Darwin Awards: They've Earned It!

(*Don't forget tonight is new "Ghost Hunters" on SyFy*)

For those who haven’t heard of the Darwin Awards, they are posthumously awarded to people who did things that prove that only the strongest (and smartest) survive, thereby reinforcing the principals of evolution. These folks “do a service to humanity by removing themselves from the gene pool.” (Wikipedia)

Here are just some of the ways in which these winners made it possible for us to evolve to the next smarter stage:

Juggling active hand grenades.
Crashing through a window to prove it was unbreakable (when it wasn’t).
Jumping from a plane to photograph skydivers without a parachute.
A cop lit a cigarette in a room full of seized explosives.

Oh, I have had quite a few…. One that sticks out in my mind is when I was about 11. I decided I could parachute off the top of my barn. I took two umbrellas and positioned myself two stories up. I considered the wind and realized it wasn’t strong enough and so I went down to the side roof that was one story up. I waited for a gust of wind and jumped. Luckily, I crumpled and rolled with the umbrellas. I managed to not stab myself or break anything, but had I not taken that one moment on the peak of the barn to use rational thought, I might be a Darwinian candidate. That was only one of many insane stunts. Somehow, even though I tend to want to do things on a whim, I still manage to have a little voice inside that contains a higher IQ that prevails.

This isn't always the case because in high school I stayed over with my girlfriends at one of our houses, a girl who lived in a very upper class neighborhood, with a pool and tennis courts and a water slide. We all got drunk because her parents were gone and then I got the great idea to go streaking around the neighborhood at night. One of my friends did too. We literally walked around the block naked at a regular pace, no big rush. Then, a car came, the lights hit us and my friend yells, "car, get out of the way!" I dive off the road and roll down a hillside into a huge cactus garden; one of every variety. From head to toe I was completely and totally covered in needles, my gums, nails; I looked like a freaking teddy bear. Luckily, still drunk enough to know something bad happened but I can't feel it. My girlfriends took tweezers and a bright light and picked them out of my ass so I could soak in a tub to get the rest out. I suppose according to Darwin, I was lucky it wasn't a cliff, huh?

Thankfully for my gifted and amazing son, I remained in the gene pool which makes me wonder about a higher power having a hand in that, because I certainly was always a risk taker.

So, what have you done that might have put you on the list?