The following true stories were sent to us by readers all over the world. How about you? Have you ever done anything dopey? Of course you have, we all have. Send your story to us. We'll post it on this page and we promise we'll all be laughing with you, not at you.

Seemed like a good idea at the time

Our friend Jim was driving home from work one day. Up ahead he noticed the Ohio Highway Patrol was performing vehicle safety inspections. These inspections usually aren't voluntary - a trooper stands out in the highway and waves people into the parking lot. This particular session, for some reason, was voluntary. You didn't have to stop unless you wanted to. Jim looked at his windshield inspection sticker and noticed that it was about to expire in a few weeks. Jim figured he may as well pull in and get the inspection out of the way.

Jim pulled into the lot and his car passed the inspection with flying colors. As the final step in the inspection, the troopers always ask to see your driver's license. Jim pulled his license out of his wallet and handed it to the trooper.

"Sir, are you aware your license expired three months ago?"

Whoops. Jim had forgotten that his driver's license expired that year on his birthday.

The trooper wrote him a ticket - for $75.

 

Charles dunks his tractors

About twenty years ago our friend Charles was mowing the back yard. He got off his lawn tractor to pick up some branches and twigs. Unfortunately for him, he left the tractor in neutral and it backed into the pond. It ended up under about six feet of water. After muttering a few syllables that aren't fit to print here, our friend went to the barn and retrieved his full-sized John Deere.

He drove up to the edge of the pond and stopped. He got off and began attaching a cable to the John Deere's trailer hitch. He didn't have time to fasten it securely because . . . you guessed it . . . he left the Deere in neutral and it too backed into the pond.

He had to call a tow truck to get both tractors out of the pond.

Our friend Alice is a very deep sleeper and it takes her awhile to wake up. One night she fell asleep watching TV in bed. She woke up about 2:00 a.m., right in the middle of an old movie. In the movie, two burglars were on the roof of someone's house trying to break in. Alice, still half asleep, saw the burglars on the TV screen, thought they were breaking into her house and dialed 911. It took her a couple of minutes to come out of her state of being half awake, half asleep and realize what she'd done. Horrified, she called 911 and told them it as all a mistke.

"I'm sorry," said the dispatcher. "The police are on their way."

Sure enough, a few minutes later the police were downstairs ringing her doorbell. An embarrassed Alice answered the door and apologized to the two officers for wasting their time. The police walked back to their car, shaking their heads and a mortified Alice went back to bed. 

One day, at the premier of a golf classic, I was at a bar looking at all the celebrities that arrived. I saw Alex Trebek from Jeopardy approaching. I was goaded, (or should I say dared?) by my friends to go ask for an autograph. So I did. I walked up to him and said, "Mr. Martindale, may I have your autograph?"

He looked at me strangely and was, I think, a little put off. But being a gentleman, he gave me the autograph. I walked back to my friends and smugly showed it to them. They looked at the signature and immediately began laughing.

I looked down and read, "To a Fan", signed, Wink Martindale.

I was so embarrassed. I knew he was Alex Trebek, but I just drew a blank and said the wrong name. I ran after him and, needless to say, he was a bit perturbed. I begged for another autograph but Mr. Trebek just smiled and kept walking. I have never lived it down or forgotten how idiotic I was.

Chip-a-who?

My wife is of Indian (Native American) descent, although several generations removed. One day, while mentioning this fact, someone asked her to which tribe her ancestor belonged. She stated, "I think it was the Chipahoi" (say it to yourself....Chip Ahoy). We all had a great laugh. My daughter asked her if the Chipahoi were the ones who lived in hollow trees and baked cookies.

Ducks in every room?

Back in the late 1970's I did telemarketing for a heating and air conditioning company in Charlotte, NC. My job was to call prospective customers to see if they had central heat and air conditioning. If they didn't then my job was to set up an appointment with them to have a salesperson come out and see how much it would cost to install central heat or air. One of the questions I had to ask to determine if they had central heat and air was if they had ducts in every room. So, I was talking with a nice man one morning and I asked him if he had ducts in every room.

He says, "NO, but I have chickens in the backyard!"

Cut and Paste?

My boss isn't very computer oriented and regularly has to ask what I consider stupid questions, but this takes the biscuit.

Whilst working in Excel he needed to transfer some data to another page. He phoned another manager to see how he was supposed to do this and the manager naturally said, "the easiest way is to cut and paste." My boss responded with, "I've got the scissors whose got the glue."

Time for a garage sale?

While searching for something in my garage, which was full of junk, I stepped on a rake. It thumped me a good one on the forehead. As I stepped back in agony, I stepped on another rake behind me. Now I had a lump on my forehead and a second lump on the back of my head. I was rubbing the front of my head and the back of my head at the same time. As I walked out of the garage, I tripped over the step and fell on one of the dogs.

Dopey computer user

I run the technical support department for a medical provider in a large city in the US. One of my users at a remote site had a monitor that was getting blurry. Being a nice guy, and wanting to give my users the best possible equipment, I gave her a brand new monitor.

About a week went by, and I got a voice mail from this user, stating ever since I swapped her monitor, that she cannot find her files, and would I please retrieve her files from her old monitor and put them on her new one.

I had to call my entire IT staff over for the airing of this voicemail.

We still laugh about it.

Dopey pizza customer leaves brain at home

About a year ago I was asked by my cousin to be an assisstant manager at the pizza shop he owned. I agreed and everything was great. I loved the stories the other employees would tell me of stupid customers they'd gotten. Then one day I got my very first stupid customer.

It was a busy night and a man called to place his order. He'd ordered two large pizzas for pick up which was strange as we usually did mostly deliveries. He came to pick up his pizzas and left.

About twenty minutes later he called back and cussed me out saying we'd not given him his pizzas. I apologized figuring maybe one of my employees had picked it up and delievered it to someone else by accident. I told the man we would make him two fresh pizzas give him a coupon for two more free pizzas and deliver them at no cost. He agreed to everything but said he'd come back and get them as he had to go to the grocery store anyway.

When he pulled into the lot the entire store started laughing. I looked out and there on his roof were the two pizzas. Apparently he'd left them on the roof of his car. But the upset man still hadn't noticed them even after getting back in the car and driving back to the resturant. He came in and argued with us about wanting special toppings on his new pizzas and he also wanted free drinks.

It was only after he said he was going to report all of us to the owner that we pointed out his pizzas were on the roof of his car. He got very sheepish after that, took his new pizzas and left.

To this day he hasn't called in another order.

The self-powering power strip

I work for Xerox doing technical support and I have to tell you about this call I had. This lady calls in and says she has no power to her scanner or fax machine or her PC. I asked her if she had checked the power cords and everything and she said yes.

She then advised me that she went out and bought one of those power strips and plugged everything into it.

I asked her where she had plugged the power strip in and she said she plugged it into one of the open outlets on the power strip. She had plugged the power strip into itself.

Where are my sunglasses?

I went to pick up my granddaughter and her friends from school. While I was sitting in the car waiting for them, I pushed my sunglasses up on my head and put on my reading glasses to read the book I'd brought with me. The kids came out and I started to drive home. But I couldn't find my sunglasses.

I looked all over the inside of the car, asking them if they'd seen my sunglasses. They all said no. It wasn't til I got home that I realized that they were still on top of my head and had been there all the time.

No room for a goat

I had my second child and he was having problems with the milk. The doctors found him to be allergic to the sugar that was in formula. Was told that he would have to drink goats milk. I replied, "Oh my god, we live in an apartment and can't have a goat and can't afford to move to a house. What are we going to do?"

The doctor was polite and told me that it came in cans at the grocery store, and I could find it with the other canned milk.

Nah, they celebrate it in England too.

One year in Louisiana, just after leaving our favorite fireworks stand on the Fourth of July, my beautiful 16 year old son lifts his head from a big bag of fire crackers, looks directly at me and says, "Wow dad, did you know we are the only country that celebrates the Fourth of July?"

Horses and fast food

A few years ago I gave tours on horseback in California.

After work one night all the guides decided to ride to the local fast food resturaunt - on horseback. Figuring that we couldn't leave the horses unattended, we decided to go through the drive-thru. We rode up to the menu board and gave our orders. We were told to proceed to the window. You can imagine the look on that poor kid's face as he sees six men on horseback.

The young employee proceeds to tell us that since we are not in a vehicle he cannot serve us. We told him that horses are indeed vehicles and that we wanted our food. He replied he would have to consult his manager. His manager comes to the window and begins to ask what the problem is but, before he finishes the question, he already knows the answer.

The manager simply states "horses are vehicles" and walks away laughing hysterically.

The next day we decided to go back and try again and, upon our arrival, we saw a sign on the menu board reading, "Horses Welcome!"

Two birds with one stone

About ten years ago, I was mowing the grass for my mother-in-law and ran out of gas in the push mower. I got into her shed, knowing that she keeps extra gas in milk jugs. I picked up a jug and dumped it into the mower. I started the mower and continued to mow the rest of the lawn. I noticed that the mower was smoking like crazy and smelled really bad. When I told her this, she went out to look at the mower and in the process, picked up the jug I had emptied.

She looked at the jug and said, "What did you do, put my bug spray in the mower?"

Then I realized why I had not been bitten by mosquitoes while I was mowing. The mower ran fine, other than the smoking. She was not plagued with mosquitoes for quite a while after that, and jokingly asked me every now and then to mow her yard with bug spray.

We'll just pour in this additive here and . . .

I recently had a problem with getting my car to pass the emissions test. I worked on changing all filters, pcv valve, oil change, and adding a recommended additive to the gas to clean out the carb and fuel system. This stuff was supposedly so good that I would have to change the plugs after driving 50-60 miles.

I did this and by the time I had driven 50 miles the car would hardly run. I figured the plugs were pretty fouled and changed them. The car ran no better so I checked further and found a vacuum line disconnected. It ran great after re-connecting it and I went to have it checked again.

It failed worse than the first time. I figured that the stuff I added to the gas was still there and causing the bad readings. I drained all the gas from the tank and let the car idle until the gas in the line was gone so that I had an empty fuel system.

I then emptied a 0ne gallon can of gas into the tank. I had been saving this can that I found in the garage, for use in the lawn mower. I started the car with some difficulty and drove to the gas station to put more gas in the car. It would hardly run and I drove around the block and back home.

I went over the engine and could not figure out why it was running worse than it ever had before.

The next day it hit me...the gallon can of gas was not gas but diesel fuel that I had bought a year earlier to clean a model engine after it had crashed.!

My wife had commented that the car smoked more than any she had ever seen...no wonder!

Peek-a-boo! I see you!

One day a couple of friends and I decided to go to Wal-Mart where one of my friends worked. We were just window shopping and talking to people we knew. Our friend had to go to the bathroom and so we went in with her and decided to play a little trick by hiding in the stalls so she couldn't find us. She found me right off but she couldn't find our other friend. I knew where she was. Well, my friend claimed she saw her so she went to jump over the stall. As she did she yelled, "I found you!"

Wrong stall.

When she looked over she saw a customer sitting there. The customer said, "EXCUSE YOU!"

My friends and I were so embarassed we ran out of the restroom and all the way to the shoe aisle.

Disorder in the court

When I was about 16, my friend and I got a ticket at the local fast food restaurant for loitering.  Since we felt we hadn't done anything wrong, we decided that we wanted to fight the ticket.  About two months later our court date came up and, while we were at the courthouse, we wanted to sit in on another proceeding so we could get the feel of being inside a courtroom. 

We peered through the window of the courtroom and spotted to empty seats in the back of the courtroom.  So we opened the door and squeezed our way past a couple of people to the empty seats.  That's when it happened---everything got quiet.  The lawyer stopped talking and all eyes were on us.  It wasn't until the Bailiff came over and told us that we realized what the problem was----we had made our way to the jury box!

These are the fax as I see them . . .

I had given one of the clerks in our Human Resources department a stack of reports that need to be faxed to several banks.  I explained to her that the fax sheets had the correct fax number and all that she had to do was fax each report to that number and that I would check the fax the following day for responses.  To my surprise, all of the banks had responded back by the end of the afternoon.  After careful examination, I realized that I had not received the responses back, I had received the ACTUAL FAXES.  The clerk had faxed the 50 reports to the same fax number, OURS!

I'll get that snow off the car! 

One evening during a snow storm I was looking out the window for my husband to come home. Out of nowhere, there he was - flying down the road. I thought to myself, "where in the heck is he going in such a hurry?"

Well, after waiting a good half hour he finally walked in the front door - out of breath and freezing cold.

"Where did you go?" I asked.

"Well," he replied, "I wanted to get the snow off the car so I drove it as fast as I could to the end of the road and ended up putting it in a ditch."

 

Infield fly rule? 

I was once playing second base in little league when the coach yelled at me to zip up my pants. I told my older brother about it later and he explained to me that it was because of the infield fly rule. It was two years later before I knew any better. I got even by squirting shaving cream in his shoes.

Your luggage is here even if you're not!

I was in an airport with my mom and sister while my dad was getting the car. An airline person came on the loud speaker. "For those passengers who have not yet arrived, your luggage may have arrived before you."

We all burst into laughter. I would like to know just who they were talking to!

Ever have a day like this?

While at work one day my utility knife blade became dull. I was looking in my pouch for a screwdriver and it was not to be found. I got the idea to use the broad side of my utility knife as a screwdriver which I had done before. Nowhere was my knife to be found. And then it dawned on me - my knife was in my left hand.

A plumbing we will go

My mother-in-law's kitchen sink started leaking one day. So she and my husband decided they would try to fix it, instead of calling a plumber, therefore saving them some money. Well, my husband was underneath the sink taking it apart. He had taken off an elbow pipe from the sink, which had water in it. He then handed it to his mother and told her to dump out the water in it. She did - right into the kitchen sink!

Needless to say, my husband ended up with a wet head.

An expensive lesson about remote door locks

A co-worker, who shall remain anonymous, called in one morning saying he would be late because he had locked his keys in the car. It wasn't until he got to work that we got the whole story.

It was a cold morning and he had decided to warm up his car. So he started his car and went back up to his apartment. Since he didn't want his car stolen, he took the remote locking device off the key chain and locked the doors, with the key in the ignition and the engine running.  When he came back down, the remote wouldn't unlock the doors. Thinking his batteries were dead, he called a locksmith to unlock his car. The locksmith then had the privilege of explaining to him one of the security features of remote locks - they disable themselves when the engine is running. A very expensive lesson indeed!

Stuck on an escalator

A friend and I were on a department store escalator one day, going from the second floor to the first. I jokingly told her I hated escalators.

"Really," she asked. "Why would you hate escalators?"

"I was on an escalator one day when the electricity went out. I was stranded between floors for three hours," I replied, trying hard to keep a straight face.

"Oh, that's terrible!" she said. "I can see why you don't like escalators!"

Love those automatic door locks!

Several years ago my sister pulled up to the busiest intersection in town just as her wipers became fouled with ice and snow. When she got out to clear them, she automatically locked her doors. When the police arrived to open the door, there was a quarter mile back up behind her.

Got Laundry?

Many moons ago, in the year 4 B.K. (Before Kids), my wife had to go to New Jersey to help her recently widowed father (we live in Maryland.) I was in charge of myself for a week. Laundry time came. I knew that the soap powder was white. I looked around and found a jar of white powder, which I threw into the wash. When I called her that night and told her that I had done the wash, she was proud. It was only at the end of the week when she came back that I found out that I had used powdered milk! The clothes came out great, though.

Mom locks herself out of car

Early one Easter morning my toddler son and I took my husband to work. On the way home we stopped off to get gas. I got out, shut the door, filled up the car, and went inside to pay, leaving my son in the car. I came out to get back in the car and realized the doors were locked with the keys and my son inside.

I tried to get my young son to push the button to unlock the door but he just waved and laughed at me not really understanding what was going on.

After several unsuccessful attempts to get him to understand me, I finally had to call my husband to come unlock the door.

There's something wrong with this fax machine

I once asked a coworker in another building to fax me a piece of information I needed and he said the clerk was gone but he would try.

After receiving 6 copies of the same document I called and asked what he was doing. He explained that the paper kept coming out the other end of the fax machine.