this post was submitted on
333 points (70% like it)
568 up votes 235 down votes
top 200 commentsshow 500

[–]CaptainTaters 176 points177 points ago

I ruined a $3200.00 laptop in a yawning accident.

I was pulling a late night developing some code for an impending deadline. I throw my hands back to yawn and raise them over my head (Steve Holt!), but my right hand came right down on this crappy cup. It was filled to the top with hot, sugar-filled coffe and it completely ruined the laptop.

I took the whole thing apart and tried to clean it, but it never turned on again.

[–]aliceFTW 75 points76 points ago*

Happened to me last week, actually, with a $2000 MacBook Pro + a cup of hot tea. I got really panicked and grabbed my iPod and posted on asked r/computers what I should do.

A few days later I turned it back on after it dried completely + it works fine. The keys are a little sticky, but what're you gonna do.

Edit: The post minutes after it happened.

[–]Gag_Halfrunt 98 points99 points ago

what're you gonna do.

Wipe them with a damp cloth?

[–]aliceFTW 77 points78 points ago

I think you misunderstood me. The keys themselves are not sticky to the touch. They stick when I type because of the dried tea resin.

So now it makes a clacky noise when I type. It's like shlick, shlick, shlick as I'm writing this.

[–]Gag_Halfrunt 149 points150 points ago

Why do get the feeling like I'm obligated to make a joke about female masturbation right now?

[–]aliceFTW 45 points46 points ago

...go ahead, if you must.

[–]susrev 3 points4 points ago

No, it's okay, he already blew that load by hinting at it.

[–]Woot45 13 points14 points ago

You could pop the keys off and clean them with a damp cloth.

[–]99999999199999 11 points12 points ago

rubbing alcohol works wonders here. You can clean a surprising amount of gunk from a keyboard by putting it upside down and spraying alcohol into the keyboard (while it's off, obviously). If that doesn't fix it, remove the keys.

[–]Rage_Comic_Guy 14 points15 points ago

i totally imagined that you were on a boat.

[–]PBandJs4days 465 points466 points ago

My friend put a Dodge Viper that wasn't his through half a vineyard that wasn't his either.

[–]lemmiwinkles 481 points482 points ago

Seems like he had nothing to worry about then.

[–]VisualBasic 136 points137 points ago

=Walks away=

Problem solved!

[–]ViperRT10Matt 126 points127 points ago*

The statistic I've heard is that 30% of Vipers ever produced have been totaled. Torque from a gigantic V10 - traction control = doom for drivers who get cocky with them.

There are stories of people literally crashing them as they were driving them off the dealers lot.

[–]gatorb888 30 points31 points ago

I used to drive these things at a dealership all the time. I can attest to the amount of torque and no traction control. I almost wrecked one myself.

[–]AmbroseB 47 points48 points ago

You're assuming it wasn't intentional.

[–]rotarded 19 points20 points ago

I don't know how they sell things like that to your average bonehead driver that will want to floor a fast car with no understanding of physics.

[–]StatusCrow 64 points65 points ago

Because America? Because if someone has the money (or the credit) to buy something, someone will sell it to them.

[–]rotarded 7 points8 points ago

in some cases, you don't need the credit either.

[–]pooptits69 3 points4 points ago

agreed, so many videos on youtube of Viper crashes and if I remember correctly the earlier models didn't have ABS. . the name suits it perfectly

[–]10000gildedcranes 86 points87 points ago

Did the insurance itemize each grape?

[–]Rizak 111 points112 points ago

Actually, they kind of do. I live in a small city that's known for grapes and taking out even 1 grapevine could cost you $30,000-40,000. I have no idea how they calculate that but it's what I have heard.

[–]10000gildedcranes 90 points91 points ago

Goddamn.

[–]catnipassian 24 points25 points ago

Mother of god, he must be the poorest man in the universe.

[–]LiamNeesonAteMyBaby 30 points31 points ago

That would be for the life of the plant. You're not getting anywhere near a thousand bucks worth of fruit off a single vine, let alone thirty.

[–]gngstrMNKY 24 points25 points ago

Although it's a subject of debate, it's commonly believed that older vines produce better wine, so their age may have factored into the valuation.

[–]curethiscancer 50 points51 points ago

Buddy of mine used to repo for a luxury car dealership. Watched him roll a baby blue Bentley onto it's side. He was driving it up the ramp into the trailer and i guess zigged when he should have zagged. The Bentley's front passenger wheel drove off the side and the car went over the side and rolled onto it's roof. I stopped laughing when i saw the look on his face.

[–]kdawggg 16 points17 points ago

Was the car okay???

[–]MyCatLikesChicken 201 points202 points ago

parked a truck in the dealerships parking lot; didn't put it in park, got out. Truck rolled downhill into two seven series beamers...

[–]tambrico 65 points66 points ago

nice

[–]YMlovesYOU 20 points21 points ago

Oh...shit. Did you have to cover all the costs? Did insurance help at all?

[–]MyCatLikesChicken 55 points56 points ago

It was truly terrible. I was a student at the time. On my moms insurance still. Single. Male. Young. My insurance is still astronomically high and I'm thirty now. My mom LOVES to bring it up whenever I complain about my car.

[–]charlemagne_the_cat 48 points49 points ago

i too like chicken

[–]LostCrow 3 points4 points ago

Was it any cost to you?

[–]Merytz 56 points57 points ago

I broke a lock to a major building once.

I didnt tell anyone and they thought that someone had stolen a master key when anyone could get through the door. They changed EVERY lock in the 10 story building.

100,000$

[–]ProfShea[S] 3 points4 points ago

How do you break a lock?

[–]ringringbananalone 7 points8 points ago

Sometimes a tooth can break off the key, wedging it open. Or with electronic ones, the sensor can be jammed permanently on.

[–]Luftwaffle88 143 points144 points ago

Accidentally picked up a Silicon wafer at work without wearing any electroshock protective gear. they tested it and turns out that I did end up screwing it up. had to scrap it.

Cost: $45K

for those that dont know. A silicon wafer is a circular disc the size of a cd disc that is cut up into little pieces. Each of those little pieces are half the size of a thumbnail and used to build microprocessors and such.

They now have my picture in the lab. It says "Dont be like Luftwaffle88, ALWAYS wear protective gear"

[–]EsquireKing 44 points45 points ago

Replace protective gear with extra large condoms and see who notices

[–]CHEMO_ALIEN 86 points87 points ago

And a picture of you shrugging while standing next to a class of kindergarteners

[–]Kirkenjerk 18 points19 points ago*

Did the same thing. I used to work at Intel NanoTech in NY. Forgot to put my gloves on....

Around 37k for the disc. Changed careers as that ones was too stressful.

[–]roostercogburn 8 points9 points ago

I did this at Take Your Son To Work Day when I was much younger. They had just shown us a preview of the Dural (later became the Dreamcast), we went over by the clean rooms and they brought one of the wafers out and I just had to touch it.

[–]anti-hipster 7 points8 points ago

Some guy in one of our fabs knocked an entire box of 12 ready-to-ship 9" wafers off of a shelf or something.

That was a lot of money.

[–]byrel 4 points5 points ago

i dropped 3 full trays worth of prototypes once, about $300k laying in little shattered pieces on the floor :(

[–]ilovetatortots 267 points268 points ago

A Boeing 737. They dont take kindly to having their nose gear almost twisted off.

[–]Dead_Rooster 137 points138 points ago

I demand the full story.

[–]ilovetatortots 194 points195 points ago*

I used to work for a US domestic airline out of BWI (Baltimore) and we we're having one of the Mid-Atlantic's typical ice storms. There must of been at least a half a foot of slush/snow mixture on the ground with about an inch of ice sheeted on top. The airport was shutdown due to the ice (the ice was accumulating on the aircraft faster then we could deice the off) but in the disaster that was our operation before we shut down we had a bird (airplane) on another airlines gate. So in the down time I was tasked to reposition the bird to one of our gates. No biggie. I got on my push-back (truck that pushes/pulls planes) and hooked it up to the bird. The guys up top released the breaks and said I was good to go. I hit the gas, nothing. Wheels just spinning. I kick it in reverse I grabbed just enough to move us, so I used the forward motion rolling back into the divit where the wheels were originally and kicked it into drive and off we went. Everything is going normal I push the bird back and to the left, out of the gate and onto the taxiway. I stop, kick into reverse and off we go towards out gate. Now im driving backwards. Normal procedure. Wheels spinning, im swerving a bit due to all the slush and snow (the clean up equipment is solely focused on the runways because of arriving international flights that couldn't divert to another airport. They havent even touched the taxiways at this point) but we have a good pace going. All of a sudden I hear the maintenance guy that's sitting in the cockpit say "uhh...I think we're about to cross paths." I squint through the ice and snow and see a few blinking lights. I thought is was the runway markers. Nope. A private Cessna got lost on the taxiways. The snow and ice covered all markers and he turned off too soon right into my path with a 737. Needless to say in my panic I slam on the breaks. I slide just a bit and start swerving to the left. The bird im towing also slides, but with the towbar between us goes right. the forward momentum on the ice carried the bird past me on the right, further pivoting me left and eventually my left shoulder is almost parellel the the right side of the plane. I was only a foot away from being under the bird. Luckily the pushback didn't make contact with the bird and puncture the fuselage. That would of made things a lot worse.

Yes, the sheer pins on the towbar snapped as they should, and yes the owner of the Cessna paid for some if not all of the damages. No I didn't get in any trouble. Yes I almost pooped myself.

TL;DR: Planes dont stop well in the snow when being towed.

[–]An_Octopus 33 points34 points ago

A Boeing 737. They dont take kindly to having their nose gear almost twisted off.

I used to work for a US domestic airline

I Can't believe they let you go.

[–]Project973 76 points77 points ago

No I didn't get in any trouble. Yes I almost pooped myself.

They didn't let him go, but he did almost poop himself.

[–]marcins 22 points23 points ago

And then years later when he went back to school to get a degree...

[–]ilovetatortots 8 points9 points ago

I am trying new things. I did well in that industry and as I said above was successful. I want to take what I learned, and the experiences gained and focus that on a new line of work.

[–]Michichael 40 points41 points ago

IT here,

This story is confidential property of Boeing Corporation or its subsidiaries. Sorry folks.

[–]darkdude893 57 points58 points ago

Bam! Reddit goes down.

Fuck SOPA

[–]s4g4n 7 points8 points ago

I'M LISTENING...

[–]Richardchambuhs 125 points126 points ago

I dropped a 400 dollar acoustic guitar after playing two solo songs at church. The neck popped off of the body and all I did was return to the Mic, say "Rock and Roll" completely calmly, and walk off stage. Take that, congregation.

[–]PostPostModernism 52 points53 points ago

Well, 400 isn't much as far as guitars go, but well handled I do say.

[–]homewrddeer 19 points20 points ago

not bad, 400 is relatively cheap for a guitar

[–]country_hacker 3 points4 points ago

Repair shops can fix that pretty easily, my buddy had a similar quality guitar slide down the table he left it leaning against and broke the neck off. Local Guitar Center fixed it up good as new.

[–]edo5019 138 points139 points ago

5th grade. Needed a pen. Took one from my dad's desk. Broke it. Turns out it was an $8,000 pen he got as a gift.

[–]curethiscancer 104 points105 points ago

What kind of pen costs eight grand? Shit.

[–]makeinstall 17 points18 points ago

Mont Blancs can easily get very expensive

[–]Hellstruelight 47 points48 points ago

Here are some expensive ones.

the one just under 1.5mil might be worth noting.

[–]xander787 104 points105 points ago

For 1.5 million, this better be like a magic pen where whatever you draw comes to life

[–]mecharedneck 87 points88 points ago

That didn't go well for SpongeBob.

[–]Spudnik123 10 points11 points ago

And yet it went fantastically for Rudy. I'd say it's worth the risk.

[–]BString 13 points14 points ago

How do you break a pen? Shit.

[–]Adiuvo 12 points13 points ago

Since it cost that much, it was probably a fountain pen. Most people are used to pushing down on the paper due to ballpoint pens but if you do that to a fountain pen the nib springs.

[–]benrama 16 points17 points ago

What kind of pen that you can easily break and is not made out of diamonds costs 8 grand? Shit.

FTFY

[–]BuddhaBoost 196 points197 points ago

The condom......

[–]MasterBurd 45 points46 points ago

The kid will find this thread ten years later.

And then he will know.

[–]m4nu 37 points38 points ago

A rear ended a Ferrari once. I don't how expensive it turned out for the poor guy, but it looked bad.

[–]ubermorph 18 points19 points ago

You mean, how it expensive it was for your insurance.. right? right?

[–]m4nu 52 points53 points ago

Nah, he cut me off in heavy traffic while I was in his blind spot, and it caused an accident at an intersection. Thankfully other drivers managed to avoid it. I didn't have to pay a cent.

He did, though. Poor bastard got out of the car and looked genuinely upset that he had survived it.

[–]RBeck 4 points5 points ago

Many serious cars have really bad visibility rearwards.

[–]curethiscancer 7 points8 points ago

For whatever reason guys around Joliet Illinois that own a Ferrari/Lamborghini decide the thing to do is park them in the mall parking lot to show off. I don't know if a mall parking lot would be a place i drove in with a $200,00.00 car. I freak out about dents and dings with my '03 Impala......i would probably have a heart attack over a Ferrari.

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]Krutonman 127 points128 points ago

When I get my own place I'm going to get a bunch of cheap vases and statues to put out when people bring their kids over. Then when they break it I can flip the fuck out for very little investment

[–]mrwadia 77 points78 points ago

Have them made of material that shatters very powdery and fine, rig them with pyrotechnic squibs, so if they fall they explode and coat everything in a film of powder. Then, if they offer to pay, tell them not to worry, you can super glue that sucker, no problem.

For extra credit: Have duplicates ready and later pretend that you 'fixed it'

[–]ok_you_win 32 points33 points ago

Please write a book on trolling.

[–]brycedriesenga 9 points10 points ago

And they all must be placed upon shoddily built shelves and tables.

[–]Belruel 26 points27 points ago

That is heartbreaking, but honestly now, that is why you child proof your home! Terrible way to learn that lesson the hard way.

[–]brycedriesenga 49 points50 points ago

Exactly. My home is set up so good that no child would ever get in. The detector would get 'em immediately and the lasers would surely obliterate them.

[–]preguica88 122 points123 points ago

Not me, but I witnessed this happen.

January 2007, my friend had just started to date a guy. We all went over to his place for lunch and to enjoy the gigantic, obscenely large, thousands and thousand of dollars kind of flat screen TV his family had just gotten over the holidays, and to play a game of Wii, which someone in the house had also gotten for Christmas. My friend was a classic blonde, when someone told her to put the wiimote strap around her wrist she said "Well I'm not gonna take it with me when I go!"

Plays Wii baseball, first up, throws the controller with all her force into the tv, shattering the screen.

Dude blamed it on his little brother. They stayed together for two more years with that secret.

[–]Sloowpoke3 153 points154 points ago

what a fucking douchebag! Why protect her?!

ITS CALLED RESPONSIBILITY PEOPLE!

[–]WhatDidYouSayToMe 70 points71 points ago

She was probably hot. And she was blonde.

[–]Spike_Spiegel 80 points81 points ago

She could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.

[–]Johnny_Hooker 20 points21 points ago

TIL Jenny McCarthy plays Wii

[–]finalremix 25 points26 points ago

Yeah, but she says it causes autism.

[–]artificiallyvain 171 points172 points ago*

In high school I went to a house party for halloween dressed in a fat suit with a mullet wig. The house was a frickin mansion, immaculately decorated. Alcohol was consumed. I then decided to try to slide down the length of the hallway on my fat-suit belly. I slid right into a bouquet of glass lilies blown by none other than Dale fucking Chihuly.

this little thing is worth $25,000, so I'm guessing the bouquet that I shattered was at least $100,000.

EDIT to add assumed cost of bouquet.

[–]rotarded 43 points44 points ago

one art, please!

[–]hansn 65 points66 points ago

If it makes you feel any better, he's tremendously overrated--an empty suit.

...Glass was still really expensive.

[–]tildo 13 points14 points ago

Meh, I've seen a lot of his stuff IRL and I think it's beautiful.

[–]artificiallyvain 43 points44 points ago

Yes I've heard that all of his art is blown by apprentices and he's a total ass (still expensive). Needless to say, I was asked to leave the party.

[–]Lokkur 27 points28 points ago

His glass is blown by apprentices as he's no longer able to do so himself due to a combination of blindness in one eye and an injury to one of his shoulders. I have no idea about his personality, but I rather like the pieces that he makes though I'd never be able to afford one (or have the desire to pay such prices no matter how pretty they are).

[–]redrum00 63 points64 points ago

my c6 vertebrae. that one was $150,000. luckily insurance had my back. so, dodged a bullet there. But, didn't quite dodge that car that nailed me on my bike:)

[–]xenarian 55 points56 points ago

I see what you did there. "Insurance had my back." Ha.

[–]alskamdadjasdf 6 points7 points ago

the internet, TAKING ALL NUANCE OUT OF COMEDY

[–]Treberto 86 points87 points ago

A $500,000 cooling system for a laser guided rocket system (LANTIRN).

[–]johntmssf 19 points20 points ago

full story?

[–]Treberto 50 points51 points ago

Not exciting at all. I was a materials coordinator (part mover) and on my first week of the job the build team completed the LANTIRN cooling unit and it was my job to move it to shipping...

The big fucking cart I was pushing it around on had a bad wheel, it popped off and the unit slipped off and slammed into the ground. It should have been secured but they were so lax on procedure there that they just let me put it on without any restraints.

They had to run full diagnostics on the unit and it held up shipping for two weeks.

[–]MikePren 103 points104 points ago

Let me fix this for you:

So Obama calls me on the phone (let me say I was scared shitless at this point, since it was my first week on the job) and is screaming some garbled bullshit about the LANTIRN Laser-guided Rocket system I had just finished hand-building in my garage. I could hear him saying something about shipping the damn thing to the white house for "defense" purposes, so I sprang into action. Cutting the suspension cables (with my 9" Buck knife) from the machine, I loaded it into the back of my Ford F-450. Screeching out of my driveway, I had to get this motherfucker to the airport in about 15 minutes, and I live 20 minutes away. I slam on the gas, leaving smoke in my trail. I grab my Desert Eagle out of my glove compartment just in case some dumbass tries to get in my way.

So about halfway there, this fucking asshole decides to cut in front of me on the highway. I flip out. Shooting my own windshield out, I take this fuckers head off, giving whoever else was in the car a lesson in "get-out-of-the-fucking-way" driving. Suddenly, as I reach down to switch gears, some asshole swerves in front of me and smashes into my side. The only thing I can remember after this point is my truck flipping and me flying out of the already broked windshield (no, i didn't have my fucking seatbelt on). Of course, this LANTIRN system is hugely unstable, and there's this insane explosion on the highway, sending me rolling across the ground into the other lane of cars. Needless to say, I got away. I walked home and sat on the couch with a beer, texting O-fuckin'-bama a simple: "fuk u bitch".

That's right, motherfuckers, I destroyed my hand-built LANTIRN Laser-guided rocket system, and didn't give a fuck.

tl;dr: texted Obama "fuk u bitch"

[–]AGD4 24 points25 points ago

As per section seventeen of the Reddit Terms of Service, this exposition is now property of Condé Nast Publications and its subsidiaries, and you waive all financial entitlements in the event that it is sold to Paramount Studios to be used in a sub-par Motion-Picture production directed by Michael Bay.

[–]FreshBakedTroll 107 points108 points ago

I dropped a PS3 onto a Macbook Pro and broke both at the same time

[–]CynicalWalrus 100 points101 points ago

A white person's worst nightmare

[–]gder 51 points52 points ago

I was working a forklift in a warehouse. Basically it was where we kept all the stock for the cleanroom fab that was onsite. Now you have to understand that because of the nature of the business everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, that goes into a cleanroom is fucking expensive.

So there I am lifting a pallet to the fourth shelf. I nudged the forks up a little too high and caught the top shelf. Knocking off a box that contained what was essentially a 10 foot long quartz crystal tube that was used in some equipment.

It was like slow motion, the box tipped a little and then fell down between the rails. It only dropped about 4 feet but the cracking sound that echoed through the warehouse was like a gunshot to me.

After reviewing the damage I had to fill out a lost material report. Looked up the price on the damn think and it was something like $230,000.

So yeah, $230,000 is the value of the most expensive thing I've ever broken.

[–]MachoNinja 26 points27 points ago

Dropped an X-Ray tube, $80,000.00. That was a long day.

[–]shmedricko 22 points23 points ago

A building. No kidding. I used to service and calibrate pressure/temperature gauges for an undisclosed oil/service company. Anyway, we had to calibrate these tools to temperatures as low as -50C which requires usage of huge tanks of CO2 used to cool the calibration baths. Anyway, they have these bleed off valves that are to set to reduce pressure if the container reached a certain PSI. I became very comfortable with the process, and didn't use the checklist as often as I should have. Anyway this bleed off valve was left completely closed overnight, built up immense, world ruining pressure, and blew up. The entire shop was ruined. Was greeted at work next day by the fire marshal who tore me a new one, and then my boss, who was actually quite cool about the situation (he must have had some glorious insurance policy), and let me go. Didn't matter, got severance pay!

[–]boomfarmer 10 points11 points ago

dm;gs

[–]James_MacLaren 20 points21 points ago*

A hundred-million dollar TDRSS satellite, I think. But they fixed it, apparently. The entire payload stack (TDRSS, IUS, Anik, and the Anik's boost stage, which, I guess, adds up to more than a hundred-million when you include everything else in addition to the TDRSS) all got rolled back to the O&C building or wherever, removed from the Payload Canister, and I guess repaired or reworked or something, after our inadvertent entry into the PCR at Pad A. They eventually rolled the TDRSS back out to fly on a different mission, but unfortunately, it wound up in the payload bay on Challenger's last flight and never made it into orbit.

[–]ChrisCipher 6 points7 points ago

Wait, so how did you fuck that up?

[–]djk47 5 points6 points ago

Explain like I'm not a rocket surgeon.

[–]MagicAvocado 64 points65 points ago

I once broke both of a kid's legs. I'm not sure how much those are worth.

[–]happybadger 124 points125 points ago

$200 in unmarked bills under a park bench that I will specify at a time I will specify. Black ones, white ones, little Chinese ones with the shoes still on them- I will get you legs if you don't try to fuck me, but god help you if you try to fuck me because I'm liberal about my sourcing.

[–]KhanOfBorg 86 points87 points ago

What makes this creepier is that I have you tagged as "has bag of Bosnian hands to cuddle with."

[–]cookiemonster87 26 points27 points ago

and now so do i.

edit: and by that i mean i also have him tagged.

[–]ignaro 81 points82 points ago

A (wealthy) schoolmate of mine was given a brand new Cadillac CTS sports sedan for his 16th birthday. Three days later, he hit a curb doing 100mph+, launching the Caddy into the front lot of the very dealership his dad bought it at, flying over the first two Cadillacs in the front row and totaling the next dozen or so.

As I heard it, the dad had bought several cars there already so insurance covered it. Then the kid got a very used Volvo-- his parents may have spoiled him but they weren't stupid.

[–]partard 129 points130 points ago

his parents may have spoiled him but they weren't stupid.

Totals multiple cars, gets a used car as a punishment....

no not stupid at all....

[–]RurouniKarly 57 points58 points ago

To a spoiled brat, having to drive a crap car around may be more humiliating than being dropped off in daddy's luxury car.

[–]smeezy 27 points28 points ago

given a brand new Cadillac CTS sports sedan for his 16th birthday

Stories that begin like this normally end in tears.

[–]hellamier 3 points4 points ago

that sucks for the dealership

[–][deleted] 78 points79 points ago*

My face. I was elbowed during a soccer game and shattered a bunch of facial bones, crushed my sinuses and broke my pallate**. On top of the surgeries to put the three titanium plates in my cheek bones I also needed some plastic surgery for where my tooth tore through my upper lip.

Thankfully I had great insurance because I easily rung up 100K in bills.

[–]Spartyon 66 points67 points ago

dude did a fucking gorilla elbow you? Jesus. Sorry to hear about the injury.

[–][deleted] 34 points35 points ago

Some bitch in my prep school league pushed my defender into me, she tripped and her elbow caught right next to my nose. I don't remember one bit of it, apparently I tried to pull my goal jersey off only to have it get caught on my gloves. No one could understand the concussed words either.

[–]23saround 3 points4 points ago

Don't worry, she's going to hell.

[–]seano666 16 points17 points ago

I broke a pallet too once but it wasn't that expensive.

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points ago

I'm not talking a wooden pallet, the palate that holds your teeth. Didn't realize auto correct fixed that, my bad.

[–]MrFeatherman 23 points24 points ago

My parents $3000 stereo system my dad brought back from Germany while there with the Air Force. It was a single disc player...I made it a 13 disc player :) genius.

[–]icytash 4 points5 points ago

That seems like you fixed it, or at least improved. But not broken.

[–]b33t2 59 points60 points ago

me and a friend at school where wrestling on stage behind all the curtains, there is about 8/9 rows of 20-30ft curtains about 50ft width. i threw him into it, wrapped him in it and he fell over, the enter ceiling fell down with him, we legged it, but we will pay the price later in life, turns out the ceiling was made from asbestos

[–]RaithMoracus 80 points81 points ago*

But now you get to call all those lawyers on tv!

[–]needsmorehummus 45 points46 points ago

DO YOU HAVE MESOTHELIOMA?!

[–]someonefarted 41 points42 points ago

An F-16. I had hydrazine go EVERYWHERE because this guy and I dropped the bottle. We were lucky to be wearing our haz suits.

[–]DiabeetusMan 5 points6 points ago

If you don't mind my asking, what was the hydrazine for?

The only other time that I have heard of it being used is in relation to liquid rocket fuel; decidedly not F-16 propulsion.

[–]samdman 20 points21 points ago

My Galaxy Nexus. Just after I turned it on and started charging it, it fell of the bed and the LCD shattered. $650 down the drain

[–]dshlect 20 points21 points ago

My friends dad is a dentist and they had one of those raisable chairs at their house....and they put it right next to the wall. I wanted to try it out so i put my foot on the pedal to make it raise and as it did, the head leaned back INTO the wall and removed the dry wall all the way up. i tried to stop it but my dumb ass 10 year old mind was preoccupied

[–]pokeyjefferson 19 points20 points ago

When I was in the 7th grade my family was spending Christmas with my Dad's current girlfriend. We were hanging out in the dining room talking and chatting and I leaned against the girlfriend's very, very expensive marble table. The table was very long, could comfortably seat about eight. It was also old and had a lot of sentimental value, it was a gift when her second daughter was born. Anyway, apparently the base and the top of heavy marble tables aren't actually attached to each other. It makes them easier to move or ship.

So, when I leaned on the table the opposite end popped up, like a see-saw, and I jumped up out of fright. The end slammed down and half the table shattered into many small fragments that were impossible to piece back together. It was terrible. We briefly shopped for a new table for her and we could not find anything comparable for under $15,000.

[–]Ifunctiononkitkats 78 points79 points ago

Shit, I almost forgot about this.

My grandparents were house sitting for a couple they had been extremely close to for years, I went over to visit them (I was around twelve.) My grandfather was showing me around their house, and we came to the office. He went over to the bookshelf and pulled out a bible printed in German that was around 3 hundred years old, and had been in their family for generations. He left the bible open in front of me as he walked to the other side of the room to adjust the thermostat, and I flipped the page quickly to look through. The page came clear off. i panicked, stuffed it in my shirt, and no one knew. It still haunts me.

[–]MonotonousMan 4 points5 points ago

Dude... why wouldn't you just stick it tightly back in the book and flip a good chunk of pages so it wasn't noticeable? I mean, this is all besides the fact of just admitting it... But I can't blame you for that... It's such a horrible feeling when you realize you fucked up big time.

[–]Johnny_Hooker 103 points104 points ago

I scratched the face of a $17,000 vintage Rolex in a motorcycle accident.

[–]areamanp 81 points82 points ago

That's my main reason for not spending $17,000 on a watch

[–]irisher 37 points38 points ago

yep, the fact that I don't have 17k is of no importance.

[–]SevenSevens 45 points46 points ago

You ride with a watch on? I find that they always catch on my gloves.

[–]ArkJasdain 16 points17 points ago

Crystals are a simple and cheap part of a vintage watch to repair. I'd rather see damage there than to anything else on the watch. I've brought a couple vintage Omegas back to life after they were "totalled" by insurance companies after an accident and written off. The owner was given the cash value, the insurance company took the wrecked watch, which I later repaired back to nice running condition after an impact that shattered the crystal and put a major dent through the hands and dial and dented a couple of the plates of the movement. I was pleased with the outcome.

[–]Johnny_Hooker 5 points6 points ago

It was a small scratch and was easily fixed, but it was the most expensive thing I've ever damaged.

[–]terryb088 17 points18 points ago

I was helping off-loading a brand new Fujifilm photo print developer for the 1 hour photo lab I worked at. Ended up dropping it off the lift on the truck, $135,000 mistake.

[–]CalicoGoatee 34 points35 points ago

I was responsible for $65k of checks double clearing their accounts. Simple copy and paste error and BOOM, that $20 check you wrote for the school bake sale? yep, that's $40 now. And down the line...

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points ago

Go on...

[–]CalicoGoatee 6 points7 points ago

I don't mean to say it's all because of 9/11, but it certainly didn't help.

Prior to 9/11 checks had to be cleared as the paper check. Meaning, the physical check had to reach the bank it was drawn on before the funds would actually clear the account. Everyone knows that when the grounded all the flights that day people didn't fly, but neither did cargo, and a lot of those passenger flights carry a small amount of cargo too. Banks lost millions over those paper checks just sitting. (Interest charges) This lead to the Check 21 law, (21 being 21st century). A standard was developed to allow checks to be cleared as digital images. Europe had it for a while, so a lot of the tech came from there.

So, I got hired by a major Corporate Credit Union who was in the 'launch' stages of a product to do this. My job was everything from setup and training, to maintaining the software that then parsed the batches we received, grouped them into 'Cash Letters' to send to a bank, then balancing payment afterwards.

From time to time, we'd get a corrupt 'batch'. Each time you scan, as soon as you start we get 2 files that identify who you are, batch number, etc. Then once you're done, a file with the images & MICR data, and one more file to mark it closed.

The 3rd file was the biggest, so the most likely to have problems sending, typically it wasn't an issue and would re-send, over writing the corrupt file before it was picked up. However, sometimes that didn't happen and our software crashed trying pick up the file.

I'd have to review logs and find the corrupt batch, then locate the file on the server and delete it. Restart the service that picked up files. Then manually rename the correct batch (since our system though it had already been picked up by the original name) and drop it back in the collection folder.

Well, the software checks the full path name to see if it has processed that file. I was using an FTP client to drop that 65k batch back on when, and I have no idea how or why I did this, but I pasted as I was clicking the branches folder, then again after. So it would be a directory like "\servername\Collector2\" then \servername\collector2\000599". Since each of these were 'unique' to our software, each was sent out. I noticed what I'd done immediately, but it was too late - the items had been processed and we had no way - at that time - to back out a single batch.

I interrupted my boss and my boss's boss to tell them what happened - they both insisted this wasn't possible (they didn't understand the path name thing above) but I assured them it was. This lead to the development of a process to back out any selected batches and later that function saved our asses from a huge issue.

[–]SockPants 5 points6 points ago

I like how you admitting to a mistake and disturbing your boss's boss led to something that improved the world a lot.

[–]gunny16 66 points67 points ago

my left knee... never play sports up to my potential again :(

[–]Gibson19 10 points11 points ago

My right knee. Although I can still play sports at like 95% of what I used to. It just sidelines me for a couple weeks every so often. Still cost a pretty penny to fix it up.

Sorry about your knee

[–]Replies_With_GIFs 102 points103 points ago

[–][deleted] 33 points34 points ago

I didn't even have to click this link to know what it was

[–][deleted] 77 points78 points ago

it isnt skyrim related!

[–]enjoyablePain 19 points20 points ago

Because you have hoverzoom? Me too dude!

[–]PointlessForest 32 points33 points ago

I was a kid on vacation, in a gift shop. There was a big globe made of expensive stuff. I gave it a spin and it flew off its axis and rolled onto the floor. I backed away from it (I guess as not to break it any further) and backed into a shelf full of fine crystal, knocking it all down. The store clerk started running over to me, so my parents and I exchanged a glance and BOOKED IT.

TL;DR: Broke a ton of expensive crystal and a really expensive globe, fled the scene with my parents.

[–]fknsewermoose 10 points11 points ago

That guy probably died destitute thanks to you.

[–]Anticreativity 26 points27 points ago

Please don't be American, Jesus Christ.

[–]cookiemonster87 23 points24 points ago

Jesus christ is definitely not american.

[–]FatalErection 343 points344 points ago

Something I can't even put a price on.

A little girls heart.

It was her 5th birthday and I promised her I'd be there for her party. I for some reason was always her favorite cousin and she called me "uncle Ryan" as opposed to "cousin Ryan."

Some bullshit came up at work where I had to get on a plane go halfway across the country. I thought I had the timing down right and would be back home in time. I was about half a day off due to a layover.

She was pissed at me for about 2 years. But I made sure that after that family comes before work. I'd fucking quit my job if it prevents me from seeing a kid crying saying "but you promised you would be there!"

[–]anexanhume 554 points555 points ago

Quite the family man, aren't you, FatalErection?

[–]FatalErection 123 points124 points ago

Yeah, well I always have been. But when I fucked up and missed her birthday party, that kind of put into perspective of how important little things are to kids.

I should have known this. I had an uncle who was an alcoholic. When he was sober he was the greatest guy in the world, but when drunk, you had about a 90% chance of him not showing up.

So yeah, I'll never do that to someone that means something to me again. Especially a child.

I don't care if I'm offered all expenses paid and a $5,000 bonus to do it...let someone else get that $5,000 bonus.

Luckily since then nothing has been poorly timed enough to interfere with a previous engagement.

[–]Ftsk11 143 points144 points ago

I do believe he was being sarcastic because of your username, but that response was touching. Goes to show that even with enough blood loss from a fatal erection, you still have enough blood to have a "bleeding heart" when it come to family.

[–]captureMMstature 33 points34 points ago

And I do believe FatalErection was playing on that sarcasm by once again proving to be a well spoken and pleasant member of society despite his crude Internet handle.

[–]ShiyoxTheAlicorn 34 points35 points ago

I came to this thread expecting to laugh at other people's mistakes.

Now I just want to punch someone.

[–]roostercogburn 11 points12 points ago

Not really a "thing", but at work I caused about 400 of our retail stores to go down, as in not able to process electronic tenders and every single register crashed for half a day.

[–]bewareleopard 41 points42 points ago

My (lack of a) Master of Arts in Religion. Sallie Mae is never going to let me live this one down.

[–]ImProbablyThatGuy 11 points12 points ago

An $80,000 rice sorter. But to be fair, the fire did most of the work, I just had the misfortune of being the guy there.

[–]kiasuten 6 points7 points ago

When I was 11 or 12, I broke and subsequently lost my first pair of 1/2 carat(karat? never understand the difference) diamond earrings. My step-dad decided that I deserved something nice for how good a kid I normally was. Two weeks later, I was brushing my hair above the sink at my friend's house. The brush bristles tugged the earring off my ear, somehow snapped it in half (couldn't have been good quality) and it went down the drain and probably into the sewage system.

Probably wasn't worth more than $200, so nothing comparable to other Redditors. But I never got another expensive thing from my step-dad again.

[–]jous 9 points10 points ago

Normal sink drains have traps. If the place does not smell like sewage, it has them. Did you tell anyone about it? It's hard for me to imagine a person who has lived near the same bathroom more than 10 years and never had to trouble someone about emptying the trap.

What happened to the other earring?

[–]Ap0Th3 52 points53 points ago

Andy Worhol's self portrait. I never really "broke" it as much as tampered with it. You see it was one of the main pieces of the exposition, on a canvas several meters high and wide, like as long as a canoe high. Anyway, when no one was watching I reached to the side of the canvas where no paint was done and grabbed a small thread that had been sticking out. I never know what I did with that thread, but that was the beginning of my multimillion dollar art collection.

[–]morphine12 92 points93 points ago

I also measure in canoes.

[–]Initforthecats 15 points16 points ago*

It was cold and snowy November and I worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week bagging seed. I worked the 6pm to 6am shift. I was the only woman in that company's history to work outside the office. And I was not wanted, a small woman doing "a mans" job. It was so fucking cold and miserable. I got sick and was with fever. I spent my breaks sleeping in the smoking truck trailer. I drove a forklift and stacked the seed pallets around the warehouse. With a backboard like a wall you can stack the 2000 pound pallets 3 high. No backboard, 2 high. I wasn't thinking clearly and went to stack the third pallet with no back support and all 4 pallets came crashing down. Torn spilled bags and bags of seed, broken pallets scattered every where. I broke a drill press and quite a few other items at the work bench. Just hours earlier they had moved the 25 gallon drum of natural gas to another part of the warehouse. They said it's possible I could have broke that and blown up Davenport WA. This happened the day before they granted us a 3 day weekend. That was fun to clean up. I was called 'crash' from then on. It was a great job though. We were only seasonal workers but I loved it.

[–]zland1 6 points7 points ago

I once shipped a customer an order in the amount of $485,000.00 and then 2 days later shipped it again. How did this happen you ask? We were in the process of switching systems (to Oracle) and IT was entering in the orders that where in the system and I looked into Oracle and placed the order and shipped it same day. Then IT entered in the same order and we shipped it. That was not a good day at work!

[–]Replies_With_GIFs 96 points97 points ago

[–]TehRedBaron 84 points85 points ago

She's got a nice beard.

[–]Gag_Halfrunt 25 points26 points ago

[–]alexl1 11 points12 points ago

True to your word Replies_With_GIFs

[–]ubergiles 15 points16 points ago

I was in a lab, trying to fabricate some small nano shit, either way we were using a vacuum chambered deposition machine. The vacuum was created in this large glass bell shaped chamber that was roughly 2 feet tall and a foot and a half wide with maybe inch thick glass and weighed a couple of kilograms. One day after a long series of depostions, where each would take about an hour to complete with only 5 minutes of actual interaction, we were cleaning up and I removed the lid and it started slipping ever so slightly so I readjust my grip. We good. Oh wait, no, it's starting to slip again, readjust..... nope it falls from my grasp but I catch it again only a couple of inches from the ground! I'm feeling like some kind of ninja right now, but it's still slipping so I slowly slowly lower it onto the ground to just end this charade. As the apex of the dome makes contact with the cold tile floor there is a tinkling sound and the entire thing just explodes in my hands, glass shards everywhere and my partner and I just look at each other with despair in our eyes. These bad boys cost ten thousand Great British Pounds, one choice word comes to mind!

Luckily they had a spare out back from a machine some other undergrads had messed up the previous year, so we weren't instantly shot into the sun. Our supervisor was really good about it though considering I was almost tempted to just quit university right there out of shame and terror. We also managed to mess up the vacuum pump a few times, which took a while to fix as all the pipes had to be cleaned and reoiled.

TL:DR Dropped a ten grand glass dome, got away with it.

[–]thewriteanne 33 points34 points ago

My marriage vows!

[–]curethiscancer 30 points31 points ago

TIL my ex-wife uses reddit.

[–]monsterlife17 8 points9 points ago

My right femur. Cost around $65,000 dollars after everything was said and done. Best part? Didn't even have surgery done. Imagine if i had..

[–]WHARGARBEEES 7 points8 points ago

I killed a 2005 Honda CRV during Hurricane Irene. My roommates were stranded a couple hours away (their car loss is another story), and despite it being the middle of the hurricane, I agreed to go retrieve them so they could make it to work the next day. You know, because I'm a good friend.

I get there fine, despite nasty wind and rain. However, on the way back the rain has really built up, and many roads are flooded. Although we were actually 10 minutes from the apartment, the only road available to us at that point was starting to be flooded as well. If we didn't make it past that road, we would most likely have had to spend the night elsewhere. Or, worse, we would be stranded and trapped on some random, flooded back roads.

We'd previously cleared a tree from the road, and already passed through two large puddles, so the one in front of me looked doable enough. It was the last thing between me and a warm shower, in any case. I figured I could push through it.

Nope nope nope. Water up the exhaust, water into the engine intake. Goodbye CRV.

Insurance pretty much covered everything, though.

[–]justinvt 5 points6 points ago

I fucked up my aortic valve with infective endocarditis (bacteria in my heart) and it only cost $25,000 for a new aortic valve. I had a stroke from the ordeal too, but they were understanding and gave me the stroke for free.

[–]bhig3 22 points23 points ago

My dad's BMW...

As a kid, that car took all of my accidental abuse. I spilled sprite on the consol and none of the buttons ever worked again. I hit golf balls at it without knowing it was getting hit. I vomited in it.

I really liked that car too, and my Dad for that matter. :-/

[–]FlavorousShawty 24 points25 points ago

When I was five, my dad brought our entire family to a very ritzy resort out in the sticks. There were lots of heavy oak pieces of furniture and expensive looking antiques. Well, being the bored juvenile that I was, I went and leaned on a mirror with a shelf like thing in front of it. I was sort of rocking the mirror, and everything after that was kind of slomo. My dad just yelled my name, and i felt the mirror descending on me, so I went full turtle and curled up on the floor. The mirror shattered on me, and it was fucking heavy. It took 3 people to stand it back up, but luckily because of the thinness of the wood behind the mirror, and the fact that i'm a strong little thing, I went through the mirror and there was a me sized hole. Long story short, the mirror was imported from a Royal estate called Harewood House in England, and it cost $588,000. Flame me, but my dad's a 1%er and it was cleared up pretty quickly. Nonetheless, my dad was more pissed off than Jack Nicholson in that movie.

[–]TheSpeedy 17 points18 points ago

Pretty fucked up that you have to apologize for your father's social status on reddit.

[–]Sarephano 18 points19 points ago

Castle Lake in Wisconsin: I dropped a friend's iPhone 4 into the lake while fishing.

[–]Mr_Smartypants 60 points61 points ago

that's nothing! I once left an iPhone 6 prototype in a bar!

[–]fennelouski 10 points11 points ago

A couple of summers ago I backed a truck up into a house and caused $30k in damages. It ruined my day.

[–]papa82 5 points6 points ago

When I was a kid, I broke the Beta cassette player. I thought it made for a lovely pencil case so i proceeded to shove all my pens and pencils in there which destroyed it.

[–]THROUGHFAILUREIWIN 12 points13 points ago

Other then cars, a $5000 burnishing tool in a CNC lathe.

[–]pieslam 16 points17 points ago

In my art class at the end of this past semester we spent the last 3 weeks of class working on our final project that was worth 40% of our grade.
The project was to do a series of drawings of this huge still life my prof. had set up in the middle of the room. The still life consisted of a bunch of different items: small statuettes, a bike tire, a few lamps to add light/shadow, etc. One day before class I was walking across the room to get something and didn't notice the extension cord running from one of the lamps in the still life to an outlet in the wall...
My foot snagged the cord, pulled the lamp off of the shelve it was sitting on (~ 5ft off the ground), knocked over a couple small knickknacks from the still life and onto the ground, and shifted essentially everything in the still life by at least a few inches.
I stood frozen for about 5 minutes as the room fell deathly silent and my classmates all stared at me like I was a Nazi soldier who had just stumbled into a Bat Mitzvah.

Thankfully, none of the delicate items had shattered and I was able to help my prof. put everything back to their (approximate) position, but I thought for sure I was going to fail the class and get my ass kicked by a gang of pissed-off art students.

TL;DR - I accidentally knocked over a still life that my art class had been drawing for a project worth 40% of our final grade.

[–]thinkythought 8 points9 points ago

i punched a hole in a panasonic professional plasma display. you know, the kind you see in booths at PAX and comiccon and shit? yea.

i don't even know how much they cost, but i'd assume at least a couple thousand.

all because of a stupid drunken phone argument.

[–]Dracula_Batman 7 points8 points ago

I was swinging my best friend's pitbull around in circles, from one of those big knotted rope toys, in his recently deceased grandmother's living room. Lost my grip, accidentally put his dog through an antique plate-glass coffee table. The pup was miraculously unharmed, which helped mitigate the disaster of telling his mom about the heirloom I destroyed.

[–]Punch_Drunk_AA 4 points5 points ago

I had nothing to do with it but I used to work for the BLM and at the end of our fiscal year budget review we were short over 500k. No one still knows what happened to all that money

[–]sunlightfading 3 points4 points ago

Apparently, when I was really young, I had a temper tantrum and kicked part of my mom's Swarovski unicorn-shaped crystal off.

[–]hstjohn 4 points5 points ago

I once caused 1500 USD worth of water damage at a sleepover.

[–]koobear 3 points4 points ago

My education.