Duh's

I've been telling Mike for about a week now that I was going to post some of the "Duh Moments" that one an honorable mention in a jury of their peers. So here they are in all of their massive stupidity

Janelle's Duh: Reasons To Revoke Her Liscense

You want duh? I have duh for you... In my rental car last night, I dozed off on my way home from a very long college orientation and ran my car off the side of the quiet country road. Boy did I wake up fast, but by the time I did, I had a flat front tire. Now, I'm not the best at changing tires, but I do know how to do it, and by the time I called someone out there, I could have been on my merry way again.

So being the resourceful woman I am, I got the brand new, never been used jack and spare out of the back of this beautiful, flawless (with the exception of a now flat front tire) rental car, thanking my lucky stars that all I had was a flat tire and no damage to the car. Well, getting the hubcap off and lugnuts off took forever and I was already exhausted from the long day I had just had, in addition to the party I had gone to afterwards, and pulling those things off only made me more tired. Once I had the tire off, I was feeling so tired (yet victorious) that I sat back down inside the car to take a little rest.

When I got back outside to finish, I wasn't really aware what I was doing, only that I was tired and in need of some McDonald's. So I hurriedly rushed to finish what I had begun, and I tightened the lugs extra tight to be sure. Before I lowered the car back down, I went to go put the bad tire in the trunk, only to wonder why I was holding the spare.

I was like "screw it" and promptly called for roadside assistance, grieving in the thought that I wouldn't get to a McDonald's before they closed, but more embarrassed at my own stupidity.

Moral of the story? Why do it yourself if AAA is offered to you as a free service when you rent the car?

Rose's Duh: Reasons We Keep Her Away From King

I took my little brother to Seattle for his birthday (well, for an early b-day gift). We went to teh Seattle Center and to teh Science center. we had lunch in seattle and everything. Well, this did cost a bit, and, i had to get some money out of the ATM machine. I wanted to get us something cold to drink before we got back in the car (and be able to pay for the ferry). I got the money and headed to teh stand wiht the drinks. We sat on the grass and sipped our lemonade and chowed on the cotton candy. Then we headed to the car, drove to the ferries and waited for the boat. I was putting the money back in my wallet and i realized that my debit card was gone. I gave corey my wallet and told him to go through it and look for my debit card. I went through my purse. We didn't find it. I tried my best to recall exactly what i did at the ATM.

my thoughts went like this "ok...i got hte money, corey grabbed the receipt...then we went to the cotton candy stand...i left it in the machine!" then the next stream of thought was that which would be censored anyways...

i had to call the bank, tell tehm to cancell my debit card and send me a new one, and even better, i'll be in New Mexico when it gets home. my dad'll have to mail it to me.

Siren's Boyfriend's Duh: Reasons No One Should Pick A Spouse Without My Permission

Okay...firstly I would like to introduce to my boyfriend. Not generally one for thinking things through, I will admit. Now, for some strange reason he decided to store a pint of petrol in a glass at the bottom of our stairs. Not exactly clever, I know, and it was there for a while before he decided it was finally time to dispose of the stuff. How, you ask?

One day I arrived home from work to find a note pinned to the door requesting I not enter the bathroom under any circumstances. Ignoring this (as you do upon finding such notes on your door) I proceeded to the bathrrom just to find another note telling me that if I had, in fact, ignored the first note I REALLY didn't want to ignore this one. My interest was piqued, as you can imagine, so I proceeded to open the door.

It turns out that said method for disposing of petrol was just this...he decided to pour it in the bathtub and set fire to it. A pint of petrol. Safe to say the room was immediately engulfed by four foot flames, the resultant ash coating the room in a lovely black soot. Our shower was completey destroyed (for some reason he had thought it sufficient to keep said fire under control) and our bath tub has still not recovered.

Shade's Duh: The ULTIMATE Duh. I tried reading this to my mother and I couldn't stop laughing long enough to utter an entire sentance.

When I was seventeen I was a camp counselor. This is generally synonymous with "And we did many stupid things, some so stupid I cannot actually go into them." but I've never shared my camp counselor Duh's -

One of the worst things about being one of three girl staff members at a boy's camp. I taught beginning riding in the only co-ed area of a very large camp - "Post....that's right....Post...okay, nope, that's flopping about uncontrollably in the saddle. I said "Post" not "Commence Seizure!"

This first Duh is dreadfully gross - with three other staff members (two males, two females) I was taking a group of eight campers into the woods for a two day overnight campout...with horses (this may be considered the first Duh...I was told to do it but I agreed so DUH).

We have to take shifts watching the fire at night as the horses are tethered all around the sleeping bodies of the various campers who seem to have set up a relay team for peeing. It was in an area we frequently used and had a pit with boards on either side where people balanced to pee or whatever...trust me the whatever comes into play here.

As I'm busily whaling away on the campfire that is determined to go out (and I've no future as an arsonist) one of the girls wakes up and announces that she has to pee. Right. Okay, standard counselor duty...no kid under the age of 13 (this girl was eleven) will troop into the woods to relieve themselves. Basically I was on campfire and piddle duty.

Up she gets, off I go with her. We reach said boards and I've got my back turned to her when I hear what is literally the worst sound on the face of the earth. The sound of an eleven-year-old girl falling into a latrine in the middle of the night. Want to know what it sounds like?

"Aaaaiiiiieeeee...." Plop. So there I am wearing my very best "DUH" expression when I hear the second worst sound in the world. "I can't get out."

Oh GOD SAVE ME. Okay, I'm hauling 11 year old, crap covered kid out of said pit when....guesses...guesses? Nope, I didn't fall in but I'm also too light to give her the needed leverage to get her out of there. I'm all in favor of going back and grabbing another counselor but here follows the third worst noise in the entire world. "NO!!! NOOOOOOOO! Don't leave me here!" and hot on the heels of that are copious tears and wails.

So I had to jump, yes...willingly jump down into a rather well used latrine pit and boost crap covered kid out.

At this point I'm wishing for a swift and mercifull death but the evening is far from done with me. Now I have to haul, wailing, crying, shrieking crap-covered-kid through the woods ...accompanied by the other female counselor who was awoken by aforementioned screams.

To the freezing cold stream we go and yes, I have to get in also, fully clothed (and thank goodness I wasn't wearing my good riding boots because I ended up pitching them) ...as c-c-k and c-c-c (currently cussing counselor) try to get clean with the aid of one cake of soap.

I'm practically up for child abuse charges at this point but I had to convince wailing c-c-k to wash her hair, in freezing cold water. But I get her through it (as other helpful staff member rolls around laughing at our plight) and start trudging, wet, miserable, crying kid, ruined boots and all back to the camp area.

Literally the worst night of my life up to that point.

Until we reach the camp and find, guesses? Guesses? That's right. The two male staff members dashing around through the woods because someone didn't tie their horse correctly and the bugger is loose in the woods.

It's now a mad dash, Blair Witch style to recapture the animal. Now you'd think I'd get to be the staff member who stays by the fire with the remaining campers but NO...I'm the oldest (at 17...GAH) and so I have to set out on the horse catching stint. Bloody thing didn't want to be caught either and there I am with two guys, trying like mad when I trip over a darned branch, go skidding down a small hill and PLOP...right onto something that is dead. I'm fairly certain it was a deer but who the heck knows because I have now morphed into S-C-C (shrieking, cussing, counselor). This is not helping calm the escaped horse (duh!) but people...my head met a dead deer after I had been forced to stand in literal crap and bathe in icy water. I was due for a good shrieking is my point.

Guys capture horse and guesses? That's right, I have to go and wash dead deer off of me. It's back through the woods to the stream for me. Trudge trudge trudge, cake of soap in hand...trailed by two campers who are now awake and freaked out because their fearless (and incredibly ticked off) leader is teaching the trees new words if you get my drift.

Dunk. Dunk. Dunk. Lather, rinse, repeat. I cannot even begin to describe what I smelled like even after the bathing.

At dawn I called the campout off and dragged a bunch of complaining campers, laughing staff members, and questioning horses back to the main camp. Where I had to pitch a pair of 250.00 dollar riding boots due to bad associations and horrendous smell.

Why, oh why is this a duh? Because....

A. I was paid $300.00 dollars for the ENTIRE summer
B. That was only the second of my three years.
C. That's right. I willingly went back to the land of poo, midnight stream baths and dead deers the next year.

Do I get DUH from the house?

It gets better, the next year was the year of the bat in the bag.

But I'll save that for the next time my Duh supremacy is challenged.

(The bat in the bag tale comes later...its another classic, though not as classic as that one)

Charz Duh: A Vote For Drinking More Coffee

ok so I work at a stables on a sunday and last sunday I had to turn out these 3 school horses (there are livery there which are owned by other people and more valuble and we are generally extra careful with them, otherwise their owners would really not be pleased). one of them goes to a different field to the other two and I already have the other two and so I quickly grab the horse from where I know the horse I want was tied up. so I let this horse go first cos the field is nearer before I walk off with the other to to take them further, one of them is very slow and the other is very excitable and jumpy. then one of the instructors asks me why tonic goes to that field now, cue bewildered look from me and a shrug as she walks on. looking back in confusion I see all the school horses in the field I just turned this horse into crowding around him and was like oh crap! realising I just turned a livery horse into the school horses and that I'm going ot be dead if they so much as touch him. and it is very likely they would kick him or something because it's their field, not his. this seems like a great time to panic to me so I do. and I'm like wha do I do?!?! go rescue the horse and risk letting the other two loose or go take them to their field first? I opt for the second and so there's me running flat out along the road and two horses looking confused at my behaviour. one giving me a look that clearly said you want me to go faster than a walk? you must be kidding and the other like alright, let's go faster! so I'm getting split in two as I rush to the field and looking back and yelling, tonic! please just stay there for 2 minutes! and thinking OMG they're gonna kill him. anyway I got back to tonic to find him ok and quite happily standing in the field, unable ot believe his luck at having got turned out so early andd me completely out of breath. he of course does not want to be caught so I spend a further 10 minutes chasing him before eventually leading him back and turning out the correct horse.

moral of this story? check which horse you're grabbing before you've let them go in a large field!

Siren's Boyfriend...Again: Need I Say More About This Man...The Bravery Run's Thick

Well, it was sunday morning and I was about to go out riding. Having just brought the two horses and the pony into the stables we set about grooming and saddling them up. First came the biggest horse, whose really old and well behaved. We saddled him and then just left him too it. Then we moved onto Polo.

Now, just to mention my boyf does not like horses...He thinks they're fine running free but has a thing against close proximity. Well, I had just saddled Polo and left him to stick the pony back in the field (she only came in coz she was a mess). After brushing her down I look to see Polo is falling asleep, head resting against the stable door. A couple of minutes later and all of a sudden polo rears in panic and bolts for the door. Looking to my dearly beloved to stop the panicking horse I turn to discover that he has, infact, run shrieking from the barn.

What happened...Well, Polo fell asleep and eventually his head kinda slipped and fell, waking him up with a bit of a shock. My boyfirned had just run screaming from a horse that had simply just woken up badly. Upon quesioning him he claimed the poor horse had charged at him with a decidedly murderous glint in his eye.

Siren's Duh: Why Computer Illiterate People Shouldn't Be Allowed On Computers

Everyone loves a virus, right. Well, one day a little while ago I received an email from one of my friends containing one. It wasn't supposed to, it just kinda hitched a ride. Anyhow, the email gets opened and nothing happens (I don't know about it at this point). Later that day I get a phone call apologising profusely for said virus and assuring me it did very little and directing me to the site to dispose of it. Having experienced nothing myself I'm not upset, and proceed to log on and kill the little bugger.


I then open my outlook express and hit the send/receive button. First mistake. Apparently what the virus DOES do is duplicate every email you own (I have ALOT) and send them to random email addresses that don't, in fact, exist...thus leaving me with several message failure reports.

Did I say several? I meant to say thousands. Hundreds of thousands. My email promptly crashed having reached its upper limit and refusing to download anymore. When I eventually deleted all of them and hit that good old send/receive again wouldn't ya know it.....BAM full again. Deciding it would take me ages to delete them all myself I decide to call BT and let them delete them before I even receive them. The phone call went something like this.

ME: Hi, I was wondering if you could help, I'm having a slight problem with my email.

THEM: Of course, whats the problem.

ME: Well, one of my friends accidentally sent me a virus which seems to have overloaded my outlook capacity. I was wondering if you could delete them all from your end.

*Awkward silence*

THEM: Oh, so it's YOUR fault then, is it.

Apparently I had received so many emails I'd actually managed to overload their entire mail server for the area, and they'd been having mild panic attacks trying to find out where they'd all come from. It took them three days to clear it all, and no-one near me using BT could send or receive email for that time either.


Er, whoops?

Shade's Duh: Her's are the best....The infamous Bat In The Bag

Come back with me now to the night of the big rain and the bat in a bag. Okay - at this camp there was a headquarters (basically a gigantic old house, converted into staff lodgings for senior staff and administrators) - and a couple of the counselors, in this case the lifeguards stayed there. The main appeal of staying at headquarters is that you didn't have to shower in a daddy long leg infested bathroom facility located a fair distance out into the woods. Ah, the good times.

It also had electricity, unlike the cabin I was staying in. So on one of my nights off I went to headquarters with a group of about 8 other junior staff members because it was bucketing down rain like you can't believe. This actually has significance in the Duh. We were going to watch some TV because we were all bored that night, so we are all crammed into this guy's room watching this miniscule set.

When in walks a CIT (counselor in training) named Kevin. I never worked with him but he had a reputation for being really sort of dim. He proved it that night.

He's clutching a big, brown paper bag and saying, "Guys! Guys! I have a bat in this bag!!!"

Everyone just kind of grumps at him because, yeah, sure, no friggin' way can you get a bat into a grocery store paper bag. He keeps insisting and it finally turns into a shouting match of all of us yelling "KEVIN YOU DO NOT HAVE A BAT IN THAT BAG!"

Veins are practically standing out on his forehead as if in slow motion - Kevin makes this weird, visceral sound and rips open the bag.

Everyone later agreed, "Okay, did anyone else think that thing was going to turn into Dracula?"

Not only did he have a bat in that bag, he had the biggest darned bat any of us had ever seen and it must have been asleep until Kevin ripped open the bag, making it land with a THUD on the floor before it immediately shot up to the ceiling.

Cue everyone else in the room turning into an eight year-old girl. Honestly, people down the hall said it sounded like a Brownie troup was being tortured.

Everyone is screaming, the bat is ricocheting off the walls, the ceiling and most of us just want to get the heck out of the room because bats have rabies and p.s. they are FREAKY. This one was also freaking out.

So we've got people climbing out of the windows of on the second floor and jumping into a tree. Some with more success than others. I personally took off down the hall at top speed when one of the guys, Scott reaches out an arm pulls me into the bathroom with him, and promptly locks the door. This was one of our cooler headed counselors, by the way.

We sat in the bathroom listening to the melee outside the door.

"DID YOU GET IT YET?"

"MAN! GET THAT &^(%&%!@ OUT OF MY ROOM!"

"GET A BROOM, GET A BROOM!"

It was total chaos, the sounds of breaking glass, running feet and finally.

"GOT IT!"

Just as we were about to unlock the door and come out we then heard "KEVIN??" In this really outraged tone. Then follows the sound of Kevin being chased by the lifeguard.

So Scott and I hauled butt to try and find Kevin before the lifeguard can dismember him or something. By the time we caught up with him so had four other staff members and bloodshed was prevented.

The reason I bring this up is because I guess I think Scott is techically the inventor of the Duh Award. As we're trying to keep anyone from pounding on him, Scott's talking to Kevin about how stupid it is to bring bats into a house on purpose.

Kevin is looking really sullen but finally agrees that he probably shouldn't have brought the bat in.

At this point Scott invents the Duh Award when he replied:

"Well give the dude a prize! DUH, Kevin. Just DUH!"