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The Darwin Award is a book put out yearly to describe stupid ways people have injured or done away with themselves, etc.

MY own: During the 1970s, I was outside chopping wood in the cold. Since the ground was frozen, instead of picking up a half log and placing it on the stump to split again, I simply followed it around on the frozen ground and split it there.

I had totally forgotten the TV antenna wire above the area.

I brought down the ax hard to split the half log and the ax caught the wire, bringing it straight to the side of my head nearly knocking me out.

I was thankful that it wasn't the edge of the ax or I would have cut my own head off.

"Kentucky Rube Cuts Off His Own Head!" may have made #1 if there had been a Darwin Award mag at the time.

Anyone else?

Kinda....Darwinish, sort-of.

Anyway:

About 30 years ago I was defending at trial some people allegedly involved in London's Irish bombings.

Had special police protection at one point, but that's another story.

Anyway, I went to a friend's birthday picnic at a well known London park.

We were all sitting down enjoying ourselves when some wasps began menacing, probably because of all the food on the picnic rug.

I briefly reached out to swat one of the buggers that had landed on my leg and heard a muffled 'pop' as something whizzed by.

Next thing I knew my spouse was shouting 'get down' as a muffled cry came from some nearby bushes.

Eventually Park Police arrived....

Apparently someone had tried shooting me but the bullet ricocheted off a tree I'd been sitting against....and hit some bastard hiding about 25 yards away in a hawthorn.

Never did find out who he/she was or what happened to them.

A few years later that tree was felled by lightning during the Great Storm of October 87.

A better ending though QM would have bee you having caaught the bullet with your hand having mistaken it for a wasp. No Darwin awardu there but you could have justified that Wonder Woman outfit that you covet.

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Quote: queen mudder

Kinda....Darwinish, sort-of.

Anyway:

About 30 years ago I was defending at trial some people allegedly involved in London's Irish bombings.

Had special police protection at one point, but that's another story.

Anyway, I went to a friend's birthday picnic at a well known London park.

We were all sitting down enjoying ourselves when some wasps began menacing, probably because of all the food on the picnic rug.

I briefly reached out to swat one of the buggers that had landed on my leg and heard a muffled 'pop' as something whizzed by.

Next thing I knew my spouse was shouting 'get down' as a muffled cry came from some nearby bushes.

Eventually Park Police arrived....

Apparently someone had tried shooting me but the bullet ricocheted off a tree I'd been sitting against....and hit some bastard hiding about 25 yards away in a hawthorn.

Never did find out who he/she was or what happened to them.

A few years later that tree was felled by lightning during the Great Storm of October 87.

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A man threw himself into the path of a bus. The bus turned right at the traffic lights, missing the man by an inch.
The Man got up, and went after the bus, shouting obsceneties.

The bus driver, stopped the bus, and got out, confronted the man and told him to fuck off with a violent push.

There was a screech of tyres. A car door opened and a person, irate, grabbed the man off the road and punched him onto the pavement. He lay there for some time.

A young lady walked past felled man, who was waking up.
She complained to her boyfriend, the man was looking up her skirt. The boyfriend, angry, lifted the man from the pavement and kicked him in the groin, sending him into the path of an oncoming bus.


Arm xxx

I was playing around in our 'above ground pool' (when we had it)..by myself. I thought I'd be dead brave and do a somersault like my daughters frequently did. Looked easy. Only 4 feet of water...what could go wrong???

I commenced my somersault but didn't know you were supposed to hold your nose, or wear one of those pinchy things that synchronized swimmers wear on their noses - consequently - water rushed into my nose - I felt as if I was drowning - in my panic I couldn't get my feet onto the bottom of the pool. I thought I'd been underwater for about 5 minutes by the time I surfaced, coughing and spluttering gasping for air.

That's my story! I never did try it again.

LG

LG

A friend of ours works part time, in the early mornings, delivering bundles of newspapers to newsagents etc in a rural part of Scotland.

One week, just after New Year, about 5 years ago, he wanted a break so Mr NMC volunteered to do the easy, delivery job.

As he tells it, he drove round a blind corner at 15 miles an hour, felt the vehicle "move" and knew that he had hit black ice. He didn't brake and tried to steer but the heavy load in the back of the van moved right into a corner of the van. The van lurched from side to side, hit a fence, bounced across the road and toppled over onto the passenger side. Then it slid on black ice for 50 metres or more(according to the Traffic cops measurement).

Once he had released himself from his seat belt, he managed to stand upright in the back of the van only to see another car, on it's side, heading straight for him. He was caught in the cars headlights and watched as the car miraculously slid past him and carried on for another 100 metres on it's side.

You know what, he did not have a mark on him! As a precaution he was taken by ambulance to A&E but walked away with only high blood pressure (which he has anyway.)

And he went back to the job the next morning - with No.1 son riding shotgun or was it carrying ski poles!

I work in a 24-hour grocery store, and there have been a couple of times when I have confronted shoplifters in the middle of the night. Yes, it's stupid. Yes, I have measurable brainwave activity and should know better. Nobody's perfect.

As to which incident best nearly-qualifed me for a Darwin award, it's a toss-up between:

1. The guy sauntering out with a case of beer, in which I followed him, telling him he couldn't take it (DUHHHH) and to stop, EVEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM FROM CLOSING THE DOOR TO THE WAITING CAR HE WAS GETTING INTO, with several other guys saying, hurry, get in, let's go! What was I thinking? Obviously I wasn't. I was damned lucky none of them had or pulled a gun.

2. The casually-dressed couple shopping late at night who started to roll their cart right out the door while I was waiting on another customer. I asked my customer to wait, ran after the couple, thinking, oh, they probably decided on a whim to see if they could get away with it because I was busy; I'll approach them, they'll get nervous, claim they "forgot," and cooperate. They got to the car, started flinging stuff into the trunk willy-nilly, and this big, aggressive guy climbs out of the driver's seat and confronts me, shouting at me and blocking me from reaching the couple and the cart. Turns out they were part of a professional theft ring that goes around hitting different grocery stores in the area. Hot diggity.

Yes, I should leave security to the professionals and say fuckit, I'm worth more than whatever merchandise these assholes are stealing from my store. But even the best of us slip up, at times, and I'm probably not even in the top ten. So there.

I did have success one time, by the way, with a couple using the self-checkout and leaving with suspciously more merchandise than I saw on the self-checkout attendant's monitor. I asked to see the receipt, they got nervous and cooperated as I said, gee, you missed a few things, a lot of people have trouble with the self-checkout, not a problem, we'll just re-ring it, etc. etc. Of course they decided they didn't "need" half the stuff, after all.

That being said, I think from now on I'll play it safe and let other people compete for the Darwin Awards.

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Quote: Amethyst Ryder

I work in a 24-hour grocery store, and there have been a couple of times when I have confronted shoplifters in the middle of the night. Yes, it's stupid. Yes, I have measurable brainwave activity and should know better. Nobody's perfect.

As to which incident best nearly-qualifed me for a Darwin award, it's a toss-up between:

1. The guy sauntering out with a case of beer, in which I followed him, telling him he couldn't take it (DUHHHH) and to stop, EVEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM FROM CLOSING THE DOOR TO THE WAITING CAR HE WAS GETTING INTO, with several other guys saying, hurry, get in, let's go! What was I thinking? Obviously I wasn't. I was damned lucky none of them had or pulled a gun.

2. The casually-dressed couple shopping late at night who started to roll their cart right out the door while I was waiting on another customer. I asked my customer to wait, ran after the couple, thinking, oh, they probably decided on a whim to see if they could get away with it because I was busy; I'll approach them, they'll get nervous, claim they "forgot," and cooperate. They got to the car, started flinging stuff into the trunk willy-nilly, and this big, aggressive guy climbs out of the driver's seat and confronts me, shouting at me and blocking me from reaching the couple and the cart. Turns out they were part of a professional theft ring that goes around hitting different grocery stores in the area. Hot diggity.

Yes, I should leave security to the professionals and say fuckit, I'm worth more than whatever merchandise these assholes are stealing from my store. But even the best of us slip up, at times, and I'm probably not even in the top ten. So there.

I did have success one time, by the way, with a couple using the self-checkout and leaving with suspciously more merchandise than I saw on the self-checkout attendant's monitor. I asked to see the receipt, they got nervous and cooperated as I said, gee, you missed a few things, a lot of people have trouble with the self-checkout, not a problem, we'll just re-ring it, etc. etc. Of course they decided they didn't "need" half the stuff, after all.

That being said, I think from now on I'll play it safe and let other people compete for the Darwin Awards.

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yes, AR, you are much more valuable than a six-pack and a few packs of cigs.

Here's mine.

I lived in a small town about 30 miles in from the beautiful beaches of Southwest Florida. It was a rough and tumble town and the women there were as tough as the men.

My husband was a beekeeper and he worked at a honey house there in town and it was lunch time. He had asked the boss to use the company pick up truck as we were planning on going into town to buy a mattress set for my mother who was coming to visit.

We got into a conversation after I had put my purse on the front seat of the truck and while in the honey house, someone took the truck. When we got back outside and saw the truck and my purse gone, I went a little crazy.

Thank goodness it is a small town. Someone told us to check the diner so we went over there and sure enough the truck was in the parking lot, windows rolled down, doors unlocked and my purse sitting on the front seat.

A woman by the name of Margo, one of my husband's co-workers, had taken the truck to the diner to get some lunch.
Someone told her to come outside and when she did, I (all 5'1" to her almost 6' 250 or so pound frame) went at her calling her an idiot and accusing her of stealing my purse.

She just looked down at me and said "do you really want to go there? Cause I can pound you into the ground with one punch." I told her to eff off, took my purse, and we left.

It's an understatement to say I overreacted. About 5 minutes later, I asked my husband to take me back so I could apologize.

He did. I went up to Margo and told her "my mom always told me when you are wrong, apologize, so I'm here to apologize."

She looked down at me again, then smiled, and said "man, you are one gutsy bitch." And we became instant friends.

Talk about staring death in the face.

And then there was the time I punched a 6-foot Jamaican man in the mouth for pouring beer over my head, but that's another story for another time.

Charpa

Not me but my hubby

He's an instrument technician, just called back from retirement coz they can't find anyone to do his job.

Anyway, I asked him for a calculator a couple of weeks ago. I was at the kitchen table 'marking'. He brought me a solar powered calculator, saw the sunshine streaming in through the kitchen-door window, onto my work 'area' and decided to close the blinds.

Dhu! The calculator went OFF. Techinicians!!!!!!!!

LG