Breaking other people's stuff

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So yesterday myself and a few of my friends were all out on Blackheath taking advantage of the bracing autumn wind in order to be very twee and childish for the afternoon. This involved jumpers for goalposts, kite flying and the maiden voyage of the remote controlled STEALTH BOMBER, which a good friend of mine had given to his brother for his birthday a couple of months back.

Unfortunately, it was too windy to do any of these things properly. My kite (a birthday gift from another good friend, also present) was the first casualty. I lent it to a mate to have a go, he returned minutes later with it ripped, an important pole sticking out one end where it shouldn't have been, and the tail half way up a tree somewhere. Ah well, I thought, it was fun while it lasted.

Still, karma was not about to settle for my relaxed reaction to all this. On my first go on the plane, which everyone else had had varying successes at flying, I found it next to impossible to control. Sending hurtling toward the window of a very expensive looking house on the edge of the heath. Not wanting to be hit with a large glazier's bill, I dropped the controller, bringing my friend's expensive new toy onto the flat roof of the house, completely out of reach. It was impossible to get off.

Everyone laughed, but I feel pretty guilty about this. So tonight I have to go back, knock on a stranger's door, and say "excuse me, I appear to have landed my plane on your roof, can I have it back please?"

So anyway - breaking, losing or otherwise fucking up other people's posessions. Your stories here.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 11 October 2004 10:51 (twenty-one years ago)

This whole concept depresses and guiltifies me too much to give a proper response.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 11 October 2004 10:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Not wanting to be hit with a large glazier's bill, I dropped the controller

I don't quite follow this bit.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:05 (twenty-one years ago)

i kicked a football really hard into the air to see how high it would go and it came down full force onto my friends face just as he decided to look up to the sky; breaking his really expensive glasses in the process. I think he also cried.

― Hari Ashurst (Toaster), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:08 (twenty-one years ago)

gla·zier
n.

One who cuts and fits glass, as for doors and windows.

― Germany's Fun-Loving Beer (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't follow the dropping the controller bit either

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:14 (twenty-one years ago)

when i was 14, so 13 years ago, i had a video of the manic street preachers, my then favourite band. the video was made of clips from tv, interviews, performances on obscure programmes at 3 in the morning, etc etc. i lent it to my friend and her dad recorded free willy over it. i still haven't forgiven them.

― trix, Monday, 11 October 2004 11:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I was going to say something really nasty about hoping that you'd run the plane through HSA's windows, but then realised you'd dropped the controller and lost the plane. Sigh.

― Danger Whore (kate), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I broke my best friends two front teeth. I still feel guilty about that. Her dad came storming round to my house roaring and bawling about "two years worth of wearing a brace and then you do that!"

It's not like it was totally my fault, we were playing on a see-saw, she was sitting at one end and I ws standing pushing the other end down forcefully by hand, she ended up coming over the handles and going teeth first into the goddam thing.

I, to my shame ran away home at this point.

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Did Matt's quick, legalistic mind judge that if didn't have the controller in his hand at the time of window impact, they'd have nothing on him? Or did he somehow know that dropping it would result in the plane banking up onto the roof?

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

My Cd player fucked up, and I had no money, so this friend of mine very kindly lent me his ghetto blaster w/integral CD player. My dear wife was painting the kitchen while I was at work one day, and decided she wanted to listen to music whilst doing so. That night, I got home, and she showed me what a nice job she'd made of the painting. The CD player (NOT OURS) was covered in little fine specks of white paint!! The worst bit was when I mentioned it to her (later, not at the time) she didn't give a shit about it!! "Oh, he'll be ok".

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

i always feel guilty when i break other people's things. but maybe it's because i know that i get angry when people break my things. when they apologise (and pay for it if it's expensive) it's okay though. unless it's something really irreplaceable, and whoever broke it was being careless about it.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:25 (twenty-one years ago)

is matt climbing towards the roof just now? is that why he's not answering?

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Matt may be feeling a bit foolish about the dropping the controller in a child-like-panic part of his tale.

That and the vandal grease on the roof.

― ___ (___), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:30 (twenty-one years ago)

i lent it to my friend and her dad recorded free willy over it.

This happened to a friend of mine. He had a very carefully recorded-from-TV video of every single episode of The Day Today, and in his first term at Uni lent it to an aquaintance for a couple of days. He got the tape back and had discovered the entire tape recorded over with 3 hours of Children's BBC and news.

A bit miffed he asked his friend what had happened to the video - asuming it was an accident to which the guy replied with no sense of shame, "Oh, there was a new presenter starting on Blue Peter and I wanted to see what she looked like."

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Monday, 11 October 2004 11:48 (twenty-one years ago)

was it Konnie Huq at least?

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 11 October 2004 12:02 (twenty-one years ago)

No. Katie what's-her-name. It was about '95.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Monday, 11 October 2004 12:09 (twenty-one years ago)

When i was about 8/9 i had a babysitter who was more akin to a large monster and she used to leave the older ones (me) in charge of the younger ones (a kid of about 2/3). I was trying to watch art attack one afternoon when this kid decided to run around the sofa screaming like a siren. So i maliciously tripped him up, which put an end to my misery but unfortunatly the brat landed his forehead on the edge of a plug. The babysitter had to take him to hospital to have stitches. I never got the blame though.

― Hari Ashurst (Toaster), Monday, 11 October 2004 12:13 (twenty-one years ago)

eew katy hill!

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 11 October 2004 12:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, the window in question was actually *above* the roof, due to the roof of said house being on two levels. I basically dropped the controller hoping the sudden lack of power would cause the plane to fall to the floor. I was wrong.

It was a perfect landing though. Everyone else could only manage some kind of kamakaze nosedive.

You could probably climb out of one of the windows onto the roof and retrieve the plane fairly easily. However, if it rains, the thing is fucked.

I also quite like the idea of whoever lives in the house looking out of their bedroom window and seeing a toy plane perched outside.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 11 October 2004 12:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Omigod, that sounds like Joe's mum's house.

But there's a lot of that shit modern architecture around Blackheath.

― Danger Whore (kate), Monday, 11 October 2004 12:18 (twenty-one years ago)

i had a huge crush on katy hill when she started out.

i loved philip schofields sidekick too, and maybe philip a bit too.

― Hari Ashurst (Toaster), Monday, 11 October 2004 12:20 (twenty-one years ago)

so the controller is now in pieces and un-put-back-together-able?

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 11 October 2004 12:22 (twenty-one years ago)

i can't remember when i last did this, but i'm sure i felt terrible about it.

about six years ago i lent a ren & stimpy tape that i'd had sent me from america to a friend, who promised to take impeccable care of it. a couple weeks later i came to collect it and i found it busted. the worst part was when they said "i didn't break it, it was my sister!!". I DIDNT LEND THE TAPE TO YR SISTER ARHGRI@()$@*&#

― m. (mitchlnw), Monday, 11 October 2004 12:23 (twenty-one years ago)

OK, who just broke ILX for the past hour, then? Own up now!

(Ok, was it me, in the middle of my giant, conflated Mt. Kenya -> Mt. Kilimanjaro -> Julian Cope -> Extreme Archeology visual joke that I was lining up and lost in the crash?)

― Danger Whore (kate), Monday, 11 October 2004 13:57 (twenty-one years ago)

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Breaking other people's stuff - C/D?