Yeah, that's me.

What is the single dumbest thing you’ve ever done?  I don’t mean when you decided it was a good idea to mug that old nun walking back to her convent the other night, I mean just pure sheer stupidity on your part.  I can think of a few for myself that would compete for a top spot in my life.

Let’s take for example, when I met my wife.  We met on America Online.  Remember that?  Dial-up to the restricted internet world that Steve Case provided us?  Remember the non-stop barrage of sign up disks and CDs we used to get in the mail, in our magazines, in our breakfast cereals?  Are any of you old enough to remember those days?  The one thing AOL was good for was chat rooms.  It was like 99.8% chat rooms and .2% internet access.

Anyhow, I was skeeving around on AOL’s friend finder service and found my wife’s screenname “NascarJen02″.  At the time I was a huge Nascar fan, and specifically a Rusty Wallace fan.  He was the driver of the #2 car.  Ergo, NascarJen02 resonated with me and I timidly sent her a message.  She responded and we chatted.  I finally goaded her into a date.  An awful date mind you.

Now I don’t know if this restaurant was nationwide but it was a chain, called Red River.  It was a steakhouse/bbq joint/Appleby’s style place.  It was eventually bought out by Famous Dave’s BBQ and they ruined it.  But that’s not important.  What is important is that our first date was at Red River.  I wasn’t much of a player, so I thought we’d have dinner and go our separate ways never to meet again.  I had nothing more planned beyond dinner and there was jack shit to do in that area beyond eat dinner.  No movie theaters, no plays, nothing.

We had a great dinner together, the food was average, but the date was awesome.  She was actually interested in me.  And no, she wasn’t drunk.  I tried, she refused.  So after dinner, we went back to the parking lot and I said “what do you want to do?” and she said “I dunno, what do you wanna do?”  And we sat in my car for two hours talking.  About silly shit and I think I talked my head off that night.  Everything and anything.  And I’m not usually a talker.  And she put up with this shit.

At this point, a lot of people would think she was lonely, but I think I was actually somewhat charming for once in my stupid life.  And we hit it off.  We went out on January 15th, 1999.  A Friday night, and we did absolutely shit beyond have dinner at a chain restaurant and talk in my car for hours.  And it was great.  She must have felt bad for me I thought.

After that I didn’t see her again until Valentine’s Day.  I knew she had a son who had just turned 5 but she wasn’t letting me near him and I didn’t blame her.  I might be a creep.  Hell I am a creep, but in a good way.  So I convinced her to go out with me for Valentine’s Day, and coincidentally, my birthday is February 15th.  So I made it a dual purpose dinner and I took her to a NICE restaurant this time.  We had dinner and then a movie.  During the movie, we were sitting next to each other and halfway through “The General’s Daughter” with John Travolta, she grabbed my hand and made me hold hands with her.  From there, it was on.

I’d travel the hour down the road to her parents’ house where she was still living to visit and then an hour back home.  I was hooked and I’m still hooked, 13 years later.  Apparently she saw something in me worth keeping.

Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that we started having, well relations, after a short while.  And in her room at her parents’ house.  And only after she got pregnant with our first son together did she think to mention to me that “Oh, by the way, my 6 foot 4 inch,, 250lb father used to be a Marine”.  Here I am having sex with this guy’s daughter in HIS house and had no idea he could kill me with his thumb.

So, that’s one of the dumbest things I ever did (not really, I’m still as much in love today as I was back then) but to not know that your future wife’s father could kill you as fast as he could say “hello” made me feel really stupid.  Now, it’s your turn.  Tell me what stupid shit you pulled in your life time.  Let’s make a series of this thing.  I’ve got more.