Well…it seemed like a good idea at the time…

How many times have you heard OR said that before?

And you know what always comes next in those kinds of stories: people end up doing something really dangerous, stupid, or reckless.

We’ve all been there!

Check out these stories from people who definitely said that on AskReddit.

1. Fire!

“So back in the day my brothers and I were shooting a bow and arrow behind our house.

We had a proper backstop and a nice target on a bale of hay. After about an hour we were getting bored and one of my brothers had a stroke of genius. Let’s light one on fire.

So there we are wiring rags to arrows and soaking them in gas and shooting stuff. Didn’t take long and half the yard was on fire. We’d shot pretty much every flammable thing we could burn in the yard.

Since we were running short on stuff to shoot my brother decided to launch one in a 45° arc over the woods behind the house. We all watched soar laughing and giggling.

When it hit the apex was when it dawned on us that this was in fact a really stupid f*cking idea.

All 6 of us sprinted off into the woods in the direction it’d been shot. Wasn’t hard to find it’d lite an entire little meadow on fire. So we ran around stomping out fires for an hour.

When we finally got the fire put out we were sitting by the crick and my oldest brother looks at us all and says,”Dad never hears a word about this.””

2. Dumb.

“When I was 15 my best friend and I just got new bb pistols. They we’re the Walther CP99. Looked identical to the real Walther CP9 with a removable magazine and no orange tip.

We were playing with them in the back seat of his mom’s car. They weren’t loaded, we were just excited and wanted to take them out of the box. She knew we had them out and didn’t think anything of it. This was the late 90s btw.

Before going back to his house she went thru the drive thru at Burger King. You know where this is going. She’s ordering food with 2 large 15 year olds holding guns and pointing them at everything.

Fast forward 30 minutes, we are pulling into their driveway and his dad comes running out of the house yelling historically. One of his friends just called and said he heard on the police scanner that they were looking for his vehicle with 2 white males holding a female hostage at gunpoint.

Few minutes later several police cars pull in the driveway, jump out with guns out making everyone get on the ground. It took some explaining on his dads part about us being a bunch of dumb *sses.

15 year old me couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about but 34 year old me looks back and realizes that might be the dumbest thing I have ever done.”

3. Not the greatest choice.

“I went on a solo trip to Costa Rica when I was 26 – I’m a fairly petite female. I speak no Spanish.

The eco lodge I was staying at helped me arrange a guide for an all day hike. We were flown by 4 seater plane into the jungle, a 26 hour walk to the nearest town.

We landed, Jose and i hopped out, and the plane took off again, leaving me, Jose and his machete alone for the day.

Thankfully it went OK, but as soon as that plane took of I realized I had made a bad choice.”

4. Let’s live together!

“Moved to LA with my best friend. He actually went out there first. I went out a year later.

Living with someone completely changes the dynamic. We always got along great until we were roommates. Our friendship deteriorated into nothing.

We didn’t talk for five years until we patched things up. I guess the moral of story even if you become roommates with best friend it might not always work out well.”

5. Didn’t end well.

“Holding onto my friend’s car mirror while skateboarding on a newly paved parking lot.

Road rash sucks.”

6. Scary.

“On a rainy day, I saw a hitchhiker near the university asking for a ride.

He “looked the part” of a student. Although I never pick up hitchhikers, I felt sorry for him standing in the rain and gave him a lift – it felt like the right thing to do at the time.

He told me where he was headed, so I went out of my way to drive him there. The guy just kept staring at me and said very little. When we arrived at his destination, he wouldn’t get out of my car, no matter what.

Finally, when a police officer came along, I told him to hop out or I’d call the cop over for help. That ended it. But if the officer hadn’t come by, I have no idea what might have happened.”

7. Sounds terrifying.

“So I was in Uganda with my family, and we see a large (about 5ft tall), curled up leaf hanging about 8ft off the ground.

We’re told that these leaves curl up and fall out the trees, and they’re pretty heavy, so it can be dangerous to have it fall on you. My dad and I think ‘wont it be helpful of us to get this thing down’.

So, we’re there whacking it with sticks, trying to get it down, to no avail, when my dad says “Hey, climb up on that wall there, son, and jump! Grab it and then pull it down!”

Well, that sounds like a swell idea, dad! So I do just that… I don’t manage to get it all the way down, but as soon as I hit the ground, I get this burning sensation in my elbow. Turns out there’s a hive of Ugandan Mud Wasps living in this specific leaf, and they do not take kindly to young men trying to tug their home down.

So I’m just sprinting back to the office where the rest of my family is sheltered from the sun, and I practically have two elbows on one arm at this point while, as my dad described it later ‘an army of large, black blots’ give chase. I make it back inside and my arm is numb, except for the searing pain in my elbow.

Thankfully, there was no further reaction, the pain lasted only around 3 hours and the swelling was down by the end of the day. That being said, it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt… Even worse than the time I broke my arm into three pieces while arm wrestling…”

8. Whoops.

“I let my 14 year old cousin at the time try driving the family car.

I was like 18 back then or 20 and I told him it’s easy to drive an automatic car, basically like driving a go-kart. Told him gas was right and brakes were center.

I forgot to mention that changing the gear to D will automatically have the car move. We both panicked and hit a tree in front of us at probably 1 mph.

Luckily we were in our neighborhood by a dead end.”

9. OH MY GOD.

“”Snow Water Skiing”.

Me driving the snowmobile across a snowy field and my little brother skiing behind holding a tow-rope.

Two broken legs.”

10. Close call.

“Shooting each other with fire works on New Years.

One landed directly in between my eyes, luckily, it didn’t go off and I wasn’t injured.”

11. It was fun, but…

“”Hey you know those degenerates who you stay out drinking with until sunrise every other day? Why don’t you live with them for the last two years of law school. That won’t cause any issues at all.”

Cue two years of abuse to my body and liver and more than a little strain between me and my friends at the time.

Overall it was fun, but definitely not a good idea.”

12. That’s no fun.

“Playing “Sled Dog” with my newly rescued husky and a long board on the hilly streets near my house in college.

Snapped my right forearm in half and had to walk a mile back home to get a ride to the hospital.”

13. Is that a fun game?

“I ran across the street with my eyes closed when I was 14.

I didn’t get hit by a car. However, I ran into a tree headfirst and cut my face and knee open.

For all of you asking what my thought process was, it is as follows:

Who am I kidding I have no idea what I was thinking…”

14. Sorry to hear that.

“Applying for a PhD position.

Sh*tty pay and no free time in sight for the next 3 years.

Thanks to it I despise working in science like never before…”

15. One more swing.

“I had just finished this bike ride with my scout troop and we ended it at the side of a river.

So waiting for our parents to pick us up, the boys all go to a rope swing to f*ck around in the river. It was absurdly shallow, the furthest swing would still land you in 3 foot water, average lazy swing was 2 feet deep or so.

Mom comes, some dad hollers at me that she’s arrived. I run back until I can see her getting out of the car and yell “one more swing mom I’ll be right back”. She seems in a good mood, says okay, starts chatting with other adults there.

So not 2 minutes later I walk up to her with a broken arm. I had gone back for that one more swing, screwed up and planted my wrist into the shallow water, broke my arm, and got out of the water saying bye without telling the kids what I’d done. Just sorta walked up to my mom, “hey I just broke my arm… sorry.”

She was not pleased. like, seriously,.. you HAADDDD to go for one more swing… c’mon lets go get a cast you idiot.”

16. In the dark.

“In college a large group of us hiked up to this abandoned mine shaft at night, took turns squeezing through a small crack in the mountain (the main entrance was closed off).

Walked down a long dark corridor with our flashlights, then set up a campfire in one of the large clearings at the end and proceeded to get wasted. All fun and games until a rather large girl got too drunk and couldn’t walk on her own.

Getting her out of there was a whole f*cked up ordeal, thought a few times during the process that we were going to have to leave her there in the dark and go get help, especially when my flash light started to die.”

17. Sounds kinda fun…

“Summer camp one year, everyone was getting in barrels to roll down this giant hill.

It seemed like tons of fun so I hopped in one and down I went. Well, the whole time it felt like I was being beaten up by the ground, and I was bruised pretty much from head to toe with a few cuts and scrapes too.

Being a young teen I of course had to act tough and like it was awesome, but it really was not awesome. I thought I was maybe just a wimp or did it wrong, but looking back it definitely seems it was a dare type thing everyone wanted to prove they were tough enough for.

I’m guessing many more than just me had the thought of “well, that wasn’t fun”.”

18. The rope swing.

“At a bachelor party last year, we rented a small house in a small town in the middle of nowhere. The 2nd day we are there, we decide to go to a local state park which had a nice swimming hole.

As we were getting ready to get out of the water, one of the locals mentioned a rope swing on the other side of the little island in the middle of the lake.

Always being the adventurous person, I decide to swim out with a few of my friends to check it out. There are a couple of locals there and we watch them go first. It is a pretty high swing off a decent drop and the water looks to get pretty deep, pretty quick.

At this point I should mention that I am about 6′ 3″ and 250+ pounds at this point in my life. I should also mention that I have very little upper body strength. I’ve been a cyclist and runner most of my life and rarely worked out my upper body.

I take the rope swing, go to one of the highest points I could, and launch off. As the swing hits the lowest point, my hands slip just a bit, but its enough for me to react by dropping my knees just a bit. As this happens, my feet hit the ground.

As that happens, my hands let go of the rope. My left knee smashes into the waters edge, which is much rockier than anticipated. My hands plunge into the water, which is also much rockier than I anticipated.

I coast out into the water on my belly and float for a few seconds before regaining my composure and slowly swimming back into shore. My leg is bleeding and my right hand hurts like hell. We go to a local urgent care.

Long story short I ended up with 12 staples in my left knee to close the gash from the rocks. I had X-rays on my hand after the weekend and found out that I essentially shattered my right middle finger.

I ended up needing surgery and now have 3 screws in that finger. It has most of its functionality, but it does hurt like hell from time to time.

But d*mn if that rope swing didn’t look like a good time.”

19. Benders are not a good idea.

“Going on a 4 day bender with no sleep.

Ended up getting the sh*t kicked out of me and required 7 stitches in the back of my head, spending 2 months wages, losing my brand new £1000 phone and p*ssing off numerous ex girlfriends by declaring my love for them.

Oh and I was hungover for about a week. Haven’t had a drink for 3 months now because of my stupidity!”

20. Kids, don’t do this.

“Came out of a party at university and my friend told me to jump into a snow pile headfirst.

Thought it would be really funny until the snowpile turned out to have a layer of solid ice on the top.

Blacked out for a couple seconds and cut my head pretty badly.”

21. Never again.

“Decided to get high and go to a yoga class because I thought I would get a better mind muscle connection.

Turns out the class I decided to go to was being taught by a eastern European yoga psychopath and had me bending my body in ways I have never done before.

Never again.”

22. Not good for the eyes.

“My cousin and I were sitting on his balcony on a breezy day, and we decided to spray some of my pepper spray into the air to see what it smelled like.

Into the wind.

Oh, how our eyes burned…

There was alcohol involved.”

23. Dating co-workers.

“Dating my co-worker even though I have been down this path once before.

We lasted for a while before I caught him flirting with a new girl in front of me.

I found out a lot of things after the fact and it nearly destroyed me.”

24. Bummer.

“Work sent me to the Chicago area and I got out super early one evening and decided to hitch a train to a bar I’ve always wanted to go to.

I carefully planned a trip so I could make it there and back with enough time to see the bar and without driving so I could drink.

Perfect plan.

I took an hour and a half’s worth of train rides, walked for five minutes, and found that the bar was closed for a private event.

That’s how I spent my night yesterday.”

25. It’s really bright in here.

“Getting really high before a work Christmas lunch at a fancy restaurant.

I was 19 in my defense but d*mn it was awkward trying to talk to people and act normal.

Such a bright restaurant.”

26. Party time.

“College dorm mini-party: My roommates and I were all engineers, and we decided to make our own drinking game.

So we got a deck of cards, and we split the cards between the three of us. Then we’d go 1.. 2.. 3! and everybody would slap a card down. The first person to correctly add up the values of all the cards (per blackjack rules) didn’t have to drink, but everybody else had to do a shot. If you shouted the wrong number, you had to drink twice and nobody else did.

Basically, you had to try to do math while getting plastered.

Ho boy.

Things escalated pretty quick. The more drunk people got, the worse they got, and the more double-shots they were taking. In engineering terms, it was a positive feedback loop.

The next morning one of my roommates (who was pretty shy, and we didn’t realize was a lightweight) was found in a giant puddle of puke in the bathroom. We got him up, helped him out of his clothes, and got him into the shower and brought him water, etc.

After passing out in the shower for a few hours, we moved him to his bed, where he woke up naked about 10 hours later — having zero memories from the party.

Scary sh*t. Looking back, I realize how serious it could have been for him.”

27. Haven’t spoken since.

“I was having trouble paying my rent, so I let my friend move into my bedroom while I slept in the living room. Thought we’d share the rent 50/50.

Turns out, my friend of 15 years was an alcoholic. He never paid his share of rent on time, drank a liter of wine every night (I found bottles he had hidden for months after he moved out) and he was a complete slob. I really didn’t know my friend very well.

He moved out saying “it’s not going to work out”. For about 3 months he texted me to ask for money. I ignored every call/text. Finally, I ran into him at a restaurant.

He was staying at a sober living place and he was trashed off his *ss. We haven’t spoken since.”

Now it’s your turn!

In the comments, tell us your “it seemed like a good idea at the time” stories.

We can’t wait to hear from you!