What's your cautionary tale?

[BrightInMyNorthernSky]

Having just got through the most stressful week ever due to a nightmare situation of my own making, I thought I would share a previous and current cautionary tale.

1. Always remember to change the address on your V5 and not just your license. I didn't. DH got caught speeding twice on the same day on the same stretch of road (33 in a 30) in my car. Both fines went to old address. Didn't answer them, obvs. The whole sorry mess played out without me being aware and by the time it all caught up with me it was had been banned from driving for six months and fined £2k - five months earlier! So had been driving while banned for five months!!!

If you have whooping cough don’t let your duty doctor fob you off with a five day course of amoxicillin. Amoxicillin is not the right type of antibiotic for whooping cough and a short course of five days will do you no good. You need a macrolide antibiotic such as erythromycin or Clarithromycin.

In a very similar vein: if you suspect your child has whooping cough press for antibiotics before the coughing fits start, so in the catarrhal phase. The Dr will tell you to go away because they don’t like prescribing antibiotics until you’re at death’s door but you will know the difference between the signs of whooping cough and a common cold in your kid - cold symptoms resolve after 3 or 4 days but whooping cough doesn’t - it just gets worse. And then you’ll be stuck on the phone to fucking 111 all weekend trying to convince them to give you antibiotics for a very poorly child who can’t stop coughing and who vomits all the time. And they’ll say no, wait until Monday or send you fucking miles to the out of hours surgery and the Dr there tells you that your child is not that ill and to see how things develop.

Then you end up complaining because you’re so fucking stressed and tired and no-one will give you any cunting medicine for your son/daughter.

So yeah, get the right antibiotics early on as soon as symptoms start.

I married a man without assets except for his prospects. More than 30 years ago we had a pre-nup (more a binding legal agreement because "pre-nups" aren't actually a thing). It stated that all my money on marriage was ring-fenced to me and equity in property at a later date was to be proportionate to the capital each of us invested.

It became an irrelevance within ten years.

On the subject of borax, it's in slime and some American slime is banned, because it contains 6 times the safe level allowed in the UK. I discovered that a couple of years ago, after my daughter had been making slime at her friend's house. It can be absorbed through the skin.

Sorry about that. This thread got so long and I missed these.

When I was at junior school, we had a school minibus that used to do the rounds to pick us up and drop back around the local farms. One unpleasant young man, he’d be about ten at this time, used to always slam the door when he got off the minibus. It would drop him off by pulling onto a little bridge over the river that led to his farm and he would get off. The minibus would then back out onto the road and set off to the next drop-off.

Every day the bus driver would tell him not to slam the door and every day he would just slam it. One day he slammed it so hard as he got out it bounced back and knocked him flying into the river. We all had to get off the minibus, sprint down the road and fish him out further downstream. He didn’t slam it any more after that.

That was definitely worth the wait, thank you!

love this thread...some of these are so funny...😂😂

For contact lens wearers, if you chop chilli, use gloves.

Sorry to hear you had such an awful time! My GP was the very opposite of this with my son the other week and has given my husband the claryithromycin too. Yours doesn't sound very good. Hope you are all better now.

Don't ignore waning signs on rollercoasters telling you not to ride if you have spinal problems. They are not 'health and safety gone mad'. You could end up in hospital several days later in excruciating pain facing spinal surgery.

Do not gnore the saying:
'Never drink in a flat rooved pub'
Or you might end up tiptoeing out while local residents settle a long standing disagreements at the top of their vioces.

Don't use friends for jobs unless they're very casual (e.g. come help me decorate for a few free beers or such).

I had a very old friend who was an electrician. Came out of his way to do a large job for me.
Two minutes after he'd left and I'd paid, all the electricity went back off. This was a Monday. He wouldn't turn back and said he'd come back on Wednesday. Didn't show up. Did me out of a lot of money-I couldn't get hold of him at all for days and didn't hear from him again until he sent me an abusive message telling me to delete the bad review I'd left him. I said I would if he refunded me. He said he couldn't give me it back until Friday (What? Spend all that within a few days?!)

He eventually did give me it back.
I was also considering messaging his wife-to-be to tell her he'd come onto me quite heavily while at my house. But I didn't.
Obviously never spoken since.

@Katemax82 killing all of those insects is abhorrent. We had so many more a few years ago-they're essential to the ecosystem, our food chain. I cannot believe people do things like that!

@Getonwitit hear hear to that!

Do NOT leave things on stairs.
A great aunt of mine broke her leg badly and never walked quite right again after slipping on some magazines left on the bottom step to be taken up to the bedroom.

I was a child (around 8 or 9) when I walked down the stairs carrying my hamster in its cage.

Tripped over a fishing tackle box my Dad had left on the bottom step, hamster flew up in the air and I managed to catch the cage (and hamster within it) and he was fine.

I had bruises, a bumped head and was totally panicked and terrified.

All I remember from it is my Dad shouting at me for being so clumsy and making such a mess 'Get that fucking sawdust cleaned up NOW'.

As I was cleaning it up, I heard my Mum, upset telling my Dad 'That's all you care about, is mess, you don't care about Matilda !'

Derail but yes, bad accidents can happen on stairs. I was very lucky but I've heard of several people who've seriously injured themselves.

I've never heard this before so googled to find out why and it lead me here:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/11/never-drink-flatroof-pub-manchester-estates

Another from my mother.

If you are on a stairlift and the phone rings do not jump off to reach the phone and end up with a broken wrist.

Oh and as she was terminally ill I'd bought her and my dad two cordless phones so they could have one in the bedroom and one down stairs, or even carry one up / down stairs.

Keep a regular eye on your weight. I didn’t and ended up being a size 22! After dieting for over a year I am now a size 112/14 depending on the make of clothes. Excess weight can go on so easily!

limit alcohol
wear sunscreen daily even in winter of at least 30 spf
check your bank balance every day
exercise regularly

I'd like to add a couple

• if you are being bullied or badly treated at work, keep lots of written evidence. That way your shit hot employment lawyer will be able to use it to negotiate a nice payoff that allows you to take the summer off to recover 😬 and the shit hot lawyer also negotiates that her fees are covered by them as well. Love my shit hot employment lawyer. ❤️

• if you are paying for something expensive do it on a credit card in case the company goes bust or doesn't deliver. We lost a lot of money by not doing this. A lot.

• if you spill instant coffee on a carpet, clean it up straight away or it will get moist and become an immovable stain.

Don’t go out for last minute shopping on Christmas Eve, and leave your dh to think it might be a good idea to water the Christmas tree - a big real one in a bucket of gravel, because he might then forget to feel for the water level, and let it overflow, all down the red crepe paper you fastened round the bucket. Where it then leaves a big red stain on your newish, light green carpet. 🤬

Reminds me of a chap who coveted his father's car, his father died young and left him the car in his will.

When you blow your nose, make sure the tissue is actually covering your nostrils, so you dont splatter on your white blouse.

Don't pull cuticles.

Dont expect people to live up to your expectations. You also fall short to others.

Don't chase friendships, you are enough.

Always make time for yourself.

If you have rough skin but want to wear stockings and no time for a pedi, wear the little trainer socks first, then tights. Stops them laddering.

Treat others as you'd like to be treated.

Always be humble & gracious, it never gets out of fashion.

We have a key safe in an outbuilding that is protected by a pin padlock. The key safe is also pin protected. We’ve seen many key safes installed by the front doors of houses (normally for carers) but I suppose you could hide one discreetly behind a plant pot if you didn’t want it on display…

@Treesandsheepeverywhere

Reminds me of a chap who coveted his father's car, his father died young and left him the car in his will.

@@ That is a whopper of an example of Be Careful What You Wish For.

Here's the original story:

https://www.sfu.ca/~swartz/monkeys_paw.htm

It sure is @HamptonWishList.
@LadyinLavende , TLDR but that's a coincidence, guess there must be a few examples out there.
Chap I'm talking about is someone I went to high school with, but to be fair he was too young to have considered the implications. Hard lesson learned at a young age for all of us.

When you are 24 years old (40 years ago) and madly in love with your boyfriend, do NOT launch immediately and in extremely graphic terms what you would like him to do to you.

I did this and it was his dad that answered the phone.

To be fair he sounded just like him.

Oh dear! The poor man, did he recover from the shock?