Stupid Mistakes (not pertaining to writing)

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Garball, Sep 12, 2014.

  1. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    :eek: Get me Noam Chomsky's phone number!! :D
     
  2. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    Ha! Funny thing is, I've heard stories of people writing letters of recommendation for students they don't even know. How the hell does that work?
     
  3. PensiveQuill

    PensiveQuill Senior Member

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    Paypal.
     
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  4. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    This only works for politicians and lawyers.
     
  5. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    One embarrassing mistake I've made, which I haven't repeated in years, luckily, is forgetting to check the girth of the saddle before mounting the horse. Some horses suck in air and balloon up their bellies when you're fastening it, then let it out after you're done, and when you mount it... Prepare of a fumble and flaming red cheeks.

    Why be so vague? :mad: I seem to be unable to read flirts unless they're verbal and blatant, not that it matters anymore 'cause I'm spoken for and am not looking for anybody...
     
  6. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    I'd imagine mostly 'cause quite a few men can be really shy when it comes to approaching pretty girls. :unsure:


    Anyway, here's one stupid thing I've done I haven't mentioned here before: at least twice I've started the soundcheck at a gig with my band and wondered why the hell I get no sound out of the guitar amp. After fiddling with all the knobs and stuff while everybody is waiting impatiently, the clock is ticking, the other band is anxious for their turn to check their gear, levels etc, I realize I've stuck my guitar cord into the output jack of my pedal board and the pedal board into the amp's input jack. A quick switch, and lo and behold, there's sound, and I'm feeling really stupid.
     
  7. PensiveQuill

    PensiveQuill Senior Member

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    He's Japanese. They prefer seduction without the words. I'd served him coffee earlier that morning and all but raped him with my eyes. I prefer animal instinct and lots of uncomfortable air, its my way and I love it when I find others who are like that too. The deer in the headlights look is my preferred seduction signal by men.
     
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  8. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Ah, I see. :) I'm afraid I'm often just too slow for subtlety. :D
     
  9. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    Hahahaha this made me laugh :D

    @Lemex - I remember when I first started teaching, it hadn't occurred to me that it's pretty essential to be at the classroom at least 5min, preferably more like 15min before class actually starts. I think I arrived one minute after my class of 1st graders once and there were 10 of them all standing outside when I got there to unlock the door... oops.

    As to the OP - stupid mistakes. Certainly made a number in my life. Let's see... I've put them in spoiler tags cus my post was just way too long... lol

    Stupid mistake #1

    My husband, the darling that he is, bought me a Kindle for Christmas. Several months later, it's sitting beside me as I was on my laptop. An annoying fly was bothering me and ended up sitting on the back of the chair, which my laptop was on.

    So I grab the nearest, flat thing beside me and slam it at the fly, whacking it hard against the back of the chair.

    Fly got away. Kindle screen, however...

    Somehow then my husband convinced me that since it was a pretty stupid way of damaging the Kindle, he was sure Amazon wouldn't cover it with its warranty. I believed him and we decided to replace the screen ourselves. Guess what? Did you know that EVERYTHING inside the Kindle is actually physically glued together? That's right. Glued. The battery's glued down. The frame's glued down. The screen's glued down. I spent a good 45min hacking bits of splintered glass off the front of the Kindle and finally realised it's not gonna work.

    Then I messaged Amazon, said I can't possibly return the damaged Kindle because er, I threw it away thinking that's okay (considering the kinda questions my husband used to get when he worked at helpdesk, I thought my excuse, though dumb, was certainly plausible). Amazon then sent me my replacement within a few days :D Phew.

    Stupid mistake #2

    Put a cake in the oven. Normally takes 30min to bake. 10min later my husband asks me to check on it and I said, "Nah, it takes 30min!" We sat down to chat with our pastor, who was over for dinner. A little later, husband says again, "You should check your cake." And I said, "Nah, it's not time yet!" We kept chatting and my pastor, who sat opposite me across the lounge, was steadily becoming blurrier and blurrier. His little round spectacles became very, very misty...

    Then finally even my pastor said, "Maybe you should check on that cake..."

    PS. Another cake-related disaster. I tried to bake a cake on the maximum temperature my oven would allow at 250 degrees, because the recipe said the cake needed to be baked at 300+ degrees. It did not specify whether it was Celsius or Fahrenheit and being European, I just assumed it was Celsius...

    Stupid mistake #3

    My sister - at the time she hadn't had her first child yet - told me how this little toddler thought her husband was someone's grandfather. Then she laughed. I looked at her, and asked, "Is he someone's grandfather?"

    My sister was struck speechless.

    Stupid mistake #4

    Being a lovely Christian, of course (not proud at all, of course, just doing my bit for society and all) - I agreed to help cook for the homeless ministry our church runs. Needed to cook rice enough for at least 40 packed lunches. I didn't have the right cooking equipment - it hadn't really occurred to me I'd even need the right equipment for this, of course. Anyway, borrowed a big deep pot from a churchmate and stuffed it full with rice.

    Cooked it. Checked on it repeatedly but the top wasn't cooked yet. Might I add I didn't bother to stir it the entire time - it wasn't really possible to stir, in my defense. Anyway, half an hour or more later, I thought, "This isn't right." And finally turned off the fire and dug into the rice. It's like a layered cake.

    The top was utterly uncooked.
    The middle was nicely cooked.
    The bottom was a massive lump of char.
    The rice around the sides was for some reason soggy red/orange.

    I gave over the edible section of the rice, asked my friend to do me the favour of cooking the rest of the rice in time for the next day (thank GOD she was an easy-going girl. She didn't seem to mind, bless her).

    Anyway, the pot wasn't mine. And the charred rice was stuck like concrete at the bottom of the pot. I spent 3 hours scrubbing it with a variety of metal wool, normal sponge, and my own nails and by the end my hands could've fallen off. Miraculously, everything came off and my friend whose pot it was never noticed the difference.
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2014
  10. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    Better than almost having to admit to your 9am literature class 'Sorry guys, I lost track of time talking in the staff room'. :oops:
     
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  11. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    @Mckk Oh wow, next time I mess up, I'll just think back to your post, and I'll instantly feel better. :D Though I'm sure you didn't feel like laughing back then, when scrubbing off cemented rice and all that...

    I've messed up a lot when baking, which is why I don't let anybody else eat from my kitchen of horrors except @T.Trian. He'll always nod and say it's tasty, even if it was blueberry pie with a hint of basil 'cause some idiot used basil-flavored olive oil as a substitute for butter... :oops:

    I've embarrassed myself when teaching too. One time I printed out the test to a class of 7th graders. Papers had stuck together in the machine, so the test was missing pages. Oh how they laughed at the poor teacher, scuttling back to the copy room...
     
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  12. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    I was going round telling everybody how I felt really stupid I think. At the time I just kept thinking, "Never mind the rice - I have to return this pot!!"

    Haha blueberry pie with a hint of basil - well you can say it's the avant-garde of cooking! Once I read some chef invented ice-cream the flavour of an English Sunday roast... Anyway, your cooking experience reminds me of Friends - you know, when Rachel made trifle with beef :D
     
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  13. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    @KaTrian
    Here it is! :D
     
  14. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    @Mckk Actually, I think I'd like that. :D
     
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  15. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    The trifle with beef? Serious?
     
  16. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    Speaking of 9am's, I remember the lectures at my uni. I studied Art History, so the lecture theatre was always lit in this warm, dim yellow light. You know, so you can view all the slides. The lecturer almost always spoke in a monotonous voice. Despite thoroughly enjoying my degree, there're few lectures I actually managed not to sleep through! It's like the whole thing was designed to lull you to sleep!
     
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  17. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    You made it to a 9am lecture as an undergraduate?!? I actually picked modules so the lectures would be in the afternoon. I knew I would not make it in for 9am. I was one of those 'party all night, sleep all day' students. I was very lazy - and I'm not proud.
     
  18. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    All the ingredients sounded good... and they're going to mix in the stomach anyway. :p Though I haven't tasted it, so I can't vouch for it...
     
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  19. DeviouSquirrel

    DeviouSquirrel Member

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    I've been on this forum ages but I never seem to post >.> Want to get more involved and then I do the *lurking* thing...

    In the interests of openness and getting involved I have two embarrassing stories :)

    1. Keeping condoms in my handbag and my passport in the same pocket. At a job interview being asked for my passport to get photocopied and seeing condoms spill out when the girl opened it at the copier...

    2. At muay thai, wearing no pants and doing a huge kick and the croch splitting open in front of my (male) thai teacher... Now I get asked every time I go if I'm wearing pants before they start xD

    I never made it to 9am lectures as an undergraduate either. Party all day, go to lectures drunk, go to pub, rinse, repeat... Seemed like a good idea at the time.

    Leah
     
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  20. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Now I have to ask, what an earth were you wearing? :confused: 'Cause those shorts are really quite loose and ride up pretty high the more you work out, making it all the more difficult to split them... I'm actually finding the unintentionally flashing of the undies more common.
     
  21. DeviouSquirrel

    DeviouSquirrel Member

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    It was when I first started and was just wearing jogging bottoms! The gym I go to has the professionals working with newbies and folk that just want to lose weight and stuff too. Learned the lesson though haha.
    There is rather a lot of undies that get flashed, that's certainly true. The fact that there a lot more guys than girls makes it better though...
     
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  22. Lilly James Haro

    Lilly James Haro The Grey Warden

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    I thought changing the alarm on my iPod to 'The Phantom of the Opera' would be a brilliant idea....long story short, it was not.
     
  23. Duchess-Yukine-Suoh

    Duchess-Yukine-Suoh Girl #21 Contributor

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    I heard a guy likes me from his friend, I said "ew." because I didn't know what to say. (I then said "Well, I don't know if I like him because I don't know him.") I don't know if I like him or not, or if his friend will tell him that. This happened today. :oops:
     
  24. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    I had the reverse once. A girl asked me out and I said to her 'You want to what?!? I mean, erm, alright then'.
     
  25. J Faceless

    J Faceless Active Member

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    When I was sixteen taking my driver's test I had one of these moments. In MA state police gave the exams, I know in most states its DMV workers, but not in MA. I was nervous and when I'm nervous I lose my much needed filter, I'm sitting in the driving instructors car, hes in the back. This guy worshiped his near perfect record, lived for it. He only had one student fail in the last ten years and that was because he lowered his seat all the way and blasted rap music. He enjoys telling that story a lot. So I'm sitting in silence waiting for the Statie (that is what we call state police in MA) the guy is almost forty-five minutes late, when the typical test is barely ten minutes.. Naturally as a teenager I'm perturbed by this and start going crazy, getting more and more nervous. Finally the guy shows up, worse possible guy to get. Looks like a gestapo straight out of a World War II movie, has the hat, shiny boots and is even wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day.
    "Sorry I'm late." he says, state police power exuding out of every pore.
    "No problem, doughnut run?" I ask, trying to shake my own nervousness.
    Mr.Supercop takes off his sunglasses, staring me down with those cold eyes of his that haven't been unprotected from the sun since Carlton Fisk's fall to notoriety in New England.
    "Start the car." He growls, after what felt like an eternity.
    Needless to say one hour later with two three point turns and three parallel parks later I failed. The driver instructor never thought it was a funny joke.
     

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