Thirteen fvckvps

Can I possibly think of thirteen horrendous errors? Sure — provided they’re not all my fvckvps. Take, for example, the opiate-addicted anesthesiologist who injected himself with sufentanyl rather than fentanyl, forgetting the tenfold higher potency of the former. It was the last dosage error he ever made.

If I get stumped, I could steal stuff from the Darwin Awards website. For example, I could pretend I once crawled into a huge helium-filled advertising balloon like this duo.

Their last words consisted of high-pitched, incoherent giggling as they slowly passed out and passed into the hereafter.

. . . But I’ll try to stick to fvckvps drawn from my personal experience. Follow me below the fold.

1. The artless skateboard. My brother, seven years my senior, once got a skateboard for his birthday. Oh, how he loved it. In the 60s, a cool skateboard was quite the status symbol.

In my opinion, it wasn’t cool enough. One morning, I rubbed it down with bacon grease and then used an age-old staining method: I covered it with mud. When I washed off the mud, my bro’s skateboard sported a lustrous, dark finish.

The fvckvp, of course, was my brother’s, for not appreciating his board’s aesthetic improvement.

2. Walnut’s alchemy lab. I liked mixing things. All kinds of things. Did you know you can make a weapon of mass destruction from household ingredients? It’s true. Mix bleach with the right stuff and you’ll make chlorine gas — I did it and survived.

Once I exhausted all possible combinations of household ingredients, my dad, a high school math teacher, began bringing home chemicals pilfered by his pal, the chemistry teacher. Cool adults, eh? This lovely orange mercury compound really appealed to me; I figured if I heated it over my alcohol lamp long enough, I would drive off the other elements and be left with liquid mercury.

Toxic stuff, mercury. If I hadn’t killed off a few hundred thousand brain cells inhaling mercury-laced fumes, who knows what I could have become. The next Einstein. The next George Clooney. Not a doctor, that’s for sure.

3. Bag o’ maggots. Flash forward a few years. In the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college, I worked as a short order chef at the Santa Anita Golf Course. It bothered me, throwing out all those coffee grounds and potato peels. Surely I could put them to good use.

I still had my backyard lab, of course, and my parents never looked inside. I could have cooked meth and they wouldn’t have known. Anyway, every day, I brought home the coffee shop’s refuse and dumped it into a twenty gallon aquarium. I figured it would turn into mulch.

Before long, flies discovered the potato peels, layed eggs, and the eggs hatched into the biggest, most evil-looking maggots you’ve ever seen. I swear they had to be an inch long. I began to worry that my mother would find the maggots and drop dead from shock, so one day I poured the contents of the aquarium into a big, white, plastic garbage bag, then hid the bag in the back yard, where it would stay until garbage day.

When I checked it the next day, I saw something rather interesting. Hungry for air, the maggots had migrated to the edge of the bag. I had one enormous bag o’ maggots. ‘Twas beautiful.

4. The death of Mothra and Godzilla. In med school, I owned two red-bellied newts whom we named Mothra and Godzilla. I read up on their care and discovered our aquarium wasn’t warm enough. I tweaked the heater, then forgot to check the temperature until the next day.

Poor newts.

5. Mexican prison torture. Is it true that in Mexican jails, they torture prisoners by putting cayenne pepper into Coca-Cola, shaking it up, and letting it spray up their noses? I don’t know. But I do know what it feels like, because yesterday, I accidentally snorted a jalapeno pepper up into my nose.

Don’t ask. It’s nothing I want to repeat any time soon.

6. Worst meal ever. No, not tuna jello — I can’t lay claim to that monstrosity. In my freshman year of college, I bought a ling cod filet and breaded it with a mixture of egg and bran cereal. Next, I tried to fry it in my electric frying pan.

To this day, I can’t bring myself to eat ling cod.

7. For similar reasons, I can’t drink Riesling. Riesling and College Ave. brand vodka really don’t mix well.

8. Calcium-rich fruitcake. Not my fvckvp, but as long as we’re on the subject of foodie fvckvps, this one is too good to pass up. In college (you know, most of our fvckvps occurred in college. Why is that?) my best friend accidentally got a substantial amount of egg shell into his fruitcake batter. He had invested a lot of money in the ingredients, so he didn’t want to scrap the batter. He retrieved as much shell as he could and figured the remaining bits would cook in.

Um. No.

9. A public service announcement. Here I am, racking my brains trying to think of my near-misses for the Darwin Awards, but you know? I really haven’t been that dumb. But can I tell you something I’ve learned from my less intelligent patients? Gasoline and open flames do not mix.

I’m getting tired of the same story: My brush pile wasn’t burning fast enough, so I . . .

Don’t do it, please.

10. Walnut’s alchemy lab, revisited. It took me many years to realize I wanted to be an alchemist, not a chemist; but I had to go and get that degree in chemistry because it was the next best thing.

Halfway through college, I did a six-month internship at a company that produces herbicides. At that time, Monsanto’s patent for Roundup was about to expire, so our company wanted to find some way of horning in on the profits.

In the course of my duties, I found myself in possession of a large quantity of silver oxide. Hmm, thought I. If I combine this with a sufficiently powerful reducing agent and heat the mixture over an open flame, voila! Silver!

The explosion didn’t do too much damage.

11. How not to get laid. College again (of course) — the dorms, to be specific. You know the conventional wisdom that if you listen to a woman’s bullshit until 3 AM, she’ll sleep with you? Nuh-uh. No go. I let her talk until it was time for us to go downstairs for breakfast, and all I got for my troubles was a very sleepy day. Not even a kiss on the cheek.

12. Indestructible. In Berkeley, bikers and pedestrians think of themselves as indestructible. They assume cars will stop for them, and for the most part, they’re right. True, I was hit twice during my four years at Berkeley, but suffered only minor injuries.

But then, in my fourth year, I interviewed at Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York. In the Bronx, actually. Where cars aim for pedestrians. Fortunately, I made a rapid study of the local cultural norms and lived to tell about it.

13. Dirty drapes. One last college story. I’m telling you, I worked out most of my stupids in college (or at least I like to think so).

My apartment had the filthiest drapes. How could my roommates tolerate them? One weekend, when both my roomies were gone, I decided to wash the drapes.

Word to the wise: remove drape hooks before washing drapes. What a spectacular degree of destruction!

Surely, I’ve done stupider things than this, but that’s all I can think of now. You know the drill: leave a comment below and I’ll give you some linky lurve. Tell me the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.

Erin once swallowed a nickle. I hope she’s not still looking for it.

Darla has a commercial quiz.

Kate Rothwell’s breakout novel: Goedhartige geweldenaar Waaah?

. . . also, Kate is such a hussy: Thirteen People I’ve Slept With.

Blue Gal blogs on blogging, and gives me some lurve to boot. Love ya right back, BG.

May’s Thirteen Thirteens she wants to write some day

Shaina’s thirteen favorite links. Guess who shows up on that one, too? Even if I have stolen her innocence.

Rella gets psychic on us, but I know why she’s feeling bad.

SxKitten’s Thirteen Childhood Pleasures. Since she’s a chick, none of this involves giving yourself a rug burn against the mattress.

Corn Dog can’t let sleeping dogs lie, and she has thirteen of her own fvckvps, too.
thursday thirteen

Tambo has a holiday meme — I’ll be joining in later this evening.

D.