Belt Loop Tensile Strength 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Have you ever been asked what was your most embarrassing moment? Well this is my moment and my attempt at the Darwin awards.
I was, I'm sorry to say 16 years old… far past the age of knowing better. I was working in my grandfathers shop and he was a crossed the room cleaning. I needed a board and new that there were some up in the rafters two stories up. Usually we used a ladder to get up, but I decided I could think of a better way! There was a rope and pulley used to hang deer for carving that was fixed to the roof and decided to use it to get me up there. So in a stroke of genius slid the hook through one single belt loop of my Levi jeans… I clam temporary insanity. I pulled myself up and surprisingly now that I think back on it my belt loop held till I reached the top defying fait until I grabbed an armful of wood and began to lower myself.
I’m not sure if it was as soon as I put my weight on it again or maybe I was a ways down but finally my stupidity caught up to me. A two story fall wouldn’t have been that bad if I had just landed on the floor probably, instead I landed on an old chair, the metal back hitting me right in the side. Beneath my skin the chair split my kidney down the center causing major internal problems to my body some how it didn’t kill me. I as well smacked my skull on the metal top of a saw table, luckily not hitting the blade and feel to the floor unconscious. My grandfather who is deaf didn’t hear any of this including what I'm sure was a scream on the way down. I don’t know how long I was out but eventually my grandfather found me and woke me up. In my second case of Darwinism when he asked me what happened rather than saying what I had done I told him I tripped.
The first part was reason enough for my death to be a stroke of natural selection at work, I chose instead of going strait to the hospital, to go to bed and sleep for about 24 hours. Upon waking up and found I could no longer move my body my instincts and rationality finally kicked in and I called for help.
After all the damage done I got off pretty easy, my side and back hurt like heck for about a month but didn’t have to have surgery luckily. I could barely walk for a week and got yelled at by the family doctor asking how dumb I could be. I spent the next couple years drinking about a gallon of water per day to help my kidney heal. I hope that will always be what I claim as my dumbest moment… I think if I do something worse… ill probably be showing up on this page in the winner’s selection.
Submitted on 03/10/2003
Submitted by:
Nels Kelley
Reference:
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