The long walk
A while ago I had to have some medical tests, which included testing for some fairly serious conditions. The doctor told me that they'd get in touch if they found anything; if I didn't hear back, it meant that everything was OK.

A couple of weeks later, The Letter plopped onto the mat. As indeed did my last meal, when I read that they wanted me to come in to the surgery. I remember being in a fairly odd state of mind, as I walked along to hear the news, with all it's possibly life-changing (or even curtailing) possibilities.

"Your tests came back, and I just wanted to let you know that everything was clear." Sayeth the doctor.

Bastard.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Thu 3 Jan 2013, 9:04, 1 reply)

Jim Davidson.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Thu 3 Jan 2013, 8:09, 11 replies)

Lynx roulette
We were the last generation to be free. Abusing the trust and freedom our parents invested in us, we would amuse ourselves in the great outdoors. And burn things.

Just burning stuff soon became boring so we moved up to empty lynx cans, which make quite a pop, but not such a convincing pop as a full, new can.

Once the can is on top of the fire, the roulette game consisted of running past the fire, hoping that the can would not explode as you passed.

Some of us got more and more daring as time passed, but it all came to an end when a little old lady walked her dog past our fire, tutting at us as she passed. She had no idea what was in the fire, but six gormless faces staring fretfully at her must surely have aroused some suspicion.

Thirty seconds after she passed, the can blew up and the fire was unceremoniously extinguished and we walked home. I can't explain why it took the possibility of injuring a stranger to enlighten us all to the possibility of injuring ourselves, but there you go.
(mersault, Wed 2 Jan 2013, 17:59, 1 reply)

I drank so much gin once that when I woke up I couldn't see anything out of my left eye
Even though it was open, all I could see out of it was red - seems that I'd passed out with one eye open and it had completely dried out overnight. With the monster of all hangovers and a healthy dose of panic brewing I dragged myself into the bathroom and put my head under the tap so I could pour water directly into the socket.

After about an hour of this my vision came back, which was a huge relief, considering I've paid over a grand an eye to make sure my eyesight is perfect.

I no longer drink gin.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Wed 2 Jan 2013, 11:50, 7 replies)

Timely
My wife was due to have a baby middle of next month. 5am yesterday morning she started making 'having a baby' noises. I said I should call an ambulance. 'dont be stupid I'm not going to have the baby here'. My 2 year old wakes up and comes to see what's going on. More screaming and i call the ambulance. The 999 man starts talking me through how to deliver a baby. 'please just send the ambulance'. 'now, can you see the head yet sir?'. 'no, can you please send the ambulance'. 2 year old wants to play giraffes. Relief number 1 was when the ambulance crew huffed and puffed up the stairs. Relief 2 was when the baby cried, having been successfully delivered by a totally unphased ambulance man. Slightly strange monty python aspect was other ambulance people asking me who did my loft conversion while the baby was half out. 'they done a lovely job sir. Can I ask you what you paid?'.
Length - short. Weight - 5lbs 15. Happy new year!
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Tue 1 Jan 2013, 22:04, 25 replies)

So I hear that "only the absolute shittest of shitcunts play first or last on a messageboard",
imagine my relief when the next story got posted above this.
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Tue 1 Jan 2013, 20:45, 2 replies)

LAST!
ever
( 2 Can Chunder Word to your mums, I came to prod bums, Tue 1 Jan 2013, 18:47, 1 reply)

I wonder how many weeks until people realise this is the last ever qftw.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 1 Jan 2013, 10:11, 10 replies)

Your mum,
and a happy new year.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Mon 31 Dec 2012, 23:25, Reply)

somewhat of an edited pea.
When younger I put some of my chemistry lesson knowledge to use with some friends and made up a powder for small rocket propellant. A basic gunpowder mix (sodium nitrate obtained from a laboratory supplier, sulphur from Boots and carbon from barbecue briquettes powdered in a coffee grinder, and addition of magnesium powder for bright sparks). Unfortunately the mix was too energetic and used to blow the lightweight bamboo tubes used for the rocket casing to pieces. Move to chrome shower rail hammered down at one end and it held together OK but didn't fly very well. Thinks- maybe if I drilled a hole in the crimped end I could ignite the fuel from there, then I'd have a sort of stage Pyro like you get at rock gigs. Nicely. Then inspiration struck.

Stage 3 was to attach a handle to the tube and insert a plastic capacitor as a 'bullet', so that the lit fuel would fire it at a target.

1st try, hiss..pause...PHUT! Bingo.
2nd try, hiss..pause...PHUT! All right!

3rd try however, hiss....pause.....FUCKING ENORMOUS BANG! Mega bright flash and I'm dazzled, can't see a thing...this persists for a few seconds during which I start to panic, thinking I've blinded myself.

The relief I felt when my sight returned was deeply moving and I legged it back home. Lucky, lucky bastard that I was, it could all so easily gone badly, permanently wrong.

This was 25 years ago, my sight is still good. Also fortunate because if I'd have been doing that kind of thing thesedays I'd be locked up under the prevention of terrorism act.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Mon 31 Dec 2012, 17:03, Reply)

As I may have mentioned.
I used to work as a carer in group homes with people with intellectual (and physical) disabilities.

In 1 such place I worked with a young(ish) lady I shall call Mira. Mira had CP and some other disabilities. None of which hampered her in being an annoying bitch. She was fully ambulant and (EDITed for Gonz) despite being nonverbal she could express her needs & desires quite clearly but chose to spend her days writhing around on the floor, moaning and generally getting in both staff and other clients way, sometimes with injurious results to both parties.

I was attending a staff meeting at the house 1 day. Mira was home from her "day placement" as they were jack of her & had told us not to bring her back in a hurry.
She was rolling around on the floor during the meeting barking like a seal - despite being fairly ambulant and moderately cognizant.
1 of our staff members had recently begun a floral arrangement course and had brought in some of her bunches to show off to us - all the other ladies seemed to appreciate them with "Ohhs" & "Ahhhs". Bunch of plastic flowers to me.

Mira strangely went quiet at 1 point. No-one really noticed (it was actually a pleasant respite) until we all turned around and noticed Mira lying on the floor going blue and clawing at her throat.
Mary & I both jumped up, got her in coma and I (as gently but forcefully as I could) compressed her ribcage from the side as Mary (the other St. Johns Ambo rep for the house) dug around in her mouth.

*emadex- I'm pretty sure that's not what you're supposed to do anymore, pls correct me if I'm wrong*

Mira thankfully coughed out a bright green plastic leaf from one of the arrangements as I compressed her ribcage.
My relief was somewhat tempered as I watched Mira moan in complaint as her gnarled hand reached out for the leaf and promptly popped it back into her mouth.
At that point Mary and I both felt that we needed to start filling out our incident reports and left Mira in the capable hands of our manager and the rest of the house staff.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 31 Dec 2012, 11:22, 21 replies)

Many years ago...
...when I were a wee nipper in the mid-70s, my mum's first car was a white Fiat 500 (it was the only car she's ever owned that she hasn't needed to sit on a cushion to see over the steering-wheel). One day, with me in the back, she was driving around a traffic island at a junction surrounded by shops when a parrot flew smack-bang into the windscreen, making a great SPLAT! sound and bouncing off... Somewhat startled, to say the least, and distraught that she might have killed it, mum pulled over, jumped out of the car and rushed over to the bird, which was lying motionless in the gutter, at the same time as a woman rushed out of a nearby shop (which, it transpired, was a petshop) and scooped up the, by now evidently only stunned, parrot. Babbling apologetically, my mum was quickly relieved by the woman's airily cheerful, "Don't worry about it, love, he's always doing this!" as she carried the groggy parrot back to her shop.
(Harry Webshiter Spiggley biggley bog., Mon 31 Dec 2012, 10:30, 3 replies)

Carving slices of cooked aquatic insects can provide
Water-flea beef.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Sun 30 Dec 2012, 16:04, 1 reply)

The DNA test proved you aren't mine.
You little shit.
(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Sun 30 Dec 2012, 15:57, 6 replies)

I once thought I'd laughed at a Jim Davidson joke.
Turns out I'd hiccups. Phew.
( George Blank my 2nd last sig was funny, Sun 30 Dec 2012, 2:48, 1 reply)

I rarely complain but this QOTW really has run its course.

On the plus side lots of people on this site will have gone out and staved off the onset of Rickets for a further month.

I shall now Lower my head from the parapet and stand by for incoming.
(Docofair, Sat 29 Dec 2012, 0:23, 14 replies)

I was relieved when this question wasn't ended yesterday.
Now the hilarity can continue indefinitely! Yay!
(Woodlouse say it with flowers. Send her a Triffid, Fri 28 Dec 2012, 20:22, Reply)

When Mrs Emvee started bleeding again

( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 28 Dec 2012, 15:38, 10 replies)

When you’re rock climbing it’s very important to know where your hands and feet are. Not only in relation to yourself, usually to be found at the end of your arms and legs, but in relation to the various bumps, crevices and knobs that one needs to stay on the rock. You don’t want to be doing the equivalent thinking there’s one more step on a flight of stairs when the outcome can be quite serious.

So when I made a lunge for the hold that I thought was there and found nothing but smooth rock, the old heart started to beat a little faster, and perception began to slow down. Not only had I misjudged the hold, but the move had put me off balance and out of shape. I wasn’t sure what was around me, and I couldn’t pull my face away from the rock to find out. I had enough time to shout “tight” to my buddy before my foot slipped from the one good hold and I began a process that we climbers call “Falling Off”.

Falling isn’t just peeling away from the rock, free falling into the jagged rocks below. There are a number of stages.

First, there’s The Slide. This is where the climber tries to become a gecko and somehow stick themselves to the rock by hugging it. This never works, but it does give the climber time to think about things. How high am I? How sharp are the rocks below? How old is this rope? Is my partner paying attention or rolling a fag? I don’t remember there being this much slack in the rope? Those last two bits of protection where a bit dodgy, but the third one might hold.

Once you pick up enough speed you hit something and get bounced off the rock face, this is bad because now you can accelerate as Newton intended. You enter the second part of the fall, The Blur, you’re not really sure what’s happening, but you do know that death is in a hurry to meet you and you’re not going to keep him waiting for long.

When you’ve travelled past your protection, taken all of the slack out of the rope, your protection holds, you’ve not hit the deck yet anyway, then your equipment comes into play. In a move that’s only slightly preferable to being smashed to pieces on lumps of Gabbro you violently decelerate with 98% of the force being transmitted via the climbing harness to your testicles. Luckily you don’t get long to mourn the loss of your bollocks because it’s already time for the next stage in the fall, “The Slam”. One way or another that momentum has to be got rid of and this often involves a rapid swing and a very sudden stop as you meet your old friend the rock face again.

Fall complete, if all’s gone well, you can sit at the bottom of the climb bruised, bleeding and shaking, high on adrenalin and endorphins, feeling relieved as a mofo.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Fri 28 Dec 2012, 13:49, 6 replies)

I was relieved when I finally caught 'em all, so that I could retire my Poké-snatch.

(Elephant Balderdash attempting to bottle the absurd, Fri 28 Dec 2012, 10:01, 19 replies)

I have a salt water swimming pool
I used to have a pool cover but the 1 we had when we moved in became old and brittle. Due to the sun & wind I lose about an inch of water a week.
Once we got our (extra deep) bore put in I stopped filling the pool with scheme (tap water) and started using the bore-water.
This year particularly I've had some problems with phosphates in the pool. The water is clear and there is very little organic stuff in it at any time - the kreepy-krawly pool vacuum works very efficiently. Occasionally I have to add a bit of chlorine - the cell is a bit old and calcifies quite quickly. But other than that it mostly looks after itself, with me cleaning the skimmer box and backwashing on the odd occasion.
As to the phosphates I couldn't think why until the lady at the pool shop asked me 1 day how I fill the pool. "Bore" say I.
"Ahh" says she, "that maybe where your phosphates are coming from."
Ohh, shit! There goes my "free" fill-the-pool solution.
So last week I took a sample of my bore-water into the pool shop - they tested it for phosphates.
Can you imagine my great relief when they told me that having tested my sample of bore-water they told me that there were absolutely NO phosphates in it. Whatsoever.
So as long as the sun keeps shining it will provide photo-electric energy to the solar panels on my roof which in turn will provide power the bore pump which will continue to pump non-phosphate filled bore water into my swimming pool.

I wonder if I should have told the pool shop lady about the OkCupid Pool Parties I run where everyone gets to double-team my wife in the pool as I watch and how I use the lovely cool pool water to relax me so I can practise shoving things up my bum.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Fri 28 Dec 2012, 8:07, 36 replies)