Charcoal grill on the deck. Girlfriend coming for dinner.

Soak the coals with fluid and close the cover to let ‘em absorb it.

Come back a few minutes later. Turn brain off. Don’t open the cover to light it — instead, open the air vent on top and drop the match in.

Girlfriend arrives moments later and reports she saw the fireball from the front of the house.

Damage to body: minimal. Humor potential from girlfriend’s point of view: significant.

For the sake of clarity we will stipulate that his happened BEFORE Andrew got married — right, Andrew?
And may we also assume that the bride and the grilled girlfriend are different people?

Girlfriend wasn’t grilled — she just saw the explosion. And yes, different people. (Although I’m still in touch with her at kantor.com.)

Hey, Joe, I enjoy reading your blog/column/whatever. Good stuff.

Anyway, perhaps my biggest goofball moment was when I was pressure washing an apartment complex while in college. Like Andrew, my brain disengaged and I got the bright idea of seeing what would happen if I stuck my hand in front of the p.w. hose nozzle. Ten years later, I still have the scar on my palm from the resulting (and very painful) blister.

Me.
Hammock.
Adult and children neighbors…..
Hammock flips, I land face down in dirt….children (and adults) find this quite hilarious.

Andrew’s brain? Engaged?

I didn’t know him then…

(aw Andrew!)

Wow, I had to check back here after I saw all the replies coming in. A new subject.. hurray!

I’ve got one real quick before I head back out and hope I don’t do anything stupid.

Winter before last, ice covered the steps to a back entrance of a business. I couldn’t really see the ice, though. I kept wondering, “Is this really slick?” So, barely holding on to the door, I put one foot out: Nothing to it. Then I let go. My legs flew out from under me & I landed right on my butt. Nothing was broken but I had bruises halfway down my leg. All I could do was sit there & laugh. It hurt, though. And it really hurt the next morning. When ya gonna tell us what happened to you Joe?

/beatnik mode on

lawnmower

right foot

i kick the lawnmower

twas on

still have all my toes..

dig

/beatnik mode off

:::::: snapping fingers for RoanokeFound :::::::

I am the queen of falling. Fell in the middle of Times Square. wearing a dress and heels. Fell in the parking lot at my job where 800 people worked. It was snowing and everybody was getting off early. Fell and slid under the car. Fell down my stairs and could not walk for 2 days and this summer fell in the middle of East Main street in Salem at lunch time walking on the sidewalk and ended up in the street. I have fallen many many more times than this but you get the idea. Of all the times I fell, Inever once broke anything. One of my friends has twisted her foot twice and broke ‘em
twice. I must have some good bones. Glad I drink that milk.

Dumbest thing I’ve done (lately):

While helping my son take out the garbage one evening last spring, we were goofing around and my son decided to grab onto the trash can and ride his down our very STEEP driveway. I figured, “I can do that”, so I grab onto mine and try to ride mine down the very steep driveway. My son, of course, gets to the street in an upright position. I, however, end up veering off the left side of the driveway, where there is quite a drop, into the flower garden below. Didn’t do any serious damage (except to the garden) but I could hardly move for a week!

The scene: Me, two lazy cats laying on the back of my recliner, armload of just-folded laundry and one empty laundry basket.

I rise from my recliner with said clothes in hand and kick the basket out of my way. BIG toe goes into basket webbing–painful. I try to kick the basket off my foot, but no luck. I fall back onto my recliner. One cat resting on the back of the recliner flies up over my head and lands on top of the clothes I am still clutching, dives off my shoulder and flees for her life. The other cat grabs the drapery on his way up, up into the air, and hangs there. Imgaining another cat jumping on my head, I jump up as fast as my old butt will let me and the clothes fly all over the room. The basket is still on my toe. The cat got down from the drapery and they both hid from me the rest of the day. This just happened today and my toe is still sore.

When I was about 9 years old and I was running, running, running before I bounced off an invisible barrier and landed on my back.

Turns out I had run into a window.

Loaded a huge amount of junk into my trash can. Was so heavy I couldn’t move it. With much effort got it tilted back on it’s wheels, ready to go! Got snagged on a paver and had to set it back down. Must have been very top heavy ’cause the darn thing just kept going forward and I held on for the ride. Head over heels over the trash can in the back yard for all the neighbors to see. Badly bruised leg not to mention my pride.

Andrew,
could you be a grant writer. Where I work they might need one soon. The person that was doing that, move out of state and they have not filled the position. I had asked if they were hiring and they said for now, they are not. But you never know.