What's the last thing you did that was really stupid?

After a 10 hour flight from HND to SFO, I got home, took off my clothes, threw them in the wash...

...anyone seen my passport?

Oops.   

We're traveling again in six weeks, so the fee for the new passport with the in-person application and the expedited service and the overnight delivery will be $200.      

Go me!   

Go on, the rest of you. Fess up and make me feel better.   What have been the fruits of your best labors?

I once was on a trip ORD-DEN-LAS-LAX-IAH-ORD. In Houston I was staying at a friends house and washed my clothing there. Of course my ticket was in my jeans. I had to buy a new IAH-ORD ticket and a year later I finally got a refund from Braniff of the original fare. I was quite young then and barely had enough money to buy the replacement ticket!

Years ago, I took the bus from my home in Pendleton, OR (PDT) to Portland. The red eye, so to speak. It got to Portland at like 7AM. I ran all over that town doing nothing in particular. I bought a ticket on Horizon. Last flight of the night to PDT. I hung out at PDX for a few hours. Got some pics of a TWA 1011 and some other birds. At some point, I realized I didn't have my ticket to PDT. So, I had to buy another ticket. They were like $60 one way. On a Metro III.

Side note: We had a stop in Pasco. Thunder storms over the mountains. We still had the wind landing at PSC and wind and a little rain starting PSC-PDT. Plus, no door between the cockpit and cabin. Every time an alarm went off, everyone heard it. I am so glad I don't have to fly on one of those again!

After landing in PDT at 23:30, I had to be at work at 06:00. That was two days, about 3 hours sleep. Good times.

Quoting DocLightning (Thread starter): ...anyone seen my passport?

Yeah you left it in the hotel room  



My stupid thing:

I hooked up with a fat chick without knowing she was fat. I thought she actually looked attractive and stuff but when the clothes came off, I was like "awww damn it" but I was too drunk to stop myself......worst experince of my LIFE


Also another stupid thing:

I drunkenly told a girl here in Japan that she had a nice rack. while pointing to it emphatically.

She had no idea what a rack was. I told her "its a country, son."

My friend video taped this.

Quoting PHX787 (Reply 3): I hooked up with a fat chick without knowing she was fat.

Be careful, that can be addictive.
Was this in Japan? I like plump Japanese girls.   




Being an expat, we make stupid mistakes all the time.

Quoting Superfly (Reply 4): Was this in Japan? I like plump Japanese girls.

she was actually chinese, and yea this was here.

man....i'll never understand why you like the cushy lol

Quoting Superfly (Reply 4): Being an expat, we make stupid mistakes all the time.

Yeah, and you know I'm always trying to be aware of cultural differences....but sometimes something happens and i have no idea why, and it ends up with such a horrible result. like one time, i was working on a group project for class. what happened was i was absent from the previous class, and couldn't get a hold of my emergency contact for the reading. the prof never gave his email and it wasn't on the syllabus.....so i didn't do the reading....the next day in class i spent the class trying to read the assignment, which was written archaically and was about 20 minutes long...my group members worked on their parts and i told them i'd do my part when i get finished....they got so mad at me the next day and this one girl lashes the hell out at me on FB....and she said she expected me to 'read the air,' a common phrase in Japanese.....Japanese people are very vague and expect people to understand what they're saying or feeling without them actually telling you....that's hard for me, and especially for important things like this, i expect and often tell Japanese people to tell me things upfront about what they want done...well this girl didn't quite get it....

Quoting DocLightning (Thread starter): Go on, the rest of you. Fess up and make me feel better.

In mid August, a friend was taking a Jeep from BLR to DEL by road, and I tagged along as co-driver. He was gonna go ahead from DEL on a Himalayan road trip with his wife who was in Delhi, while I had flight tickets back since I did not have the luxury of two weeks off from work. Once in DEL, I called up a coupla old friends from college, and we met for drinks at one guy's place. My return flight was at 6 am, and I was planning on leaving for the airport by 3 30 am. At around 2 30, we were already quite drunk on beer when the host brought out a bottle of tequila. Better sense should have prevailed, but didn't, and I went off to the airport four shots down. I knew there was a good chance I'd pass out/sleep off, so I checked in, cleared security, found my gate and sat as close as possible to the ground crew desk with my SG boarding card displayed prominently in my shirt pocket. Usually, when they find a passenger has checked in and not boarded, they do a search of the gate area to fetch people who have missed the announcement, or wake up those who have slept off. I made sure I stuck out like a sore thumb, so they wouldn't miss me. All was well.

Except, in my drunkenness, I sat at the seating area for gate 14 instead of 13. And so they didn't find me. I woke up about forty minutes after the flight had left. I had to forfeit all the money I paid for the initial ticket, and then get a new one at more than double the cost on 6E (SG, AI and 9W tickets were 3x-6x my original cost   ). I took a huge hit on my finances for the month which, without the added duress, are fragile enough as it is.

Still kicking myself..   

Don't worry Doc - I've lost count of the number of machine-washed passports I've seen. You have huge company out there!

I'd love to give you further comfort by recounting something stupid that I've done lately, but actually for once I can't think of anything!  

Quoting DocLightning (Thread starter): After a 10 hour flight from HND to SFO, I got home, took off my clothes, threw them in the wash... ...anyone seen my passport?

I have probably just done the same with a ticket that I wanted to put on expenses. It was just a bit over €10, but still... Anyway, the machine is still running, so I can't tell yet.

Booked a flight to Berlin for the 26th and back to Munich the following day. In the afternoon of the 27th, I wanted to check in but that didn't seem to be possible. Much confusion. Until I realized that I booked the return flight for September 27, not August 27.

I had to take the train back, which normally isn't a big issue. But it is when you originally expected to be home at a reasonably comfortable hour, not at 2:40am.

Quoting aloges (Reply 8): Anyway, the machine is still running, so I can't tell yet.

So it wasn't in the washing, it was in the holder for my ID badge where I can find it easily... or not.

Quoting DocLightning (Thread starter): What's the last thing you did that was really stupid?

I used a only a hammer to knock loose the flywheel on a 1963 Tecumseh 3hp engine. I could have gone 20 feet into my garage and got the proper tool, to use with the hammer, but I didn't and broke the crankshaft. I couldn't find the correct crankshaft so I had to have a machinist repair the old one. I tell my students never to do that and I did it because I was too lazy to walk 20 feet.

Quoting NoUFO (Reply 9): Booked a flight to Berlin for the 26th and back to Munich the following day. In the afternoon of the 27th, I wanted to check in but that didn't seem to be possible. Much confusion. Until I realized that I booked the return flight for September 27, not August 27.

I did that once on NW on a DTW-STL round trip. I caught it after I bought the ticket, online, and printed out the receipt. I called NW and they were able to change it because the transaction hadn't gone through yet.

Quoting DocLightning (Thread starter): After a 10 hour flight from HND to SFO, I got home, took off my clothes, threw them in the wash... ...anyone seen my passport?

I've done that with my wallet several times.

Quoting PHX787 (Reply 3): I hooked up with a fat chick without knowing she was fat. I thought she actually looked attractive and stuff but when the clothes came off, I was like "awww damn it" but I was too drunk to stop myself......worst experince of my LIFE

What do fat chicks and mopeds have in common? They're both fun to ride until your buddies find out.

Oh boy I could fill an entire page. Perhaps one of my better ones was a couple years ago in high school. I was a Junior on the golf team. Well one day we had practice where the weather was just really crappy. Hot, humid, clearly thunderstorms were on their way. But for some reason we still had practice. Well our coach was on a field trip with the Senior class for their Senior picnic day so our assistant coach was there. Great retired guy that did it for fun. Well anyways he got our groups all sent and off the tee. In the group ahead of me was my brother, my normal golfing partner, and two of my brother's troublemaking buddies. I was mentoring the freshmen. Well we all get to the second tee box and BOOM. Thunderstorms roll in. So we all got into a shelter. Well we are all coming up with things to do to keep busy. Then we had the brilliant idea of saying my brother got hit by lightning on facebook. The whole team put it. Long story short news travels quick and the Vice Principal found out. She threatened to suspend us. Luckily one of the team member's parents was a huge contributor to the school and on the board so we only got 3 days of office detention. Which actually we enjoyed. We had a ball. That is punishment for a team that hated each other. That brought us all together and really made us a team. My favorite part though is when my mom found out. She lost her mind. My stepdad was traveling in China at the time. So she called him and put him on speaker phone and made us tell him what we had done. He couldn't stop laughing. I remember him saying to my mom "If this is the worst these boys have done in 10 and 11 years of schooling we've done pretty well."

Pat

Quoting jetblueguy22 (Reply 12): What do fat chicks and mopeds have in common? They're both fun to ride until your buddies find out.

I used to care about being seen with fat chicks when I was in high school, but as I got older I stopped caring about what they looked like and started caring about how good they were in bed.

Quoting PHX787 (Reply 5): she was actually chinese

That's even better!  

Quoting PHX787 (Reply 5): Yeah, and you know I'm always trying to be aware of cultural differences....but sometimes something happens and i have no idea why, and it ends up with such a horrible result.

...and posting internal affairs of your host country doesn't help. Remember, you are a guest.  

Quoting falstaff (Reply 13): I used to care about being seen with fat chicks when I was in high school, but as I got older I stopped caring about what they looked like and started caring about how good they were in bed.

  

Oh jeez... where do I start?

Well, just this evening. Walk to the supermarket to get supplies to do hotdogs for dinner, I think I buy everything I need for dinner and all the bits for my girlfriend and friends coming over at the weekend, only to get home and find I've forgotten to buy the sausages I went out for. Damn.

Last week whilst talking to friends in work we were talking about facial hair and a mate mentioned Movember. I inquisitively asked 'oh yeah when is Movember'... as I began to speak I realised what a fricking stupid thing I was saying, but it was too late.

However my fail was nothing on having to count through the alphabet with a co-worker to persuade her that there *really* are 26 letters in the alphabet. Just to be cruel at the end I asked her if she had counted the ampersand... I thought her little head was about to explode.


Dan  

Quoting falstaff (Reply 13): Quoting jetblueguy22 (Reply 12): What do fat chicks and mopeds have in common? They're both fun to ride until your buddies find out. I used to care about being seen with fat chicks when I was in high school, but as I got older I stopped caring about what they looked like and started caring about how good they were in bed.

here's the thing....it WAS NOT fun   

Quoting Superfly (Reply 14): ...and posting internal affairs of your host country doesn't help. Remember, you are a guest.

True....but damn it people gotta stop using the Yamanote for their entrance to the afterlife. I can't get anywhere in the morning anymore   

Quoting aloges (Reply 8): I have probably just done the same with a ticket that I wanted to put on expenses. It was just a bit over €10, but still... Anyway, the machine is still running, so I can't tell yet.

D'OH!

Quoting aloges (Reply 10): So it wasn't in the washing, it was in the holder for my ID badge where I can find it easily... or not.

Well, that's good, although I'm sure you still felt super-smart.

Quoting PHX787 (Reply 3): hooked up with a fat chick without knowing she was fat.

How do you not know she's fat? It's not as though there's some walk-in closet she'd need to come out of and tell you about it...


Oh well...

Hmmm... Something stupid...

Ok, so one time I got married

I was living in Houston and my pilot friend (a captain for UX) sent me a free ticket to fly CDG-MAD on the 734 he would be flying that day. I had been really looking forward to it for two months. I arrived in Paris for a few days and: Sure, I had left that free ticket in my home, up on the coffee table, back in Houston.

So I had to go and purchase myself a ticket. It was worth it though. I flew the jumpseat all the way from the gate at CDG to the gate at MAD. Pre 9/11, of course.

So many forgotten tickets... I now see why e-tickets are soo much better  

My "stupid" things per se are just things that make me go "Oh God, why?" but nothing too bad IMO. Can't even remember many of them. They just come back to me, even years later. I can post one when it comes up.

Quoting DarkSnowyNight (Reply 18): Something stupid... Ok, so one time I got married

        
That seems to be a common mistake!

Quoting PHX787 (Reply 16): here's the thing....it WAS NOT fun

You have to teach her. Most likely it was her first time or the previous experience for her wasn't a good one. Probably a local guy that needed to end a dry spell.
I'm a good teacher in this area. . .

Quoting DarkSnowyNight (Reply 18): How do you not know she's fat? It's not as though there's some walk-in closet she'd need to come out of and tell you about it...

she was wearing baggy clothes and a push up bra

Quoting DarkSnowyNight (Reply 18): Ok, so one time I got married

ahhhh ok there we go.

/thread

Quoting Superfly (Reply 21): I'm a good teacher in this area. . .

You know if you were here in TYO i would've gladly had u substitute!

Quoting DocLightning (Reply 17): Well, that's good, although I'm sure you still felt super-smart.

like a Ralph Wiggum educated by Homer Simpson

Quoting PHX787 (Reply 22): You know if you were here in TYO i would've gladly had u substitute!

I would have gladly substituted.

Quoting jetblueguy22 (Reply 12): What do fat chicks and mopeds have in common? They're both fun to ride until your buddies find out.

I just knew that comment would drag Superfly in here!   

I think I'll be a regular in this thread.

Last weekend I went out clubbing, friends dared me to have 5 McFlurries afterwards 'cause I said I was hungry. I ate all 5 in less than 15 minutes, didn't end well.

Quoting NoUFO (Reply 9): Booked a flight to Berlin for the 26th and back to Munich the following day. In the afternoon of the 27th, I wanted to check in but that didn't seem to be possible. Much confusion. Until I realized that I booked the return flight for September 27, not August 27.

My last trip to SEA I grabbed the flight that arrived at 12:00 so I could have the afternoon to do some sight seeing downtown. Unfortunately I selected the flight that arrives at 12:00 AM the next day not 12:00 PM... D'oh! No sightseeing for me, arrive at midnight, pick up rental car, nothing much open for food, find an open Subway and end up hitting the hotel around 2AM.

Quoting DocLightning (Thread starter): took off my clothes, threw them in the wash... ...anyone seen my passport?

years ago i threw a bunch of clothes in the washer... my cell phone too. Stupid is, stupid does...

Quoting Revelation (Reply 27): Unfortunately I selected the flight that arrives at 12:00 AM the next day not 12:00 PM... D'oh! (...) and end up hitting the hotel around 2AM.

Great minds think alike!   

Quoting DocLightning (Thread starter): We're traveling again in six weeks, so the fee for the new passport with the in-person application and the expedited service and the overnight delivery will be $200.

You are flying in 6 weeks and you need to pay $200 for the "expedited" service? Are U.S. State Department bureaucrats really that incompetent?

As for me, plenty of stupid things, so not really sure where to start. Once, when I was a teenager, I saw an electric razor my mother or sister had lying around and decided to try it on my face and shave, for the fun of it. It was only when I approached it to my face that I realized that lady's electric razors are designed to pluck the hairs (out of legs) and not merely cut the hairs, like men's electric razors. That might be OK in a leg but definitely not OK in a place with the hair density and the skin sensitivity of a face...

Here's a good one that happened the other day on the 757 EGE thread:

I was posting thrust/weight ratios, and only used maximum thrust for one engine. Oops...   

Quoting DocLightning (Thread starter): ...anyone seen my passport?

This wasn't me personally, but a friend: we went out drinking, and eventually decided to head down to the beach after the clubs closed. Some of the guys decided to strip off and go swimming. One of them had been using their passport as their ID that night, and it was in the pocket of the pants that they took off to get into the water. It fell onto the sand as he was undressing, and everyone was far too intoxicated to notice. Next day: "has anyone seen my passport". Three days later: someone was tagging their photos of the night and exclaimed "I've found the passport!!!". It had made a cameo appearance in a photo, lying their in the sand.

This unfortunate event was so made much worse by the fact that this occurred in Myrtle Beach and they therefore had to drive to Washington to go to the Australian Embassy and pay a vast fortune for an on-the-spot emergency passport.

Quoting NoUFO (Reply 9): Booked a flight to Berlin for the 26th and back to Munich the following day. In the afternoon of the 27th, I wanted to check in but that didn't seem to be possible

I discovered that I had done something similar just last week. I had booked to fly on the 11th, which I thought was Thursday. On Wednesday I was filling in a form and hate to write the date. I instinctively checked the date on my phone ... and just stared in horror at the screen as I felt the blood flow out of my body. It's was the 11th.

I didn't think that I could afford to buy a new ticket at less than a days notice, so I was immensely relieved (albeit surprised) to discover that I could still snag an award flight for the next day. It meant that I wasted a bunch of miles, but at least I wasn't financially out-of-pocket.

Quoting PlymSpotter (Reply 15): Walk to the supermarket to get supplies to do hotdogs for dinner, I think I buy everything I need for dinner and all the bits for my girlfriend and friends coming over at the weekend, only to get home and find I've forgotten to buy the sausages I went out for. Damn

I do that all. the. time.

I plan a nice dinner for my girlfriend, walk to the supermarket and buy the ingredients, and manage to forget an essential ingredient even though it was on my shopping list. I normally don't notice this until I start cooking, just before she is due to arrive. Thankfully there is a Spar one block from my apartment, so I can normally run out and try and get what I need. The problem, of course, is that the Spar doesn't have an extensive range of groceries and therefore often doesn't have whatever it is I'm looking for. I then panic and grab whatever they do have, and end up cooking something completely different to what I was planning.

I've never told her this, but if I cook her spag bol then there are a very, very decent odds that it was because of this  

Quoting varigb707 (Reply 28): years ago i threw a bunch of clothes in the washer... my cell phone too. Stupid is, stupid does...

Did that. Dried it, too. Next day I went to buy a new one. The first voicemail I got was one from the guy I was dating upset that I'd stood him up. I called him all apologizing and when I told him what had happened, he started laughing his ass off.

I often do absentminded things, but I don't really dwell on them much.

However, what really allowed my thickness to shine through recently--I was nearing the end of a two-week debate camp, and I was in a round. I accidentally hit the button for a different speech, and therefore timed myself for a six minute instead of a three minute speech. Embarrassing to no end...

In my defense, I had barely slept for the couple of weeks before and I was quite tired; still looked like an idiot, though.

Rented a truck to move houses. Truck is 2.80 metres tall.

Move stuff successfully. Go to park it. Slowly hit barrier on top of rental truck. Metal smashed in.

Realise top of truck is not insured as per Europcar's terms and conditions.

Realise I'm going to have to pay for the full extent of the repairs.

-----> []

Here's mine:

Years ago, I get my first company car, a nice blue Audi A4. It's the first time that I drive a car with automatic gear and during the first week driving it I have some minor trouble to adapt, you know, not having a clutch pedal and so on.
On an early morning departure to my working day, I get out of the garage and as I'm driving out, I realize I forgot the garage keys in the door, so I stop the car right away and I open the door to get out and go get the keys. Too bad I put the gear lever on N instead of P, so the car starts rolling backwards down the sloping garage ramp, I have the left foot already out and I stomp on the brake with my right foot, but I hit the throttle and I spin up the engine until I crash backwards into a wall causing a few thousand € worth of damage.  

Quoting curlyheadboy (Reply 36): Here's mine:

Ouch!

I know what you mean, though. I had gone from driving a Corolla with std transmission to an SUV with auto (go ahead and sue me, it was in the US in the 90s when I never paid more than $25 to fill the tank!). One night driving down a long exit ramp late at night my sleepy brain farted and somehow thought I needed to push down the clutch and downshift. Pushing down the brakes so hard at highway speed made the anti-lock brakes kick in strong, but even then the back end of the vehicle really wanted to swap ends with the front. Luckily no one else was on this exit ramp and I was able to get the beast to straighten out. That sure as heck woke me up!

Quoting Revelation (Reply 37): One night driving down a long exit ramp late at night my sleepy brain farted and somehow thought I needed to push down the clutch and downshift. Pushing down the brakes so hard at highway speed made the anti-lock brakes kick in strong, but even then the back end of the vehicle really wanted to swap ends with the front. Luckily no one else was on this exit ramp and I was able to get the beast to straighten out. That sure as heck woke me up!

Glad no one was around and you didn't hit anyone.
I often make a similar mistake but not as drastic. Driving small cars here, I often grab the turn signal with the intention of putting the car in to gear.
Thailand drives on the wrong side of the road like in England. That hasn't been a problem for me. It's getting used to a console shifter instead of a column shift.

A long time ago, I was coming home from my grandma's house. I put the napsack containing my glucometer on the trunk of the car while I opened the rear passenger door to get in. Then I forgot the napsack!!

God home, looked everywhere for the napsack, couldn't find it. Dad asked me where was the last time I had it. "I said I had it in the car. I put it on the trunk to open the door, then I got in the car. I had it with m -- "

Yeah, ended the sentence right there. The next thing I knew, my dad got in the car and headed for Grandma's house. He got down to Saw Mill Run Blvd (PA 51), and saw the napsack in the middle of the road. Moments later, a Port Authority bus ran it over...

Yep... learned a very important lesson that night...

Other stupid things...

not realizing (at the time) that a girl wanted to date me -- yeah, that girl would eventually become Mrs. Steeler83.  
wearing my clothes backwards AND inside-out for an entire day and not realizing it.
wrecking my parents jeep when it was still brand new.

I'm sure I'll think of others...

Quoting Superfly (Reply 38): Glad no one was around and you didn't hit anyone.

Thanks!

Quoting steeler83 (Reply 39): I put the napsack containing my glucometer on the trunk of the car

I put one of my earlier clunkier mobile phones onto the roof of my SUV from the earlier story. Drove around several miles not realizing it was up there. Got up the next morning and wondered where the phone was. Checked everywhere IN the car. Could not find it. Rang the mobile number from the house phone several times. I'd hear the chirping but had no idea where it was coming from. It turns out the phone slid the length of the SUV roof and was just resting against the back leg of the luggage rack. There was no figuring how it managed to slide the length of the roof without falling off, then end up at the back leg, where it could have taken just a small nudge to make it fall off. One of the weirdest things ever!

Quoting curlyheadboy (Reply 36):

Quoting Revelation (Reply 37):

I always take a few minutes to acclimate when I get into an automatic car. I put my foot down on the clutch, realise that it isn't there, mildly panic, then realise that I am in an automatic and everything is fine after that.

At least that's how the story normally goes ... my mother has a Mazda SUV and it has a foot break instead of a hand break. The foot break is a pedal which is exactly where the clutch would be in a manual car............

Thankfully the good folk at Mazda foresaw that my ilk would struggle with this and the car SCREAMS at you if you so much as rest any pressure on it while the vehicle is in motion, so I haven't had any nasty surprises yet, but it does take some getting used to

(and how the hell do you perform a hill start with a foot break?!?!?!?!?!?!)

I was a First Officer on the MD80 from 1992 to 1996.


We arrived at the Airport from the Hotel late one day due to traffic and were trying to make up time so we did not depart late. I put my Flight bag in the Cockpit and left my suitcase in the Jetway while I did the walk around to save time as the cleaning crew were still on board (This was, obviously pre 9-11)


We departed on time and just as we started the push back I noticed my suitcase still sitting in the jetway !
Back to the gate, opened the door and put it on board.


A little embarassing..