Embarrassing stories about ourselves that are amusing and true.

[octave]

I think we need more light hearted content on this forum.    I thought it might be interesting to share our most embarrassing but amusing incidents.   These stories should be true, about ourselves an not embellished (too much).

 

 

So here is my story.

 

  Around about 1982 I was in the  Air Force and had just married.   We lived on RAAF Base Richmond in a married quarters flat.  This was quite a large and comfortable residence.    We chose to live on the top floor of the 3 story building.   One night I returned from working late and my wife was out, it was a Wednesday so she was out at her usual classical guitar lesson.   After arriving home I started to get changed out of my uniform.   I was down to just my underware when I heard the outer door three floors down being opened. As it was shortly after 8PM I realized that it would be my wife returning from her lesson.    Being a bit of a bit of a joker I waited by the front door.  I could her footsteps getting louder as she progressed up the 3 floors of steps.  Grasping the front door knob in my briefest undies I waited for the sound of the screen door opening.  At this point I rapidly pulled the door open and leapt into the doorway, there may have even been a sexy pelvic thrust.  Now due to the bright light in the stairwell I could only see a silhouette, something did not seem right.   The silhouette cleared her throat and said " I am having a Tupperware party and I wondered if your wife would be interested?"   Of course I immediately took a defensive position behind the door.   After ensuring her that I would pass her invitation on, she left and I closed the door.  As i heard her descend the stairs I do believe i heard some laughter.     About 10 minutes later I heard my wife returning, needless to say she had to use her key to enter,  I was not answering the door again that night. Due to the bright lighting outside our door I never did work out which of our neighbors I had flashed.     

 

Totally true and not exaggerated       

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I was an early solo student doing circuits in a Warrior at Moorabbin. I was still a bit wayward with my landings as looking back, I was overthinking it a lot. This was the days before headsets were used in training (blimey, it was loud). ATC gave me permission to do a touch and go literally seconds before I was ready to touch down. I grabbed the mic form its bracket which was positioned awkwardly on the beading below the facial panel, hurriedly acknowledge the call and fiddled trying to get the mic on while the poor PA28's undercarriage (and my spine) was once again stress tested.

 

Set flap to 1st stage, smooth application of full power and after a bit the nose lifts. At about 200', I hear a loud bang.. Ship! Firs through  "it didn't happen!!!" followed very quickly by "<expletive deleted" yes, it did.. Prop - Still spinning.. Good.. No noticeable smoke or oil, take the upwind leg a bit further and faster, slip to look out the back - no trails of smoke (ATC would have called me anyway.."

 

I gingerly checked the control surfaces; all seemed responsive within the envelope I was prepared to test.. By now I was on crosswind and still raching my brain.. "What on earth was that noise?!?".. Then I recalled that landing (probably the worst I have had since jumping from a monkey bar and tearing an ankle tendon). I did land it flatter than normal - Was the bang the nosegear? Oh, dear!!!"

 

I turn downwind trying to think the best way to handle this. My landikngs weren't the best, and now I was faced with having to be very precise and holding the nose up until the last minute, cutting the fuel and trying to get the prop to stop horizontally. And I had a decent amount of fuel on board.

 

Also, it was a lovely, sunny summers evening midweek during the school holidays My finacee, who hates flying of any sort is with her young nieces at I think it ius called Kingswood Park or something to the north of the 18/25 runways firing up the BBQ for a nice feed after the training flight. They have a hand-held airband receiver listening in.. What a day to do this?

 

Well, I feel the best thing to do is tell the tower, so I grab the mic off the floor and call them up. I was flying 18L, which is the runway furthest from the tower. They offer to take a look to see if they can see anything obvious (noting that it is not failsafe). I agree and at the same time as I place that mic on the darned awkward bracket, it dawned on me what really happened. The mic came off and the back of it that has the metal hangy-thing hit the metal of the rudder pedals. Now, I feel a lot better, but still very sheepish. Do I tell ATC and look like an idiot, or continue.

 

I decided to continue not knowing what would happen next. I extend my base to 18R and do the fly by, careful to ensure speeds are accurate, etc. The of course report it looks OK and ask what I want to do, I say I will continue the circuit and come for a full stop. It was the frist time I flew an 18R circuit. After I call downwind and start my checks, ATC stop arrivals from coming near the airport, and halt any new taxis. Oh poop! Maybe I should have admitted what it was to start with. But no going back now. As I turn base I see the red flashing lights of the fire trucks racing to the point where they think I will end up a smoking hole inthe ground. Great.. I am cleared to land before turning final... As I am on final, I take a deep breath and thnk to myself, please make this a decent landing and hold the bloody nose off for as long as possible. I look out to my right and see my car racing along Grange Road and I can pitcure the stress my finacee is feeling.. Ohh, this isn't going well at all...

 

I landed.. heavily... and I think ATC thought well, if there wasn't a problem with the nose gear, there is now. Over the radio comes that question we all hate to hear "ABC, do you require assistance to taxi?" A sheepish, "Er, negative, thanks".. The fire trucks return to their station, my instructor is looking very sternly at me as I come in to the apron to park.. Let's say, it wasn't long after that my fiancee was my ex-fiancee!

[Marty_d]

I was 20, probably a couple of months into a relationship with a lovely woman from my work, when I bought my first "big" bike - a 1986 Honda VFR750.

 

So anyway I roll up to her house one day (she was older than me - 32 - so there was the very big bonus that she had a house because I was still living with my parents), she comes out in her riding gear as I proudly introduce her to my new machine.

 

Athletically, and not all that used to a centre stand, I enthusiastically swing a leg over the Viffer and fall straight over the other side, pulling the bike down with me...

[Jerry_Atrick]

That made me larf! Hope you were OK.. I know the VFR would have been (my first big bike was same model, same year and it went over a cuple of times with nary a scratch).

[pmccarthy]

I was invited to a workmate's place to help him with a bike. We had coffee in the kitchen, his wife was out, then worked in the shed for a couple of hours. He asked me to fetch a couple of beers from the kitchen and I was at the fridge when his wife walked in from their bedroom wearing panties and nothing else. She screamed and shouted at me and I shot out the door back to the shed. I had never met her before and was never invited to meet her again.

[Marty_d]

15 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

I was invited to a workmate's place to help him with a bike. We had coffee in the kitchen, his wife was out, then worked in the shed for a couple of hours. He asked me to fetch a couple of beers from the kitchen and I was at the fridge when his wife walked in from their bedroom wearing panties and nothing else. She screamed and shouted at me and I shot out the door back to the shed. I had never met her before and was never invited to meet her again.

Bet you copped an eyeful before you ran though! 

[Yenn]

I was doing touch and goes at Grovedale in Vic, in a C150 and suddenly the plane did not want to climb, I had to keep pushing the nose down to get speed up and was wondering what was happening. I seemed to be very low, practically down among the chimney pots. No idea what was wrong and I was looking around, when suddenly I saw a big barn door following me. I had forgotten to lift the flaps.

That was OK, but next morning just before we started work one of my workmates said that the police were looking for some bloke who had been low flying over Grovedale. That was what scared me until I realised he was conning me.

Many years later a brand new C172 was brought to our local strip as a demo and I flew it. By this time I had some time in C172s so I was quite at home.

I did my usual on base leg, pressed the flap lever down for the first ten degrees of flap and then had to keep pushing the nose down to maintain speed. Cesna had changed the switch. No longer was it push for each stage of flap, but push down until you had what you want and then push back up. That was nearly as embarrassing, but no matter, the plane I flew had manual flaps, so much better.

[pmccarthy]

3 hours ago, Marty_d said:

Bet you copped an eyeful before you ran though! 

She was ok, we were all young!

[onetrack]

I was heading North out of Kalgoorlie, on the Goldfields Hwy, just on dusk, in the mid-1980's in my Holden ute, heading for Laverton (W.A.).

Just before I got to Broad Arrow, I was about 25kms N of Kalgoorlie, I passed a large motorbike on the other side of the road - and it was lying down on the gravel shoulder, away from the road.

 

Puzzled, I stopped and backed up a considerable distance to where the bike lay, about 7-8 metres away on the other side of the highway.

I wound down my window, and was greatly concerned to see two shadowy human figures with their heads barely raised above bike level, moving back and forth slowly - and making groaning and grunting and panting sounds.

 

Alarmed by now, I called out, "You blokes alright?", having visions of two blokes that had just come off their big bike, and who were now writhing around, badly injured.

The answer came back clearly, in between pants - "Yeah, we're alright, mate! We just stopped for a piss - and the bike fell over, down the shoulder - and we can't get the bloody thing upright again!!

 

I got out and gave them a hand, when I realised their predicament. The bike had fallen over onto the downward slope of the gravel shoulder - thus making it so much harder to lift back upright - and the sloping gravel shoulder was a bugger of a position to push from - as it was not only sloping steeply, but slippery as well!

In the end, the three of us spun it around, slid it further down the shoulder, and finally got it upright at the bottom of the shoulder, and they were quite grateful for the help. Those big bikes are bloody heavy!

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by onetrack

[Old Koreelah]

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

...Those big bikes are bloody heavy!

I loved my K-75 but my dodgy knee and crook back made picking it up near impossible. The worst was when it went over in loose gravel as I was trying to lift it onto the centre stand. The only person around to help was a little old lady.

[pmccarthy]

2 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

I loved my K-75 but my dodgy knee and crook back made picking it up near impossible. The worst was when it went over in loose gravel as I was trying to lift it onto the centre stand. The only person around to help was a little old lady.

And the embarrassment was when she threw it onto the stand?

[nomadpete]

At my wedding (this century), I provided grog. Making a snap judgement of the guests I bought in beers for the blokes, white wine for the women, and cheap bubbly for the toasts. I hoped there wouldn't be many of those, they're usually boring.

Oh, and I bought half a dozen nice reds as a treat for myself.

Imaging my shock when the barperson (21st century, gotta be PC) warned me that MY red was almost all devoured and nobody was drinking the beer! I raced down to the nearest grog shop and bought a case of their cheapest red wine for the wedding guests.

Asked "What, don't you like these people?", I replied "Not any more".

Well, it worked a treat. My beloved friends reverted to drinking beer. But after they all went home, I was left with half a carton of 'two buck Chuck'!

So you know what to expect if you come to a BBQ at my place.

[willedoo]

Pete, the only way to drink a supercheap red is to add a small amount of water. It negates the tannin and stops your lips from sticking to your teeth. A good way to turn a $2 bottle into a $10 bottle.

[old man emu]

Wille,

Was an ancestor of yours a sly-grogger?

[onetrack]

The first generation immigrant Slavs and many of the Italians in the same group, that I knew and associated with, would always drink claret with their lunch - but it would be half a glass of claret, then a top-up with water.

 

Regardless of how they dished it out, I never developed a taste for claret. Bloody awful stuff.