one time.

gigantes

gigantes

Interested.
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Mar 10, 2007
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one time a butterfly flew right into my face from out of nowhere and i
shrieked and dropped my bowl of pudding.

...

one time i dove headfirst into a huge snow bank only to discover that it
was actually an ice bank with an inch of snow on top. that hurt.

...

one time when i was living at my mom's, i left my window open and the
cat got out and climbed to the top of the roof. we found out because as
my stepdad was coming home at night, he saw some people standing in
front of our house admiring our new wind ornament and talking about how
realistic it looked.
 
So this is the anecdotes thread? Do the examples you give have to be real or fictional? Pardon my ignorance - it's been a long day!:eek:
 
well personally, i'm trying to remember real anecdotes from my life. but anything you feel like adding is fine with me!

...

one time when i was in middle school, our chorus group was giving a
night performance at some other school and unfortunately the stage
spotlights were very hot and my collar was very tight and i passed out
in the middle of a song. from what i was told, i fell into the next
student who fell into the next one and it caused a chain reaction like
dominoes. the performance was ruined and i pretty-much wore a bag over
my head for the next week.
 
one time when i was dead broke (haha, when am i never dead broke?), my
best friend and i were walking down a suburban street and when we came
to an intersection we looked down and saw a $100 bill on the ground.

whipping out the videocamera my friend had been carrying to shoot a
basketball video, we faithfully re-enacted the scene from the beginning,
right down to the rather simian facial expressions i first made denoting
surprise and great delight upon our discovery.

then we picked up the $100 bill and went rushing over to the 7-11 to gorge
ourselves on crumbcake donuts.
 
:eek: Mosaix! Anti-Christ!

I suppose you could say that this is a nice thread to develop your own anecdotes, and check out the style of anecdotal writing of other members.
 
One time--no, not once, but twice--my favorite teacher died. Once was 3 years ago, the other was last winter.
 
one time when i was on a road trip to california with my new GF, we got
to the campground really late after it was closed and all the spots had
been taken, so we snuck in and set up our tiny little tent in a big lawn
space. later on, one thing led to another inside the tent and we started
making some noise.

apparently we woke a ranger up because the next thing we knew they
had turned a hose with a spray gun attachment on us. the water went
right through the side of the thin nylon tent and all over us and everything
else. we were shocked, horrified and humiliated, but decided to just wait
for the water to stop. but the guy must have been perversely enjoying it
because he just kept spraying and spraying. finally i unzipped the flap,
poked my head out and bellowed "okay, you made your point!"

i was buck-naked but i was so angry by that point i was ready to charge
the ranger and start swinging at his head.

when i looked around outside there was no ranger or anyone else in
sight. we had unknowingly set up our tent right next to an automatic
sprinkler jet, and the park watering system had just started it's
nightly schedule.

so there we were, both naked and shivering and everything inside the
tent was drenched, but all i could do was laugh my stupid head off.
 
one time i was homeless.

i was extremely worn out and dispirited by the work i was doing... plus it was probably the beginning of my body breaking down. this was around 1995. so i quit my job and tried to collect myself and my energies.

after awhile i was kicked out of the group house i lived in because i was behind on rent. i lost almost everything.

for about one summer i lived outside on the philly wharf... with just enough money left to feed myself, augmented by a little theft.

eventually a club i was volunteering at took pity on me and let me sleep on the couch at night. and a few months later i was 'encouraged' to find work... which i did.

this is like the suburban kid version of being homeless, tho. i didn't spend years on the street and wasn't forced to beg for anything other than mooching off of friends a little. i made sure to keep up my appearance so i didn't have to go through the shame that others have to. plus i always knew my parents would bail me out somehow if things got really really bad... like if i got injured or something. but i wasn't really a kid either, being almost 30.

it was an interesting experience, liberating in some ways, but not something i'd want to go through again. i know i didn't have it nearly so hard as others but i'd kill myself first if it came to homelessness again.
 
one time when i was living in a group house i made a chili dinner for
everyone. for spiciness i used a new kind of habanero hot sauce i had
just bought. the chili turned out delicious, everyone loved it, and it
wasn't too spicy or anything, but later on it started doing things
inside people's stomachs.

the house was soon filled with groaning people rocking from side-to-side
as the incredibly acid dinner burned through their stomach linings. i
suppose some kind of chemical reaction had taken place between the hot
sauce and the food, but i never got to test this idea further because my
bottle of habanero sauce had disappeared by the next day, never to be
seen again.
 
I quite clearly recall an early incident that occurred my first day of Sunday School that pretty much summed up my relationship with established religion, then as now. As a four year old I distrusted adults so when the pastor gently queried me about my name I told him I was Tobor the Great, one of my favourite low-rent science fiction movie heroes (to my young eyes being an invincible robot who could walk through reinforced concrete bunker walls to save the girl was a much better deal than being a powerless little boy who had the Powers That Be always telling him to brush his teeth, go to bed and eat his vegeatables).

The class was then given a colouring book assignment, a simplified line drawing version of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. To my eyes the whole composition seemed somehow, you know . . . . lacking. And so, with youthful insouciance, I drew Godzilla devastating Tokyo in the window right behind a serene, but apparently oblivious, Jesus Christ.

Well, that ended that and I was unceremoniously handed over to my mother with the comment, “Perhaps your son isn’t quite ready for this yet”. Nice understatement . . . . I’m still not ready (nor will I ever be, indoctrination not being my strong suit). However, it should be duly noted that my reverence for the Italian Renaissance Masters has undoubtedly improved over the course of the intervening years . . . . even if my respect for organized religion decidedly has not.

And I still feel sorry for poor Pastor Peters. A genuine mensch, he didn't deserve to have such a little weirdo for a pupil.
 
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The whole time I was growing up I think I didn't have a single skirt without a major tear in it that had either been stitched up or held together by pins.

I never seemed to remember keys or shoes and would often go happily down to the mall barefoot and then come home and climb over the gate to get in. The problem was always jumping down the other side. Skirts never seem to know how to behave in such circumstances.

But the most memorable tear (I still have the skirt) came from rescuing the very silly, huge, Rottweiler next door. My neighbours had left a pot of food on the stove and of course, they'd gone out and he was chained to a pillar next to it. Pot catches fire and dog starts howling so my mom rushes out and discovers their gate is locked so I get sent over the fence in between the two houses.

Climbing up is fine and the skirt gets caught on the way down the other side and then the silly dog decides I'm there to play so knocks me flat on the cement floor and I'm trying to tell him that we need to get up and put the fire out and get out of there. No chance. He's not listening.

Then my mom comes to the fence and she yells just once. Amazing. He stops and sits and looks sheepish. I don't know how she does it. I still can't. Anyway we put the fire out and I took him over to my house where he proceeded to follow my mom around like a devoted slave for the rest of the day.
 
Shoes and skirts are greatly over-rated.

Okay now I hike the skirts up and tuck it into the waist band. I still go barefoot whenever I can though; usually when my mom fails to notice that I've gone half way down the block with no shoes. :p Of course now I live alone.
 
one time when i was about eight years old i was on my way to school and
there on the sidewalk i came across a wicked-looking dagger. it looked
like something a US navy seal would use to disembowel someone with. i knew
that i couldn't bring it to school so i stashed it in some nearby bushes.

all school day long i thought about that weapon, which at my size would
have resembled a short sword more than a dagger. i wondered how my life
would be different with this incredible new weapon at my command, not
understanding of course what a stunningly bad idea it would have been to
carry it around with me. but sheltered little suburban boys dream of
moments like these.

after school, when i came back for it, the dagger had disappeared and in its
place there was a plastic fork.

aside from the fact that over three decades later i still don't understand how
this could have happened, my little eight-year old self was infinitely more
crushed and confused. i remember stumbling home in a daze, barely able to
keep my balance, my mouth atremble, my eyes full of tears. life seemed a
little crueler to me for a long time after that day.
 
When I was around 12 or so, I was skiing with my family. I was fairly good for someone my age, if I say so myself, and was maybe just a tiny bit overconfident.

So there was this long stretch of pretty flat skiing course, you could go fairly fast without doing much. Partly through that stretch my foot was knocked aside by something on the ground, and I went flying. I distinctly remember my one foot being bent to the outside, and I dove headfirst into the ground (literally), bounced off my head onto my back, and went rolling for a couple of turns. I had long lost my skis and sticks at that point, my father (who was coming after me) collected them over a stretch of like 20 meters, both skis, both sticks and my mask(!).

Now the interesting part is, I didn't hurt myself AT ALL. Just shook off the snow and went on ^^
 
One time when I was helping my uncle reshingle his house, he accidentally shot me in the leg with the nail gun.

I instinctively stepped back in shock and conveniently placed my weighted foot on a loose shingle.

Needless to say, I quickly lost my balance, fell down, slid off the roof, onto a window overhang then fell of that.

Thankfully, in the end the ground broke my fall; and despite the broken arm and the concussion; I still look back on it and chuckle.
 
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