I bought a car from a man who would not finish the title work, and I was not allowed to buy tags for the car. A police officer who pulled me over insisted I had "priors" and I went to jail for a few hours. Massive court costs, very traumatic, and I have never been in trouble in my life. A week after getting tags, and paying late fees, I had some repairs done on the car. But it was not enough-- the car was barely running and I sold it for scrap.
I was on a 900 mile drive for business. It was sleeting, and I was having trouble driving in it with my jeep, so I slowed down a bit. A semi was speeding in the sleet and rear-ended me straight on. My insurance went up, the cops were jerks, but all I could say was, "How on earth did I live through that? God only knows." So I answered my own question. I was so glad to be home I kissed the ground! On a bad day, I just remember how lucky I was to survive being hit by a speeding vehicle 100 times the size of mine.
I once drove 30 minutes to buy a roof rack for my car. I parked in a 1-hour lot, went inside and picked up the rack, and realized at the register that I forgot my wallet. So I put it back, drove all the way home, drove all the way back, parked in the same spot, and bought it. When I got out I saw a ticket on my window for extended parking in a 1-hour space. I was furious so I drove around looking for the cop, and I actually found him and confronted him. He said he would drop the ticket if I appeared in court because it was too late for him to change it now. I felt a little better, like I had been wronged and made the world right again. But then on the drive home a van kicked up a rock and cracked my windshield. It cost twice as much to repair the windshield.
I launched two simultaneous ad campaigns for my brand new luck-based web site only to have it crash on the day.
I went on a date once and I really wanted to impress the girl, so I went to a flower store and bought some exotic looking flowers and hid them under the table at the restaurant. Then when she sat down I told her I had a surprise for her, and I convinced her to close her eyes. I grabbed the flowers and put them right under her nose thinking she would smell them and smile. But instead she just started violently sneezing. Her face started to get red and splotchy and I asked if she was ok. I could tell she wanted to say something but she couldn't stop sneezing. I imagine it was along the lines of 'I'm allergic to these flowers asshole' but I'll never know. She ran out of the restaurant embarrassed and I never heard from her again.
When I was a sophomore in college, I would twirl my keychain around my lanyard like a big windmill, and it would always agitate my roommates and teammates. One day, around 5ish, as we were walking out of the elevator, I twirled my keys and they shot out of my hand and down the elevator shaft. One kid passing by stopped and said to me, "Wow, that's gotta be one of the top ten worst things that can happen." Took me an hour to fish it out with 3 hangars and a flashlight.
When I was a little kid I found one of those crane games in an arcade that was overloaded with super bouncy balls. My crane got snagged on the flimsy cardboard divider they put in to stop the balls from falling in. It started bending under the weight of the crane, and then it folded over - and unleashed an avalanche of super bouncy balls. I drained a third of the machine with one quarter. I was the happiest kid in the world.
One night in college a friend of mine brought an entire bag full of alcohol for a small party in our dorm room. I met him down in the lobby to sign him in, and walked into the elevator to ride up to the 6th floor. It was entirely obvious what was in the bag, but it was a little too late to hide it and I wasn't very worried since the only person who would care was the building RA, who I had never seen once since orientation. On the 5th floor the elevator opened up, and that was exactly who walked in. We were written up and assigned the most depressing task imaginable for a college student - emptying every individual beer can into the bathroom sink under supervision.
I used to wrestle during all four years of high school. Back then, my friends and family all used to come and watch us play. One night, in the middle of my match, I was rolled over in an awkward way and compressed my neck. I immediately lost all feeling and movement from the neck down. I didn't really comprehend how serious it was until I was carted out in an ambulance. It slowly began to sink in that I might never be able to move again. And then all of a sudden, like somebody flipping on a lightswitch, the feeling came back to me. I feel lucky every day thinking about that.
The first (and last) time I ever played paintball, I got shot at close range in my balls. I don't remember anything except dropping down and waking up in a hospital, to have a doctor explain to me that a paintball ruptured one of my testicles, and I had to get it removed.
This story is a product of my own stupidity but a lucky one nonetheless. When I was a kid we used to hang out at the train station and put all sorts of shit on the tracks to see what would happen. Branches, lighters, coins. One day I put a penny on the track, like I had done a hundred times before, and waited for the train. Well when the train hit it, it must have caught the edge or something and it launched the penny like a bullet at my face. I felt the wind from it right past my ear. If it had been only a few inches over, I would have been fucked.
On Tuesday, the 23rd I left work early to take my daughter to the doctor. As I was driving down Route 80 in the pouring, slushy, snowy rain trying to get to the doctor on time my windshield washer decided to explode. I had about 18 miles to go and was in the middle of Paterson, NJ. Not a nice place to be. So in the end I had to drive 8 miles in the emergency lane with my head out the window trying to see. Fuck Me.
I was driving down the highway, when all of a sudden the minivan in front of me lost its front passenger tire. There were sparks shooting everywhere so I quickly changed lanes as the minivan pulled over, but the tire just kept on going. It was really odd driving next to a tire cruising by at 80 miles per hour with no car attached to it. It must have travelled at least a mile before it started rolling to the side of the road, and then it somehow managed to perfectly veer off into the onramp of the next gas station.
