Ever amazed by your own stupidity?

[Poacher]

I currently lack an opposable thumb on my right hand ... well, I do have one, but it hurts like hell since I sliced a piece off this morning while using a mandolin to slice cucumbers. Exactly what I'd told myself never to do, just one more slice before using a knife for the last bit.

It didn't bleed much.
At first!

 

[mistyoptic]

I currently lack an opposable thumb on my right hand ... well, I do have one, but it hurts like hell since I sliced a piece off this morning while using a mandolin to slice cucumbers. Exactly what I'd told myself never to do, just one more slice before using a knife for the last bit.

It didn't bleed much.
At first!

Some years ago, BIL volunteered to dry up after dinner. Not familiar with a mandolin, he picked it up off the draining rack and rubbed it vigorously with his tea towel Many elastoplasts later…

 

[Bazzer]

On the theme of kitchen appliances, I needed to move a toaster just after putting a slice of bread down one of the slots. In a moment of stupidity, I decided the vacant slot closest to my hand would be a handy grasping place as it wasn't yet warm.
Yes, fingers on a live electrical circuit.

 

[Profpointy]

When I picked up my new bike from LBS bottle cages had been fixed upside down. Cytec mechanics supposedly. Bike has never been back for anything.

That's nothing. I reassembled a bike after a total stripdown and put the forks on upside down. I looked at it and something seemed a little "off" but it was tens of seconds before the "FFS" moment.

 

[alchurch]

I made a coffee and put it in the fridge with the milk. I could not find the coffee anywhere, the fridge was the last place to look

 

[roadrash]

My mrs lost her purse a couple of years ago, cancelled cards etc, found it a few days later when getting something from the freezer .... she put it away with the shopping....talk about freezing your assets

 

[alchurch]

on the bike, I was just outside Peebles when I had a stop near a small shop. After the lunch stop, there was no map on my wahoo, it does this sometimes when starting a ride, but this time it did not. Half an hour later I found someone to ask directions and it turned out I was going back the way I had come.Seeing the road from the opposite direction , I did not recognise it

 

[postman]

Many Years ago I was the final patient of the Day.I was going to have a camera pushed down my throat in to my stomach.This was to find out why I was having acid reflux attacks.The guy doing it first shone a light from a torch down my throat while I waiting.Right he said that seems ok,oh thank you I said and turned to leave.The look he gave me,well I was nervous,the camera was awful,I was gagging right through the process.

 

[Profpointy]

A recent one for me.

Building two stud partition walls in the garage, to create a laundry rom and workshop. The height was 2.4m. I looked up the prices on the timber merchant we were using, and 4.8m lengths were less than twice the price, so decided to get those instead. Forgot to halve the quantity. Compounded this when it turned out they didn't have any 4.8m in stock, so I said Ok, I'll take 2.4m instead, doubling the quantity I hadn't halved!!!

Anybody want some 2.4m lengths of 2x4 (sawn, pressure treated)?

A pal of mine used to work in an engineering dept of BT, possibly known as the GPO back then. Anyhow he needs to order some conduit, and back in the day they had to order a part number from "the price book" which ironically didn't have the price, but anyhow, he orders 12m or whatever of such and such size conduit. A while later it gets delivered and the driver asks where he wants it. "stick it over there by my desk". "Yes, very funny" then it emerges he's not ordered 12m but 12 "lots" and each "lot" is a bundle of two dozen pieces 10 metres long and he's actually got more than one truckload coming. As costs were hidden he'd not spotted he'd ordered a ridiculous quantity. Seemingly it did all get used over the next 7 or 8 years.

He had another story of a mix up where instead of 200m of 4 way cable, they got 4m of 200 way cable which had had to be specially manufactured and even needed an extra large drum to coil it on as the elephant's trunk-like cable wouldn't bend round a normal sized drum. The doubtless costly item was no use to anyone and was eventually dumped

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

When I moved to Arran I ended up working on a farm as a farmhand. The farmer had about 60 beef cows (as opposed to Dairy) and I learned all about caring for them and their calves. The farmer's children named the cows and that's why one was called "She-She". This one had been through a difficult birth and wasn't particularly liked by her mother, meaning I had to put the kick bar on the mother to allow She-She in to feed. As a result, this young brown and white Friesan became quite attached to me and when the herd were back in the fields come Spring, she would always come to me when I called (as most cows do actually). Anyway, after the harvest was in, the farmer went on holiday with his family and asked me to look after the farm even though I hadn't been working for him through the summer (not enough work to pay me). I was a bit overwhelmed by the responsibility and took it very seriously. A few days after he left, a delivery of a dozen cows arrived which he'd told me about and I added them to my list for counting. Well of course, the count didn't match and I was one short. I tramped the hills looking for strays but with no luck. Eventually it occurred to me that I hadn't seen She-She, my favourite brown and white calf. So I started round all the fields again shouting her name. Other cows followed me wondering what on earth I was doing as I climbed the hills, went down the wee glens, up to the waterfall again and again for three consecutive days. I was convinced She-She was gone and searched every gully and gorse patch. It was while I was doing this on the third day (and I'll admit I was near to tears with worry and frustration) that I looked back at the wee bunch of young cows that had been following me for days and the penny dropped.

What colour are Friesan cows?

Black and white.

What colour was She-She?

Brown and white.

What happens to brown and white calves as they get older?

Yup, they turn black and white. She-She had been following me for 3 days as I called her name wondering what a strange game this was.

(turned out the delivery was 1 short)

 

[slowmotion]

Has anybody, terribly hungover, started shaving with their pocket calculator? BTW, it was a Hewlett Packard and worked with Reverse Polish Notation, and it was about 1976.

 

[swee'pea99]

The guy doing it first shone a light from a torch down my throat while I waiting.Right he said that seems ok,oh thank you I said and turned to leave.The look he gave me,well I was nervous

Doctor: Where are you going?
Hancock: To have my tea and biscuits.
Doctor: I thought you came here to give some of your blood!
Hancock: You've just had it.
Doctor: But this is just a smear.
Hancock: It may be just a smear to you, mate, but it's life and death to some poor wretch! ....How much do you want then?
Doctor: Well, a pint, of course.
Hancock: A pint? Have you gone raving mad? I mean, I came here in all good faith, to help my country. I don't mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint? Why, that's very nearly an armful!

 

[Seevio]

I currently lack an opposable thumb on my right hand ... well, I do have one, but it hurts like hell since I sliced a piece off this morning while using a mandolin to slice cucumbers. Exactly what I'd told myself never to do, just one more slice before using a knife for the last bit.

It didn't bleed much.
At first!

As I mentioned upthread, slicing anything with a mandolin (or a lute or ukelele) is always going to be tricky. On the other hand, I had honestly never heard of a mandoline before this thread. I mean, I recognized the item but I never knew it had a specific name other than slicer thingy.

 

[PaulSB]

I've been reading a Guardian article about anti-vax protests. I thought the photo of a man holding a placard stating "Freedom is not a neat table" a bit odd.

Reading is always worthwhile and educational. Turns out freedom is not negotiable.

 

[Dave7]

I could fill a book of my stupidity. One that stands out concerns dart board and darts that I got for Xmas, aged 13?.

After few weeks I got bored and hung the dart board on the wooden garage door, ran to the bottom of the drive and flung the darts.

It got tiresome going up and down the drive, and I solved that by attaching fish line to one dart.

Threw the dart, whose flight was erratic and it pegged into the door.

Yank on the fishing line and the dart returned, yeah!

No! It embedded itself in my right kneecap.

End of experiment; only later did I understand my lucky escape!

As kids I recall this really stupid idea. We all threw darts up and watched where they landed.
60 years later I recall the look on Jimmy Kemp's face as it buried itself in his skull. It was my job to pull it out.