Crazy things you didn't think twice about till later in life

[ChicknPickn]

Living below our means is the reason we retired relatively early, and have no debt.

Pro Tip: If you shop hard at Goodwill/thrift shops, you can actually be better-dressed than most of your friends.

Amen to that.

 

[stxrus]

I used to say, “Moderation is for monks. Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.” Somewhere around 40 I realized how utterly stupid that was. I learned less is more and moved to the Caribbean for the 4th and last time.

 

[willietheweirdo]

I used to say, “Moderation is for monks. Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.” Somewhere around 40 I realized how utterly stupid that was. I learned less is more and moved to the Caribbean for the 4th and last time.

I preferred the slightly more laconic "everything in moderation, including moderation. "

You sure moving to the Caribbean 4 times wasn't excessive? Kidding. Kudos!

 

[LOSTVENTURE]

I’ve owned many 50’s-60’s Fender, Gibson, Epiphone and Gretsch guitars.
Literally dozens of them.
I was looking for Excalibur.
I kept none of them.
Turns out Excalibur doesn’t exist.
It all about the human operator.
Duh!
Double Duh!
I wasted time and money, looking for something that doesn’t exist, and didn’t have the sense (acumen) to keep the instruments (investment).

My collection goes back to the fifties also. So many "Excaliburs" I've lost count.

 

[stxrus]

I preferred the slightly more laconic "everything in moderation, including moderation. "

You sure moving to the Caribbean 4 times wasn't excessive? Kidding. Kudos!

No, it finally worked for me. Sometimes I’m quite hardheaded/stupid

 

[cometazzi]

Weminz folks. I was so wrong, misguided or clueless in my selection or deselection of the fairer sex. I picked the wrong ones and I blew off interest from those that would have likely been better matches.
Oh well,as Chuck Berry once sang "c'est la vie say the old folks, it's goes to show you never can tell".

Same here. What's messed up is that I don't feel like I have any better insight or skills to use going forward. I just beat myself up all the time about past mistakes.

Relevant to the "didn't think twice about until later in life"... apparently it didn't occur to me how much the 'available wimmenz for dating' would evaporate after 30. And that if you're single at 50, the chance of finding someone to have a fulfilling relationship with is incredibly slim. It's not unpossible, but very unlikely.

 

[Powdog]

While in my teens I spent nearly every day of summer at the beach getting sunburned. No sunblock or long sleeve shirts. One of these days the melanoma train is coming for me.

 

[willietheweirdo]

While in my teens I spent nearly every day of summer at the beach getting sunburned. No sunblock or long sleeve shirts. One of these days the melanoma train is coming for me.

Oh man, it amazes me how I never habitually wore sunglasses till I was in my late 20s. Once, after an 1100-mile roadtrip, everything black I looked at was greenish. This lasted a couple weeks. Now I drive with shades on even when it's cloudy.

 

[Mjark]

In our late teens my brother and I had rooms on the third floor of an old farm house. My dad came up and gave us a coil of rope and said if there a fire use this. Okay thanks!

 

[Supertwang]

Going solo hiking in bear country with no safety prep. Seemed like a fine idea at the time.

Been there, done that

 

[1955]

Just how full of it most of the grownups are.

 

[Engine Swap]

Almost everything I ever did on a motorcycle

 

[TelecasterSam]

Some of the sh*t I did when younger, I'm scared to death my grandkids might try.
Also, buying an instrument at an auction and flipping it at a guitar show to make a small profit. I should have hung onto some of them for a couple of years and made a big profit. Same with cars. At least I'm in the same boat with thousands of people my age.

 

[Redheadlvr]

Going solo hiking in bear country with no safety prep. Seemed like a fine idea at the time.

I did the same. Had one come after me in a mock charge.

 

[----RIP----]

At a summer job cleaning student housing in college...

Following the example of my new friends on the job, I took a short-cut up the outdoor stairwell by standing up on the third floor railing, grabbing onto the fourth floor railing (attached to the fourth floor platform) and pulling myself up--nothing but air below (until the first floor sidewalk).

 

[willietheweirdo]

Almost everything I ever did on a motorcycle

Yeah......

Yep.

 

[gimmeatele]

My knees

 

[canteytoque]

Car parked at home is out of gas. No problem, I’ll just take my motorcycle to the service station and bring back some gas.

Let’s see, this old can is missing the screw-on cap...

Eh, it’s the only one I’ve got; I’ll just be careful.

Hmm, now that I’ve got the gas, how am I going to carry the can on the motorcycle? I’ll just let it rest on top of the gas tank and use my elbows to steady it if it slides out of position.

Wow, the can is sliding around more than I thought, I can’t use my elbows as I’d hoped, and the gas is sloshing out of the can. I hope it doesn’t run down onto the hot engine...

Epilogue: I was real lucky to get home without going up in a ball of flame. And real stupid to have done that.

 

[getbent]

For the first 15 years of my life my family had a "wood pile" in the living room. It was stacked up even with the staircase and we used to climb on it as kids. I thought my dad was looking for someone to sell it to--or maybe we were going to get hardwood floors when we could afford it--and I never questioned that or gave it a second thought.

When we moved he must have offloaded it cheap, given it to a trade that was working on the house, or otherwise disposed of it somehow.

Turns out that had been a full cord of Brazilian rosewood! Someone with nothing liquid had given it to him as payment for professional work before I was born. My mom had to have been so mad!!

That's crazy.

my dad did consulting work... he was an ex military inventor and just kind of a jack of all trades. He helped a guy who had a chain of hair salons (this was in the mid 60's) try to save his business... The guy paid him in wigs. We had a garage full of wigs for a year or so... we all had beatle wigs!

Another time a guy with 3 steakhouses wanted my dad's help... he helped them with a bunch of legal stuff and he eventually got paid, but he came home one time super mad that the guy had not paid him in full and he had our station wagon (falcon) chock full of steak sauces...

one of his inventions was the first electronic back up alarm... we had cases of them in a shed. We put them on anything that moved.

He invented this weird helicopter thing that you could program to fly and return... it was awesome... we had cases and cases of them (all in japanese)

lots of stuff like that... then, poof, I'd come home from school and it would all be gone.

 

[burntfrijoles]

Now I drive with shades on even when it's cloudy.