Most Daring/Crazy Thing You've Ever Done

[Rianne]

I was reminiscing my youth the other day. When you're young, nothing seems absurd. When I was 19, a couple of friends were at the Miami airport getting ready to spend spring break in Florida. Looking at the arrivals and departures we saw The Cayman Islands. It felt like an instant decision. We bought tickets and flew to the Cayman's. It was very remote back then, several large banks. I think one resort. Mostly hut like living. We rented a jeep and drove all over. Didn't have much money, but it was enough to rent a room from local resident. We snorkeled among the jelly fish and barracuda. We saw the giant sea turtles in their natural habitat. The crabs were monsters as they creeped along the beach at night. When I got older and married, I developed panic attacks from the big city, Chicago. They're pretty much gone now, but I often wonder if they were my penance for what I did that spring

My mom did not find out until I told her years later. She always wondered where i got that amazing conch shell. She didn't think FL had those anymore.

 

[RetireBy90]

Most daring was when I retired

 

[googily]

Climbing down over three rows of seats at Wimbledon Centre Court to tap Johnny Carson on the shoulder and ask if he had enough pull to make it stop raining.

 

[cbo111]

I did some interesting things on motorcycles in my late teen years. I will not elaborate.

 

[Katsmeow]

It felt like an instant decision. We bought tickets and flew to the Cayman's.

Mine is similar. I was in law school at the University of Texas and it was Mardi Gras week. A friend was talking about wanting to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras so we decided to just leave and go. As far as assets, we had a little money and a gas credit card. We had no reservations and knew no one.

We ended up parking near Tulane and ran into a student who was going to leave town for the week. He offered us his room for free! So we had a place to stay. Anyway, it ended up being a great few days. We met a lot of nice people and even ran into some fellow students.

This is so unlike me. I am incredibly risk averse and that was definitely crazy to do. Our reasoning was that if we couldn't find a free place to stay or ran out of cash we could just drive back to school since we did have that gas credit card.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

A buddy and I were known as the pranksters around school. We did a lot of stuff and *almost* never got caught. Not too long after we graduated, we were sitting around the airport reminiscing about our lost celebrity status and hatched a grand scheme for the BEST PRANK EVER.

So...after some planning and with some help from some friends, we took out his Dad's airplane and flew over our former high school and dumped out a ton of hand written notes disparaging teachers/students/(no one was safe).

Initially we thought we missed (flew over the school as fast and low as possible for the element of surprise) but I got home to a mess load of messages on my answering machine asking if we "made it snow!!!" at the school. Oh, did I mention that the school was an open campus and there were hundreds of students outside during lunch?

Got caught, went to jail (for about 10 minutes) and it almost kept me out of the Air Force. And for the record, even in the early 90's, they could most certainly pull fingerprints off of paper. Who would have thought?!?

These days if you pulled a prank like that, they would throw you under the jail.

 

[COcheesehead]

Started a business with what at the time was most of my life savings.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

#1. Borrowing six figures at age 22 to buy a business. #2 Selling that same business at age 50 to ER.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

#3. Thought of another one. I refinanced my paid for house in 2009 to buy equities. That one worked out, I wouldn't do again now.

 

[CardsFan]

1978, graduated from college. Turned down a nice, safe engineering job in Boston (same company where I had co-oped), to move to the mid-west for a upstart chemical sales company, as a field engineer (they paid way more money, $16k plus bonus vs 13k). On the road 5 days a week. WAAAAY outside my normal comfort zone.

Only stayed there for 3 years (and they closed down about a year after I left), but I gained a huge amount of self confidence, being the face with the client. Also, met DW.

 

[Nemo2]

I once crossed a one way street without looking both ways.

 

[Souschef]

At the age of 21, I left a nice job in Southern California to become an overseas Field Engineer. I drove back to the East Coast for training, then headed out.
My job took me to Japan, Korea, Okinawa and Point Barrow Alaska. My last and best assignment was in Scotland where I got to ride on 2 nuclear submarines.
I l;lived on my per diem, banked my salary, and since I did not have to pay tax on it, made for a nice little starter nest egg.

 

[Car-Guy]

In my mid teens, I "unintentionally", lost control and flipped a car doing well over 100mph (intended) and was thrown out on the first roll over. No seat belts in those days. Car was absolutely demolished but I walked away! Too many crazy things on motorcycles to list here.

 

[RockyMtn]

let's see....I swam right after eating, ran with scissors and never wore a bike helmet. Amazing that I survived.

 

[aja8888]

Married second wife at age 53 with no saving (but employed) and two of my daughters near college age living with us. Divorce wiped me out at 49 and both teenage daughters were handed to me.

New DW and I made it work.

Motorcycles (very early on) - too scary to discuss, but I am typing this with both hands!

 

[Dash man]

I stood up in front of a high school class and taught for a year. That beats my Air Force years flying special operations missions.

 

[imoldernu]

crazy
With three kids under the age of 5, left a good paying job on a moral decision... passed over for a major promotion despite having the best performance in the company. Politics.
Worked for an employment company in Boston in the interim. Minimum pay and no commission.
Three months later, hunted down by first company's major competitor, and hired at more than double my original pay.
.........................................................................................................
daring
Skin diving @ 25 ft. deep off the coast of Maine... first time fishing for lobster. Mask only, no air... Did you ever meet a two pound lobster under a rock... claws a-waving... dark... Swam back to the boat. My buddy... "didja see anything?" My quick answer.. "nope".

Later on, no problem... but that first time...

 

[Music Lover]

In my younger (and more foolish) years I cut down a 70 foot tree with a bow saw by climbing 50 feet up and lopping off a branch off at a time and working my way down. No safety gear or ropes...just a pair of gloves.

 

[erkevin]

Feeding sharks while on a decompression dive in the Blue Hole (Belize). 20 years later, you couldn't pay me to do that again.

 

[Ronstar]

Jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

 

[Nemo2]

Almost answered back to my late wife once - luckily I was in Riyadh and she was in Cairo....and she'd hung up the phone on her end a couple minutes earlier.....but, still..

 

[Nemo2]

Jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

Did that...once.

 

[imoldernu]

Almost answered back to my late wife once - luckily I was in Riyadh and she was in Cairo....and she'd hung up the phone on her end a couple minutes earlier.....but, still..

+1

 

[6miths]

I once crossed a one way street without looking both ways.

In my mid teens, I "unintentionally", lost control and flipped a car doing well over 100mph (intended) and was thrown out on the first roll over. No seat belts in those days. Car was absolutely demolished but I walked away! Too many crazy things on motorcycles to list here.

I like these but a Jack Nicholson line comes quickly to mind...

 

[IMATERP]

Back in 1979 a buddy of mine and I snuck into game #2 of the World Series in Baltimore. We arrived around 3:30 in the afternoon and I wore overalls similar to the custodians. We just walked through the gate. At the end of the game, we drove to BWI airport and got on the Charter plane heading back to Pittsburgh. Again, we acted like we were supposed to be on the plane and sat in the back next to Kent Tekulve. When we arrived in Pittsburgh airport, we disclosed that we had $2 to our name and a car in the BWI parking lot which we were not going to be able to get out. Anyway, we were escorted off the plane and a member of the Pirates Administrative staff purchased breakfast for us and made arrangements to get back to Baltimore on an Allegheny commercial flight. My late teens and 20’s were filled with quite a few J.D. Salinger moments (Catcher in the Rye.)