When I was in grad. school, I designed myself one of those days where I came in at 5:00 A.M. and finished my work at 2:00 A.M. the following morning. It rained while I was holed up in the lab. When I reached a large puddle on my ride home, I jumped it. Just before I landed, I remembered that I was on my fixed gear bike. Let's just say it wasn't my most graceful landing ever. On the bright side, there weren't any witnesses around to snicker at me.

I had a similar mishap in high school. A friend purchased an M.G. midget (a convertible that can fit into the bed of a pick-up with plenty of room left over). He couldn't drive a manual transmission car, so I drove it as we went out searching for trouble. As we cruised along the freeway, we began arguing over where we should go. He grabbed the wheel and pulled it to the right to encourage me to get off at the next exit. We were fine until he let go, at which point we started doing 360s. We somehow ended up on the exit after narrowly missing a large concrete post. Eventually, we slowed down enough to regain some traction. Unfortunately we were facing backwards at the time with our front wheels turned. Over we went. Somehow we did a complete flip and landed rubber-side down. A trooper came along about then and assisted us by putting on his lights while we pushed the car off the exit ramp. At least I now know what my last words are likely to be. I would type them, but they won't get past the censor.