We certainly did our best -- though I just wish we had thought of THIS one...

[MiddleFingerMom]

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What did YOU do that should have taken you out of the gene pool?
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[MiddleFingerMom]

1. Taking our toboggans down Devil's Dip...

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... a series of short, STEEP descents beside "The Cascades", which I believe
at the time were the world's largest manmade waterfalls. It is truly a wonder
that none of us were maimed/killed -- seriously. My brothers and I broke two
toboggans going down that run.
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"Hunting" for snapping turtles -- going barefoot in this giant pond dressed in
nothing but a pair of shorts and sneaking up behind an unknowing snapping
turtle (you could just see their nostrils above the water), grabbing them by
the shell and carrying them (QUICKLY) back to the shore so we could all
"OOH" and "AHH" over them and brag about the fearless, mighty hunters
we were (it was, by the way... strictly catch-and-release).
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Taking our bikes down the sidehill of "The Cascades" just after dawn, when the
grass was slick with dew. Those were the days when the only brake you had was
by stepping BACK on your pedals to activate a rear-wheel brake. If we had used
the LEAST bit of those brakes, our bikes would snake-whipped out from under us
and, at the speed we were going... we might've come to a stop 50-100 yards
further on.
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Building unofficial "Soapbox Derby" racers and, in the offseason, taking them
down the official Soapbox Derby run (on the BACKhill of The Cascades). Totally
unsupervised, our creations looked much like the "cars" built by Spanky and the
Gang... and, more often than not, fell apart before we got to the bottom of the
hill, sending us skidding and tumbling down the asphalt, if not off the track
into the large oaks that bordered it.
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The pond where we did our turtle-hunting was right NEXT to The Cascades, so I
guess they were the focus of our life-affirming death-tauntings.
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Good times.
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[nolabear]

2. I wasn't a kid, but I WAS nineteen

and my second ex husband and I hitchhiked across the country and got held at gunpoint in the desert by a speed-crazed trucker. What do you want to know, how I got away from the trucker or what the hell I was doing with a second husband at nineteen?

[Kali]

3. both!

tell 'em!

[Ptah]

4. Was the trucker your first husband?

:shrug:

[MiddleFingerMom]

5. !!!

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:thumbsup: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :thumbsup:
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This is the SECOND time today I've has this "Wish
I'd said that" thought.
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[Ptah]

6. As told by MFM:

Was the trucker your first
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husband?

[nolabear]

7. Oh, all right. Here's the short version:

First, the husband. I got married right out of high school and it was seriously a way out of a terrible household situation. It was doomed but he was a sweet guy and we both wanted to rescue me. So that broke up fast. Don't know where he ended up.

I married again possibly because we were caught between being liberal quasi-hippie seventies kids in New Orleans and kids who were raised by ultra conservative Mississippians so we were too nervous to just live together.

But we weren't too nervous to try to hitch hike across the country. We got all the way to California and were starving, so headed back. A truck driver (I remember his CB name--"Big Daddy and the White Lightning Express") picked us up outside LA and said he would take us through Texas, incredible bait. We drove along til very late and he offered us the bunk in the cab to sleep in while he drove. We woke to the dead dark of the middle of nowhere desert, what he said was a .357 Magnum and a wired guy who, let's just say, wanted to watch. For some insane reason we had the temerity to refuse, and when he realized we wouldn't cooperate, he told us to get out. We refused that too. I remember saying "Well, you can't shoot us in here; you'd blow us all over the inside of your truck." We actually made him take us to a busy highway before we'd get out.

I hope he died of hemmorhoids, but I save my real rage for the state troopers who, when we told them and asked for help, told us it wasn't their jurisdiction (We'd crossed state lines since he dropped us off) and threw us out. He could have done it again for all we knew.

(Btw, third husband, twenty-seven years now. I'm slow but eventually get it right)

[MiddleFingerMom]

8. What a terrifying experience, though...

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... if I had been facing a sex-and-meth-crazed trucker in the middle of
a dark desert who had me at gunpoint and "wanted to watch", I don't
think I would have EVER found the "temerity" to refuse.
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Hell... in that situation, I would have fucked myself.
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Not that I can, but a .357 sure woulda motivated me to try.
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Your story could have been more horrifying, I guess.
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[kimi]

9. I'm glad you're with the third now

What an ordeal.

Hugs. Glad you're here now.