One of my earliest memories...
When I was a nipper (about 4'ish), I was too short to reach the light switch for the bathroom, which was rather conveniently positioned at the top of the stairs. Fortunately, my sister, who was about 5 at the time, showed me the smart way to reach the switch; she would put her foot on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, step up and flick the switch. Ooh, I thought - that's clever. The next time I wanted to go to the bathroom, I tried this new trick.
I put my foot onto the bottom shelf of the bookcase, stepped up and flicked the switch. Hurrah, I thought to myself. It was at this point I discovered that my father had not fixed the bookcase to the wall. Oh dear, I remember thinking, as the bookcase tipped slowly backwards - this is probably going to smart a bit.
As the bookcase hit the floor, I was launched down the stairs, along with an avalanche of books from the top shelf. To make matters worse, our stairs had thin sisal carpets which scratched every part of my body as I flailed down the stairs head over heels. At the bottom of the stairs, the final 3 steps turn right, which I tumbled round and landed with a winding thump on the floor. As I lay there gasping for breath, several heavy tomes completed the journey to the bottom of the stairs by crashing onto various parts of my prostrate body.
Worse was to come, though. The bookcase, seeing all the books having a nice tumble down the stairs, decided to join them. I was alerted to this fact by the large thumping steps as it made its way down the stairs. I lay there waiting for the impact, but the steps stopped. Oh joy, I thought - at least the bookcase didn't hit me. Of course, the bookcase was only resting on the final few steps. As I rolled over and looked up, the bookcase was tipping over from the bottom couple of steps, whereupon it landed square on my chest, almost flattening me.

After a couple of minutes, my parents discovered my dazed and crumpled body, and I was rushed to hospital. Miraculously, I had no serious injuries; I did, however, develop an unhealthy fear of bookcases.
And I learned to go to the toilet in the dark from then on.
(eukaryote, Thu 29 Jul 2010, 23:55, Reply)