Skip to main content

TIFU by eating beef jerky

Post a Comment

TIFU by pushing a car, crashing and almost k*lling myself

My mom's car has a gearbox issue whereby it does not reverse properly. This has led to a few awkward situations like pushing it uphill out of driveways and my mom driving forwards over concrete dividers because she couldn't reverse out of a car spot. However, while these situations are slightly annoying, I have never learned my lesson in a way more dangerous to property and lives, or as expensive as my fuckup today.

For context, I (22M) live with my parents and our house is at the top of a court. My girlfriend was heading home for the night, but she was parked in my mom's spot at the top of the steep portion of the driveway, and my mom had blocked her in, parking at the relatively flat section at the end of the driveway. No biggie - let's go swap the cars. I try to reverse mom's car and it just revs, doesn't move. Usually she needs to park on the incline and let gravity get it going, but she had parked with the back wheels firmly in the gutter.

Being young, naive and inexperienced, I have only ever had to push a broken down car once and the person I was with opened the window and steered from the outside. The crucial difference, and the heart of this fuckup, is that that was pushing forwards on a flat section of road, not reversing downhill. Nonetheless, recalling this experience, I said "Let's give it a push," to which my girlfriend responded "Do we need to go get help?" Severely underestimating the laws of physics and overestimating my ability to steer a car backwards through the window downhill, I responded, "No, I'll just turn it and it should stop moving when it goes sideways since it won't be facing downhill."

So I stick it in neutral, open the window, and get out. We give it a few pushes to build momentum and get the back wheels out of the gutter. We get it moving pretty easily and now is my time to steer. While I AM able to turn the wheel, I am NOT able to lock it out fully sideways, and the car continues down the hill on just a slight angle, picking up more and more speed. It is now heading towards a neighbour's house.

I try to correct the steering back towards the middle of the road (What was the plan here, asshole? Steer it all the way down the hill into a nature reserve? A house?) But I over-correct, straight into my neighbor's parked car on the other side. There is a tremendous BANG and pieces of metal and plastic go flying. The neighbor, bless him, comes out in his pajamas and is more concerned that I am OK. He tells me to get some sleep and we'll figure out insurance in the morning.

Looking back, I don't know WHAT I was thinking not having anyone in the car controlling it to hit the brakes, or at least pushing it from inside the door where I could hit the E-brake. Luckily no one was hurt, I didn't run myself over and the car didn't end up going through someone's house. Insurance will take care of it, and I will be taking full responsibility.

TLDR: pushed my mom's car downhill into a neighbor's car.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TIFU By Fumbling My Gym Crush

I've never posted on Reddit before so apologies if anything is off. I (F) had a crush on a man at my gym for months. We would make extended eye contact frequently, workout in proximity, the usual gym things that get over analyzed when you like someone. He's wildly handsome, but I liked his vibe. A lot. It's hard to explain when someone's energy just hits different but his did. One day he started coming in with a woman. The day I saw her with him, he and I actually stared at each other from across the room for a while, and I turned and walked away because obviously gym rules - that's his girlfriend until I'm told otherwise. The eye contact continues and so does the proximity but I've dialed back completely because in my head, he has a girl and I am no home wrecker. Well, recently, on a Sunday, I was having a real shit day. I accidentally hurt my shoulder so my back day was all off, my body wasn't cooperating, the gym was packed - all I wanted to do w...
Post a Comment
Read more

TIFU by getting called racist for not handing cash to a customer

today I (F18) fucked up by worked a long ahh shift and got put on register. I never hand money in people’s hands as customers have yelled at me for it, and i think it’s germy so I scoot it towards them as a sign of respect. this lady came in and after i did that she goes “Imma need you to do that again and put it in my hand, you did this last time too don’t you know it’s disrespectful” (meanwhile i haven’t worked register in 2 months at said job and didn’t recognize her) so i apologize, and then cuz it’s call off time i go talk to my boss about it and they all agree with me. apparently though she told my keyholder who’s a poc i was being RACIST by not touching her. so i got told i need to do better even though i didn’t do anything. she was insinuating i was a racist. idk if i should quit or what but i fucked up. TL;DR: i’m a dumbass
Post a Comment
Read more

TIFU by making a joke that landed horribly

I was talking to someone and thought I was being funny, but the second the words left my mouth I knew I had messed up. It was one of those jokes that sounds fine in your head and then just dies completely in real life. Nobody laughed, the mood got awkward instantly, and I could feel my face getting hot because I knew I had just made everything weird for no reason. What made it worse is that I tried to recover from it instead of just shutting up. So then I started talking more, which only made it more obvious that I was panicking. You know that feeling when you can hear yourself getting worse while it’s happening and you still can’t stop? yeah, that was me. I kept trying to act normal, but the whole thing was already gone. After that I just wanted to disappear and pretend it never happened. I’m still thinking about it way more than I should, which somehow makes it even more embarrassing. I really should have just kept my mouth shut for once. TL;DR: I tried to be funny and the joke...
Post a Comment
Read more