Death Road in Bolivia
This story goes back about 2 years to when I was in La Paz in Bolivia. Been there a few days so decided to do one of the more exotic things: mountain biking down the "Death Road", so dubbed because of its extreme conditions in parts.

My mate J and me dragged ourselves out of bed at 6ish, got changed and headed for the bike place. We met our little group, got our helmets (the full face deal which will feature later in this story) and gear then headed for the start of the day, about an hour or so drive away. The ride started fine: tested our bikes and when everything was ready we headed off. The day is basically a descent from 4500m to roughly 1100m, starting along an asphalt road. We started off down the road absolutely gunning it. Went through some checkpoints and then had to peddle uphill for about 40mins which was agony for a seriously unfit knacker like myself. We then started on ´the world's most dangerous road´. For those of you who don't know where this is, its reputation comes from a dirt track cut into the mountain, wide enough for about one minibus, with drops on one side ranging from 250 to 400m straight down. Two hundred people a year used to die on this, until they built the bypass. We then started the road. The views were crazy...just mountains, sheers drops and the road. We bombed it down the first section and stopped for lunch. Should have really seen the omens as my chain broke clean off my bike and so I had to get a new bike.

Now comes the fun part. About 30mins later, we are shooting down a gravelly section, when my helmet strap comes loose and the helmet rides up in my face. I start tapping the brakes, but at about 35mph I lost control reaching up for my helmet to pull it down. So I stacked it in a massive way. The bike flicked round to the right (according to the guy behind) as my brakes locked and I bounced off, sliding on my side until I came to a stop, literally boots hanging over the edge of a 200m drop. If I had come off the other side of the bike I would have been over and well...dead. Not to be melodramatic or anything but it is kinda cool i survived!

Got mashed up though: massive cuts and burns on my side and ripped up my arms, hands and knee. But got back on and finished the road

Incidentally, the journey back was interesting as our two guides were completely wasted, so much so that one of them threw up out the window on no less than 7 separate occasions before passing out. The driver was luckily sober, which was good as we took the death road back up.
(satanstolemyteddybear Mu hõljuk on angerjaid täis, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 22:29, Reply)

Nairobbery 1978
Was held up while leaving school ... the bastards stole my new lunchbox.

It had a rocket on it :-(
(Biff..., Mon 23 Aug 2010, 21:18, 1 reply)

life is all about the near misses...
...
was once nearly married AND once in a hold up...but I still keep my wits about me.
(bitter little individual, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 20:46, Reply)

One afternoon in 1997,
I was looking at a brochure for Eurostar weekend breaks, and the VERY NEXT DAY Diana died in that tunnel.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 20:19, 1 reply)

Mr Granddad Harry...
had a really nice GP who was more than happy to do house calls unlike some of them today.. drag yourself out of bed and down the surgery even your head's missing...

My Dad was from Hyde in Cheshire and his Dad lived there in the same house for his whole life.

The GP was a certain Dr Shipman. Luckily he preferred to bump of da laydeez.
( Sallyrsm, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 19:21, 2 replies)

Used to have a job where I did home visits to old/ill people
and although lots were at death's door for the several months that I knew them, not one succumbed.

Then I left, and within a couple of months about 7 died, mostly found by my successor or others in the team.

Not sure whether I had a narrow escape from finding the patients dead or if they'd somehow only successfully coffin-dodged when I was around!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 19:15, 1 reply)

.
My inadvertent opening of a door to see what all the noise was about stopped someone hanging themselves last night. I just got back from the hospital now. Hopefully everything will be alright.

EDIT: Should probably point out that a) Mr Anodyne was said person and b) today is my 21st birthday
(BelladonnaAnodyne Melissa's gonna wet herself, I swear..., Mon 23 Aug 2010, 18:29, 10 replies)

Scary Stuff
Me and a couple of mates had gone to the old Academy in Birmingham for a gig. And a brilliant gig it was, too. Unfortunately it was a curfew night so we skipped out into the warm Summers evening and onto the train. It was only once we got on the train that our phones started going off with messages and voicemails from parents asking if we’re ok and begging us to get in touch. Pah, we thought, silly parents being all overprotective. We soon found out that there had been a bomb scare in Birmingham and the whole of the town centre had been evacuated, with the incident occurring just around the corner from the Academy. Apparently ‘they’ thought us in the Academy would be ok as it was underground. Charming. In hindsight, it was strange that there was no one other than sweaty hyper gig goers on the street.
I know it’s not a narrow escape as nothing actually happened but it was still a scary moment.

I also came within a hairs breadth of stabbing a wee toddler with a couple of screwdrivers while working in a well known overpriced card shop. I did a big sick after that incident.
(Beacon, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 16:16, 3 replies)

More pearoast fodder: "Vlad's sisters and my near-impalation"
Or A short treatise on something rather stupid I did as an undergraduate.

I don't have a habit of endangering my life in stupid ways. I'll freely admit that I've said and done a wide variety of very stupid things in the past, but I'd like to think I'm doing reasonably well as far as natural selection is concerned. Nevertheless: it was a Friday evening, the week after my third-year exams had finished. My guitarist and I decided to spend an evening in the Blues Bar just off Regent Street. Turns out we made a good choice - they had a fine pint of Arran Fireside on the pumps, and Ian Siegal was playing at the back of the bar.

It also became very convenient at this point that my guitarist is Russian. During a quiet point in conversation, he gestured over to three women stood behind us and said "sounds like they're Russian." So I went to the gents a little later, and, when he came back - well, bugger me, he'd only gone and struck up conversation with them. In short, we had a superb evening drinking a large amount of beer and trying (unsuccessfully) to chat up three Russian sisters to the backdrop of some of the best modern blues in the UK. In fact, I'd had such a good evening, I decided to walk home. Walk, that is, from Regent Street to Barons Court.

A bit of a long trek it was, so by the time I'd got to Park Lane, I thought it would shave some time off the journey to cut through Hyde Park. I knew of a fence at the far end which I was able to climb over, so as long as I could find an open gate on the Park Lane side, I'd be fine. Granted, this was 2 or 3am, but someone had forgotten to close one of the side gates. Bingo!

Well, almost. I'd forgotten about the fence which runs up the middle of the park. I got this far, in the middle of the park, in the pitch darkness, and decided it was too late to turn back. Still, how to get over this fence? I tried to lift myself up to climb over it, and realised that if I wasn't careful, I'd put the (very pointy) railings into my abdomen.

So I decided to take my chances and jump over it. I took a few steps back and prepared to run up.

Then I took a few more steps back.

Then I tried a different angle.

Then I dawdled a bit.

And then I jumped.

I've made it!
Oh, almost...seems my jeans are snagged on the railing...
Hmm...okay, they're snagged quite firmly. Let's have a look...
Oh, crap.

It wasn't so much my jeans that were snagged as my thigh. I was halfway over a fence in a deserted Hyde Park, in the small hours of the morning, with a fence in my leg.

I'd like to think that the beer kept me level-headed, because I'm normally quite squeamish. Cursing and grunting enough to make a BNP rally seem family-friendly, I lifted myself off the railing and hobbled off to find a bench, where, in the middle of the park, I tried to administer first aid. The position of the wound required me to pull my trousers down, and as I tried to wrap a handkerchief round it, I realised that my thigh was, in fact, far too large for the handkerchief to encompass.

I pulled my trousers up and decided the best course of action was to get home. I got to the fence I knew I could scale and left the park, to hobble the last half-hour to Barons Court.

I thought I was doing alright at the time, though in hindsight, I must have been in some sort of shock as I remember being convinced that the couple walking 100yds or so behind me were, in fact, following me home.

In hindsight, I was immensely lucky in spite of my misfortune - if I'd landed just a few inches further in any given direction, there was a good chance I good have ruptured a femural artery or rendered myself a eunuch. I'll let you decide which of those potential outcomes would have been worse.

The following day I woke up with very little memory and a splitting headache.
Fuck...I didn't have that much to drink last night...
I pulled back the sheets to find a broad smear of blood all over them.

I've never been so grateful to live with a medical student. V, you're a legend. (And I'm an idiot)
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 15:10, 7 replies)

9/11 nearly killed every American
Why is it that every single American you ever speak to was almost caught up in 9/11 or has a relative who 'was due to stay in the hotel there on that day but missed their flight' etc?

To be fair, I don't know all that many Americans personally, but the handful that I do know all seem to have some kind of connection to it. From the evidence of my small sample, it seems that every single American was due to be in the World Trade Centre at the time of the attacks.
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 15:06, 29 replies)

Near death in Bangladesh
Have a repost you lovely people.

My friend John and I were in Bangladesh. We had planned on poking around a temple and then walking back to town, but we got lost in rare style. We found ourselves in a jungle (a jungle!) as the sun was setting. We decided that the only thing to do was cut down a bamboo tree with my two inch Swiss Army knife and use the foliage as a blanket. That was a bizarre night.

The next day was fairly nightmarish. No food, our 500ml bottle of water had been empty for a day, no change of clothes, no map, no compass, no real clue on how to survive in a strange country or indeed in anything other than an urban environment. We gave messages to each other to relay to our families if either of us didn't make it. That was the closest to the reaper we ever got.

To cut a long story short, two days later we, thank goodness, were in a hotel in Chittagong. We splashed out on some luxury, and even managed to receive Indian MTV. I was watching a particularly fine advert for shampoo when I decided to inspect my shoulder to see why it was so itchy. There was an ugly looking brown spot. Scratching it caused it to flake off, but one corner tenaciously clinged to my skin. Growing suspicious, I examined it with the lens in my knife. The thing had legs. I was supporting a tick. John and I compiled a tick inventory. I was infested on my shoulder, just above my nipple, the soft spot between my earlobe and my head and a few other places.

Tugging them with tweezers didn't work, as their heads gripped very tightly. John, damn him a thousand times, at that point "remembered" that the way to get rid of ticks is to burn them off. Out came the matchbox.

You know that little sulphurous puff you get when you light a match? It was an appropriate signal for the hell that was to follow. Holding a lit match to your skin is never fun at the best of times, but holding one under your earlobe is simply awful. The worst moment came when I thought I had finished, but then realised that a tick was in fact sucking on my scrotum. I was being teabagged by an insect, and the only way to stop its advances was to hold a lit match to my balls. The bathroom filled with the smell of singed pubic hairs (and howls of laughter from John).

The story isn't finished yet. The next day we happened to come across some doctors, to whom we told our story. They smirked and shook their heads. They told us that burning a tick leaves its head buried under your skin. We could look forward to some nasty infections, and sure enough for months to come the bites were gushing pus. The one above my nipple wept so much that one day four months later someone pointed out that I appeared to be lactating.

Just for reference, you twist and pull at the same time. Hurts, but you remove the head. Bear that in mind the next time you visit a temple.
(I grew it myself, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 15:02, 14 replies)

A match made in hell...
I live, as do so many people in Bristol, in a rather nice old house that’s been converted into flats. It’s a decent size one bed property that my landlord, who lived here for a fair few years before renting it out, has spent a sizable chunk of money on making look nice. This includes having stripped the floor boards in the open plan living room / kitchen. This has revealed the quirky, uneven original flooring which has been stained a nice walnut colour, to set off the feature wall, which is papered in a kind of bronze and teal abstract paper.

But this isn’t a property website, and you care not for the tasteful decor and the high gloss kitchen units. The important bit is I live on the first floor, there is a flat below me and I have wooden floors.

So, one evening, I’d cooked my staple dinner of a piece of fish and some vegetables. As the living space is all open plan, the dinner smell can sometimes linger and the extractor fan isn’t always strong enough to shift it (at least if I still want to be able to hear the TV). So I have some nice scented candles which I keep around for just such an occasion.

One of the candles, a vanilla one in a large glass jar, was burned about half way down. This meant that I couldn’t get at the wick with a lighter, I needed to use a match. I struck said match and, without warning and seemingly in slow motion, the top half of the match broke away and fell, still lit, in between a crack in the floor boards and down into the crawl space separating my floor and downstairs’ ceiling. It was almost beautiful, for a second I was transfixed as the match tumbled downwards. Then a small ball of flame leapt up from between the floor boards and I screamed like a crazy woman. I grabbed a pan from the work top, filled it with water and hurled it across the floor, hoping desperately that I’d doused the flames. I then ran downstairs to alert my neighbours. Thankfully I found them neither burned to a crisp, nor drenched in water from the ceiling. They laughed at me, a lot, and gave me some wine. I went back to my flat, mollified, but still had to sleep in the living room next to a bucket of cold water on the off chance that there was a slow burning fire under the floor.


I have never lit a match in my house since and have become paranoid about setting the place on fire to the degree that I won’t run the washing machine unless I’m in the house to check it’s not setting the place ablaze.

Even reliving it to write this down has made me a bit shivery... *shudders*
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 14:09, 1 reply)

7th July 2005
I was sat peacefully in my house in Suffolk about eighty miles away, so in interstellar terms I was close enough to be blown to bits.

Lucky, eh?
( MatJ LOOK, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 13:53, 4 replies)

Cornwall
Six of us went down to Cornwall for a couple of weeks of illegal camping in the summer. We were 18, had just finished our A-Levels, and were in the prime of our youth. Our main property was a couple of tents, a communal cooking stove, a big old double-tape stereo (which is, interestingly, now named "The General" by it's owner, and still going, at approximately 25 years old and having been in two car crashes).

We pitched up on one of the headlands near Padstow, and found a secluded spot on one of the cliffs, covered in brush and relatively flat.

The view was overlooking the sea, and what a pleasure it was of an evening to lie there, listening to the waves and the gulls below, smoking and drinking. Utterly relaxed.

The route into town was, as you might imagine, somewhat convoluted and trecherous.

One evening, on our return to camp in the small hours, we ended up missing the correct trurning on the fork, and were right on the cliff edge - walking along a path in single file as it demanded - a sheer rock face to our left, and a 50-foot drop onto rocks on our right. The only real light was from the moon, and it's refection on the sea.

We'd been drinking, but mainly smoking that evening, and suddenly one of the lads, right at the back of the column suddenly barked authoritatively, but rather desperately "STOP!"

In our rather monged state, we all stopped repectfully, but soon questioned him.

"What the fuck are you on about, A, you dick?"

"I dunno" said A, "I just, er ... I dunno. I felt we should stop ... er ... I dunno."

"You fucking idiot - come on lads ... "

Until N, generally one of the loudest of the group and who was at the front said quietly "No. Er ...we can't."

"Oh for fuck's sake why not?"

"Er ... because this is the edge of the cliff."

Less than two feet away over a slight hump, the ground quite literally dropped straight onto the rocks and into the waves.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 13:37, 2 replies)

Oooooops!
Yesterday managed to narrowly avoid disfiguring and/or killing the five year old Miss no. 5 with a cricket ball hit from a good fifty yards away. She was fielding and i wanted to involve her a bit more so hit what I thought was a fairly innocuous ball in her general direction. As it bounced twice and then pitched up off a large divot it caught her clean in the middle of the face only to be followed by the pre scream silence that every parent knows means that their child is genuinely in distress and a torrent of crimson. After I had managed to stem the bleeding we looked like we had both been involved in some sort of savage blood ritual. Thankfully no obvious breaks or fractures or death. I am still in the doghouse though!
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Mon 23 Aug 2010, 12:06, 12 replies)

Escaping the Hooligans
One of my narrowest encounters with pain and fear is also one of the funniest things that I have ever witnessed. The scene was a pub in Shepherds Bush early on a Saturday afternoon. I was with my girlfriend having a quick pint before we headed into central London to do a spot of shopping. Around us there were quite a number of QPR football supporters, all in good spirits ahead of their home game later that afternoon. The atmosphere was jovial; a few songs were being sung and all the non-football supporting customers looked to be enjoying the upbeat mood in the pub.

We had nearly finished our drinks when we saw two men run through the door of the pub over to a group in the far corner. I heard one of them say something like ‘Leeds are here’. The group immediately stood up and started making calls on their phones. My girlfriend and I were sat in the opposite corner of the pub, on the same side as the entrance. Peering out of the window behind me, I saw about 30-40 grown men swaggering towards the tavern, and they didn’t look like they were going to pop in for a quiet drink. Other men inside started making their way to the door and the atmosphere turned from cheery to one of dread very quickly. I told my girlfriend that we’d wait where we were and to try keep out of the way.

“LEEDS, LEEDS, LEEDS, LEEDS”

The shouts got louder and more raucous as the hooligans approached. They were now in line with where we were sat, but fortunately, we weren’t the intended target of any impending violence. A few bricks were thrown towards the front door, and the blokes inside the pub were now spitting with fury, itching to get outside and do battle. My partner reached across the table and held my hand.

“Don’t worry, just sit here” I told her, trying to hide the fact that I was shitting myself at the prospect of getting caught up in the mayhem.

Suddenly, the QPR ‘supporters’ rushed from inside the pub towards the Leeds mob with a battle cry of “RRRRRRRR’s”
The two crowds met and started beating seven shades of shit out of one another. We stayed where we were, trying to stay calm, but this was incredibly hard when windows of the pub were being smashed around us. I went to ask my girlfriend if she was ok, when I saw her eyes widen. She wasn’t looking at me; she was gazing over my shoulder. I turned round quickly.
Coming towards the pub was a 20 stone Leeds hooligan, arms raised, with a manhole cover in his hands. He was laughing as he got closer, taking enjoyment from what he was doing. He kept motioning as if he was about to release the manhole cover towards the window behind which we were sat, but then gripping it in front of him. I’m not ashamed to say that I was too scared to move. I should have ducked under the table or moved: anything but stay where I was sat. The hooligan was now right up against the window, gurning with delight. He raised the manhole above his head once more and started making his way backwards.

‘This is the one’ I thought. I knew that this time it was coming through the window.

“Get under the table”, I ordered my girlfriend. Little did I know, she was one step ahead of me and was already in relative safety, tugging on my trouser leg, trying to get me to join her.
I sat and watched as the beast moved another step back, and then another, with the manhole still raised above his head. He took one more step backwards and then…collapsed! His leg had gone straight down the uncovered drain and I stared openmouthed as 20 stone of twat hurtled towards the floor, smashing his ballbag onto the corner of the drain hole. The manhole cover crashed to the floor, narrowly missing his head. He now had one leg resting horizontally on the pavement, with the other one dangling down the drain. It was one of the biggest senses of relief I’ve ever felt. I slipped down from my seat and under the table, pissing myself with laughter. The police arrived 5 or so minutes later and we were escorted to a taxi once they’d dealt with the thugs outside. I look back at how close I came to getting showered in glass, but all I can do is laugh about it. It was fucking funny watching him fall down a drain which he himself had uncovered. The scumbag.
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 11:35, 6 replies)

This one time some friends and I were walking across a railway bridge along the tracks.
There was river was 100 feet below us, and one of my friends - the fat one - was so scared he was crawling instead of stepping sleeper-to-sleeper, and he lost his comb as a result.

When we were half-way across, a train came, and we had to absolutely leg it. My fat friend and I were at the back, and we ran as fast as could.

As the train got closer and closer, we had to jump at the very end of the bridge onto the bank, which was a ten foot drop.

Best train-dodge ever.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 11:13, 4 replies)

Rope swings and childhood friends
In the summer before my 4th year of school, a tight group of about 6-10 of us little girls would meet at the local swimming hole every day, the tumbly tumultuous waters of a dam. In turn, one of our parents would take the reign as lifeguard and chief lunch-maker, making sure we were well-fed and didn’t drown.

There was a massive rope swing nearby which, when I was small, felt like it sent me into orbit then deposited me in a billion feet of water. It was great bloody fun, so we took turns screeeeeee!ing off the end of this rope. Hop out of the water, run down the trail into the woods, grab the rope and SPLASH. Again and again and again. Endlessly, for hours on end.

R ran up to use the rope and didn’t come back. Well, we all lived nearby and popped home from time to time, so we didn’t think anything of it. We carried on using the rope swing and, an hour or so later, we dispersed for the evening.

R never made it home. When R ran up to use the rope, she was abducted, pulled into the woods, raped and stabbed to death. This was metres from where we were. She was buried in a hole in the woods just off the trail, right next to that rope swing. We ran past her again and again and again.

This man watched us, day in and day out, waiting for his moment. It just happened that she was the unlucky one, not one of us.
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 11:04, 27 replies)

Spent most of the summer with this Australian girl
I'm slightly bewildered as to why her parents chose Norfolk over the Great Barrier Reef to spend their "vacation" between terms (they're both teachers, much like my parents), but I quickly decided not to question it when I met S (for twas her initial). I'm loath to call it a whirlwind romance because that sounds unbelievably fucking cheesy, but it really happened so fast. I may have hurried things along a bit to begin with because, well, I'm a bloke and as such was quite keen to plow her.

This, however, is the twist in the tale. She wasn't prepared to give it up to me. At all. She was "good", you know what I mean? Gutted. But the more time I spent with her the less I thought with my cock, for perhaps the first time in my life, and more with some weird sort of "romantic" part of my brain. And she was really into me; she even enjoyed it when we went to Great Yarmouth - GREAT FUCKING YARMOUTH - and I took her bowling in the arcade.

And just last week she had to go back to the other side of the world.

Why is this a narrow escape? Well, she's an Aussie, isn't she, and this is an Ashes year. As an Englishman I feel somewhat ashamed for dallying with the opposition already, and if, as I suspect will happen, our boys get a proper kicking this winter like we did 4 years ago, I'd never have heard the end of it. I've already de-friended her on Facebook. She was a lot of fun, but it's just not worth the hassle.

But, oh... those summer nights....

I hope she doesn't turn up at school next term, my ridiculously-named mates will give me a hell of a ribbing for failing to throw it up her.
(Darth Foxtrot A one-man army dedicated to making fetch happen, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 10:50, 12 replies)

Robbery...
...in 1992 I was doing the banking for my employer at the local bank (Commonwealth Bank in Darra for anyone in Brisbane). Was sitting in my car about to go into the bank when I heard the awful screaming of a woman. Me and a Vietnamese guy in the next car ran to the aid of a woman getting beat up by what we assumed was her partner or ex. Only he wasn't. He had waited for her outside the bank and robbed the payroll and petty cash she had just collected. A passing car saw what was happening, reversed up and drove straight at us. It was the robbers mate waiting to pick him up. They got away, albeit without the payroll cash we had hung on to (they got away with the $500 petty cash bag).

None of that was the "narrow escape" though. It was the fact that unbeknown to me and the Vietnamese guy both baddies had handguns. The police had security footage of them using them a couple of hours earlier at a 7-11 at Sherwood, although I don't recall either guy displaying a gun at any time.

The less than narrow escape belonged to the Vietnamese guy. He assisted the police and despite being a decent guy got deported when they found out he was an illegal immigrant.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 10:23, 1 reply)

7th July 2005
Similar to IHateSprouts - I was working for an American software company near Liverpool Street station. My journey to work took me through King's Cross St. Pancras as well. I woke early, switched on BBC Breakfast News, got ready, farted about for a bit and then decided I'd treat myself to a spliff before going in to work. Half an hour later, I got to the tube station just as they were pulling the gates closed. I heard someone say "explosions on the line" and knew something was up, so I went home again, built another spliff and turned the news back on. If I'd been properly punctual, I would probably have been on one of those trains...And that's why I smoke weed every day. You never know, kids, it might save your life.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 9:34, 2 replies)

Toe hurties
Kicked a football across the road at my cousin's. Ran across...was halfway over when a car came flying up the hill [I was at the top of a very steep crest]

It ran over my big toe, doing about 60km/h.
(lemonadegame, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 8:21, Reply)

Besides the many!
It's been a while since I have come to much bother, infact as a youngster I was rather adept at avoiding much damage, climbing to the tops of trees then would swing out from the bows. Putting coins on rail tracks, chasing cows with young cows, you know the typical boyhood if you live in the country.

However I have just come off a 10 day bender and my nose has just started bleeding and my right eye was very flashy just 2 seconds ago... so in my early 30's I may be a bit of a goner already.

Plus I listened to a football match on the radio, that can only mean death is near.
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 2:41, Reply)

So scared
Shark Attack.

I live in Sydney and I'm quite a good surfer. Last year I went out for a surf in the middle of winter. Everything was fine until a couple of guys who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood. Got in one little fight and my mom got scared, said you're moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Belair.
(nraphael, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 1:27, Reply)

i almost missed
MY B3TA BIRTHDAY!!!!!! I'm 7 in B3ta!!!! YaY!!!!!!!!!
(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 0:40, 3 replies)

canoeing
is most fun.

*Apologies for length*

If you have never canoed by moonlight, I highly recommend it - the majestic light of the moon playing on the water, the only sound a distant owl hooting and the gentle slosh of your paddle...

One time my brother and I took a canoe and sea-kayak up a loch at night. This particular loch has a bothy on its shore about halfway (6km or so) along, making a good stopoff point to spend the night and come back the next day, after some appropriate boozing and dicking around with the canoes.

This particular night was perfect: we got there about 8pm, launched fine and started towards the bothy. Full moon and no clouds (which is a 12 in 365 chance in that part of the world) and no wind or rain.
We make good time, and get there with no problems.
Then we paddle up a stream (which was bloody hard work) and moor 20 feet from the loch, close to the bothy.

We spend the night and meet 6 guys who we met at the same bothy last time we went, which is awesome. We share some beer, food and hash, and remark how odd it is that we always run into each other in the same place.

It is august.

The next day we get up late and decide to head back.
Weather looks fine, loch is calm.
So we load up and launch, my brother in the canoe first then me. He heads out to the middle of the loch, I follow, keeping a distance.

I'm a little groggy from the various entertainments the night before, and didn't sleep well because of the cold. I should have brought a better sleeping bag, and the sheepskin rug turned out not to be better than a camping mat as I had thought.
Must've been colder than the bag's comfort rating of -2 degrees.

The loch is shaped like a grain of rice, we are heading from halfway to one end.
We make the turn when i'm approaching about 1/3rd of the way across, when a high wind kicks up, blowing almost straight across the loch.
Within 30 seconds rain accompanies it, then sleet.
The initial gust nearly capsizes me, catching me off guard.
I have to fight with all my strength to keep the kayak straight, quickly I realise it's not going to die down and going back isn't an option.

I glance at my now distant brother, he looks back and shouts something, waving his paddle at the opposite shore. I wave back and shout "OK" but he wouldn't have heard.

I start turning the canoe to point with the wind, and quickly get it lined up - but the wind is gusting almost 90 degrees to me, while at the same time being strongest behind me. I have to fight it hard just to keep straight, while the 90 degree gusts threaten to capsize me.

It took 30 minutes of terrified, exhausting work but we made it to the other shore. My brother got there first, me shortly after.
As I ran the kayak aground I crawled out, breathing hard.

I tied it to a tree, then headed over to my brother, 100 feet away. We looked at each other, and grinned- soaking wet, freezing cold and fucking scared.

We walked for 4 miles to get a mobile signal and phoned for pickup, and of course the bloody weather fucked off in the meantime and it was sun, sea and sand by the time our ride got there.

On the way back the news was on the radio. Turns out 4 people in canoes were capsized and drowned by bad weather only a few miles away the previous day.

I've never been so fucking scared to date
(salty_peters, Sun 22 Aug 2010, 23:50, Reply)

rock and roll
Used to work for a now defunct 24-7 shop and swapped shifts with a fellow worker drone to see The Wildhearts in concert,that night the store was held up by armed crims.

Who says says rock music is bad for one ??
(shug, Sun 22 Aug 2010, 22:56, Reply)

Just last night.
I have been away from home for a while, and just returned the other night. While I was gone my adult son tells me of a few things that need repair around the house, so I got in my car to go get some supplies. As I had spent the day working around the house I decided that I was entitled to a cider or two, so I put the bottles in the car and drove off.

I had gotten near the first store I was to visit and had finished off one cider, so I dropped the bottle behind the seat of my convertible. Just as I did so I spotted the police car sitting in a gas station parking lot. Close call, I thought as I drove by. I had only had the one so I was in no danger of DUI, but an open container can get you in enough shit as it is.

Just as I thought I was clear he pulled out, came up behind me and put on his lights. I reached behind the seat, pulled out a roll of paper towels that has been tucked back there and set them on top of the cider bottles. Thin, I knew, but it had to at least be tried.

The cop approached the car. "Sir, do you have your license and registration?"

"Sure." I pulled out my wallet and dug through the glove compartment for the registration, expecting him at any moment to mention my quick movement behind the seat. I handed them to him.

"Sir, I pulled you because you have an expired vehicle inspection."

HOLY SHIT. He hadn't noticed. "I do? When did that happen?"

"At the beginning of the month."

"Shit! I've been out of town for the past four weeks."

He walked back to his car for a minute, then returned- pretty fast writing, I thought. But wait, where was the ticket? He only had by license and registration! "Okay, I'm going to take your word for it tonight, but every day you drive you face a new fine."

"Yeah, no problem, I'll take to to the shop on Monday." I took back the papers gratefully and left.

When I reached the store I looked and realized that the top of the unopened cider was in plain view. I don't know if it was the end of his shift and he couldn't be arsed or if he didn't see it, but he could easily have gotten me for an open container violation.

I had the nervous giggles for a half hour. And left the other cider unopened.
( Wanderer, Sun 22 Aug 2010, 22:49, 23 replies)

A while ago, my earrings were getting boring; feeling stale
I wondered to myself 'A PA? Dare I do that, as a male?'
'Subject myself to nasty sharp things shoved through the end of my cock?'
(When finally I did it, thanks to modern anaesthetics
I felt about as much as if my cock had been a sock).

Unfortunately I found that I had to sit down to piss
Trying to widdle standing up resulted in a miss
A miss most wide, not narrow as it sprayed directly to the right
So I sat down when going to town, so's not to make a mess
Which came in use when I was at a party the next night

I'd imbibed a couple shandies and was well behind the curve
A few of them were proper gone, they stumbled and they swerved
So playing Drunkard Slalom, I made my way to the toilet
I closed the door, but the lock was poor, so had to trust it would stay shut
As I sat down on the pan in preparation to despoil it

Now the toilet in this bathroom was near but not beside the door
The sink was in between the two, a space of a foot or four
I couldn't keep it shut with my foot, and thus what happened next
Was not within my power to stop, and so I'm glad I escaped with a drop
And maybe, perhaps, a couple of (still quite disgusting) flecks

As I released the beery flow, to a great sense of relief
(The pressure in my bladder would have crushed the Master Chief)
A strange, but not unusual, event unrolled before my eyes
The door to my right crashed open and in rolled a very drunken girl
I cannot say that I was not at least a bit surprised

But that, of course, was nothing; I don't think she even saw me
Before vomiting spectacularly over the bathroom floor...y
The horrid jet off effluence passed right through where I would have been
If my fresh genital metal hadn't had me sitting down
And I'd been pissing like a king, instead of like the Queen.

(Or like a Prince, I suppose...ahem, anyway:)

So there we go, ladies and gents: a story of vomit and piss
I'd love to say the girl was skinny, thus another narrow miss
But I didn't really see her, and she certainly didn't see me
She boked on the ground, then turned back around, oblivious to the guy
She'd very nearly drenched in bile and second-hand Lambrini.

Edit: not bad, but your meter is shot to shit. C+
Also, you spend far too much time talking about your willy. See me after class.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sun 22 Aug 2010, 22:23, 3 replies)

Motorbikes
My other half has been riding bikes for near on twenty years now, and has collected quite a range of near death experiences. The worst I think is one that quite frankly scares the crap out of me, though he laughs about it now...

He was riding along a dual carriageway in London when it happened. Motoring along happily in the fast lane, he sees a woman in a 4x4 in the other lane indicate to turn left. Doesn't really affect him, so he carries on... right up until the point when she swerves well into the second lane as she makes the corner. Taking an extremely wide line, you might say.

He rather candidly admits that he wasn't hanging about, so even though he's jammed on the brakes, he's still doing a reasonable turn of speed when the bike and the 4x4 make what can only be described as contact. It drops the bike and knocks him off. Into the path of an oncoming bus.

The front wheels have already gone past him, but his head gets caught underneath the bus in the middle, and he's dragged along with it. From what he tells me, part of his helmet caught a bolt or screw or similar on the underside, which stopped his head getting crushed under the rear wheel. The bus driver has seen him go under by this point and is frantically braking, petrified of what he's going to find when he walks over.

And what does he find? My man, unhooking himself from underneath, protesting that he's fine, but his beloved Blade is looking worse for wear.

He walked away from that with his worst injury being a bit of a bruise on his leg. But he maintains that if it had been a new bus... one of those that lower themselves... he'd have been a goner.
(Kitimariana, Sun 22 Aug 2010, 22:20, 3 replies)