fbpx

People Share Their “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” Stories

I remember one time when I was underage and a few friends and I went into a liquor store to buy some beer because my friend had a killer fake ID. It was going to be a glorious night…

Little did I know that there were two undercover cops in the store posing as customers and they busted all of us and we got ticketed for minors in possession of alcohol.

I said afterward, “well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!”

Boy, was I wrong…

AskReddit users shared their “it seemed like a good idea at the time” stories.

1. OH MY GOD.

“”Snow Water Skiing”.

Me driving the snowmobile across a snowy field and my little brother skiing behind holding a tow-rope.

Two broken legs.”

2. Close call.

“Shooting each other with fire works on New Years.

One landed directly in between my eyes, luckily, it didn’t go off and I wasn’t injured.”

3. It was fun, but…

“”Hey you know those degenerates who you stay out drinking with until sunrise every other day? Why don’t you live with them for the last two years of law school. That won’t cause any issues at all.”

Cue two years of abuse to my body and liver and more than a little strain between me and my friends at the time.

Overall it was fun, but definitely not a good idea.”

4. That’s no fun.

“Playing “Sled Dog” with my newly rescued husky and a long board on the hilly streets near my house in college.

Snapped my right forearm in half and had to walk a mile back home to get a ride to the hospital.”

5. Is that a fun game?

“I ran across the street with my eyes closed when I was 14.

I didn’t get hit by a car. However, I ran into a tree headfirst and cut my face and knee open.

For all of you asking what my thought process was, it is as follows:

Who am I kidding I have no idea what I was thinking…”

6. Fire!

“So back in the day my brothers and I were shooting a bow and arrow behind our house.

We had a proper backstop and a nice target on a bale of hay. After about an hour we were getting bored and one of my brothers had a stroke of genius. Let’s light one on fire.

So there we are wiring rags to arrows and soaking them in gas and shooting stuff. Didn’t take long and half the yard was on fire. We’d shot pretty much every flammable thing we could burn in the yard.

Since we were running short on stuff to shoot my brother decided to launch one in a 45° arc over the woods behind the house. We all watched soar laughing and giggling.

When it hit the apex was when it dawned on us that this was in fact a really stupid f*cking idea.

All 6 of us sprinted off into the woods in the direction it’d been shot. Wasn’t hard to find it’d lite an entire little meadow on fire. So we ran around stomping out fires for an hour.

When we finally got the fire put out we were sitting by the crick and my oldest brother looks at us all and says,”Dad never hears a word about this.””

7. Dumb.

“When I was 15 my best friend and I just got new bb pistols. They we’re the Walther CP99. Looked identical to the real Walther CP9 with a removable magazine and no orange tip.

We were playing with them in the back seat of his mom’s car. They weren’t loaded, we were just excited and wanted to take them out of the box. She knew we had them out and didn’t think anything of it. This was the late 90s btw.

Before going back to his house she went thru the drive thru at Burger King. You know where this is going. She’s ordering food with 2 large 15 year olds holding guns and pointing them at everything.

Fast forward 30 minutes, we are pulling into their driveway and his dad comes running out of the house yelling historically. One of his friends just called and said he heard on the police scanner that they were looking for his vehicle with 2 white males holding a female hostage at gunpoint.

Few minutes later several police cars pull in the driveway, jump out with guns out making everyone get on the ground. It took some explaining on his dads part about us being a bunch of dumb *sses.

15 year old me couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about but 34 year old me looks back and realizes that might be the dumbest thing I have ever done.”

8. Not the greatest choice.

“I went on a solo trip to Costa Rica when I was 26 – I’m a fairly petite female. I speak no Spanish.

The eco lodge I was staying at helped me arrange a guide for an all day hike. We were flown by 4 seater plane into the jungle, a 26 hour walk to the nearest town.

We landed, Jose and i hopped out, and the plane took off again, leaving me, Jose and his machete alone for the day.

Thankfully it went OK, but as soon as that plane took of I realized I had made a bad choice.”

9. Let’s live together!

“Moved to LA with my best friend. He actually went out there first.

I went out a year later. Living with someone completely changes the dynamic. We always got along great until we were roommates. Our friendship slowly deteriorated into nothing.

We didn’t talk for five years until we patched things up. I guess the moral of story even if you become roommates with best friend it might not always work out well.”

10. Didn’t end well.

“Holding onto my friend’s car mirror while skateboarding on a newly paved parking lot.

Road rash sucks.”

11. Scary.

“On a rainy day, I saw a hitchhiker near the university asking for a ride.

He “looked the part” of a student. Although I never pick up hitchhikers, I felt sorry for him standing in the rain and gave him a lift – it felt like the right thing to do at the time.

He told me where he was headed, so I went out of my way to drive him there. The guy just kept staring at me and said very little. When we arrived at his destination, he wouldn’t get out of my car, no matter what.

Finally, when a police officer came along, I told him to hop out or I’d call the cop over for help. That ended it. But if the officer hadn’t come by, I have no idea what might have happened.”

12. Sounds terrifying.

“So I was in Uganda with my family, and we see a large (about 5ft tall), curled up leaf hanging about 8ft off the ground.

We’re told that these leaves curl up and fall out the trees, and they’re pretty heavy, so it can be dangerous to have it fall on you. My dad and I think ‘wont it be helpful of us to get this thing down’.

So, we’re there whacking it with sticks, trying to get it down, to no avail, when my dad says “Hey, climb up on that wall there, son, and jump! Grab it and then pull it down!”

Well, that sounds like a swell idea, dad! So I do just that… I don’t manage to get it all the way down, but as soon as I hit the ground, I get this burning sensation in my elbow. Turns out there’s a hive of Ugandan Mud Wasps living in this specific leaf, and they do not take kindly to young men trying to tug their home down.

So I’m just sprinting back to the office where the rest of my family is sheltered from the sun, and I practically have two elbows on one arm at this point while, as my dad described it later ‘an army of large, black blots’ give chase. I make it back inside and my arm is numb, except for the searing pain in my elbow.

Thankfully, there was no further reaction, the pain lasted only around 3 hours and the swelling was down by the end of the day. That being said, it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt… Even worse than the time I broke my arm into three pieces while arm wrestling…”

13. Whoops.

“I let my 14 year old cousin at the time try driving the family car.

I was like 18 back then or 20 and I told him it’s easy to drive an automatic car, basically like driving a go-kart. Told him gas was right and brakes were center.

I forgot to mention that changing the gear to D will automatically have the car move. We both panicked and hit a tree in front of us at probably 1 mph.

Luckily we were in our neighborhood by a dead end.”

Well, that was wild!

How about you?

Tell us your stories about when things went bad quickly. Thanks a lot!