Stupid Human Tricks

Brought to you by people who can laugh at their own foibles. Generous contributions to the SHT list include:

• One day I parked my car on the street and went into my building to work. When I came out at lunch, the car wasn't there. Gone. Crap, I thought. It has been stolen! These were the days before I had a cell phone, so I ran to the nearest house to call the police. As I pounded on some poor old lady's door, I glanced across the street to see my car. In someone's front yard. With the bumper lodged in between the boards of the house.

  
  I had left the car in gear when I parked it, and it was on a slight slope. So as I walked away, blissfully ignorant, it had rolled backwards down the street and into the front yard of the house. Thank GOD it didn't run over anyone in the process. Funny thing...the people in the house hadn't noticed. I knocked on their door and pointed out to them that I had done some creative parking in their living room wall. They were amazed. What can I say. College students. (Nancy)
  

• In high school, my sarcastic English teacher announced, in a completely serious tone of voice, that the word "gullible" had been removed from the most recent edition of the dictionary. Never having heard that particular joke before, I asked (in front of the whole class), "Why? It's a perfectly good word!"

  
  Also, as a new homeowner, I spent an entire spring season carefully nurturing an unusual and spectacular-looking "volunteer" plant that was unknown to me. I kept it well-watered, gave it some fertilizer, weeded around it ... only to have a neighbor inform me it was a stinging nettle. (Grassmaster)

  
  [Editor's note: Grassmaster grew up to become not only an accomplished writer, but the editor of an award-winning gardening magazine.]
  

• A few years ago I was so upset after breaking up with a boyfriend that when I went to the service station to fill up I paid with a credit card at the pump, and in a fog, drove away with the nozzle still in my gas tank! In case you never knew this, there is a special break off junction in the hose for just this type of incident so that the unconscious person doesn't damage the actual pump. Well I hear this clanging behind me as I drove away and looked out to find the nozzle, hose and all dragging on the ground. Did I feel stupid? YES! I sheepishly replaced the nozzle into the pump and drove away quickly. I figured that I couldn't possibly be the only person that had ever done this and they would know how to fix it. (Sister Amy Sunshine)

  
  

• Having dinner with a very cute boy who I've just met. We're talking about art and artists over bagels and grilled cheese. And I start talking about this artist I love, Jeremy Blake, who makes trippy video paintings in bleating bright colors. I saw him speak at a museum the week before. And I'm talking and talking and talking, and I reach for the artist's name, and instead of Jeremy Blake, it comes out Andrew Blake.

  
  Andrew Blake. Who is a porn director.

  
  There is a flicker of petrified, mutual recognition. I verbally fumble for about six seconds, and recover. And the conversation continues as usual. (Madame X)
  

• My senior year of high school, three other National Honor Society officers and I were headed to a conference in Appleton, WI (from Milwaukee). At this point in my life, I had a loose grip on directions and instead preferred to describe how to get someplace by associating the destination with the closest mall. In this case, when asked what freeway to get on, I said, "Go towards Brookfield Square" and promptly fell asleep.

  
  An hour or so later, I was woken up and asked, "Should we be hitting Madison first?" If you know Wisconsin at all, you know the answer to that is a resounding "no." Unfortunately, I had mixed up my malls and said Brookfield when I should have said Mayfair, sending us west rather than north. Fortunately, someone then figured out that we had a map and we eventually made it to Appleton. Yes, we were a fine representation of the best and the brightest.

  
  My directional sense has gotten MUCH better over the years (points of the compass are much more reliable than malls), but my family still enjoys mocking me when I set out on long road trips. "Call us if you get there." (Jen X)
  

• Click link to read Gunfight at the Spider Coral (Guest blogger: Señor Editor)
  

Thanks for sharing!

Today around the world: February 28 is Andalusia Day in Spain.