What's the dumbest thing you have done, and will admit to?

Scooter402 said:
My turn for the weekly meeting of "dumb things I've done..." I seriously should write a book. It'd be a best seller comedy novel.

So there I was...hanging out in the garage on a brisk December Saturday morning, working on my chopped up Dana 44, trying to redneck-engineer a solution to get it back in under my CJ. Since it was nice and cool, I figured I'd put some of my handy-dandy Harbor Freight work gloves on. I was working on cutting a piece of 1/4" plate with my cutoff wheel, not really paying too much mind to the blade as my mind was wandering off into the wild blue yonder, when suddenly....

I felt a "thump" against my left index finger. I yank my hand back and see a fresh cut in the finger of my glove. My first thought was "well, damn! I just cut a hole in a brand new pair of gloves..." But then my glove started to leak. "Well, that's new..."

I pulled the glove off to reveal that I tried (and luckily failed) to remove the end of my index finger from right at the rearmost end of my fingernail, below the first knuckle. The cut went from the side of my finger to fully across and through my fingernail. It was leaking pretty well, so I couldn't see exactly what the damage was. Since it was still relatively early, and my wife was still in bed, I (quietly) walked into the house and used the downstairs powder room sink to rinse it out...while trying to contain the puddle coming from my finger.

The sink basin was instantly red, and the leak just wouldn't stop unless I was squeezing my finger pretty hard. I was actually able to squeeze it off to see down into the cut with my thumb and middle finger of my left hand, while using my right to spread the cut open to see how deep it was. Sure enough, there was that pinkish, whitish glare coming out of there...yep - straight down to the bone. I can see it under the groove through my fingernail too. Awesome. But the wife was still upstairs. Maybe she won't notice?

"Eh, what the hell...maybe I can get it to stop bleeding enough to go back to work on the axle," I reason with myself. So, I'm amusing myself with other of my life's follies while pacing back and forth in the kitchen, holding my hand up in front of my face with several paper towels squeezed around my finger for 10 minutes or so. Hm...is it done leaking yet? I hold my hand over the sink and pull back the towel. It starts flowing freshly again...well damn.

10 more minutes with another fresh paper towel wad, pacing back and forth in the kitchen (didn't want to ruin the woman's good kitchen towels now!)...I pull the paper towel back again, and it's still going, but slower. Ah, there's hope! Think Wolverine thoughts....happy Wolverine thoughts...

Since it's slowing down, I figure I can put some gauze and tape around it, tight enough that it'll not bleed. Then I'll get my ass back to work on the axle. I open the lower cabinet under one of the counter tops going for the first aid kit. I pull it out thinking I'm in the home stretch. The damn thing still has the zip ties around the handle! WTF...seriously? I can't cut these off without making a bloody mess everywhere, because I can't let go of my hand. Well damn.

I ease up the stairs, and slide into the bedroom. "Hey, babe? Uh...can you come help me for a minute?"

She rolls over from her slumber and sees me holding a nearly soaked paper towel around my finger, then instantly freaks. "WTF did you do? Cut your finger off?!"

"Nah, it's still there. Just leaking pretty good."

So, we go downstairs, and I ask her to help me with the first aid kit. She looks at my finger, and says "oh, gross... I think you should go to the ER. I'm pretty sure you should have that stitched up."

"It ain't that bad...it'll stop bleeding after while. I've cut myself worse."

"How deep is that?" she asks....

"Not that bad, it's just a flesh wound. Ha!"

"Very funny..." She loves my jokes (I'm being sarcastic, in case you couldn't tell).

So, she gets the FAK open, goes for the gauze and bandage, and applies a liberal amount of Neosporin. I'm squeezing the damn thing as much as I can with the thumb-and-finger method outlined before, so she doesn't really see that it's leaking that bad. Does she see it? Hmmm...I might get away with it. She goes to put gauze on it, then starts wrapping tape. "Oh, you gonna have to get it much tighter than that," I tell her.

Fresh blood starts soaking through the gauze. "Go to the f*ing ER!" she orders me. "Nah, I'm good. I'll take care of it. I just want to go clean up out in the garage."

"Fine, suit yourself, but if that gets infected, don't say I didn't tell you to go!"

"Whatever..." Guys, we all know that's our go-to when we know we're wrong. Am I right, or am I right?

I wrap some tape around my finger, get a nitrile glove and put it on my hand, then strut back into the garage like a champ. "Yeah, I'll show her...yeah."

Ah, fawk it. I still have work to do. Couple more hours of cutting, I pick back up the piece that almost made me claim the end of my finger. I get all the pieces cut and tacked together, then realize my hand feels oddly wet inside my glove. "Damn, the nitrile glove must have my hand sweaty or something." I pull back the wrist of the nitrile glove, and see that my palm is red. I hold my fingers up, and red starts running down my forearm. "Well...damn. That sucks."

Okay, cleaning up for reals this time. Drop the garage door, then back into the powder room to start scrubbing my hand again.

"Did your finger fall off yet?" I hear come from the living room.

"Naw, woman, I'm good as new." She comes up behind me while I'm trying to rinse all the blood off my arm. "Seriously?!" She storms off. She gets mad when I don't listen. Who knew?

Anyway, she kept insisting that I needed stitches each and every day I changed the bandages. The thing bled for days. She was right, I should have gone to the ER. But I got lucky, because it never got infected, and the nail grew out and looks pretty much normal. The only way you can tell now is the actually relatively clean scar halfway around my finger. It healed up great, except for the lack of feeling in the fingertip now. The cuticle is squared off at that corner, since the cutting disk hit it there. But having had cellulitis in my other hand (another automotive related cut that did get badly infected), and that Doc telling me that if I had waited any longer I could have lost a couple fingers, if not my hand, and worse yet could have had that infection go blood-borne and spread who knows where else....it was incredibly dumb of me not to go see the professionals again.

See what happens when you don't listen to your wife? :lol:
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Luck of the draw, that's the worst encounter with a cutoff wheels you could have short of sitting down on a fully revved one.
I thought it was kind of interesting how a spinning cutoff wheel acts on skin tissue. On dermis and epidermis it sort of just melts it. Even down in fat tissue. Muscle tissue doesn't like it a damn bit though. I hope I never get to see what bone does though. Eeh.
 
Way back in the early 90's.
Met this guy ..... can't even remember how.
He had a business op. Invest $1000.00 now.
GUARANTEED full return plus 25% in 6 months.
His claim was exponential profit growth the longer you stayed in.
Being young, I still thought it was a good idea ... thought hard about.
Being a broke newly-wed who recently lost a job ( I was employed) there was no way I could get the money together.

He was an engineer and was buying VERY small chunks of land in the Piedmont/Triad area, in strategic locations.
Two years later he retired a multi-millionaire as cell phone towers popped up all over the state.


Matt
 
Not only did he tell me the wrong name, he texted her name to me too. Once I found her, he had me write her. What I wrote was "approved, before I hit send. Then........ she answered immediately!

THEN............. he calls the next day, says she was the wrong one! Gives me the right one(MAYBE????) and wants me to look her up!
 
I got one. Me and a few friends ( all of us high-school seniors) decided to go check out the new football and track field my high school built. But one issue, they keep the gates shut. It’s also 10:30 at night on a Saturday in July. So we do the only sensible thing and take the “back way” in. The back way is through an undeveloped cul-de-sac, up and down a grassy hill and over a curb. Bam. Your in. I had some descent ATs on my 98 zj with a 360 and quadratrack. The best part about that jeep was if I pulled the front driveshaft it would do just absolute tire shredding burnouts. Also at 250k it was a beater and worn out. But those are different story’s. Well we get down there and the drainage ditch at the side of the complex is almost dry. So of course my friends dared me to cross. They bet I’d get stuck. Well I’m not one to chicken out so I line up and mat it. Jeep goes through small creak and makes it out. I turn around and do it again and decided that it’s time to GTFO so I do. Up the grassy hill and down it only to see a Madison county sheriff. Welp. Time to really gtfo. I go through all the back yards at wide open trying to get away from my doom and pop out on the highway. 2 more cops. I nail it to the edge of town and start crossing corn fields. The cops tried to follow but seeing 3 crown Vic’s sink in the mud is such a relieving sight. I cross the field, high tail it home and don’t mention a word to the parents. Fast forward to the next school year and my little brother is now known as the brother of the guy who tore up the schools new grass.


Another was me riding my motorcycle (83 Honda magna v65 if anyone cares) and cursing about 106 down the road. Look up and see straight road. Look down and see eager bike wanting to go. So I go. I get to 125 and see a car coming the other way. I’m on a decided highway so I feel safe. I push it to 130. As I fly by I realize it’s a state cop. Needless to say I stayed out of cuffs the fast way


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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XJsavage said:
Luck of the draw, that's the worst encounter with a cutoff wheels you could have short of sitting down on a fully revved one.
I thought it was kind of interesting how a spinning cutoff wheel acts on skin tissue. On dermis and epidermis it sort of just melts it. Even down in fat tissue. Muscle tissue doesn't like it a damn bit though. I hope I never get to see what bone does though. Eeh.
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I did think after a day or two I was going to lose the end of my finger. It was fugly. Not my first encounter, though... I've had one jump out of my hand when the wheel hung in a corner of a piece I was cutting and zip across the back of my right thumb and index finger. That wasn't much more than a good scratch, though... especially compared to this one.

Had it actually bit all the way through on this one? Woof. You might just have see me want to yack, and I'm not the squeamish type when it comes to gruesome injuries.
 
Scooter402 said:
I did think after a day or two I was going to lose the end of my finger. It was fugly. Not my first encounter, though... I've had one jump out of my hand when the wheel hung in a corner of a piece I was cutting and zip across the back of my right thumb and index finger. That wasn't much more than a good scratch, though... especially compared to this one.

Had it actually bit all the way through on this one? Woof. You might just have see me want to yack, and I'm not the squeamish type when it comes to gruesome injuries.
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IMG_20170709_132556963.jpg

Here's to fond memories! Hands down, this is the most PG-13 laceration pic I have.
 
One dumb thing from the recent past. Was out shooting one wednesday before church. I thought, its just .22 and Im only gonna soot maybe 20 rds or so, I aint gonna bother with eyes and ears! 3rd shot down range hit something and ricoched back at me. Caught me right in the corner of my right eye socket. I bled like a stuck hog. Called my fiance to come get me and we went to the ER, then to another ER that has a trauma center. Amid talks of plastic surgery to try and reconstruct my tear duct, they were trying to stitch my eyelid back together. After 6 hours of xrays ct scans, eye exams, and failing to get it numb 3 times to stitch t, I told em to shove their stitches and their surgery and get my discharge papers, I was going home.

This was less than two weeks before our wedding... Needless to say, my soon to be wife was none too thrilled at the fact that I would have a nasty scar and possibly an eye patch for the wedding pictures. I was able to "lose" the eye patch the day before the big day...



The day after
20170831_154433.jpg



Day before the wedding
20170901_094023.jpg


My eyelid still acts funny and I no longer get "sand" in my eye after sleeping. but my tearduct has healed.
 
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JSJJ388 said:
One dumb thing from the recent past. Was out shooting one wednesday before church. I thought, its just .22 and Im only gonna soot maybe 20 rds or so, I aint gonna bother with eyes and ears! 3rd shot down range hit something and ricoched back at me. Caught me right in the corner of my right eye socket. I bled like a stuck hog. Called my fiance to come get me and we went to the ER, then to another ER that has a trauma center. Amid talks of plastic surgery to try and reconstruct my tear duct, they were trying to stitch my eyelid back together. After 6 hours of xrays ct scans, eye exams, and failing to get it numb 3 times to stitch t, I told em to shove their stitches and their surgery and get my discharge papers, I was going home.

This was less than two weeks before our wedding... Needless to say, my soon to be wife was none too thrilled at the fact that I would have a nasty scar and possibly an eye patch for the wedding pictures. I was able to "lose" the eye patch the day before the big day...



The day after
View attachment 265788


Day before the wedding
View attachment 265787

My eyelid still acts funny and I no longer get "sand" in my eye after sleeping. but my tearduct has healed.
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Damn dude! You were lucky you didn't lose your eye. Glad to hear everything healed, well almost everything I guess.
 
tlucier said:
Damn dude! You were lucky you didn't lose your eye. Glad to hear everything healed, well almost everything I guess.
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No kidding! Had I not blinked when I did, I would have lost my eye, or at least had to have lead chunks removed from it. They only found one small lead fragment in the bridge of my nose. Its still there.
 
Scooter402 said:
Right in the best spot to try to have one heal, too, I see. :D Superglue FTW!
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Yessir! Medical grade glue (liquid stitch), courtesy of my Aunt Susie that retired from the medical field after 30+ years.

That was another very dumb thing I did. I have a bad habit of removing the guard from an angle grinder. Whenever I'm doing tubework, I like to use a 6" cutoff wheel as opossed to the 4.5" because it cleanly slices straight through up to 2" .120 DOM several times with only one entry point. I know it's a terrible idea.
This one day in particular, I had a complete cage tacked together as a 90% complete structure still needing a few minor braces. I laid a plywood sheet on the top so I could use it for hand tools, beer, candy, phone, the works. I carried over and set my non-guarded angle grinder on top of it, (surface distance from ground level around 5'). I paid no attention to the tool still being in trigger lock mode. It was unplugged when I sat it up there. I bent down to grab the end of the extension cord to plug it in. A split second later I heard a noise as I was in the process of standing up. The grinder went immediately into full spin and was gaining traction as it dug into the surface of the plywood and was self propelling itself not only off of the makeshift tabletop, but straight in the direction of my face! Quick reaction time kicked in and the only thing I new to do was swat it in mid air, open handed, to change it's direction of travel. And wouldn't you know, the first thing my hand touched was the business end of a brand new 6" .045 PFX cutoff wheel spinning as fast as my Porter Cable could spin it. I didn't have my gloves on yet because I had literally just started getting my tools lined up to finish out an afternoon. I guess it's pretty self explanatory from there .

One of my other glorious moments involved shaving a 14 bolt with a grinding wheel one afternoon. I had already cut a semi-clean edge with a cutoff wheel. I of course wore safety classes for that portion. I had multiple entry points with the cutoff wheel but wanted to give it a little more love with a rock disk. As I'm switching out blades, the neighbor's Brendel pitbull came over to see me. I gave her some love and attention and warned her to stand clear so she didn't get sparks in her eyes. She listened. That little bit of distraction made me forget to pull my glasses down back over my eyes and the second I go to start grinding, bam!.... Well, shit. I knew something flew into my right eye but couldn't tell if it bounced off or not. I packed it up for the night.
By 3am, lying in bed, I woke up to a ferocious stinging and a slight burning sensation. I toughed it out until morning. The second I knew the boss would be awake, I gave him a call and told him about my current state. Once he got done cussing me up and down, I concluded our mostly one-sided conversation with "yeah, I'm using a sick day that coorprate doesn't even give us....bye".
I drove myself down to the eye doctor and waited impatiently outside the waiting room for the receptionist to finish playing on her cell phone and open the G****** door. I recall vocalizing just about all of that while I'm pacing around there looking like a drunk pirate. She let me in at exactly 8 and didn't ask a lot of questions thereafter.
"One FBR, please", I told her. "I'm paying in cash".
I got escorted back to the doctors room where I met the leading eye doctor who owns the practice, and has for over 20 years. He already knew me by name.
Standard procedure, I set in the chair, rested my face up against the mini toilet seat looking contraption so he get a look-see. Surprise, surprise! I've got a big ole shard of steel that hasn't seen the light of day since 1973 when dug it out of it's little dungeon inside the belly of my junkyard axle. This shouldn't be bad.

Bahahaha! I was wrong. After few attempts at digging it out with this death missile ice pick he had, no prevail. I was totally calm. There's nothing nerve wracking about having no choice but to stare directly at a giant needle diving into your cornea. I mean, come on.
I can take broken bones, lacerations, blood and gore all day long with no medical attention and never miss a beat.

Ladies and gentlemen... I, XJsavage, passed out in an eye doctors office.

I woke up to a very frightened nurse standing over me with a very concerned look upon her face and in a phone conversation with an ambulance dispatcher.
"I thought you were having a seizure!!", She said.
I dusted my self off and got back into position. "Let's do this shit!" The eye doctor, once he swiped the sweat off of his forehead, stepped cautiously closer. He goes back in with the shakiest hand I've ever seen. He then says, "umm.. well, that was deep. Good news is I won't have to use the Dremel now."
One more round of me vs the gates of hell and I came out victorious! It was gone.
I got up and slapped $100 on the table and went on my merry way. "Keep the change and have a nice day".

The next time I spoke with the eye doctor, he said that was the toughest FBR he's ever performed in his entire career.
 
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XJsavage said:
Yessir! Medical grade glue (liquid stitch), courtesy of my Aunt Susie that retired from the medical field after 30+ years.

That was another very dumb thing I did. I have a bad habit of removing the guard from an angle grinder. Whenever I'm doing tubework, I like to use a 6" cutoff wheel as opossed to the 4.5" because it cleanly slices straight through up to 2" .120 DOM several times with only one entry point. I know it's a terrible idea.
This one day in particular, I had a complete cage tacked together as a 90% complete structure still needing a few minor braces. I laid a plywood sheet on the top so I could use it for hand tools, beer, candy, phone, the works. I carried over and set my non-guarded angle grinder on top of it, (surface distance from ground level around 5'). I paid no attention to the tool still being in trigger lock mode. It was unplugged when I sat it up there. I bent down to grab the end of the extension cord to plug it in. A split second later I heard a noise as I was in the process of standing up. The grinder went immediately into full spin and was gaining traction as it dug into the surface of the plywood and was self propelling itself not only off of the makeshift tabletop, but straight in the direction of my face! Quick reaction time kicked in and the only thing I new to do was swat it in mid air, open handed, to change it's direction of travel. And wouldn't you know, the first thing my hand touched was the business end of a brand new 6" .045 PFX cutoff wheel spinning as fast as my Porter Cable could spin it. I didn't have my gloves on yet because I had literally just started getting my tools lined up to finish out an afternoon. I guess it's pretty self explanatory from there .

One of my other glorious moments involved shaving a 14 bolt with a grinding wheel one afternoon. I had already cut a semi-clean edge with a cutoff wheel. I of course wore safety classes for that portion. I had multiple entry points with the cutoff wheel but wanted to give it a little more love with a rock disk. As I'm switching out blades, the neighbor's Brendel pitbull came over to see me. I gave her some love and attention and warned her to stand clear so she didn't get sparks in her eyes. She listened. That little bit of distraction made me forget to pull my glasses down back over my eyes and the second I go to start grinding, bam!.... Well, shit. I knew something flew into my right eye but couldn't tell if it bounced off or not. I packed it up for the night.
By 3am, lying in bed, I woke up to a ferocious stinging and a slight burning sensation. I toughed it out until morning. The second I new the boss would be awake, I gave him a call and told him about my current state. Once he got done cussing me up and down, I concluded our mostly one-sided conversation with "yeah, I'm using a sick day that coorprate doesn't even give us....bye".
I drove myself down to the eye doctor and waited impatiently outside the waiting room for the receptionist to finish playing on her cell phone and open the G****** door. I recall vocalizing just about all of that while I'm pacing around there looking like a drunk pirate. She let me and didn't ask a lot of questions thereafter.
"One FBR, please", I told her. "I'm paying in cash".
I got escorted back to the doctors room where I met the eye leading eye doctor who owns the practice, and has for over 20 years. He already knew me by name.
Standard procedure, I set in the chair, rest my face up against the mini toilet seat looking contraption so he get a look-see. Surprise, surprise! I've got a big ole shard of steel that hasn't seen the light of day since 1973 when dug it out of it's little dungeon inside the belly of my junkyard axle. This shouldn't be bad.

Bahahaha! I was wrong. After few attempts at digging it out with this death missile ice pick he had, no prevail. I was totally calm. There's nothing nerve wracking about having no choice but to stare directly at a giant needle diving into your cornea. I mean, come on.
I can take broken bones, lacerations, blood and gore all day long with no medical attention and never miss a beat.

Ladies and gentlemen... I, XJsavage, passed out in an eye doctors office.

I woke up to a very frightened nurse standing over me with a very concerned look upon her face and in a phone conversation with an ambulance dispatcher.
"I thought you were having a seizure!!", She said.
I dusted my self off and got back into position. "Let's do this shit!" The eye doctor, once he swiped the sweat off of his forehead, stepped cautiously closer. He goes back in with the shakiest hand I've ever seen. He then says, "umm.. well, that was deep. Good news is I won't have to use the Dremel now."
One more round of me vs the gates of hell and I came out victorious! It was gone.
I got up and slapped $100 on the table and went on my merry way. "Keep the change and have a nice day".

The next time I spoke with the eye doctor, he said that was the toughest FBR he's ever performed in his entire career.
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Woof! ...that's about the best I could muster from that one. That one had me squirming in my seat to say the least.

Just for reference, some of my other personal follies have included a broken 4th and 5th metacarpal in my right hand (don't ask...), a separated shoulder re-set in the field at Camp Pendleton, a dislocated knee, countless cuts and visits to the ER for stitches, watching a doc cut open my hand to drain the cellulitis mentioned in a previous post in this thread, watching someone jump a ditch, sink feet in and snap a tibia falling backward, watching someone "grenade" an ankle from a leg sweep during Semper Fu training (all the other Devil Dawgs out there have probably seen this one too), as well as witnessing the terrors and horrors of overseas without much more than a blink, a "f*k off," or a "that sucks..." and many others I'm probably forgetting. But this one made me squirm. I've never (yet) had to have FBR from an eye.

I say again...woof!
 
upnover said:
Not only did he tell me the wrong name, he texted her name to me too. Once I found her, he had me write her. What I wrote was "approved, before I hit send. Then........ she answered immediately!

THEN............. he calls the next day, says she was the wrong one! Gives me the right one(MAYBE????) and wants me to look her up!
Click to expand...

Of course she answered immediately. She hasn't been with "Paulnasty" since 1981.
Her sex life has been on a downhill spiral since then.
Ya'll think i'm crazy know?
Back in the day i was Fawking 10 foot tall and missle proof.
(and she just sent me another email)
Thanks Chip, you asshole.
 
Scooter402 said:
Woof! ...that's about the best I could muster from that one. That one had me squirming in my seat to say the least.

Just for reference, some of my other personal follies have included a broken 4th and 5th metacarpal in my right hand (don't ask...), a separated shoulder re-set in the field at Camp Pendleton, a dislocated knee, countless cuts and visits to the ER for stitches, watching a doc cut open my hand to drain the cellulitis mentioned in a previous post in this thread, watching someone jump a ditch, sink feet in and snap a tibia falling backward, watching someone "grenade" an ankle from a leg sweep during Semper Fu training (all the other Devil Dawgs out there have probably seen this one too), as well as witnessing the terrors and horrors of overseas without much more than a blink, a "f*k off," or a "that sucks..." and many others I'm probably forgetting. But this one made me squirm. I've never (yet) had to have FBR from an eye.

I say again...woof!
Click to expand...

Oh there's more.

Another really dumb thing I did that I paid for in pain and regret was the time I had the surface of both corneas burned by radiation. It's a condition known as a "white-out". A buildup of cooked cells that won't be flushed away by natural tears and has a tendency of getting VERY infected.
If anyone was curious who my eye doctor is, his name is Dr Plaxico in Blythewood SC, his name will reoccur shortly.
So there I was, a master (by then) duct cleaning tech for Advantaclean that just returned from a several month big money high priority duct cleaning project at a VA hospital in Reno Nevada. It was an a big get together for the best duct cleaners the company had within it's national coorperation. I knew my stuff.
We were taking on a big project at a university here in Columbia and had several months time in already. Our mission for that day was to clean and sanatize several wall mounted fan coil units retrofitted onto the hallway windows. My coworker, a 42 year old black guy named Glenn whom I very much respected and looked up to because of his courage, cunningness and great character was put in charge of the operation. It would be a challenge because only one unit could be disabled at a time while the college President and VP were just right down the hall and couldn't leave their duty station. We started with the worst one. It was outside their offices. I pulled the face off of one and noticed there was a UV light. Fine, I'll unplug it. No can do. It's hard wired.
I looked over at Glenn who was bsing on his phone with one of his booty calls. This is the same guy that I mentioned earlier that I was rooming with that picked up a chick from Bojangles that brought over the deaf girl (that was years prior).
I said "Hey Glenn, could you see about cutting power to this so we can clean the unit?"
He walked off and when returned said there was no way to without cutting power to the office. I know UV light exposure can burn eyes, but had no idea how badly. I spun the safety shield that was mounted to it to block the light, but didn't think about the glare bouncing off the metal surrounding it.
All day long, my blue collar colleagues and I spent cleaning every single unit in the place with most of our time spent with our faces buried within close proximity to these death-ray glowsticks of agony.
All three of us that afternoon went straight to the ER to be examined for radiation burns. When Glenn found out, he literally cussed us all out over the phone because we made him look bad preceeding into his imaginary managerial position. That was the day that all three of us washed our hands of that asshole. It hit all of us within an hour apart from each other. I walked out of the ER with less than 10% of my vision left within my tear filled eyes when all they offered was numbing drops that did a job as piss poor as tap water. I cannot even describe the pain. On a scale from 1-10, it was double digits on a f*n Richter scale.
I got dropped off at Dr Plaxicos office at 8am, stumbled in there to curse out the receptionist like usual and plop down some money when he finished. Dr Plaxicos voice wrang out the second he saw me, "oh Dear God, not again!!!"
This time all he did was rub cotton swabs over my corneas to clear the cell build up and drop in a few numbing drops (that worked!) and gave me a bottle of antibiotics for free of charge.
Immediatley relieved, I said with a smile, "Thank you, and you may swipe my debit card this time". I couldn't even read the amount charged and really didn't care.
 
XJsavage said:
Oh there's more.

Another really dumb thing I did that I paid for in pain and regret was the time I had the surface of both corneas burned by radiation. It's a condition known as a "white-out". A buildup of cooked cells that won't be flushed away by natural tears and has a tendency of getting VERY infected.
If anyone was curious who my eye doctor is, his name is Dr Plaxico in Blythewood SC, his name will reoccur shortly.
So there I was, a master (by then) duct cleaning tech for Advantaclean that just returned from a several month big money high priority duct cleaning project at a VA hospital in Reno Nevada. It was an a big get together for the best duct cleaners the company had within it's national coorperation. I knew my stuff.
We were taking on a big project at a university here in Columbia and had several months time in already. Our mission for that day was to clean and sanatize several wall mounted fan coil units retrofitted onto the hallway windows. My coworker, a 42 year old black guy named Glenn whom I very much respected and looked up to because of his courage, cunningness and great character was put in charge of the operation. It would be a challenge because only one unit could be disabled at a time while the college President and VP were just right down the hall and couldn't leave their duty station. We started with the worst one. It was outside their offices. I pulled the face off of one and noticed there was a UV light. Fine, I'll unplug it. No can do. It's hard wired.
I looked over at Glenn who was bsing on his phone with one of his booty calls. This is the same guy that I mentioned earlier that I was rooming with that picked up a chick from Bojangles that brought over the deaf girl (that was years prior).
I said "Hey Glenn, could you see about cutting power to this so we can clean the unit?"
He walked off and when returned said there was no way to without cutting power to the office. I know UV light exposure can burn eyes, but had no idea how badly. I spun the safety shield that was mounted to it to block the light, but didn't think about the glare bouncing off the metal surrounding it.
All day long, my blue collar colleagues and I spent cleaning every single unit in the place with most of our time spent with our faces buried within close proximity to these death-ray glowsticks of agony.
All three of us that afternoon went straight to the ER to be examined for radiation burns. When Glenn found out, he literally cussed us all out over the phone because we made him look bad preceeding into his imaginary managerial position. That was the day that all three of us washed our hands of that asshole. It hit all of us within an hour apart from each other. I walked out of the ER with less than 10% of my vision left within my tear filled eyes when all they offered was numbing drops that did a job as piss poor as tap water. I cannot even describe the pain. On a scale from 1-10, it was double digits on a f*n Richter scale.
I got dropped off at Dr Plaxicos office at 8am, stumbled in there to curse out the receptionist like usual and plop down some money when he finished. Dr Plaxicos voice wrang out the second he saw me, "oh Dear God, not again!!!"
This time all he did was rub cotton swabs over my corneas to clear the cell build up and drop in a few numbing drops (that worked!) and gave me a bottle of antibiotics for free of charge.
Immediatley relieved, I said with a smile, "Thank you, and you may swipe my debit card this time". I couldn't even read the amount charged and really didn't care.
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Holy...Jeebus. I'm thinking that would make CS gas in the eyeballs feel like a fine summer breeze.

Gotta love it when a more than familiar doctor sees you and their first words are "not again!" :lol:
 
I got one about welding. Was using my old beat ass stick welder from the 50s turned all the way up to 280 amps to cut old rusty bolts. Cut 2 and move the ground. Cut 2 and move the ground while bsing with my buddys in the garage. Cut 6 and go to move the ground and holy mother of god that fawker must have been almost glowing red. I touch it without gloves ( smart move there) and hear the skin sizzle. I kinda help in pain and cuss up a storm while running cold tap water over it. After 15 minutes of running water I call it a night and go inside. I use a cold beer to keep my hand cool and start to drink and bs again. After 4 or 5 it’s close to 1 am and I call it a night. As soon as my hands off a cool can for more than 10 seconds it feels like lava flowing over my hand. I grab an ice back and tape it to my hand. Time to sleep. All is well till the ice pack is warm. Time to swap. After a sleepless night I wake up to see a huge blister. Like I’ve never seen one that big. It went from the crotch of the thumb and index finger to more than half way up my thumb. ( left side so I still have my good side. ) it’s tender, sore and burning. Rub some bag balm on it. And all is dude. Bandage it up and finish the bolts off with my left hand behind my back. Should have gone to the ER for it but didn’t. A few days later I’m trying to type on my keyboard and hear/feel a pop. I look down and see the blister deflating. Great, last thing I wanted when I have to type a paper ( gotta love school). My reasoning was the blister fluid keeps the burn under pressure and free of air which slows the pain. So when the blister popped and the fluid ran out there was air in there along with the blister rubbing painfully against the burn. So I rip/cut the blister off and cover it in more bag balm and bandage it up. Go into class and people are asking what happened. Told them it was a welding accident ( not far from the truth) just so people don’t continue to ask. Even scared a guy away from wanting to be a welder. The weeks it took that burn to cover up was living hell. My hand was useless when it had the blister and next to useless without it. Looking back it for sure would have been a hospital trip. On the plus side I got out of a lot of class work because of it. Now I have a smooth scar to tell the story.


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I guess since i started this thread I should maybe add one more.
Several years ago I decided a thermarest mattress was too big and heavy for backpacking. So I bought a big Agnes insulated air core mattress to save space and weight.
So I bring my awesome lite weight air mattress on a truck camping trip.
Long story short I went to bed that night to hear a leak as soon as I go to bed.
At this point I have had a beer or maybe two and a half and forget the mattress comes with a patch kit.
I go digging through my truck to find a suitable way to patch the hole. I find a plastic writing pen and think.... melted plastic on the hole would be perfect
So I light the pen body with my lighter, and try several times to drip the melting plastic on the offending hole.
After deciding the beer intake made lining up a direct drip impossible I decide to just smear the melted plastic on the hole.
I stick my finger within inches to the burning plastic and with a sudden jerk realize how stupid of a mistake I almost made.
I blow the flame out and am relieved by my narrow escape from a painful mistake.
Less than a second later I use my fingers to spread the melted plastic over the hole in my mattress.

That was 15 years ago, and I still have no fingerprint ridges on 2 of my fingers......
 
Scooter402 said:
My turn for the weekly meeting of "dumb things I've done..." I seriously should write a book. It'd be a best seller comedy novel.

So there I was...hanging out in the garage on a brisk December Saturday morning, working on my chopped up Dana 44, trying to redneck-engineer a solution to get it back in under my CJ. Since it was nice and cool, I figured I'd put some of my handy-dandy Harbor Freight work gloves on. I was working on cutting a piece of 1/4" plate with my cutoff wheel, not really paying too much mind to the blade as my mind was wandering off into the wild blue yonder, when suddenly....

I felt a "thump" against my left index finger. I yank my hand back and see a fresh cut in the finger of my glove. My first thought was "well, damn! I just cut a hole in a brand new pair of gloves..." But then my glove started to leak. "Well, that's new..."

I pulled the glove off to reveal that I tried (and luckily failed) to remove the end of my index finger from right at the rearmost end of my fingernail, below the first knuckle. The cut went from the side of my finger to fully across and through my fingernail. It was leaking pretty well, so I couldn't see exactly what the damage was. Since it was still relatively early, and my wife was still in bed, I (quietly) walked into the house and used the downstairs powder room sink to rinse it out...while trying to contain the puddle coming from my finger.

The sink basin was instantly red, and the leak just wouldn't stop unless I was squeezing my finger pretty hard. I was actually able to squeeze it off to see down into the cut with my thumb and middle finger of my left hand, while using my right to spread the cut open to see how deep it was. Sure enough, there was that pinkish, whitish glare coming out of there...yep - straight down to the bone. I can see it under the groove through my fingernail too. Awesome. But the wife was still upstairs. Maybe she won't notice?

"Eh, what the hell...maybe I can get it to stop bleeding enough to go back to work on the axle," I reason with myself. So, I'm amusing myself with other of my life's follies while pacing back and forth in the kitchen, holding my hand up in front of my face with several paper towels squeezed around my finger for 10 minutes or so. Hm...is it done leaking yet? I hold my hand over the sink and pull back the towel. It starts flowing freshly again...well damn.

10 more minutes with another fresh paper towel wad, pacing back and forth in the kitchen (didn't want to ruin the woman's good kitchen towels now!)...I pull the paper towel back again, and it's still going, but slower. Ah, there's hope! Think Wolverine thoughts....happy Wolverine thoughts...

Since it's slowing down, I figure I can put some gauze and tape around it, tight enough that it'll not bleed. Then I'll get my ass back to work on the axle. I open the lower cabinet under one of the counter tops going for the first aid kit. I pull it out thinking I'm in the home stretch. The damn thing still has the zip ties around the handle! WTF...seriously? I can't cut these off without making a bloody mess everywhere, because I can't let go of my hand. Well damn.

I ease up the stairs, and slide into the bedroom. "Hey, babe? Uh...can you come help me for a minute?"

She rolls over from her slumber and sees me holding a nearly soaked paper towel around my finger, then instantly freaks. "WTF did you do? Cut your finger off?!"

"Nah, it's still there. Just leaking pretty good."

So, we go downstairs, and I ask her to help me with the first aid kit. She looks at my finger, and says "oh, gross... I think you should go to the ER. I'm pretty sure you should have that stitched up."

"It ain't that bad...it'll stop bleeding after while. I've cut myself worse."

"How deep is that?" she asks....

"Not that bad, it's just a flesh wound. Ha!"

"Very funny..." She loves my jokes (I'm being sarcastic, in case you couldn't tell).

So, she gets the FAK open, goes for the gauze and bandage, and applies a liberal amount of Neosporin. I'm squeezing the damn thing as much as I can with the thumb-and-finger method outlined before, so she doesn't really see that it's leaking that bad. Does she see it? Hmmm...I might get away with it. She goes to put gauze on it, then starts wrapping tape. "Oh, you gonna have to get it much tighter than that," I tell her.

Fresh blood starts soaking through the gauze. "Go to the f*ing ER!" she orders me. "Nah, I'm good. I'll take care of it. I just want to go clean up out in the garage."

"Fine, suit yourself, but if that gets infected, don't say I didn't tell you to go!"

"Whatever..." Guys, we all know that's our go-to when we know we're wrong. Am I right, or am I right?

I wrap some tape around my finger, get a nitrile glove and put it on my hand, then strut back into the garage like a champ. "Yeah, I'll show her...yeah."

Ah, fawk it. I still have work to do. Couple more hours of cutting, I pick back up the piece that almost made me claim the end of my finger. I get all the pieces cut and tacked together, then realize my hand feels oddly wet inside my glove. "Damn, the nitrile glove must have my hand sweaty or something." I pull back the wrist of the nitrile glove, and see that my palm is red. I hold my fingers up, and red starts running down my forearm. "Well...damn. That sucks."

Okay, cleaning up for reals this time. Drop the garage door, then back into the powder room to start scrubbing my hand again.

"Did your finger fall off yet?" I hear come from the living room.

"Naw, woman, I'm good as new." She comes up behind me while I'm trying to rinse all the blood off my arm. "Seriously?!" She storms off. She gets mad when I don't listen. Who knew?

Anyway, she kept insisting that I needed stitches each and every day I changed the bandages. The thing bled for days. She was right, I should have gone to the ER. But I got lucky, because it never got infected, and the nail grew out and looks pretty much normal. The only way you can tell now is the actually relatively clean scar halfway around my finger. It healed up great, except for the lack of feeling in the fingertip now. The cuticle is squared off at that corner, since the cutting disk hit it there. But having had cellulitis in my other hand (another automotive related cut that did get badly infected), and that Doc telling me that if I had waited any longer I could have lost a couple fingers, if not my hand, and worse yet could have had that infection go blood-borne and spread who knows where else....it was incredibly dumb of me not to go see the professionals again.

See what happens when you don't listen to your wife? :lol:
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I apparently inherited the dumb gene from my father........

He and some of his beer drinking buddies did some tree cutting when I was a boy. I and my younger brother were the woodchuckers and I'm sure my back problems were caused by chucking and stacking tons of wood, when dad was'nt kicking us in the ass for moving too slow. We both learned how to move fast enough to avoid the boot in the ass very quickly. One day while limbing dad caught his leg above his kneecap W the chain on the C-52, it was an ugly 5-6" cut and he wrapped the bloody hole in his bluejeans w his T shirt and we drove home stopping at the liquor store on the way. When we got home he sat on the the couch and started drinking. He told me to get a sewing needle from moms sewing machine and some mono fishing line. He ran the line though the needle and I did my best to help him stitch up the ragged wound, his hands were shaking and he cussed a lot stitching his leg up. About halfway done mom, (a RN) came home from work..........
I never heard her cuss before then. She got plenty mad that dad would not go to the doctor and get it fixed no matter how she pleaded, she told him it would get infected about 5 times but dad finished the job and she wrapped his leg w a bandage. 2 days later his knee was swolled up bad and infected and mom took him to our family doctor who was in his 70s. I was not there but mom told me that after Dr. Wall heard about dad attempting to stitch up his chainsawed leg, he said he'd been a doctor for 50+ years and in all those years he never treated a dumber man than my Dad!.

IMG_0010.jpg
here w one of his grandsons....
 
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mommucked said:
I apparently inherited the dumb gene from my father........

He and some of his beer drinking buddies did some tree cutting when I was a boy. I and my younger brother were the woodchuckers and I'm sure my back problems were caused by chucking and stacking tons of wood, when dad was'nt kicking us in the ass for moving too slow. We both learned how to move fast enough to avoid the boot in the ass very quickly. One day while limbing dad caught his leg above his kneecap W the chain on the C-52, it was ugly and he wrapped the bloody hole in his bluejeans w his T shirt and we drove home, stopping at the liquor store on the way. When we got home he sat on the the couch and started drinking. He told me to get a sewing needle from moms sewing machine and some mono fishing line. He ran the line though the needle and I did my best to help him stitch up the ragged wound, his hands were shaking and he cussed a lot stitching his leg up. About halfway done mom, (a RN) came home from work..........
I never heard her cuss before then. She got plenty mad that dad would not go to the doctor and get it fixed no matter how she pleaded, she told him it would get infected about 5 times but dad finished the job and she wrapped his leg w a bandage. 2 days later his knee was swolled up bad and infected and mom took him to our family doctor who was in his 70s. I was not there but mom told me after hearing the story about him trying to stitch up his chainsawed leg Dr. Wall told him he'd been a doctor for 50+ years and in all those years he never treated a dumber man than my Dad!.

View attachment 265819 here w one of his grandsons....
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Dayum! I don't know if I could have done that sober either... :lol:
 
I had my right hand pulled through a metal radiator fan on my K30 as I was finishing up the Cummins swap. That one hurt pretty bad...lots of x rays, no broken shit, but tendon damage sucks.

I've had to go to the eye doctor twice to have stuff taken out of my eye. Always the left one, for some reason... both times wearing safety glasses too. The second time it started to rust and once they pulled it out, she had to use the dremel to clean it out. It's unnerving, but damn I'm glad I couldn't feel it! The funny part was her telling me to find something to focus on and not to move my eyes at all. Luckily, she was very "abreast" of the situation :D
 
We have 55gl drums with the tops cut off for trash cans at work. I laid a radiator flat across the top of one to braze a leak in the core area (yes in the 90's people actually fixed shit). Figured it was a good idea to clean the area I would be working with some brake/parts cleaner. After cleaning the area I fired off the torch , leaned over and everything in the trash can hit me in the face along with the radiator in a huge fireball. Bad idea to spray brake clean down in a trash can and then throw the torch to it.
 
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Probably the most painful and longest lasting thing I’ve done is a 2/3 degree sunburn. It was a cool over cast day at the lake so didn’t think about sunscreen. That was a huge mistake. My whole back became a blister, not a bunch of small blisters but one huge one that would pop/rip open when I laid down or wore a shirt. I was like that for almost 2 Weeks not able to work. Had to sleep on two towels because it was draining so much fluid everyday. My back is still sensitive to sunlight and gets burnt easier now 5 years later. I’ve been cut and burnt plenty but that was probably the most painful and longest lasting pain I’ve had.


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Loganwayne said:
Probably the most painful and longest lasting thing I’ve done is a 2/3 degree sunburn. It was a cool over cast day at the lake so didn’t think about sunscreen. That was a huge mistake. My whole back became a blister, not a bunch of small blisters but one huge one that would pop/rip open when I laid down or wore a shirt. I was like that for almost 2 Weeks not able to work. Had to sleep on two towels because it was draining so much fluid everyday. My back is still sensitive to sunlight and gets burnt easier now 5 years later. I’ve been cut and burnt plenty but that was probably the most painful and longest lasting pain I’ve had.


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I feel your pain. My sunburn was not that bad but when I was in 5th grade or so, during the summer, we went to the pool and it was a very similar day and I did not put sunscreen on my back or shoulders. Was there from about 9 am till 4 or so. I remember the next morning getting up and just blistered everywhere and hurt to even move at all. Went to summer camp that morning in so much pain. A couple days after that I started to peel...so not only was I in a lot of pain, but I was itching so bad and I remember crying and thinking I was going crazy, then some kid thought it would be funny to kick my in the back...well as he kicked me, his shoe slid across my entire back and when I went to reach up my shirt, I remember pulling out a bunch of puss and a hand full of skin. From that day I vowed to ALWAYS wear sunscreen even if its cloudy outside.
 
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