Your Worst Life Experience

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by darksidZz, Feb 12, 2007.

  1. darksidZz Valued Senior Member

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    4,924
    I'll begin.

    I was very young and was friends with someone named Mark Door. Now I did fancy his sister, and god knows I wish I could've dated her or banged her, but anyway here's the story...

    Mark had a swimming pool at his house. Occasionally myself an my sister would go play with them during the hot summer days, and this is when it happened!

    They had a few dogs right?! Well this one they had looked like this http://www.vtliving.com/saintbernards/hiedi.JPG It was a crazy, mean, dangerous animal. I feared it every time I went over to play, but somehow it was always unable to eat me, and god knows it looked like it wanted to!

    So during this time I went over to play, we were going to swim. They had this dog on a chain, because it was so big, so strong, that only a chain could keep it from running after anyone that happened to be around. Well anyway I was like "umm mark, your dog scares me" and he said "she's a good dog, nothing to be afraid of"... you can imagine my doubts :L

    So I was leaving his house through the back when I walked right into the worst possible situation, the dog was there.... but I hadn't noticed it..... and this thing looked at me like it hated everything about me, wanted to kill me, and I knew it would. We saw eachothers eyes, gazed into them, and the dog had a split second to think just as I did, my instinct? I remembered them telling me "just stay still, he won't hurt you" but I knew it was a lie. The dog wanted me, to kill me, it hated me more than anyone... and I took off!!!!!!!! I ran like hell, faster than I'd ever run before, hoping, praying the chain would hold.... I jumped up over the entrance door for the pool (which was high off the ground) and dog barely ran out of chain before reaching the steps!!! I was terrified, my heart pounding, and I knew I'd escaped with my life.

    What did I do? ummm I think I yelled telling them their dog was insane, they said "don't run from her stupid" and I was frightened. I jumped off the back of the pool itself and ran to the front of the house, there I took my bike and rode home never to see them again. I knew it was to dangerous to stay, and they were just to irresponsible.

    Later I heard this dog had killed one of their other doggies in a supposed "accident". I am so lucky to have escaped being killed myself, it was the worst life experience I've ever had.
     
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  3. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    10/2/05

    You go to bed tired. Not sleepy tired, just climbed Everest tired. My feet start hurting around 4 p.m. and I still have another 7 hours of toil. It's amazing what you can push through. Hitting the bed, you don't care that the AC unit in your room doesn't work because of the parts you removed to fix another room's. You lay in your own sweat in a bunk shorter than you are and you dream of your bed at home. The one that you slide down to hang your feet off of. The one that has a warm lovey just waiting to be snuggled. The one with a grunting, snoring, pushing, scratching, licking, smacking boopie next door. That's what you think about for the 5 seconds it takes to pass out.

    Being this tired gives you some good sleep. And you do NOT want to get up earlier than you have to. My alarm is set for 6:30 a.m. A little later than normal because the guests are sleeping in, and the boat doesn't move until 7. Strange, then, that I find myself wide awake at 5 a.m. Something feels weird. The wind is hitting the wrong side of the boat. There is a slight vibration somewhere, and the yacht is rocking side to side just slightly. The overwhelming urge is to go back to sleep. But some part of me deep inside. The part that grew while living on my boat and being at anchor for a year is screaming at me to get up. I am an unthinking zombie rising from the grave. I stagger towards the wheelhouse.

    Looking back I see how I was being cajoled and urged by my wakeful subconscious. It was tugging at my sleeves, poking and proding me, saying, "See? See? Lookit!". I went straight to the GPS. It said we were moving at 3.5 knots. Backwards.

    Oh. No.

    I pulled up the chart plotter which shows an overlay of our position on the local chart. We were not where I dropped anchor yesterday. We were over a quarter of a mile from there. Our direction was taking us right towards a rocky reef that we were snorkling on the day before. Fast.

    Firing up the engines that early with guests on board is not something you take lightly. The severity of the situation is borne out by my utter lack of hesitation. Thankfully they roared right to life. Dom and I have been having to prime the port engine a lot lately. Next I went and stuck my head out the top of the flybridge hatch to see what the wind was like. I knew it would be bad because I could hear the sheets of water slapping across the windshied and feel the vibration that the gusts imparted on the hull. Outside I found it to be worse than I imagined. 40mph winds? Rain like bullets. Our bimini top loose, ripped, and flapping with the sound of nearby cannon. It is one of those collections of stimuli that I have had a dozen times before, and each time was as bad as the last. The nostalgia and feeling of dread were attacking me as I hurried back to my room.

    "Dom. DOM!", Shaking his knee and hoping he didn't drink too much last night.

    "Wha?"

    "Grab a jacked, we are dragging anchor, need you up here now." I wait for more movement. It comes after a pause, then jerks him up as comprehension sets in. I only wake him when shit is real bad. It courses through him like coffee and cocaine.

    I teleport back to the bridge and start turning on various systems. I bump the engines ahead to slow our suicidal rush toward rock. The danger here is going too far too fast and running over our chain. It is the only thing below us that is harder than the rock I want to avoid. I really am between a rock and a hard place, and with the wind, clouds, rain and hour... I am blind. I am groping about with the compass. It is the only thing telling me which direction I'm pointing.

    Dom looks up the stairs at me, wide-eyed. Stumbling up, I show him where we were and where we are. I tell him to get up front and start pulling the anchor in. He grabs a radio and rushes off to the bow.

    I am looking at our position and direction and doing calculations. We have 300 feet of chain to pull in. The reef is coming up on our stern. I'm slowing us only as much as I dare. This is going to be close.
     
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  5. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    I can barely hear Dom over the VHF. It sounds like he is 100 miles away from the speaker, and there is a lot of rustling fabric in that gap. I tell him to start taking the chain in. It's not like the anchor is holding to anything, so just drag the damn thing to us. While he is doing that, I'm slamming laptops shut, turning off security monitors, dimming the radars... there is too much ambient light to see a damn thing. I pop my head up top and look for the radio tower at Highbourne. A dim red light shines through the rain in the direction Highbourne should be... I assume I'm not seeing things.

    At some point Dom tells me he has the anchor up. I don't hear him.

    I'm bumping the controls all over the place, I even have the bow thruster roaring now. That's going to wake the other two crew members up for sure. They sleep right on top of the 250 HP beast. The waves are breaking over the bow anyway, and shit is falling all throughout the boat, so what the fuck should a little more cannon fire mean? Speaking of cannons, I hear the bimini give some more. This is turning out to be an expensive gale.

    Looking at the plotter, it is going to get more expensive quick. I figure we are 20 feet from the reef. 40 at the most. I yell into the VHF for Dom to get the fucking anchor in. He comes in the side door, wet as a drowned ferret, telling me it's already up.

    Fuck. Just in time.

    I kick the 4 turbos into gear. 2,200 HP drives the two 5-foot props in frenzied circles. I really hope I'm facing the direction I think I'm facing. Can't be sure. I rush up top to look for the red light again.

    Back down below it looks like we are crawling away from the reef. Didn't touch anything... that's good. I wheel the bastard around to get the seas on our stern and to cancel out the wind with our forward progress. I'll just head towards Nassau a few hours earlier than I expected to.


    The rush of saving the boat is intoxicating. We are surfing down monster waves in a fucking gale at 5:15 in the morning. We just drug anchor half a mile and barely kept the yacht off of a reef. One of the girls comes up with a puzzled look on her face.

    "What the hell is going on?" She asks.

    "Nothing", I say. "Could you make Dom and I some coffee?"

    All is grins and giggles. I'm weaving through the cuts and reefs to get back out to safety and deep water. We'll be back at the dock before breakfast. What a fucking rush.

    I make a little course correction, but the wheel feels a little looser than normal. I try and turn back, and just as it is clicking, an alarm goes off. "Rudder Response Failure".

    Fuck.

    "Dom"

    "What"

    "We're losing steering"

    As I say this, the boat broaches, going sideways in the seas and rolling like a fucker........
     
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  7. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    A normally sluggish wheel can now be spun like a goddamn perpetual motion machine. Just a nudge and the things starts doing lazy circles forever. But the rudders aren't moving. I get down on the floor and listen for the hydraulic pump that usually hums under the console. Nothing.

    Fuck.

    Normally I could steer by alternating usage of the two main engines. But not in these seas. We are getting tossed about as I throw the gears around trying to control our sideways juant out of the pass. This is arguably worse than dragging anchor towards a leeward shoal.

    "Tell the girls to secure everything inside", I tell Dom. He rushes off.

    Shit is banging and falling everywhere as the waves toss us sideways. If I had steering I could keep them right on our stern and you could play marbles on the deck. Right now you can't even stand up.

    Dom comes back. "We have to drop anchor", I tell him. "Got to get our bow into these waves before we break the ship apart. Just until we can repair the steering." He slides on a dripping jacket and heads back out. The nuissance from earlier is about to be redeployed. Let's just hope it holds this time.

    Already I'm making tool and part lists to take down into the bilges with me. I know for sure we don't have any fittings or tubing for that steering system, so we will be cobbling something together from the bits that we have, or pulling something from another system.

    While the chain is clanking over the windlass I realize why I loved the original Star Wars trilogy so much. It was Han and Chewie, keeping that bucket of bolts together and always getting in trouble. Shit was always breaking down, and they never had the right tools for the job, but they always got the job done anyway. They had no reason to love that ship so much.... but they did. That's what is missing from the next three movies for me.

    Dom is saying something over the VHF about the anchor, but with the wind and the squelch, it sounds more like a wookie complaining. I grin like a smuggler and think to myself, "This better work".
     
  8. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    2,494
    The anchor is spooling off the chain with the rattle of a hundred Gatlin guns firing in perfect unison. CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK Each firing another link about 4 inches long. I feel like I should be counting them, adding them up, stringing that anchor rode out in my mind. The longer it is, the greater chance of a bite, the lower the angle of attack for the anchor. I tell Dom to put out 600 feet. I think we are at least 700 from the reef behind us.

    Weird how you make split decisions like this. A complex calculation of risk analysis and probablity. It happens in an instant what would take a Calculus whiz and an insurance adjuster a day. Like when a lifeguard rushes out to save someone down the beach. They know just how far down the beach to run (because that is faster) before they dive in. But they don't run all the way to the person. They find this angle of attack that is close to perfectly efficient.

    It is from experience.

    There is nothing I can do to help the anchor now. I've slowed our descent as much as I can, but we are going sideways and rolling lazily from side to side. Every now and then the waves time it perfectly to send something crashing down inside the boat.

    The decision has been made. I join Dom at the bow to see if it was the right one.

    As we see the second red mark on the anchor run over the side of the yacht, I nod to Dom through the rain and wind. The chain grinds to a halt and I lock the break down. Now we wait as the feet stretch to their limit. As the wind and waves push us towards the reef.

    100 feet to grab. I'd like it to happen in 50.

    I'm laughing at Dom who is trying to light a cigarette in this soup.

    Good luck.
     
  9. draqon Banned Banned

    Messages:
    35,006
    I meet a friend in a town
    He invites me to his house
    As I approach the house he tells me to wait there, while he asks for permission from his mom for me to come in.
    I wait there and out of the bushes a huge dog that is twice larger than I am (I was 8 than) jumps at me and bites my right foot as well as rips part of my shirt and skin. I jump like a cat on a fence and run away forever until I can run no more and fall on grass just lying there until I wake up in evening and run home
     
  10. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    2,494
    An anchor grabbing sand and holding and an anchor being drug at the end of 600 feet of chain look almost just alike. It was easy to "feel" the difference asleep in my bunk, but here on the bow, looking down into a fenzied froth of angry sea, being pelted by a billion raining bullets, with a small flashlight's cone of vision, I just can't tell at first.

    As the yacht settles back into the wind, the chain rises up out of the water. It is off at a crazy angle because the yacht is getting stuck in the sides of the seas again. I look forward to the bow pointing into the wind and seas.... and it begins to. It would do this even in we were dragging again. It would tease me.

    I'm watching the chain now. It is the only thing that exists. I can still see the rain bouncing off the dull greay metal. The salt water dripping off of it into the foam below. The way it hoists itself up with the strain of tautness. I'm staring at it. Looking for vibration. Because that is the way that anchor chains talk. They vibrate.

    If the chain vibrates it is because the anchor is being drug across the hardpan bottom. Really loud bangs and clacks around the bow are good signs. Those are the sounds of an anchor willing to fight back. But the hardly audible sign of vibrating metal... that is the siren's song of death.

    I'm watching the chain.

    I almost feel the reef off the stern of the yacht.

    It seems that the sounds of waves crashing is more keen back there on the rocks.

    I'm watching the chain.

    Vibrate....
     
  11. tablariddim forexU2 Valued Senior Member

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    Horryfying experience! You expressed it very well, very exciting!
     
  12. Roman Banned Banned

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    Beam me up, Scotty!
     
  13. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    That's fantastic writing. Nice.
     
  14. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i was walking my dog one winter day without a leash.
    the dog seen a rabbit and gave chase.
    the rabbit ran across a frozen stream.
    the ice wasn't thick enought to hold my 70 LB. dog and he broke through.
    all i could do was watch helplessly as my dog drowned.
    that happened when i was 16, 40 years ago.
    to this very day the scene still haunts me, sometimes waking me up from a sound sleep.
    long live HOBO, i shall always remember you my friend.
     
  15. Roman Banned Banned

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    Ugh, that sucks.
     
  16. Ghost_007 Registered Senior Member

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    2,170
    I’ve been in alot of bad situations, way too many to mention, I’m pretty sure the guy upstairs is watching over me... I’d say the worst experiences are watching those that you love suffering and not being able to do anything to help. It fucking kills you.
     
  17. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    12,461
    There was a rumor that Michael Crichton used this board as part of his research for a story and was, in fact, a member. Is it you? Because if you're not a writer, you should be.
     
  18. Gondolin Hell hath no fury like squid Registered Senior Member

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    709
    We were rafting the Ocoee in North Carolina and we were on the last set of rapids (borderline 5). We hit the last hydraulic known as Devil's Hole at an angle. I flew of and somehow got my wrist hung up in the rope on the side. I was hanging on the side of the raft while it is in this hole. I got my hand loose when the raft spun me under this huge ass torrent of water. It pulled two of my fingers out of socket and sucked off my shoes. I came up screaming, but I'm sure I was just screaming water. I got pulled in and we got out of the hole.

    Scariest moment of my life.
     
  19. Roman Banned Banned

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    Holy fuck.
     
  20. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    yeah, no shit.
     
  21. thedevilsreject Registered Senior Abuser Registered Senior Member

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    watching a tractor as it ran over my puppy
     
  22. RickyH Valued Senior Member

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    I got jumped by three rednecks, and was beaten with a chair, that didn't make it through the tragedy

    i got 15 stiches

    2 of them in my eyelid 7 in my left eybrow, and 6 in the right

    along with with minor brain damage and the normal scars
     
  23. w1z4rd Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,541
    Been in an armed robbery in my house, and having one gun put up my mouth, and another one put at my temple, while they were shouting, "We are going to kill you white scum".

    Thankfully they didnt.
     

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