The Worst Thing You've Done Ever

[HB of CJ]

OK...everyone, now is the time and place to come clean. Tell us your most ever stupid... embarrassing... dumb... memorial....situation or event. Can be singular or group oriented. You may never (ever?) have even been caught.

I will start. Hi...my name is HB of CJ. Hi. The most stupid thing I/we ever did and live to tell the tale is as follows. Again, this is all true...I am making NOTHING up. I am adding nothing. This is what happened. It's all true.

Old Station One was built way way back in the dark ages. I mean it is really old. Built of reinforced concrete. Hand wheeled in place long ago. Think stone ages and you get the idea. Good, you have it. Very very old.

The plumbing was also very very old. Good, you have an idea how old the plumbing was. All of this happend long ago and far away, before most of you were even born. Yep. About 1976 or so. Ancient history. Old plumbing.

Up stairs in the fireman's quarters the main kitchen's pipes had the nagging problem is stopping up. The kitchen sinks drains had no containment trap. Stuff left in the sink wash water would just go down the drain.

Kitchen dishwashers were known to exist, but not in the fire department. We hand washed all of our dishes. Engine, Truck and Battalion. At least 10 people, sometimes 12. Ancient history. (Did I already say that?)

Anyway, where was I. Oh. Thank you. Stuff would go down the sink drain and plug up the plumbing downstairs which was, you already guessed, the women's public restroom downstairs for the women. Plugged up all the time.

Soooos....one day we got a phone call that the women's toilet plumbing was clogged up again and would we please fit it right now please. "Smoothy", the house Captain got the great idea that we could employ the red reel..

"booster line"..off Squad One (companion apparatus running with Engine One) to simply and efficiently blow out the stuck up sink and toilet pipe. Yeah, that would work just dandy. 200 psi will fix ANY clog, let me tell you.

Was poor judgement. We pulled the red line off the squad and ran it up the stairwell into and thru the squadroom and into the kitchen and rammed it down into the stuck up kitchen drain upstairs and plugged toilet downstairs.

"Marty", the EN (engineer) on Squad One let her rip. He said later that he was pumping over 250 psi. Worked dandy pushing thru all the junk, litter, lost wash rags, scrub pads, etc. that were plugging up the pipes.

Unfortunately, there was a female secretary sitting upon the throne downstairs in the women"s room downstairs from the fireman's kitchen. About 5 gallons (best later guess) blew out from the toilet. Her toilet.

AH... S..........!!!!! We got called on the carpet. We had to stand at attention in front of The Fire Chief while he royally chewed our A......! for about 10 minutes. I mean, It reminded me of the Corp!! It was profound.

It was incredible. Later we just laughed about it. At the time we were worried about our jobs. Had to pay for dry cleaning and a hair do. Anyway, take it from me, 250 psi and clogged drains don't mix. The End. :) :) :)

[GirlMedic03]

I'm not a plumber but even I know that kinda thing is a bad idea. :eek:

I won't come clean with my worse idea though. My Dad reads this forum sometimes. Just kiddding Old Man. Ha Ha. Now don't go asking my for months on end what I meant by that either.

And I know what some of you may be thinking; "Is her Dad HB of CJ?"

answer: no

[HB of CJ]

Is GirlMedic301"s DAD HB of CJ? I mean the whole world wonders. No. I'm NOT her dad. I am WAY TOO OLD to be GirlMedic03's dad. Also not her GRANDDAD either. He he he. :) :) :)

[HB of CJ]

Wow! No one wants to come clean here? Oh come on, someone must want too? Somewhere, someone must have a tale to tell. Allright, I will do it a second time. This one is also true. I mean it really happened.

Again...ancient history. Way back in around 1974 or sossss, I was assigned to cook for the guys at Station One. You know, the old old station. No constant staffing managment then. We worked a 2 patoon 66.

Which meant that in the winter we had plenty of people. About 12 were eating that day, sooss I was assigned a cook's helper. Now cooking way back then was a good job...that is all you did except turn out.

The cook's helper used the dept. pickup and bought groceries. I decided on cheese burgers, fries and a salad for lunch. Simple, $cheap$ and greasy. I told the helper to buy "very expensive hamburger". A misunderstanding.

He thought I told him "very inexpensive hamburger". So he did. Boy, was it cheap hamburger. At least 110% fat. You get the idea. $Cheap$ Greasy. He and I wipped up 36 fatburger patties. Then he had to run an errand.

So there I was by myself (or so I THOUGH!) making greaseburger patties. More fat than meat. I started talking to myself to pass the boredom that this was very cheap fatty hamburger. So fatty and cheap that if I rolled...

...one into a ball and threw it against the dining room wall, it would stick and NOT fall down for hours. Very greasy. Very stickly. You get the idea. So, like so many times long ago and far away I used very poor judgment.

I threw the ball of fatburger out of the kitchen to have it splat against the dining room wall. White enamal. Spotless. You see, the kitchen was tiny then and you could NOT see all the dining room from where I was standing.

Had a big blind spot. Anyway, the fatburger remained splatted against the white enamal paint wall for about 2 minutes. I knew I had to retrieve it and make a fatpaddy out of it, so, I walked from the kitchen into the dining room.

What I didn't know and what I suddenly found out was that our Battalion Chief (B1) was quietly sitting at the end of the long long dining room table out of my sight silently drinking coffee and reading the L.A. Times.

I looked at him. He stared back at me. I thought I was dead, dead, dead. Kiss my job good bye. So long Fireman. Oh Gawd, on the job only 2 years and FIRED, FIRED, FIRED! I gazed at him. He glared back glaringly.

This was before my first come clean episode with the plugged plumming. None of this stuff ever happen to you new people? Ya' sure? Well, this happened to me. I thought I was dead, fired and long gone.

Anyway, what could I do. Think fast HB of CJ, your life depends upon it. Soss, I just said..Ya' see Sir, I told you "Obie" bought cheap hamburger. You see, it does stick on the wall when your throw it there. I was right!

He quickly finished his coffee, left the cup on the table, (he was a BC for gosh sakes) folded his "Times" under his arm and walked out of the dining room all the while staring at me with a steely stare. I'm gone I thought.

For days I never heard a word about it. From time to time when I had business with our BC he just stared at me. It was only about 20 years later at a fireman's retired reunion picnic that he and I relived the incident.

He told me then that he got all the way out of the dining room, across the squad room and out the door and half way down the stairs going back to his office before he began to laugh. Laughed for 30 minutes. Laughed sooss...

...hard he got a stomach cramp. Had more laughts for weeks giving me that steeling look like I was dead meat and soon to be fired. He thought it was very funny. Today I can look back and laught, but at the time believe me...

I WAS NOT LAUGHING!! I though I was toast. Fired with cause for chucking cheap hamburger meat against the spotlessly clean dining room wall of Station One in the pretty city of B........D California. The End. :) :) :)