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What's the dumbest thing you did in 2010?
"The dumbest thing you did ..." is actually a series started last year by Kelly Mills. This part of my 2011 initiative to get her to write for The Poop again. I'm going to keep stealing her ideas until she starts contributing posts out of pure frustration. (If that doesn't work, I'm going to kidnap her dog.)
burielectric.com
At least I didn't get electricuted ...
Looking back at my own dumbest things I did in 2010, I'm both embarrassed and satisfied. There were a lot of idiotic acts to choose from, but very little collateral damage to the public at large. I figure it's a good year if I'm pretty much the only one who suffered from my stupidity.
Last year was a year of sleep deprivation in my household, and I think it shows in my list. Two of these mistakes wouldn't have happened if I was averaging more than five hours of sleep per night. I think it's also notable that only one of the items involved damage to myself. During the typical year, physical injury is the entire list.
My dumbest things I did in 2010 are below. Yours in the comments.
(You can write what you want, including the ever-popular "the dumbest thing I did is read your column" response. But I'm hoping that people keep this kind of light. If you robbed an Old Navy or ran over a crosswalk full of old ladies or cheated on your wife while she was eight months pregnant with twins, you might want to skip the comments and tell it to your counselor/priest/fellow inmates.)
1. Took BART train to Oakland while I had car parked in San Francisco: Not once but twice in 2010, I drove to work, parked in a lot across the street from my office, and then at the end of the day climbed on a BART train to return to the Fruitvale station in Oakland.
One time I caught myself before I got to the Embarcadero station, so I only lost 15 minutes and a few bucks because of the mistake. The other time, I didn't realize my error until I was in the Fruitvale transit village walking toward the outer parking lot ... where my car wasn't parked.
2. Called in an electrician in to replace a fuse: I have this hang-up about not being handy enough around the house. I'm actually not that bad -- I own a miter saw and once installed a chair rail -- but my wife's brothers and father do manly stuff like build power plants and fly F-18s, so it's pretty glaring when I need my hand held doing something simple like replacing the gaskets in the shower.
The power went out in kitchen last summer, and after trying all the obvious -- I even called my own father to troubleshoot the problem and make sure I didn't miss anything -- we called in an electrician. It turns out that 1. A fuse blew out; 2. In an ancient fuse box in my son's closet that I didn't know existed; 3. Even though I've lived in this house for almost eight years.
allposterimages.com
Look close and you might see one of my fingers.
3. Said "Nigh-night" to the Jillian's hostess: This mistake has already been documented here.
4. Tried to grab basketball net to do a pull up, and nearly lost a finger: I feel sick in my stomach thinking of this one, so I'm going to give you the CliffsNotes version. While I was playing pick-up basketball, a ball got wedged on the side of the rim. It's been about five years since I could touch the rim, and no one on the court could jump that high either.
My plan was to jump up, grab the net, do a pull-up and push the ball out -- a move I could execute easily in my 20s. Except when I jumped, I was only able to hook three fingers in (two pinkies and a ring finger), couldn't get them out, and it felt like I was being drawn and quartered by my hand. I spent the next six or seven seconds (it felt like 10 minutes) dangling from the net while writhing in agony. The searing pain -- and worry that one of my fingers would rip out of the socket -- was augmented by the humiliation of having to beg the guy nearest to let me climb on his shoulders and pull me down. He was laughing while he did. He may still be laughing ...
Like I said, at least no one else got hurt. You dumbest move of 2010 in the comments.
PETER HARTLAUB is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and founder of this parenting blog, which admittedly sometimes has nothing to do with parenting. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/peterhartlaub. Your questions answered on VYou at www.vyou.com/peterhartlaub.
| January 07 2011 at 06:10 AM
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