The Magnificent Return of Jimmywayne Ford with a Bucketful of Wisdom Learned the Hard Way
By: Jimmywayne Ford
Tags: Dumb Stuff, Humor, Safety, Advice, Lessons Learned

Advice

The Magnificent Return of Jimmywayne Ford with a Bucketful of Wisdom Learned the Hard Way

Dumb shit I did when I was young

Photo by Chema Photo on Unsplash

I just done woke up from a months’ long nap. Well, that ain’t exactly the truth, but as you may have noticed I ain’t been on Medium or MuddyUm for dog years. I could explain why, but that would remove the mystery of the missin’ cowboy who done came back from somewhere that ain’t got no name.

Just so you ain’t too worried about my disappearance I jes’ want to assure you I been maintainin’ my usual beer consumption. Now, I had to drink most of it alone and had to hide it from my sister Stella who ain’t been feelin’ too swift for a while now.

Now that I am back I ‘m goin’ to give you some good advice by telling you some stories that are examples of me doing dumb shit that you should not do.

My advice today is: Don’t do dumb shit!

I done learned the hard way, but you don’t have to if you just listen to these here stories.

Photo by J. Remus on Unsplash

Story #1

This here story is to warn folks against doin’ stupid shit. I’ve learned from some painful experiences that it is always best to look before you leap, to read the instructions, and to listen to what yore mama told you.

I was about four years old when I shimmied up the drain pipe and climbed on the roof of our two story house. The gittin’ up that drain was easy. The gittin’ down warn’t so easy. And the whole time I was tryin’ to get down offa that there roof, mama and my sisters were hollerin’ at me and askin’ me what in blazes I was thinkin’ when I shimmied up the drain pipe. They kept sayin’ don’t you know you coulda kilt yoreself. Well, obviously I had figured that out now that I was on the roof, only I was more worried about killin’ myself tryin’ to get off the dang roof and back on the ground.

Mama was telling me one thing and my sisters were hollerin’ different instructions to me. I tried to get back on the drainpipe so I could shimmy down, but that warn’t easy to do while tryin’ not to fall off the roof and bust my head open on the ground.

One of the neighbors, Mr. Pinto, heard all the hollerin’ and said he would get me down. He had a really long ladder that almost reached the roof. He climbed up on it and tried to convince me to slide to the edge so he could get holt of me. I was too scared of fallin’ and also too scared of what mama was gonna do to me when I did get back on the ground.

Finally, Mr. Pinto convinced me to move toward the edge and let my legs hang down. He was a tall man and was able to reach me when I finally did what he said. He held me as we slowly inched our way down the ladder to the ground.

Once I got on the ground, Mama started whuppin’ my behind and told me not to EVER climb on a roof again, that I just about give her a heart attack. I wasn’t feelin’ so good either and I barfed up my lunch.

Photo by Constante Ken Lim on Unsplash

Story #2

Of course, that weren’t the last time I climbed on a roof. When I was fourteen, me ‘n my buddy Tyrone climbed up on the roof of the Dairy Queen one night around midnight carrying a six pack of beer in a backpack. Well, after we’d had a few beers, a cop car pulled into the parkin’ lot of the DQ and this big ol’ cop got out of the car and hollered up at us and asked us what the hell we thought we were doin.’

By now we’d downed two, goin’ on three beers and we were laughin’ like two hyenas. Tyrone told the police that we were lookin’ for somethin,’ but we forgot what it was. O’course the cop could see that we was drunk and he told us not to try to get down and just stay put ’til he got help.

Next thing we know a fire truck comes roarin’ down the road and pulls into the parkin’ lot. Them firemen used that ladder that automatically moves up to the roof when the firemen pushed a button. The fireman looked madder’n a wet hen, but he climbed up to us and almost dragged us to the ladder one by one. We was so tipsy that we were swayin’ and reelin’ and the firemen had to hold onto us to get us down.

I guess you can imagine what mama had to say about that when the cop drove us home. Mama and my sisters were teetotalers and were shocked beyond words (somethin’ that rarely ever happened) when the cop told them what we’d done. Mama tried to whup me that time, too, but I ran off with Tyrone and slept at his house.

Pretty much everbody in town knew about that little escapade of mine and Tyrone’s. The kids at school laughed at us. I had thought they would think we were funny, but instead they said we were idiots.

Image by Pashminu Mansukhani from Pixabay

Story #3

When I was in my twenties, me ‘n’ Skeeter had a job at a big warehouse and it was our job to use a forklift to move pallets from one place to another in the warehouse. One day, while the boss was at lunch, me ’n Skeeter decided it would be a good idea to have a forklift contest and see who could lift the heaviest pallet.

I’m goin’ to leave that right here and tell you it did not end well. We durned near killed ourselves when our forklifts tipped over. Yep, we got fired when the boss came back and seen the forklifts layin’ on the ground sideways.

I got a shitload of more stories of me and one of my buddies doin’ somethin’ stupid. If I tell you too many of them, then you are gonna think I just ain’t right in the head. Let’s just say that I eventually matured enough to be a safe and careful employee that didn’t pull stupid crap like that any more.

After me ‘n Skeeter nearly killed ourselves with them forklifts, I got to thinkin’ I didn’t want to die and then I better stop actin’ like a idiot. We’ve all done some stupid things in our youth, but we’s supposed to learn from it. I was a slow learner, but once I got the hang of not bein’ stupid, things went well.

I hope these here stories will serve as a warnin’ to you to not be stupid like I was.