People can sometimes come up with ideas that are seemingly doomed to fail from the start. Yet, through some twist of fate, they manage to make it work like a charm, proving everyone wrong and making themselves appear like geniuses. 

This was the topic of a recent Reddit thread. Reading through the first half of these stories may make you want to call them out for coming up with dumb plans, yet you may be amazed at how they were able to produce their desired results. 

Readers, if you’ve ever been in a similar situation, we would love to hear your personal experiences in the comments below!

#1

I was broke, had no real plan or opportunities. Quit my job, drove across the country (US) to — find myself? figure out life? No idea. I was 23, probably an idiot, but I had no responsibilities to anyone but me.

Found a career in IT, a wife, and now have a grown kid, a house, a dog, a couple cars, the whole “American dream” package. Every once in a while, usually while standing in my yard over the grill with a beer in my hand, I’m like “Damn, it worked!”.

© Photo: RetroactiveRecursion

#2

How the movie Cowboys and Aliens got made.

The property had been optioned but never used. They then made a graphic novel out of it, priced way under what a book that size would normally cost. They then offered them in bulk to the large comic shop chains around the country with the promise that if they bought a thousand dollars worth, they’d get a thousand dollar check from the publisher. Several comic chains did it and they got their thousand dollars back as promised.

Seemed like a bonkers marketing strategy… until they then used those sales numbers to go back to Hollywood and show that they had the biggest selling graphic novel in the country.

And it worked. A studio picked up the script and got it made.

© Photo: lajaunie

#3

In college I applied for a lucrative summer job, as did a friend. We knew it had way more applicants than positions. The friend got a call and was invited in. I got that number from him and just called, claiming that I had been called from this number. Person checked, saw that I was among the applicants, assumed that either she or the other shift had called me, and invited me in too.

Was a nice financial bonus and even helped me as I could list it as work experience years later.

© Photo: Acc87

#4

1- when I was like, 6 years old, we had a mouse in the house. I didnt want my parents to end it with a snap trap so i used Tom and Jerry logic to make a trap for it. I put a piece of cheese in a bucket on its side and placed a fan next to it to blow the cheese smell to where we knew the mouse was hiding. Within a minute, the mouse came sniffing around and entered the bucket. I tilted the bucket upright and put a lid on it and took the mouse outside to set free.

2- in college, I had a test i was worried about on a subject I really struggled with. My roommate was actually really good in that subject and our third roommate suggested we all get drunk and have a last minute tutoring session the night before. Somehow, I did better on the test than my roommate who tutored me. Again, we were *drunk* during this tutoring session. Like, *drunk* drunk.

© Photo: EkbyBjarnum

#5

Many years ago, my brother was moving apartments, only about six blocks.

He had a big couch, but none of us had a truck. So we dragged it behind his Hyundai accent in early December in the middle of the night.

We took the legs off and put padding underneath.

Worked like a charm.

© Photo: Wonderful_Price2355

#6

I bought a pool for my kids. A little 14ft above ground. It was meant to be a surprise, so i tried to set it up (foundation included) before anyone noticed.

As it’s filling up, right around sundown, my 9yo finally takes notice of it and asks what it is.

“Oh, that’s the water trough for the cows I just ordered. I’m just filling it up before they arrive.”

He looks at it for a second, then back at me, “Oh. Can I name one of them?”

At least I don’t have to worry about college.

© Photo: Malikhi

#7

During college I was in a university with a Corps of Cadets program where like 99% of them lived on campus. I was that 1%, and had little money. I blended in with them after PT and got free breakfast for the whole time. As long as they had uniform on, nobody cared. Saved thousands.

© Photo: ThrustingBeaner

#8

I worked for a basement repair company so dealing with a lot of foundational cracks and water coming into the basement. Had a customer with rock foundation in an old church, the type of thing you’d see in a medieval castle wall. Just giant boulders and crumbling concrete holding together. The weird thing is that this was the first time I had ever seen a rock foundation with no water. I asked the customer if he did anything to stop the water coming in and he told me he had *built a well* right next to the church all on his own. He had put in about 10 pvc tunnels running from the well to the churches foundation exterior to collect water and bring it to the well.

Honestly my plan was to just throw up a vapor barrier and call it good.

© Photo: elkswimmer98

#9

I worked at Sears Automotive, in the 80’s, as a teenager. It was a really windy day and as I walked to my car I pulled out the only bill in my pocket, a 20, which was a fortune to me at the time. The bill blew out of my hand and disappeared into the abyss. I went back inside, and I told a very old salesperson what had happened and he continued to cut a piece of paper the size of a bill. He walked outside, where I lost the bill, and let go of the paper. We were able to follow the piece of paper, and within a minute it LANDED on top of the lost 20 dollar bill. I kid you not!

© Photo: BlackMelon1533

#10

It was my dumb idea, and it worked.

So, my dad was a truck driver. And when I was a kid I would tag along on trips whenever I could over the school holidays. The company my dad worked for was in the north of NSW, in cane land. Most of what they did was take molasses down south and bring other stuff back up. Because molasses is heavy, you don’t need a tanker trailer to get to your max weights for the average truck class. You can just have a massive rubber bladder that can roll up into the front of the trailer, but take about 30+ tonne worth of molasses when it’s rolled out.

Most of the time, we were carting to yeast manufacturers, sometimes other food manufacturers. The fun ones were the farm deliveries.

So we get to this cattle farm, and dad has managed to reverse into this really weird unloading area this farmer has cleared out. We drop the amount we’re supposed to drop into his tanks and dad realises the worst thing has happened. With about 25 tonnes of molasses left in the bag, it had twisted over because the ground wasn’t level while it was being slightly emptied. That meant we couldn’t strap it.

“I have no idea what to do.” – Farmer

“I have no idea what to do.” – Dad

“But what if you just drive it out and park it in the same place facing the other way for a while? It might slump back over.” – 12 year old me

“That won’t work.” – Dad and farmer

*dad calls his boss*

“Maybe you should park it facing the other direction and see if it slumps back over”

“*sigh* Alright I’ll give it a try” – Dad, wishing he hadn’t made that call over loudspeaker while I was nearby, refusing to look at my grin.

And folks, that idea worked.

© Photo: IlluminatedPickle

#11

Me investing $300 into GameStop right when all the memes were starting. I profited around $600 in 2 days when I sold. Used the money to buy a PS5… from Target.

© Photo: pops992

#12

My brother and friend got a jet ski up to full speed and jumped off and skipped themselves across the lake. They took turns being the jumper vs the driver. They had a blast. They were maybe 12.

© Photo: Fitzaroo

#13

A water hose helped me avoid surgery.

When I was in 10th grade, I was eating ribs at a local restaurant when I swallowed a piece that wasn’t chewed up enough. It went far enough down that it wasn’t blocking my air way but was still stuck in my esophagus so I couldn’t swallow anything. Any time I tried to swallow something (liquid or solid) it’d make it to that point and then come back up.

I thought, “Meh, my body’ll fix it” and went home to take a nap. I woke up hours later and still had the same problem. My mom called the local doctor who said I’d need an easy surgical procedure. BUT it was the night of my sister’s rehearsal dinner and she was getting married the next day and I didn’t want to ruin things so I protested and said I could make it through a couple of days without eating.

My soon-to-be-brother-in-law made the joke, “We could just stick a water hose in his mouth like in cartoons.” I said, “Let’s do it.” No one believed it would work except me and the brother-in-law. We went outside and after one failed attempt where I almost drowned, I put the hose in my mouth with my face pointed upwards and he turned it on full blast. It dislodged the meat and the weekend went as planned.

When we called the doctor back to tell him to cancel everything, he was dumbfounded.

© Photo: steeple_fun

#14

We lived in an apartment complex in college and wanted to throw a huge party, but didnt want to risk getting in trouble. We realized we had access to the basement, which was half underground and half above ground with double doors leading to it from the outside. We thought we’ll, the doors are unlocked, lets just move stuff around and do it down here – no one can get in trouble because its nobody’s apartment right?

And it actually worked. Probably had over 100 people, we had a live band in one room, dj in a other, a pong room and there was even a wall cutout that worked perfect for selling drinks out of. Got a keg and made jungle juice.

The cops did get called and it did eventually get broken up, but no one got in any trouble since the landlord and cops couldn’t figure out which of the 8 tenants threw the party.

© Photo: nowufunny2

#15

When I was 14, I had an mp3 player (showing my age) and it stopped working, because the connection points on the batter had gotten warped and weren’t connecting properly. All it really needed was something to squeeze it together. So my mum fixed it with the the best small, non-conductive, flexible material she had at hand: a piece of pistachio shell.

We have a golden pistachio trophy that we circulate to members of the family who cobble together MacGyver solutions to problems.

© Photo: kitskill

#16

I was at college doing computer sciences – part of the course was coding. We had a project where we had to code a super basic database which had a user interface, so you can like type in and search and it’ll display the results. You had to provide screen shots of your program working, and the code as well for the teacher to review.

The problem was: I was horrible at coding, and for the life of me really didn’t understand how the hell it worked.

So I actually did try and do my best, however instead of displaying the one result I wanted, it displayed everything, but the thing I wanted at the top. Rather than spend too long figuring it out, and destroying my brain in the process, my idea was: “no teacher in their right mind is going to read pages and pages of code EVERY single time. He’s just going to look at the screen shots”

So I took a screen shot > dumped it in paint > cropped out the thing I didn’t want him to see and filled it in with the same background colour as the rest of the screen.

I passed that part of the course.

© Photo: DonKiddic

#17

During the beginning of Covid, my job at the time had little work for me to do and was laying off people left and right, which put my morale at a solid zero. However, a position opened up at my dream job that i was absolutely perfect for, and I filled in an application.

After not hearing anything about the position 6 weeks later, i consulted someone I knew who worked there about if i had been rejected or not. He informed me that the job application software there absolutely sucked, and to try directly emailing my resume to the HR rep and remind them of my application.

Turns out, this move was a stroke of brillance, as that summer they had switched job application software and there was a glitch in the transfer process that had accidentally deleted all of the applications for all of the current open positions. Since i was the only one that had directly reached out to HR and reminded them what job i had applied for, I was at the top (and only) person in the running for the position.

As for how it turned out, I nailed the interview process and I’ve been working at my dream job for 5 years now, so I’d say pretty good so far.

© Photo: GlastonBerry48

#18

Posting a wrong answer on the internet to get the right one. It’s significantly faster than asking the actual question.

© Photo: Merlin_M_O

#19

I blew my savings into GameStop becoming $30,000 richer. Not knowing the future (what with the pandemic and all) I wanted to blow it all ASAP. Put it into the cheapest masters degree I could find.

Turns out, when all the international students had to leave thanks to COVID, universities were panicking. American University in Washington DC had a 30 percent off tuition discount like it was Kohl’s. I didn’t finish half of my applications and got acceptance letters from ivy league schools.

© Photo: oc974

#20

I was trying to break into my college’s mail room. Security Guard is walking down the hall, towards me. Frick it, I wave him down and say “Hey, do you have a key for this?”

Guard is taken by surprise and says “Ya, let me see…. wait a min, are you supposed to be here?” I just say “Yes”. He said “Oh ok, hold on”, unlocks the door for me, then walks back to his station.

© Photo: nagol93

#21

In a coordinators meeting at a soup kitchen we were discussing the issue that people were not separating recyclables properly. Three different groups operated in that kitchen with different schedules so it was hard to get the message across, people threw non recyclables in the recycling bin all the time. We had been struggling with this for like a year.

Some of the coordinators wanted to get more strict, some wanted to put more and bigger signs, some wanted to give up on it. I said “people probably throw food in there on autopilot, put a lid on it so they have to stop and think before doing it”. We did and we never had that issue again.

#22

I grew up in the foster care system. At one home, the foster dad was chief of police. He also had a farm in the northern part of the state.

He brought us foster kids up one weekend. A few days after getting home he found that one of his guns was missing. After days of nobody saying anything one of the kids admitted to taking it and bringing it to the farm where he got scared and tossed it in a field.

We spent the next 2 days walking through extremely tall grass looking for the thing. We were never going to find it.

The foster dad, who owned a retired police dog at that time, came out with an old, rusted, non working gun. He looked at all of us and said “I’ve tried dumber stuff than this and it worked” and pretended to throw the gun in the field.

The dog brought back the missing gun 30 seconds later….

#23

My car broke down a few blocks from my house. I didn’t have a tow strap and I was too broke to buy one so I took a garden hose and wrapped it around the bumpers of my car and my friend’s truck and connected it to its self. Worked perfectly.

#24

I started my own company when I got canned by a really bad engineering firm. It was supposed to tide me over until something else came along. I’ve been doing it for almost 15 years now.

#25

House propane tank gauge was stuck for a month. Hit it with a stick. Propane tank gauge works fine now.

#26

This sounds stupid but 100% worked – A housemate I had got into computers and tried to build his own.

He got it up and running but, no matter what, the internet kept giving him an error. There was a connection, it was connected but zero response from any websites or apps.

I’m in his room looking things over with him, I notice his PC’s clock displayed the wrong time. I asked “is the time and date set right?”

He looks at me like I’m nuts and gives me an annoyed “Who cares?”

“Check it and try it.”

He rolls his eyes and goes “Fine!” The date was set to something in 2003, this was 2019.

Once we set the correct date and time the internet suddenly worked! He had this total “What the f**k!?” Look on his face.

About a year before, my smart tv reset its date and time giving me the same problem – When I noticed the time and date were off (after repeatedly restarting the TV and wifi), I changed it back and suddenly everything worked!

#27

When my husband and I were about five months into dating I told him I thought we should break up, not because anything was wrong but because I had just gotten out of a serious (bad) relationship prior to us dating and I was more interested in a tinder fling than anything serious, which is where our relationship was headed. He told me “no,” which I think I was too shocked by to argue. Eight years and two kids later we have a very healthy dynamic. But seriously, how? I think we should break up isn’t normally a discussion topic.

#28

I watch a lot of “Epic Fail” and “Idiots in Cars” videos on YouTube. There was one I saw where someone had left their SUV in gear on a slight incline and this woman ran to get in front of it in order to stop it. In the most physics-defying move I’ve ever seen, she pushed back against the front of the SUV, and it stopped! I was sure it would have rolled over her, given that it easily weighed 30-40 times more than she did.

#29

Anyone who invested in Bitcoin 10 to 15 years ago.

I thought it was dumb. Still do, but it certainly worked.

#30

In an engineering class in high school, one of our projects involved building a device that could sort marbles of various sizes, materials, colors, etc. The entire class went all in on color sensors and whatever other devices were at our disposal.

My partner and I decided we didn’t want to do that and set out to be the only group to not use the sensors or anything.

We sorted the marbles by bouncing them from a set height and off of an angled sheet of metal into containers at various distances. The wood and plastic marbles flew the furthest while the metal and glass marbles didn’t go very far. Pretty sure we had 100% accuracy with this method.

#31

Got an office job and the girl in charge told me that they only hired me because I was cheaper than the last person and would be replaced as soon as soon as they found someone cheaper than me.

So I shredded every resume that came through the fax machine and mail for almost two years before they finally found someone… who came to the office in person lol.

#32

I used to sell and install home satellite TV systems. I had a customer in a heavily wooded area whose only line of sight to the satellite was blocked by a tree branch about an inch in diameter, several hundred feet away and maybe seventy feet off the ground. I spent half an hour trying to figure out how to cut this limb without climbing that tree, and went and told him he was out of luck. He told me to hang on. He went and got a rifle, and cut the tree limb off with three shots. I took extra care to make sure he was a happy customer.

#33

I made my wife plan her own engagement party without her knowing.

I knew I’d wanted to propose, but I wanted both our families to be together when it happened. She had some of her family set to visit us in a month or so, but she’d already planned all the dinners at touristy type places for them to be able to experience our city. So, I convinced her mom (who is notoriously difficult and likes to make people change plans for arbitrary reasons) object to the place on the first night and basically shoot down any suggestions. When my wife vented to me about it, I casually mentioned our favorite restaurant and said ‘it’s our place, and it’s small and cozy, it will be a nice start for them before we get to the bigger, louder places. Hell, I could even invite my family and they could meet!’ She asked her mom, who had been instructed to be over the moon enthusiastic about it. So, she called and made reservations.

I followed up after she’d called, and informed them that I’d be proposing and asked what sort of setup they could do. I spoke with the server and we put a little plan together.

So, leading up to this I was NERVOUS. I was afraid she’d figure it out, I was afraid someone would leak it, I was afraid it wouldn’t work, I was afraid she’d be mad or just not happy with the deception. She kept picking up on my nervousness and I just kept telling her I was afraid my family would be loud and obnoxious and offend her family.

Come day of, we rented a vehicle to pick up her family from the airport, and were staying at the hotel with them. Her mom was practically begging me to see the ring, and almost broke out in tears seeing it. I was also struggling to hide it because it was in a big ring box. So, I let her mom hold it in the purse, and when we arrived, she gave it to the waiter. This place normally would only seat like 10-12 tables, but they’d set aside a whole front room for us (about 12 people), and there were champagne glasses already at the table. I sort of panicked a bit when my wife asked why and the waiter said ‘I heard we have some birthdays here today so I thought we’d celebrate! I’ll be back with bubbly.’ That was true, there were some close birthdays, but he came back with the ring on a serving platter, and both our backs were to him when he approached, so my wife didn’t even really notice until I had already taken the box, opened it, and got down on one knee.

Absolutely one of my most favorite stories to tell. She gives me a hard time about it all the time, lovingly, but it was the only way I could do it while getting family together without her finding out, because she’s always planning things so far out.

#34

2005: Quit my very successful career, joined the Red Cross, spent 6 months in Mississippi helping out after Katrina.

Changed my life.

#35

One time my friend was applying for a job that substance tested for the devil’s lettuce even if you have your medical card. My friend quit smoking for several weeks, chugging water to try to clear out his system, the whole nine yards to try and pass. Despite his valiant efforts he still ended up failing. I told him you have nothing to lose at this point, just call them and confidence trick them saying “I just got the results for my test, everything looks good, when can I start?”

It totally worked and he got the job.

#36

I knew a girl with a Ford explorer and the windshield wipers didn’t work. If it was raining or snowing, she called out sick. If she ever got caught in the rain, she would pull over and chill for a bit, apply some rain-x and move on.

This went on for like 5 years. I say it actually worked because my dumb butt would be driving to work, meanwhile she was chillaxing at home. Everyone at her work knew this, so when it was raining and she called out, they were like, yup, that sounds right.

If she ever ran out of sick time or “probation points”, she would just use her girl powers, smile or play dumb and things just worked out.

#37

When I was a kid, my family went to Disney and stayed at the campground. A few lots up from us, someone cut a hole into the side of their tent and duct taped a single room air conditioner to the opening. My dad said it was “simultaneously the dumbest and most intelligent thing” he had ever seen.

#38

I had to submit a project in high school to the science fair for Honors Chemistry. Most of the class had their projects from the previous year to expand upon as they had been in Honors Biology. I had two honors math classes so was in something like Advanced Biology, we didn’t go to the science fair.

I decided to do my project on acid rain. I did all the research and wrote my paper, but oops -forgot to do the physical experiment until late in the game.

I worked at the local Stop & Shop and my friend worked in the florist department. I bought plants in various states of decay and assigned them pH levels. I ended up winning the school science fair, then the regional science fair and was one of the finalists in the state science fair at MIT. I think the reason I won was because I had pretty much a photographic memory, and had retained all of the research that I had done, so that when the judges asked me a question I had it right there.

I was recruited by MIT when I was applying to colleges, but I wanted to be a lawyer. Nearly 30 years later I have been working in tech almost since I graduated college. I just think how much more money I would be making if I had a degree from MIT. Always listen to your mother folks (she thought I should major in computer science and graphic design).

#39

I was struggling with organic chemistry in undergrad. We had hours of homework (mastering chemistry) almost every night. I decided to completely stop doing homework. My grades went way up. Turns out homework was only 3% of the grade and the way my other work improved by not being burnt out more than made up for that. One hour of independent study taught me more than 3+ hours of the assigned work.

At graduation my professor told me “I don’t know how the hell you passed my class you never turned in assignments”.

#40

Bought Doge for the joke of it all. Flipped it into a fancy honeymoon for me and my wife. Probably the only time in my life I literally just lucked into that much money.

#41

We wanted to move a sofa around 5 streets, all reasonable quite.No van or anything. I got the kids skate board and used that. Any time a car approached we nipped into the nearest parking space and had a quick sit down. It was surprising how many people we got talking to.

#42

Back in college I needed more time for an essay. So I turned in an essay from the previous topic that I already received an A on. This way my professor would see this and think that I made a small error and turned in the wrong essay and it may buy me a day or two. My professor never reached out to me and after some time I ended up getting a B even though I turned in the wrong essay.

#43

Pet rocks.

There is no idea dumber than that, that made its inventor millions.

#44

When I was in IT I needed to move a single large file from one location to another. At location #1 I discover we don’t have an external drive available, only flash drives that were about half of the size I needed. I could drive to location 2 and get one, but that would take an hour or so.

I found a USB hub on a shelf and got the crazy idea to link a handful of those flash drives into a RAID array. I expected it to fail, but my make shift drive saved me a lot of hassle.

#45

Using portable jumper cables to turn my laptop on when the power button broke off. Still can’t believe it worked lol.

#46

A print statement in codebase. Nobody knows why does it exist but there’s warning comment saying ‘don’t remove’.

#47

When I was in college I had a very strict job, where if you were caught messed up, you’d lose the job. And the job value was equivalent to like $10k-12k per year, so not a small thing by any means. And underage drinking was **definitely** one of those things.

So I’m in a group chat with about a dozen other people with that job, and a few of them have been hired to do it the next year, not me though. One of them gets caught with booze while underage, and is **freaking out** over potentially losing the job because of it. I send a super sarcastic message to the group chat just saying “well you were pouring it for a friend.”

Come to find out that during the meeting she had with the supervisor over the summer, that person decided to actually go with that story. Supervisor somehow has **screenshots** of that private chat; one of the other dozen was a rat, apparently. Supervisor says “well, that lines up with what EmperorSwagg said, and I trust him.” And the person ended up being able to keep the job, because of a dumb joke I made.

#48

I was in gifted as a kid. When I was 18 I pulled my file to see what my IQ score was to enter the program. I used to think that meant something back then, it doesn’t really. Fast forward to 38 years old, I wanted to go back to school as I was sick of driving a forklift. The last time I went to college at 26 though, I ended up dropping too many classes and my completion rate was too low for more financial aid. When the ACA came into effect, it covered mental health care. I could afford to do an adult autism assessment with the idea that an IQ test was part of that, and I could leverage that into an academic exception to resume financial aid. I went and did four sessions and the psychologist wrote me a letter saying I “had a depressive episode causing me to drop too many classes. Letting him get financial aid and return to school would be the best thing for him” and brought up my test scores. It actually worked. The college granted the exception and I graduated and started an IT career just before turning 40 almost a decade ago.

#49

Flunked out school. Pretended I didn’t and kept going to classes. Ended up at a job fare. Scored an internship at a small, family owned company that didn’t bother to check if I was still a student.

While there, the founder sold the business to a giant mega corporation worth billions that in and of themself were being acquired by a larger corporation worth tens of billions.

Founder and family peaced out immediately. My internship was ending soon. I pretended like I was en route to a full time position there (which wasn’t even discussed). Not because I thought I’d keep the job, but because I thought I’d get some kind of severance out of it. With minimal downside if I was caught.

The mega corporation made an offer to retain me. I accepted. The larger corporation then folded me into their operation. I gave it 3 months before they figured out I had no idea what I was doing.

17 years later I’m now a senior executive VP at the giant corporation and a few years away from retiring.

I still look back and am shocked by how it all played out.

It’s sort of framed my philosophy on success – it’s not about being a genius, it’s about being smart enough to realize when you’re getting lucky and then working your bum off to capitalize on the lucky break.

#50

There was an AI poker bot tournament a while back where the winning designer had simply told their bot to go all-in at all times. This broke most other, far more meticulously programmed poker bots.

#51

Maybe not a completely dumb idea, but a few years ago, 2 years or so after buying my house, I noticed the driveway was sinking by the garage by about 2-3 inches. Almost enough to cause problems with my cars when I drive them in, especially because they’re lowered.

I looked around at how much it would cost to get it professionally raised, and it seemed like the main options were foam and mud jacking, the former of which is more desirable but would cost 1-2k in total.

Me, trying to DIY and save money, looked up alternative ways to raise the concrete of the driveway and found that people have successfully used spray foam to do effectively the same thing. So I went to Home Depot and bought some concrete anchors, two 4x4s about 4 feet long, two thick chains and about 20 cans of expanding foam, and I rented a hammer drill from the local Ace Hardware. Of course I made sure everything I got would withstand the weight of an entire concrete slab.

I drilled 4 holes into each slab, 2 for the concrete anchors and 2 for foam, attached eyelet holes for the chains, stuck the 4x4s in to the chain loop and jacked up the wood with my two car jacks in order to raise the slabs. Once they were raised, I sprayed pretty much all 20 cans into the holes until it started leaking out of the gaps. It needed to sit overnight so I put some thick moving blankets on top of the chain so they wouldn’t hurt anyone if they were to break (they didn’t).

The next day I removed the chains, cut and grinded the anchors, filled any holes with concrete and sealed all of the edges to keep the foam from deteriorating. 3 years later and it’s still holding up absolutely perfectly. The entire project only cost me a little over $200.

#52

I was putting up a ceiling fan, but I didn’t have a magnetized screwdriver and I was losing my mind going up and down the ladder every time I dropped one. I stuck them to the screwdriver with honey.

#53

Someone hit our car in the parking lot and nearly ripped our bumper off. It was just hanging there. We had nothing in our car to fasten the bumper well enough so that we could get to the accident reporting centre. Then I realized that my nice, leather purse had a long, removable strap. We managed to use the strap to tie the bumper to the car long enough to get where we were going.

#54

My friend started putting his alarm across the room inside a cooking pot so it would be loud as hell. Looked stupid, sounded stupid, but he hasn’t overslept once since 😅.

#55

Summer grass cutting job – there was one house that had a long driveway with a verge which we had to cut, but was at a stupid angle for a lawnmower so needed a strimmer. Normally took about 2 hours to do.

Persuaded my colleague to drive the van slowly up and down the drive whilst I sat in the open side door with the strimmer. Took us 10 minutes.

#56

My son’s car broke down and we didn’t want to pay to tow it 2 miles to a repair shop. It was on the side of a very busy main road that has a bridge over the freeway. Neither of our cars have a tow hitch, so we decided to wait until the middle of the night so there would be no traffic, put it in neutral, and push his car with my car. It was scary because I couldn’t see anything but we made it over the bridge, around the interchange, and straight on to the repair shop. Win! .

#57

I had this ill conceived plan that I would not only run, but finish the Barkley Marathons….a race with a 1% finisher rate. And I would do this as a non-elite athlete. I didn’t have a coach and just made up what I thought would be a good training plan. Somehow it all worked and I finished the race with just 19 minutes to spare.

#58

I play disc golf with a friend who always brings his border collie. He has is own doggie disc and knows it’s the only one he’s allowed to chase. Over hundreds if not thousands of throws, he’s never gone after one of ours.

One day, we were playing over a pond and my friend yeets his disc straight into the water. Thankfully, it’s one that floats, but it was too far from the shore to reach it with our retrievers. We were about to call it a loss when I had the crazy idea to trick his dog into getting it for us. I took the dog disc and faked a throw over the water, causing the dog to run to the shore and look for the landing. While he was distracted, my friend discretely threw a rock at his disc to mimic the splash of the disc I didn’t actually throw. Dog immediately jumped in, grabbed my friends disc, and brought it back.

We thought he was too smart to be tricked, but turns out he was just dumb enough.

It worked again on the next hole.

#59

In my freshman bio class, we had to do a paper and presentation on an insect or animal. We had a month. I knew I could write the paper fairly quickly and get a good grade so I didn’t start until the night before. Realized when looking at the assignment that the reason we had a month was the presentation part meant we had to build the habitat for what we chose. Habitat was 50% of the grade and I hadn’t realized that. Low on time, I picked trapdoor spider and wrote the paper.

For the habitat, I got a cardboard box, put an empty paper towel cardboard roll in it, filled the box with dirt and put a Halloween rubber spider in the cardboard roll and covered it with a leaf from my yard and had two “legs” sticking out. Kids in my class built a working dam for beavers, birds nests, a Savannah habitat for lions, etc. Somehow, I got an A and my box of dirt was chosen to be displayed for the school.

#60

A while ago, I worked for a national truck stop chain. The router for our internet connection went up one Saturday, which meant we could only take cash – which even in the 2010’s was something that truck drivers didn’t really carry. The IT hotline said something about a dial up connection we could use, but the only hook up for that was in an equipment room only accessible from the outside of the building.

Grabbed some cash from the safe, ran to Lowe’s and 45 minutes later I had the jankiest phone extension cord run in existence. This thing was well over 100’ long, used multiple cords and female to female connectors which I wrapped up in shopping bags and duct tape, but it meant we could take cards again, all be it a bit slower than usual. Allowed us to get through the night until the repair guy showed up the next morning with the replacement router that he had flown up with.

We kept the cord stashed in a corner of the office if we ever needed a backup again.

#61

I work in Pike Place market and one time a shop had a dead rat stuck under the counter. They borrowed a live crab from a fish market and tied a string to it, let the crab loose under the counter and once it grabbed the rat carcass they pulled him back out with the string.

#62

My own. When I was in high school I was trying to get my crush interested in me. We had a mutual friend that we went to her birthday party. At one point after paintball we all went to a pizza place.

I managed to sit next to my crush. For some reason I was convinced if she didn’t have a fork she’d share mine. So when she wasn’t looking I knocked her fork to the ground.

To my surprise she was too shy to ask for another fork so I offered her mine. Turns out it worked.

We’ve been together for almost 18 years now and have a 2 year old daughter!

#63

I couldnt connect my ipad to my printer via bluetooth so i connected my ipad with its charger to these multiple outlet things and also the usb cable from the printer in that outlet thing and it worked lmao.

#64

Using hand sanitizer on classroom desks to get the old stickers and sharpie permanent markers off and keep the desks clean.

#65

I emigrated to the Czech Republic from Britain on the strength of one good telephone interview.

Over a decade later I’ve got a wife, house, dogs, doing a job I’d never imagine I’d do when I graduated (software developer from history).

There’s an alternative universe where I don’t get that first job and I burn through my money before either returning home in shame or bumming around Europe… (this was pre Brexit).

#66

Back when I was working at a liquor store, we were dismantling shelves to move them around and create a better flow. My boss forgot his level at home when we were putting them back up, he thought he was gonna have to go back home about an hour away just to get it. I just picked up a bottle of wine and set it on the shelf to see if it rolled. I got a raise for that.

#67

When I was in High School, my friends and I took a spur-of-the-moment road trip to NYC (we’re in Canada). We had no plan, other than to experience the city for one day. We were too cheap to stay overnight. We checked out the Statue of Liberty, tried walking backwards in the World Trade Center exit line to get inside without paying, but were kicked out. That sparked an idea…being dumb reckless teenagers we invented a game called “hidden doors”. We went around the city trying to open random doors and see where they led to. We did this in the famous Park Plaza Hotel (from the Home Alone 2 movie). We discovered a secret elevator that led to an empty ballroom. Two of my friends stole some champagne and wine, and we high-tailed it out of there. We sat on some large rocks in Central Park, drinking the stolen alcohol. We were also underage. We continued our stupid shenanigans in a few other hotels before driving back to Canada. We had some fun experiences.

TL;DR: Playing a dumb game, opening random doors led us to free alcohol.

#68

Using memes in advertising. I pushed for an employer to use memes in ads, and it worked!

#69

When I was in the Army, we had no hot plates in the barracks, I set my upside-down electric iron in a partially-open desk drawer and used it to cook ramen in my steel canteen cup.

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