I signal, jump to left straight lane, go to pass car in intersection instead of dump all my momentum. Right as the car decides it needs to make a left turn FROM TWO LANES OVER. I end up 40mph into the drivers door. Bike goes one way, I go air-born, land on my back, slide umpteen feet, hell the laptop in my bag survived. Lesson here is to NEVER pass cars in intersections while on 2 wheels. Sure, I was in the right, but that doesn't matter if you're dead.

Never use a Ft Lb Torque wrench to tighten something listed in IN Lb's. I converted it into ft lb, but it was still on the bottom of the torque settings, not terribly accurate. Broke a bolt off in the block of my Goldwing.

I'm sure I'm missing things.

[Highsider989]

Giant

I'm a rider also. That dreaded left turn from cagers gets lots of us yearly. I had a guy pull from the curb lane across the road. I t boned him. Five broken ribs and a totaled bike. The asshat didn't have insurance. Totally his fault, I paid. Ouch.

As for things I'll only do once, ride with out a helmet.

[Piney]

Awful lot of boxer-related stories *ouchie*

[Zoomy]

Its a cold January night, 2:30 am. Driving around with a buddy after drinking too much barley wine at a party. Decide to drive by several freinds houses and throw M100 firecrackers into thier front yards. First two go off without a hitch. On the third house sparks from fuse burn my fingers and I drop the M100. Scramble to pick it up only to to find about half an inch of fuse to go. I try to throw it out the window only to find out that I forgot to open it. It bounces into the back seat and onto the floor. No time left, slam on brakes, cover ears, close eyes and assume the fetal position. The resaults, no windows, dented floor and torn up seats.Had to pull the windshield off of the hood.Cold 6 mile ride home. We had pounding headaches for about six hours.

[kneelingatlas]

Maybe the best yet!

Its a cold January night, 2:30 am. Driving around with a buddy after drinking too much barley wine at a party. Decide to drive by several freinds houses and throw M100 firecrackers into thier front yards. First two go off without a hitch. On the third house sparks from fuse burn my fingers and I drop the M100. Scramble to pick it up only to to find about half an inch of fuse to go. I try to throw it out the window only to find out that I forgot to open it. It bounces into the back seat and onto the floor. No time left, slam on brakes, cover ears, close eyes and assume the fetal position. The resaults, no windows, dented floor and torn up seats.Had to pull the windshield off of the hood.Cold 6 mile ride home. We had pounding headaches for about six hours.

[northernbird]

Oh man! this has been a marathon reading all these stories.. absolutely hilarious though.

So heres my contribution.

Long time back, went camping with some friends. We were camped at the top of this ridge that had a wedge that jutted out into a swamp.. off that side it was about a 45 degree angle down to the swamp. After much drinking we noticed we were running out of firewood and decided the huge completely dead tree at the tip of the wedge would make alot of great firewood. The tree was actually a couple feet down the slope, and standing on the top of the hill you could just get a good swing on it with the axe extended. Yeah this is the perfect tree.. So my two buddies and I took turns chopping.. about an hour or so later we were getting close to the end. Now recall that this tree is at the end of a wedge shaped chunk of high ground.. and its around 2:30am, pitch dark, the only light is from the camp fire back where we are camping.. Not sure if all the chopping was starting to work the alcohol out or what but we started taking alot fewer swings with the axe before passing it to the next guy and taking several large steps back to try and watch the top of the tree.. Well as luck would have it I was the guy on the axe when the tree started to tip. Did I mention that this tree was not well balanced? Or that all the bigger limbs left on this dead tree were on our wedge shaped escape route side? no?, thats weird no one seemed to notice it that night either.. So I'm swinging away when I hear my buddy scream RUN!!!!! I drop the axe and look up to see this huge fricken tree start to ever so slightly tip toward me... Run? Hell yes I ran! I ran as hard as I could thinking I had about 5 seconds left to live. That tree coming down sounded light a freight train. When it hit the ground (about 10 feet to my left) the ground shook and its completely dead branches exploded in every direction. I got knocked down, but fortunately escaped without any serious wounds. I had only made it about 2/3rds of the way to safety when it hit the ground.. still makes my heart race thinking about that night. NEVER do that.

[benos]

Ahhh... drunken firewood gathering stories... I've been on a few of those!

[kita]

Never go up in a plane with a first-time sky-diver who has a nervous stomach. I had to jump covered in emesis. Yum.

[kneelingatlas]

Got a new one today:

First crono lesson:

- a scoped air rifle will shoot a few inches low at ten feet:

First shot over the new crono didn't quite make it 'over' the crono BUT as luck would have it, no damage was done, other than a nice hole and some plastic shrapnel. Worked like a charm!

[kneelingatlas]

...

Edited April 28, 2013 by kneelingatlas

[melissa5]

You know those cinnamon scented pine cones that are popular around Christmas? A whole bag of them will produce a very impressive fireball coming out of your chimney.

[lumpygravy]

You know those cinnamon scented pine cones that are popular around Christmas? A whole bag of them will produce a very impressive fireball coming out of your chimney.

[cecil]

i never get married ... again !!

[Toolguy]

Got a new one today:

First crono lesson:

- a scoped air rifle will shoot a few inches low at ten feet:

First shot over the new crono didn't quite make it 'over' the crono BUT as luck would have it, no damage was done, other than a nice hole and some plastic shrapnel. Worked like a charm!

Just push the "Delete Shot" button and it will go away!

[E K]

Its a cold January night, 2:30 am. Driving around with a buddy after drinking too much barley wine at a party. Decide to drive by several freinds houses and throw M100 firecrackers into thier front yards. First two go off without a hitch. On the third house sparks from fuse burn my fingers and I drop the M100. Scramble to pick it up only to to find about half an inch of fuse to go. I try to throw it out the window only to find out that I forgot to open it. It bounces into the back seat and onto the floor. No time left, slam on brakes, cover ears, close eyes and assume the fetal position. The resaults, no windows, dented floor and torn up seats.Had to pull the windshield off of the hood.Cold 6 mile ride home. We had pounding headaches for about six hours.

That is some funny shit!!

[jcarpenter82]

I learned that when jumping a ramp with my bike its a bad idea to find out in mid air that my handlebars dont fully rotate 360° because i failed to remove the front reflector.

[pawe]

Not read 21 pages of a thread consisting mainly of things hitting the groin area.

[kneelingatlas]

My first match with an Open pistol last weekend gave me two:

-turn on the dot before the buzzer!

-just because you have 46 rounds and the minimum round count is 33, don't leave your big stick in your bag (why is it with a Limited gun I shoot one shot at each piece of steel, but with an Open gun, I feel like I have to triple tap each one?!?)

[jcarpenter82]

(why is it with a Limited gun I shoot one shot at each piece of steel, but with an Open gun, I feel like I have to triple tap each one?!?)

Cuz you dont go to the range to save ammo

[Wagonburner]

Needed what I figured to be 15 bags of per mix concrete to set my fence posts.went to my local Home Depot and loaded the 16 bags,one extra just because,on the flat steel cart they provide.Paid for my purchase and pushed the cart out the door heading for my pick up,the parking lot was sloped to the south... See where this going. Yep south. Took all of my strength and agility to steer the cart around the parked cars as it steadily picked speed,I literally had to out run the cart and body slam the front corners repeatedly to change it collision course with intended targets. There is a theory of a body in motion stays in motion,well it's true but it stops when it gets to the rain water drain in the south corner of the Home Depot.

[Big Wall]

Drive 2 hours to a match and find out you showed up a week early. Then drive 2 hours home with an upset brother who was looking forward to his first match and only has every other weekend off.

[pushpullpete]

Gentlemen and Ladies,

Thank you, I laughed so hard I cried. Then muscle memory kicked in and I started to hurt. I think I'm pretty smart BUT, I know I've done some dumb shit in my life and thanks to ya'll I've relived quite a few. KUDOS & GOOD WISHES.

[benos]

Drive 2 hours to a match and find out you showed up a week early. Then drive 2 hours home with an upset brother who was looking forward to his first match and only has every other weekend off.

Uhhhh - the last 6 words made that especially brutal.