Bad luck stories!

Garick

So, I was having a rather lousy streak of bad luck today and it occured to me, that hearing others tales of woe and misfortune might be interesting.

I think my worst streak of luck was when I was 18.

I had saved up just barely enough money for a week trip to the carribean to go scuba diving and I was jazzed!

Going to the airport I suddenly hit an 2 hour long traffic jam caused by an accident just a bit ahead of me causing me to miss the flight...

After standing in crowded line for a few more hours I found that all flights were booked until the next day.

Returning to the airport the next day I found that I had picked up the sniffels a bit, but I wasn't going to cancel my plans! I was determined to have a fun time on an island.
(I wouldn't call it a bad luck streak, but I ALWAYS get the full pat down going through airport security, guess I look like a bomber or something, that day was no different)

So I successfully make it to the island and try to get checked in, despite having called the hotel the previous day to let them know I wasn't checking in till today they completely canceled the reservation and were now booked.

Eventually finding a crappy hole in the wall place for an exhoribitant price late in the evening, I was just ready to go to sleep and go scuba diving the next day...

The next day, although my sniffels had gotten worse I decided to tough it out and go explore the sea, if you have gone scuba diving you know you have to equalize pressure on the way down by pinching your nose and blowing a little, I was having some trouble due to the cold so I just decided to blow a little bit harder then usual to get past the stuffyness... Well, I guess I overdid it a bit... I successfully blew out my eardrum.

Oh god the pain.

Of course I couldn't immediately surface either, I had to wait (for what felt like forever) in the middle of the ocean so as not to get the bends.

Can you guess where didn't have a doctor? That's right! This tiny island where I was! The only doctor for miles was out treating someone at the other side of the island.

Oh, the next day I did get to see him, pretty much only to be told, tough luck... no going in the water for you! Oh, and no flying back immediately either to avoid more ear damage.

Que a week of miserable days in pain waiting to get back home.

Hey! I made it home, thank god it's over! Or so I thought... on the way home I get T-boned by a mini-van while I am going through a green light... totals my car, permanently scars my face (surprised I lived) and since I am unable to get to work for about a month, my boss decides to fire me.

Yeah.

How about you guys?

Slider

Well, I don't have much going for me at the moment, other than regularly going to the gym. So, of course, yesterday I sprain my ankle, which means I won't be able to do much for 3-4 weeks.

Your boss sounds like a dick. Microsoft tried to fire my friend who had a heart transplant. It didn't work.

Decius

I'll just drag this gem up from a previous chat topic.

Decius wrote: »

On the topic of medical fuck-uppery, I need to catalogue the events of this past Tuesday. What better place then the chat thread? Spoilered for t3h large.

6:00AM - Get up for work. Have strong abdominal pains that have been plaguing me all night. Haven't had good sleep this going to be a long day.
6:30AM - Finally get out of bed. My abdomen hurts every time I move. Also diarrhea. Looks like my IBS (cause that doctors have never been able to figure out what the fuck is really wrong with me) has reared it's ugly head after being most dormant for two years.
6:35AM - Email my boss and say I ain't coming into work. Go lie down on my couch to try to sleep things off.
"Lets all go to the lobby, Lets all go to the lobby, Lets all go to the lobby, to get ourselves some snacks"
11:00AM - Wake up. Go to washroom. Finish doing a #1 and uh oh something isn't right. Feeling flushed and light headed. Fuck I'm going to pass out. I better sit do...
11:10AM - Come to, staring up at the ceiling of my washroom. I've fallen from a standing position, caused by thinking too much and not acting on my first aid knowledge. I smacked the base of my skull on the threshold between carpet and lino in my bathroom, knocked my teeth on something, and holy shit my ankle hurts. Feel around, nothing is bleeding and my teeth are all still there. Lip is swelling a little. Start to feel light headed again, and decide to stay lying down. Luckily I don't pass out this time. Hot flashes, might be feverish.
11:20AM - Move from lying down to sitting up on my washroom floor. Contemplating options and assessing situation. Notice I've knocked over everything in my washroom. Ankle still hurts.
11:30AM - Welp looks like I need to go to the hospital. Stand up, one foot it over to my office, and call my mom as I'm going to need some help with this. Dial 911 and ambulance in on the way.
11:40AM - Paramedics arrive, assess my condition. Takes about 45 minutes all told.

I don't have exact times from here on out. We arrived at the hospital at around 1PM. Triage obviously dictates that my injuries aren't life threatening, so I know I'm in for a wait. In the 11 hours we're there I have x-rays, a CT scan, and full blood work done. Everything comes back clean except for the x-ray. My ankle is broken in 3 places. I'm now on crutches for the next 6 weeks. I don't know how work is going to work out, as I have to drive and it's my right foot that's broken. Furthermore I'm headed to Vegas for CES in a few weeks. It's going to be an interesting 6 weeks.

TL;DR - Passed out from standing in my washroom. Broke my ankle. On crutches for 6 weeks. FML.

So that six weeks has bloomed into a full three months off on disability while my ankle heals fully. I'm back to work March 15. God I'm bored though. I still need crutches to walk, though my cast is off, so I can't really do anything. Finally got to drive my car today after two months, though I could only make it four blocks before my ankle started hurting. Luckily my dad was with me, so he brought her home.

Edit: Oh and I had to skip CES

MetroidZoid

These things?

Fuck 'em. Thought they were the shit back in ... 7th grade? So me and three friends blew between $70-$80 a pop for each of ours at our school's silent auction fundraiser. Great cool. In retrospect, being the only kid who didn't live in the city but 30 miles out and down a mile of gravel roadway, that money probably could've been spent better.

Nonetheless it got use and I think mine is hibernating in my parent's attic or some shit. No, it was my friend Chris and his post-named scooter Christine. The lot of us went to the top of the hill behind his house to get some fast food; him and another friend on a bike, a couple on skateboards, and me not having my bike and not being able to skateboard, opted for the Razor.

I realized this to be a mistake about midway through a wide turn. It wasn't horribly steep or sharp, but what Chris failed to mention is that his sister had run over the scooter with her car the previous week. Midway through the turn the scooter folds flat, handle forward, while the brakes fall off at the same time. Which wasn't that big a deal because brakes are useless as you are airborne. I landed on my wrist and slid on the same wrist 15 feet on asphalt until I rolled into the curb.

Epilogue: smart thing would've been to go to the hospital. No, instead I cradled my swollen painful arm the entire night while playing a game of Commando. And then the next day went to urgent care, where after a 5 hour wait they put my arm in a cast without removing the miscellaneous gravel semi-embedded into my skin.

Zombiemambo

I was all ready to leave for Thailand, planned for months, and the week we were leaving some rebels attacked Bangkok airport and took hostages.

Decius

Zombiemambo wrote: »

I was all ready to leave for Thailand, planned for months, and the week we were leaving some rebels attacked Bangkok airport and took hostages.

At least you weren't in Thailand when that happened. Kind of a perverse form of good luck.

Zombiemambo

Decius wrote: »

Zombiemambo wrote: »

I was all ready to leave for Thailand, planned for months, and the week we were leaving some rebels attacked Bangkok airport and took hostages.

At least you weren't in Thailand when that happened. Kind of a perverse form of good luck.

Eh, the whole situation was cleared up in 3 days and things, while a little turbulent in places, were mostly fine after that. My friends went and had a good time. Not really bitter about it, but I was psyched to go.

Gabriel_Pitt

This isn't my bad luck, this is the bad luck of anyone else out on the road with me. Since Friday, every time that I've gone out on the road, I've had one or more accidents happen within my line of sight, with yesterday's being a possible fatality, since the dumbass took his pick-up down an icy offramp at about 50 mph, the rear swung out when he hit where it curved, and then it flipped over and started rolling. Previous to that, you had someone get side-swiped by a truck with a plow blade, some guy in a sporty little convertible whip around a school bus and get his front bumber torn off, a woman decide the rest of use on the icey freeway were going to slow, and in weaving through the rest of us, hit an icey patch, spun out, and blocked both lanes of traffic, another guy, I don't know what he was doing wrong, but I saw his jeep go zipping through the intersection out of control and up up off the ground, perched on the little wall of snow that was built on top of the narrow median divider when they plowed. I'm seriously starting to dread getting in my car because I've got this looming fear that my number has to be coming up.

(And I'm not counting all the people I've passed embedded in snowbanks, or spun out on the side of the road - I'm only counting that accidents that have happened before my eyes).

Newtron

Oh man.

In a history class I took last year, there was this extremely attractive redhead sitting on the other side of the room from me. Over the course of the semester she keeps looking at me and I'm wondering why. One day after class I sit just outside the class on a nearby bench and pretend to check my messages on my cell, and sure enough she comes over and sits down next to me and starts checking her phone for whatever.

I strike up a conversation with her, and from that day on talk to her pretty regularly.

Eventually it's finals week and I ask her if she wants to review together and sure enough she agrees and we exchange numbers. The very next day, my cellphone falls out of my pocket and I lose it, her number, and our chance to study together. As it turns out I didn't need to take the exam because of good grades, but it's not the case for her as history apparently wasn't her best subject (it's my minor).

Scrum

Recently both my phone and computer broke, and I contracted pneumonia right at the same time I moved to a city where I knew nobody. That sucked ass.

Raiden333

In the past 3 months, I've had a PC headset, 360 controller, one mouse, and 2 keyboards either break or just mysteriously stop working.

I think I'm starting to inherit my mother's talent to murder anything electronic... She can't even wear a watch for half a week before it'll stop, without fail.

Honk

Raiden, this means that an aura of telekinetic powers run in your family. Harness them and use them for good deeds.

freelancerbob

Ok well, I have a few bad luck stories, but nothing too exciting.

This one is a gaming story, and concerns a character I once played in a shadowrun game, a heavily cyborgized ex-gunrunner.

We're on a rooftop, having screwed up an exfiltration from an op so badly that massive numbers of security personnel have cordoned off the streets for several blocks around.

Trying to break out of the cordon, we engage a patrol who are on the ground below us. Apparently they didn't graduate at the stormtrooper school of gunnery, as they proceed to shoot the everloving hell out of us. Being a ludicrously well armoured cyborg doesn't actually make you invincible, and the best part of 2 full clips find their way into what's left of my torso and skull.

We rapidly shift to the other side of the building and start climbing down, only for the other runners to look on in horror as I slip and fall 2 stories.

Which is when the other patrol comes around the corner. Backed up by a guy with a fricking grenade launcher.

They literally had to scoop bits of me off the street. The odds of me surviving that were pretty damn low, and I burned about every fatepoint/karama chit/luck point/ whatever to reduce the damage enough to NOT be chunky salsa.

Worst day ever for that character, including the day he lost his entire memory, and the day he had to be a conduit for the spirits despite being about as aethiric as a halfbrick in a sock.

RocketSauce

Newtron wrote: »

Oh man.

In a history class I took last year, there was this extremely attractive redhead sitting on the other side of the room from me. Over the course of the semester she keeps looking at me and I'm wondering why. One day after class I sit just outside the class on a nearby bench and pretend to check my messages on my cell, and sure enough she comes over and sits down next to me and starts checking her phone for whatever.

I strike up a conversation with her, and from that day on talk to her pretty regularly.

Eventually it's finals week and I ask her if she wants to review together and sure enough she agrees and we exchange numbers. The very next day, my cellphone falls out of my pocket and I lose it, her number, and our chance to study together. As it turns out I didn't need to take the exam because of good grades, but it's not the case for her as history apparently wasn't her best subject (it's my minor).

Cute redheads are like unicorns. That sucks dude.

Bolthorn

Yesterday I found out someone cloned my credit card and was using it to make (obviously) unauthorzied purchases. Either happened thanks to Cyrptic or Papa John's as both were the most recent "not normal" usage from myself. Seriously, my bill mostly consists of "STEAM", "WOOT.COM", and "AMAZON". Nice thing is Capital One is on the ball with that and none of the charges actually went through. I had that card number memorized too, which is a bummer.
Then, I get home and decide to fire up the snow blower and clean off our massive porch and driveway. I get a line from the driveway to the porch cleaned off for the mail carrier, and one pass down to the end of the driveway and the damn thing died. It refused to restart so I had to do the rest of the driveway with a shovel. Then later that evening some guy comes to my house asking if I wanted my driveway shoveled. Screw you buddy! I can get the car in and out, it's fine.

Decius

Ok now this is turning into bad luck.

I've had my cast off my ankle since Jan 28, but due to the injury I sustained I still don't have my balance back. I've tried using a cane, but I still need crutches to walk normally.

Well to add insult to injury (as well as add another injury), after Physio on Wednesday I was walking around my apartment and I managed to stub my little toe on my left foot in the back of my left crutch. And we're not talking a little bump like you'd do on a table leg. No I'm sitting here with a toe the has puffed up like a little cooked sausage, and has some good bruising. Still hurts too when I walk.

So I have an ankle on my right foot that doesn't quite work properly yet, and a toe on my left foot that is causing some serious pain when I try to walk around.

Oy vey

Cauld

Zombiemambo wrote: »

Decius wrote: »

Zombiemambo wrote: »

I was all ready to leave for Thailand, planned for months, and the week we were leaving some rebels attacked Bangkok airport and took hostages.

At least you weren't in Thailand when that happened. Kind of a perverse form of good luck.

Eh, the whole situation was cleared up in 3 days and things, while a little turbulent in places, were mostly fine after that. My friends went and had a good time. Not really bitter about it, but I was psyched to go.

Yeah, I was in Thailand during a coup. At first I was pretty worried, but no one else around me seemed to be. Plus I didn't have to work for a day or two!

GoodOmens

Two days before my wedding, my wife fell and twisted her ankle badly.
The day before my wedding, my wife and her two best friends/bridesmaids got in a major car accident, totalled my parents' car, and spent hours in the emergency room. One girl had whiplash, another had a concussion.
The morning of our honeymoon, I came down with some sort of nasty digestive problem and ended up spending much of the plane ride in the bathroom puking my guts out.

The wedding ceremony itself was very nice, though.

Kistra

For some reason during the spring of my senior year of high school I had a string of very bad luck while flying (these were on three different weekends with one weekend at home between them):

First the airlines lost my equipment on the way to try out for the olympics. In a sport where the equipment is quite customized and I compete left-handed with an unusual brand of equipment...

Went on a college recruiting trip for my first time flying by myself. Everything was peachy until I was flying home and tornadoes destroyed several hangers at the airport (Detroit) where I was supposed to change planes. We were diverted to another airport in a different state and sat on the runway for 5 or 6 hours. We went back and landed in Detroit once the tornadoes were gone. Unfortunately at this point it was 1 am and all the hotels for 50 miles were full and the airlines were out of blankets and pillows for those of us sleeping in the airport. Got on a flight out mid day the next day and got home but not fun and the chairs in the airports are horrible for sleeping.

Went on a school trip that involved flying. I think the teacher in charge had never flown before because she made us get to the airport 6 hours before the flight left. After sitting around all day our flight was delayed for 45 minutes. This caused us to miss our connection, which confused us because we were a group of 25 people and the connecting flight was on a little tiny puddle hopper with 27 seats. Talking to the gate attendant it left with a single person on board. Teacher in charge starts screaming at everybody in sight. The four seniors (myself included) decide she is an idiot so we go talk to the airline people ourselves and get ourselves (plus one teacher) a hotel room and vouchers for food. We show back up at the airport in the morning to find out that overnight for some reason our teacher in charge changed all the tickets from electronic tickets to paper tickets and they all left at 5 am to go on 3 connecting flights to get to our destination because she couldn't wait for the direct flight that leaves at 11am (which we had all been booked on the night before). So we sort of have reservations on the 11am flight, but for some reason the crazy lady changed our tickets to paper tickets and took them with her. Luckily we manage to talk our way onto the flight anyways and arrive before the rest of our group and get yelled for not telling anyone what we were doing and going off by ourselves despite the fact that we had a teacher with us.