talking of planes
Do any of you remember the summer of 1998? The thunder storms? well, we had gone to Portugal for a week. Alot of fun were had, I kissed my first girl (and I CANt remember her name)... anyhoo, on the flight back, somewhere over Northern France and the English chanel, a storm broke out. Lighting cracked around us, the plane were experience turbulance. proper scary stuff.

The worst part about it?- my mum wouldnt let me take a once-in-a-life time picture of what still remains as the most amazing show of nature I have ever seen.
(drain_bamaged, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 13:46, Reply)

One off night terror
Several years ago I used to experience sleep paralysis on a fairly regular basis. Anyone else who’s suffered it will know that it’s extremely unpleasant the first few times, but over time I’d managed to more or less get used to it.
Anyway, about four years ago I experienced a subtle but infinitely more terrifying variation of it. I should probably add that I don’t do psychedelics and that on this particular occasion hadn’t even been drinking. Rather than waking up and not being able to move I woke feeling unbelievably dizzy but also completely terrified. Because it was so unfamiliar I couldn’t over come it with the usual “you’ve been her before” anti-terror mantra that had served me so well with in the past. It genuinely felt like someone was swinging me round the room and I was unable to focus properly on anything.
Eventually the dizziness subsided a bit and I managed to focus on something at the end of my bed and immediately wished I hadn’t. Unbelievably, there was a Navigator from Dune (the things with mouths like a baggy fanny) in my bedroom at the bottom of my bed. I could only assume it was doing it’s “bending space and time” party trick which was the cause of my dizziness. I managed to turn the light on hoping that this would defuse the apparent hallucination. Unfortunately, it didn’t and I completely froze with fear. After a few minutes the dizziness eventually subsided and I soon began to see what was really at the bottom of my bed.
From a mental health point of view the truth was even more terrifying. It was a pair of cords that I’d hung up to dry on the clothes horse. The upside down button fly looked uncannily like the fanny gob of a navigator and an overactive noggin had done the rest.
(SepticDes, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 13:38, Reply)

Not sure when I was last really scared but.....
Stephen King's IT when it was a two part mini-series. I must have been 11 or 12 when I watched it. I'm still not good with horror films, but IT scared the bejesus out of me.

I used to be totally paranoid about there being an evil clown down every drain or toilet or sink that was going to drag me in and eat me and worse....

never did get round to watching the second half, when it is revealed to be a stupid, not-scary, spider creature (apparently)
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 13:36, Reply)

Corpse
The In-Laws like to have the deceased in the house leading up to a funeral, so last year there was an uncle in a coffin.. i've literally never been hit by panic before in my life but I had to walk past it to get into the garden, my head buzzed and my arse nipped as I flew past the pickled corpse... strange as death doesn't really freak me out in general, I think its just something about corpses with make-up that scares me, like drag queens but dead
(ShavenLunatic says touch your nose!, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 13:15, Reply)

The Grudge
The grudge is a bit scary but its ok because you're in your bed - ultimate safe zone. Then in the film someone goes and hides in her bed, pulls a weird face, lifts up the covers and SCARY JAPANESE GIRL GRAB PULL SCREAM.

Oh dear, scared now. Slooowly lift up covers WHAT THE FU... phew its just my boner, thank god they put sarah michelle gellar in that film to counter some of the horrid.

So, Sadako, the little boy in the grudge, and the little girl in the grudge. And by extension, all Japanese children.
(Daveh, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 13:01, Reply)

The Death Bus
A few years ago I was travelling around South-East Asia, and found myself in a place called Loang Phrobhang in Lao. For anyone who's ever been there, you will know that Lao is still a pretty lawless country on the whole.

Anyway, we decided to travel to the Capital of Vientiane, and were given two options:
1) Fly on a 30 year old plane with Lao Airlines (The foreign office website advises against this - as their safety record is, shall we say, less than perfect)
2) Get on a bus through the mountains for an eight hour journey through some of the main militia strongholds, where tourists are often stopped, robbed, and shot by various different groups of nasty men.

In the end, we decided to use the bus, as we thought that we could at least bribe the nasty men into letting us live - as opposed to the plane option, where we would have no control over our impending death.

We paid a dollar extra each, and were told that we would get an armed guard to protect us on the bus. Brilliant, safety was certain, or so we thought....

What we actually got on the bus was a 12-year old local Lao boy, with an AK47 strapped to his back, and a look of fear in his eyes.

On route we passed several abandoned buses with the windows shot out, lots of local men standing by the road waving their guns in the air - and last, but not least - a crazy glass eyed driver, who could barely navigate up and down the muddy mountain roads, so it felt like we could drop off the mountain to our deaths at any second.

Needless to say - it was the longest 8 hours of my entire life - but at least I lived to tell the tale.

Still to this day, talk of the death bus sends a shiver though my spine.
Beautiful country though.
(jojokatie I just want someone to love me..., Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:58, Reply)

Just remembered a good 'un
I was living in a shared house a few years back with three lovely girls (lucky me!).
One of them, Sam, was quite inexperienced in just about every aspect of life and had never lived away from her parents before... shortly after moving in her Dad came round and re-painted her bedroom in a very bright shade of near-blinding whiteness and before leaving forgot to mention anything about paint fumes to his fairly naive daughter.
A few hours later everyone in the house had gone to bed, I was settling down myself, when, suddenly from downstairs I heard the most ungodly screaming! It sounded as though someone was being murdered to death! So, being the heroic young fellow that I am, I charged down the stairs in my pants, burst through Sam's bedroom door and flicked the lightswitch on.
Sam was in bed, duvet pulled up over her head, screaming the house down that a blonde version of her own father was trying to stab her to death and rape her. After a quick look around the rest of the room I saw that the window was shut tight, the door had also been closed and the smell of paint was completely overpowering.
The silly cow had been hallucinating and I soon calmed her down.
She also had a Jeremy Beadle hand, but I still would have...
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:42, Reply)

Puke
When my wife was having chemotherapy some years ago,she threw her ring up in the upstairs toilet and staggered off back to bed.She hadn't flushed,so I leant over to do it and my heart nearly stopped.The bowl was covered in blood and the water was deep red.I panicked and asked her if she was ok.I'm fine,she says.The Slush Puppie didn't agree with me.Stupid ice based fruit drinks,shitting me up
(archroy Get down wi' yer bad self., Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:40, Reply)

I read Salem's Lot when it first came out over here
and thought, pfft, doesn't scare me, until I woke up at 3am and saw, saw, SAW those feckin' vampire bats, dozens of'em, crawling down the wall towards me!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:36, Reply)

Need more fuel?
First post, be kind :)
Anyways, onwards. I make regular trips to Canada (Once a month usually), mainly because the other half lives there. Now, I'm not a wimp when it comes to flying and I've had my fair share of scares. I'll relate the one that scared me shitless...

I was heading home after a particularly good trip so as you can imagine i was not feeling the best. The temperature outside was about -26 degrees (Celsius) which for the record is VERY cold. So cue me sitting in departures being all sulky and generally looking sour faced, now as many of you know (that have traveled to Canada) Canadian immigration are pure evil. So they thought that as i was traveling OUT of Canada i must be a threat to them, so they stopped me, had a few questions asked about my intentions (after showing them a British Passport and saying "I just want to go home"). Suffice it to say they let me go, i proceeded on my merry way up the plane. Sat there for 30 minutes... *sigh*

Then, lo and behold a voice comes over the intercom... our British captain (Wooo... He's not French).. "

"We're having issues with our fuel pump" - At this point im quite worried
"We're going to fill up with double the amount of fuel so we can make the journey" - At this point I'm very worried...
"We've changed our flight plan so we stay near land at all times" - Thanks for the confidence!

So now i have brown and sticky substances in my underwear, whilst fearing for my safety. Thank you o-so much Mr. Captain for your confidence inducing announcement.

Also, i would like to mention that the plane is full to the brim, so it's going to be VERY difficult to get airborne with a full set of passengers AND double the amount of fuel but alas we took off (albeit very near the end of the runway) and i made it home in one piece. I'm still left thinking that the pilot shouldn't of opened his mouth because it would of saved me 7 hours of gripping the seat hoping that it would stop the plane from going down. Bastard.

Length? You wish.
( Axai is in Montréal, Canada O.o, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:35, Reply)

Salems Lot ..

Ohh, i remember watching Salems lot on tv the 1st time round - 1979/1980 ish..

When the older brother becomes a vampire and comes a' scratching at the younger brothers window...
(druncula, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:26, Reply)

My mate is terrified of pigeons.
She says, 'They fly at your face and shit on you.'

Hah, I said, you wimp, do they feck! as we walked across the big square in Venice, where there were approximately 5 hungry pigeons to each tourist.

Just then, a pigeon randomly flew at my face and shat on me. Bitch.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:24, Reply)

I dislike shared houses, somewhat
Many years ago, I was seeing someone who lived in a shared house. At the time, she had two flatmates, the odd one, and the really odd one. Odd, but harmless. One offered me the use of his room while I was staying - but I didn't use it in the end.

Anyway, we became an item. A remarkably mismatched one, as the future proved, but even so. And so we continued. I'd weekend commute from my flat to her place, we'd spend weekends together, and all seemed mostly OK.

Then someone moved into a previously empty room. This chap was living in a crappy house in the Midlands, but somehow didn't seem to fit. Then his girlfriend turned up too. Both of them seemed to spend a lot of their time in their room, but out of their boxes, tripping happily, or whatever it is that drugs do to you. Every now and then they'd have a fight, but nothing major.

Then there was this one night. They were disagreeing somewhat about something. This disagreement escalated to the point where they destroyed one of the bathrooms in the house. Like totally. They smashed the bath, the cupboards off the wall, the toilet, the whole lot. The walls were shaking (as was myself and my hostess). And the fight continued. I decided to go downstairs and ask the others whether they'd called the police. I doubted it, as I had a mobile phone but no-one else did (told you it was a long time ago - pre-GSM!). We called the police anyway, but they had no means of locating me, and got the address wrong. Of which more later.

And so I headed off downstairs. But at the top of the stairs, I meet the GF. She's carrying a *huge* kitchen knife and a vast pair of scissors. She's literally foaming at the mouth, and has got the maddest eyes I've ever seen. She just didn't look human. No idea what she was planning, but it didn't look good. Now, I've done the usual near miss in car stuff, I've crashed on a motorbike, I've had a fair few moments, but this was definitely the one and only moment that I thought I was going to die. I was trapped - she was going that way, and I honestly believe she'd have killed me if I'd got in her way. I flattened myself against the wall, and she blazed past. I let her go by, then went back to our room, grabbed my other half, and dragged her out of the house. We ran down the road to the police station, and begged for help. They radioed the cars and got them turned around. The police then sent us back (oh, thanks)!

When we got there, there were four squad cars outside. He was being trucked off in one car, and the police were trying to get someone to accuse someone of something, so they'd have something to do.

Dunno what he did, but he'd knocked three teeth out of her head with something, and that stopped her. I recall one of the fire extinguishers was missing for a while.

She got hauled off by the police too, and that was almost the end of it.

Thankfully, and still terrified, me and the other half turned in for the night. That's when I found a four-inch white scratch on my stomach, and a rip in my t-shirt... That was close!

His father paid for all of the damage to the house, and a week's rent for everyone as an apology, and we never saw any of them again.

But that moment, where I looked into her eyes and didn't see a person, only an insane animal - that terror will never leave me, and that's the most scared I have ever been.

(2nd most? The American remake of The Grudge. I'm a little girl when it comes to horror movies, and I was crapping myself.)

Apologies for length, but it was very very nearly a whole lot shorter.
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:20, Reply)

Bouncing sprog...
It's a lazy Sunday morning, neither of us quite awake yet. Sprog 1 (age 3) has just announce that he's got himself a drink of water. Sprog 2 (age 1) is crawling around the floor.

I notice that sprog 2 is quiet ... as if she has crawled off. Then I hear a noise that, strangely, sounds just like sprog 2 bouncing down the stairs. Odd that, as we religiously keep the stairgate shut. Except, of course that sprog 1 has just gone to get a drink...

Cue 2x parents leaping from bed and running down the stairs after sprog 2. So fast, that I remember thinking that I had best slow down; something told me that being landed on by a falling daddy is not the best treatment for falling down the stairs. Not for a 1-year old, anyway.

At the bottom, she lay there upset but otherwise fine. I swear that they are made of rubber at that age.

But this was not really scary moment. I just thought it was. Worse was to come.

Anyway, she looked alright but we thought we'd better call the surgery to check. We get put through to a nurse at the local hospital. We describe what happened, and she asks a few questions. The upshot is that I think everything is ok and the nurse seems to think so, too. So the call is about to end.

Then she starts asking a few more questions. "What is your full name, please?". "What is your address, please?". "Exactly how did you say she fell?". "Did anyone else see it happen?"

Now I'm nervous. Not scared, just nervous.

"Do you have an assigned social worker?"

OK, now I'm scared. Really scared. So scared, I'll happily come to the hospital and spend all day there waiting for the consultant to drop by and say she's ok. Whatever. Anything to prove I'm not concealing any inuries. Anything.
(patently Was somewhere else on, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:03, Reply)

Unexplained naked lady
In 2003 I was studying for a masters in IT at Glasgow Uni - the course was tough with constant projects to hand in and deadlines to meet. I was also going through a phase of watching lots horror films at the time.
Anyway, one Monday night I get in from Uni with an early start planned the next day to get my multimedia project handed in. Get some dinner watch some telly and head to bed.
At about three 'o' clock I wake up with a genuine sense that there's someone in the room - y'know that way that you can sometimes just feel that everything isn't as it should be. I sit up a bit and sure enough sitting on the end of my bed is a person. Pulling myself up more I can see it's a girl with long hair sitting, naked, at the foot of my bed.
Now anyone who's ever seen any sort of horror knows that unexplained naked women ALWAYS mean trouble. I'm trying to stay calm thinking about a reasonable explaination for this and finally whimper "Wh... wh... what are you doing in my room?". She says nothing then she tries to get into my bed - at this point I freak out and jump up and out of the bed and hit the light switch by which time she's under the covers. I start saying "what are you doing" and "get out of my bed" finally just repeating "why are you here!".
Turned out my flatmate had a massive row with his girlfriend and went drinking pulled this girl who was so drunk she got lost on her way back from the bathroom.
(cannonfodder fodder for cannons on, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 12:02, Reply)

For some reason, I know no fear
Over the years I have been on a plane with a knife-wielding maniac in Spain, fought off a would-be rapist in Cairo, sparred with somebody twice my size in a full-contact taekwondo tournament and never felt scared.

I was fucking terrified on this though.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 11:48, Reply)

I wasn't actually scared at the time, but afterwards.
August 1st 2004, 6 o'clock in the evening. I was on my way to my (then) fiancée's house, from her brother's. For some reason, we were in separate cars that day, and I was about 10 minutes behind her. Also for some reason, we didn't say goodbye to each other before we left the brother's house.

As I came round a left-hand bend at about 50mph, I met a nice man in a BMW coming the other way.

On the wrong side of the road. Oops.

It made ever such a loud bang, and I discovered that my airbags were white.

Aftermath 1. Aftermath 2. Aftermath 3.

To cut a long story short, I was sore but otherwise uninjured, as was the other driver - his passenger was taken away in an ambulance though.

The copper who came out remarked that he couldn't believe I was standing talking to him, the ambulance crew checked me out and suggested (once I started shaking) that they should send another ambulance for me, which I refused because I just wanted to go home.

Once I got home, it started to sink in how lucky I'd been. If my fiancée had been in the car it would have broken her legs, as the footwell on her side was pushed right up into the dashboard. Also her girls would have been hurt - maybe killed - if they'd been in the back.

At that point it really occurred to me how close I'd been to disaster, and that was when I lost it.

And I was quite scared a couple of days later too, driving along that same stretch of road in my hire car - especially when the only car I met coming in the other direction was at that same corner.

Finally, a QoTW answer I can genuinely apologise for the length of!
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 11:47, Reply)

Kids, don't you just love 'em?
Other parents will understand this:

My wife was away on business and the outpouring from my loins was running a temperature; cue a day off watching kiddies programs trying to amuse said outpouring. I took her to the quacks in the morning and was given bottle of jollop, which she was promptly fed. Come mid afternoon she is looking pale and very floppy, so I call the wife who tells me to give her an early bath. Getting her undressed I notice a rather large brownish rash on her legs and belly. I get a glass and do the test to find that the bloody thing is not blanching, so there is a high chance it could be the dreaded Meningitis.

One phone call to the doctor and I’m legging it round to the surgery with a rather floppy child. He gives her an inspection and calls the local hospital and gets an ambulance sent over very quickly.

The ambulance ride was fun, but sprog starts having some severe trouble breathing and ends up being given oxygen. We turn up at the hospital where a team of 6 medical staff is waiting with a gurney. One of the rather excited looking doctors explained to me this is the first case they have had in the hospital for six years. They rush her in, rip off her clothes and start running tests. Things start looking grim and a nurse turns to me and says they need to put her in isolation but they have one test to run prior to doing so, she grabs a swab dips it into some solution (alcohol of some sort) and she rubs it across the rash, which promptly comes off. The little bugger had only drawn on herself with felt tip in such a realistic way. Much embarrassment on my part but my heart at least stopped jumping around.

Turns out to just be a severe cold and the ambulance ride must have got her a bit excited, hence the lack of breath.
(thegripesofwrath, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 11:31, Reply)

truely scary (well it was for me)
watching my 14 month old son go flying out of my wifes arms and across the room to land on his face with his body vertical above him, that was truely scary, i was almost sick and think i forgot to breathe for a while. oh he was fine by the way, although the carpet burns on his face tok a few days to heal, i have made her promise to be more careful when shes holding him in future
(pogo_it, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 11:27, Reply)

In a country far, far away...
About ten years ago, I was on a family holiday on Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe. We had chartered a houseboat, and were moored within a national park. I had woken early, and taken a tender boat to the shore to try and get some good pictures on my camera of wildlife or whatever else I could find. It was a warm, sunny day, the birds were singing, the air was fresh and all was right with the world.

Whilst all seemed peaceful and calm, I wandered blissfully along, absorbing the ambience. The path took me past several large grey rocks. I then noticed that the birds had stopped singing. The silence was overwhelming. I slowed my steps, and looked around, snapped out of my reverie.

This was when I realised that the large grey rocks of which I had not taken much notice, were not rocks at all, but in fact were a herd of elephants! They had all gone quiet, and had stopped their browsing, as I had bumbled into the middle of them. Several thoughts crossed my mind at this point; did I spin round and run, or carry on forward, or very slowly walk backwards and away.

The last plan of action seemed to be the best, with the least chance of spooking the herd and getting myself trampled. I slowly backed up, keeping the large grey shapes in my peripheral vision as I kept my eyes forward in a non-threatening manner, and moved back until I was able to turn and walk away with a bit more speed, my heart jack-hammering in my chest.

My camera still hung around my neck, completely forgotten, and I realised afterwards that taking pictures, with the loud mechanism of my motordrive, whilst in the middle of the herd, could have got me stampeded.

Shat myself? Nearly!

First post! Yay for nooby Tuesday!
(madoda, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 11:21, Reply)

Reading the posts about Watership Down...
...oh yeah. Been there alright :/

When it was out on the cinema, my mum heard about it - that is, she heard that a cartoon film about bunny rabbits was showing on the cinema and we were due to visit her that weekend. Ill-advised plans were made.

I think I was about 5 at the time, and that would make my brother 7. I think you can work out the rest for yourself - bunnies buying it in nasty ways, fields flooding with blood - Bedknobs and Broomsticks it most definitely wasn't. I remember my mum bollocking the ticket box person on our way out less than an hour into the movie - 'You saw me walk in here with two kids - why didn't you say something for god's sake? LOOK at them!'. We were in a state, it's true. We started to feel better after she got us an adult-size ice cream each though lol. My brother and I also enjoyed a brief period of playground kudos afterward as a result - it seems that everyone else's parents had checked a synopsis of the story before snapping up a family ticket, and so no-one else in school had been allowed to go see it.

I watched it again on TV when I was about 17 or so and quite enjoyed it - wasn't getting off on bunny-slaughter or anything, it's just a good story :)
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 11:08, Reply)

scared, only a little bit
out on bikes with my mate, overtaking a line of cars on a notoriously crashable road at about 120-130mph when i saw a lorry come over the brow ahead, cue me hitting the brakes and diving in to the nearest bike sized hole in the line of traffic, mate doesnt realise im heading for the curb and decides all he can do is keep it pinned and head for the front of the queue about 8 cars further along, 3 people scared at the same time... he nearly shat himself, i though id killed my best mate and the truck driver, well his face was a picture as he came past me, anyway, didnt slow us down, i had to ride like a nutter to catch my mate up!
as for length its like the snow we had, we were promissed 6 inches.........
(pogo_it, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 11:06, Reply)

Tubeway Barmy Army
Early 80s I had been to Goldsmith's College in South London to see a play that had been put on by a mate.

Afterwards I walked back through unfamiliar South London streets and as I got near the Tube station at New Cross I saw the whole entrance was lined with police, some on horses, riot shields, the lot. Which was scary.

But I've gone through and then realised the train was full of away football fans who had been playing at the home of the hard nuts, Millwall. That was scary.

So I walked past all these carriages of boisterous fans, watched by police on the platform. That too was scary, but the front carriage was mostly empty bar a few regular people, so I sat down. At least there were no Millwall fans around. That would have been scary.

The train pulled away, and within a minute or two came in to the next station down. This time, the platform was absolutely packed solid. With Millwall fans. And not a policeman in sight. Scary? And when the tube doors opened and all the Millwall piled into the carriage and started fighting with the away lot. And the doors closed with the whole riot going on inside which us in the front carriage could see through the glass in the connecting doors? That, my friends, was scary.

But worse was hearing a couple of bumps from the front of the train then seeing the driver and his mate walking away down the platform to the exit. They were leaving us at the mercy of a closed train full of fighting hoolies in a dark and abandoned station. That WAS scary.

I announced to my carriage of other scared-os that I was off, and bravely ran away by nipping through the connecting door into the driver's cab, out through his door and away along the platform.

It did seem to take a very long time to walk the length of the platform past this train that was rocking on its tracks from the mayhem. I went out into the night of a completely unfamiliar part of town, not a sign of anyone anywhere, and wandered round for a bit hoping not to bump into any more hard-os looking to utterly tough up any wet and weedy stranger on their manor.

After a bit I went back to the station and it was all deserted with no sign that anything had ever happened.

Fear my length.
(Furious Eel, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 11:00, Reply)

Flying should have its own category
It scares me more than being trapped in a lift with Ann Widdicombe. (Mind you at least I would be the looker...ponders...)

I was flying to Glasgow from Birmingham a couple of years ago from work. Was so scared I had to force myself to leave departure lounge to board coach to plane after they had paged me. Cue very pissed off people standing on coach for ages waiting for me - lots of dagger looks in my direction.
As it was mid winter had impossibly furry coat. Last one on coach - first one off. However had extreme difficulty getting impossibly furry coat, laptop, brief case blah blah into overhead. Cue same people stuck behind me while I wrestle. Cue dagger looks at Siouxfan again.
The we had to sit on tarmac for ages as plane had to be de-iced. I was quietly crying with fear by this point and getting more dagger looks from passengers.
I was scared I was going to die either because the plane was going to ice up at 30,000 feet and plummet to earth or the other passengers were going to kill me for being pathetic, late and irritating.
(Siouxfan I'm not staring at you, I am just short sighted, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 10:58, Reply)

Terror at 14,000 feet
Flying. It fucking terrifies me, and has done in the past on numerous occaisons;

- Flying to Prague, plane lists severely upwards then drops what felt like 50 foot while the engines scream. Entire plane screams in unison.

- Same flight : look out of window to see a similar plane barrel past at a rapid rate of knots some 50 - 100m away. I am John's rapidly vacating bowels.

- Flight from Ireland on Ryanair: look out to the starboard engine to see what looks like oil *pissing* out of the manifold. Drink myself into a stupor to block out fear of imminent death.

- Flight to Ireland in Cessna: For those of you who are unfamiliar with these, they're like a Skoda with wings. Nosedive into Paisley from ascent (something to do with revs, who knows), leaving me staring blankly at the rapidly approaching ground and wishing I'd done more with my time

- Flight to Orkney Islands : During utterly horrendous weather, I may add - plane was being shaken like a Salvation Army collection tin, up, down, left, right, forward, back, diagonal. That's just take off. Landing comes round "Hello, this is your captain speaking, ground conditions are fairly rough, wind speeds are up to 30-40 knots with gusts up to 70, which takes us outside the operational parameters of this aircraft for landing but we'll have a go anyway"
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 9:08, Reply)

Almost became an alcoholic
When I was 20 I went through a phase of drinking and 5-a-side football. Apart from one time where I ruptured me stomach muscles from working 35 days straight and either playing footie or getting pissed (no nights left out too) I quit the footie and stuck to the drinking side instead. After about 3 months of this and a good night out (which included about £40 on straight vodka to start), I woke up in me home the next morning and watched spiders running across the ceiling. And promptly scared myself shitless.

Didn't drink for 7 months after that.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 8:33, Reply)

Plain weird aswell as shitting myself.
Like Evilmeister, I've had different things like nearly drowning, being mugged, having a shotgun pulled out by a bloke and threatening his missus , in an alcoholic rage, while I'm thinking what the fuck to do but these are part of lifes rich tapestry.
What scared the living fuck out of me happened when I was sixteen.
I was taken to hospital, pissed to oblivion, with an equally pissed mate, who thankfully for me, in his paralytic state, had managed to kick me in the mouth to put my head on it's side to stop me choking on my vomit ( bear in mind I grew up in the stix and this was in the woods).Anyhow, some women walking her dog found us and a phone call later the police and ambulance arrived and we been taken to hospital.I've been unconcious for a while and am oblivious to this. In the hospital, several hours later, my mates old man is there calling my name regularly as this is what your brain will hopefully respond to if you're looking at a potential coma case (I'd drunk a bottle of wine, a bottle, of whiskey and a bottle of vodka). So he says my name, I open my eyes and sit bolt upright saying " Where am I?" Except the time when I opened my eyes seemed to me like a couple of minutes. It was freaky. The last image imprinted on my brain was of looking up through the trees with shafts of sunlight filtering down.When I openened my eyes I saw this and immediately thought I was in the woods.It must have been under a second later and the world went white. No depth, nothing. The world had disappeared to be replaced with a blank canvas. I had no idea what the fuck was going on. Was I dead. If I was why was I looking at nothing? Was I here forever? It fucked my head royally. I had no idea I was in hospital looking at a white washed ceiling and had no idea until I sat bolt upright. Pretty mad really. But not as mad as it was for my mate who I later hugged at about midnight as I dissolved into an emotional mess stinking, wearing piss/puke stained clothes with a liberal sprinkling of leaves and sporting a swollen lip where my other mate (they're brothers) had kicked me. The cunt took pleasure of reminding me about a couple of years ago when I was visiting blighty.
Aaahh, the invincibility of youth.
It's the first time, its long and you love it ya slags.
(Dellamorte Dellamore Fuck it all, fuck it up, fuck it., Tue 27 Feb 2007, 7:52, Reply)

My Parents.
27 years ago, when my mother was 6 months pregnant with little ol' me, my father took my mother to the drive-in to see a film he loved.

"what film?" i hear you ask.

Alien.

i'm surprised they're still together, much less happily.
(mikewicked, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 6:28, Reply)

QUOTE:
"Upside Down, And Backwards
Made first trip ever outside USA, to Australia. Couldn't believe stories until I saw it with my own eyes - they drive on the left hand side of the road there! Instant death loomed around every corner!"

Apparently some American exchange students at my university were killed due to this fact ie they were crossing the road and looked the wrong way for cars.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Tue 27 Feb 2007, 3:39, Reply)