Ahh, idiocy. Who amongst us doesn’t enjoy indulging in a nice little dose of absolute top-shelf, double-oaked, well-aged dumbassery every now and then? I helped myself to a nice, big, brimming tankard of idiocy this weekend, where I decided to cap off a little canoeing outing with my kid by driving my truck right into a fucking ditch, you know, like a drooling simpleton would! The ditch was right there, I’d seen it as I entered the parking lot – hell, I even slid the canoe over it to get it back into the truck – and yet, somehow, as I was exiting, I managed to not see it at all, not even a little, until I’d planted the whole front axle very nicely and deeply into it. Way to go, Jayjay! Another triumph! The F-150 is out and fine, but I still feel kinda like a dumbass.
I think I may have been able to back out of the ditch were it not for one little complication: this bit of drainage pipe:
Ooof. This little exciting detail meant that I needed to get the truck yanked sideways about a foot before it could be extracted from the ditch. Incredibly, that tire was just fine, and there was pretty much zero damage to the truck at all. Sure, the FARM USE license plate up front got a little wrinkled up, but other than some dirt, there’s not a scratch or dent on this beast.
I sure hope I learned some kind of lesson here.
Our little canoeing excursion was in the HMS Terror – for those of you who may not know, that’s my crappy canoe, a canoe so impressively shitty it once inspired this remarkable email:
I wrote about buying a cheap-ass canoe and hauling it on my Pao and I got this email from a man very, very angry that someone on the internet bought a sub-par canoe. He's worried about my relationship with my son because of my crappy canoe. I'm baffled by this. It's fascinating. pic.twitter.com/w0857ji8tD
— Jason Torchinsky (@JasonTorchinsky) July 21, 2020
I later followed up with that guy and learned he was a former editor of Canoeing magazine and had sent that very email from a boat off the coast of New Zealand! He found my canoe so catastrophically sub-par he had to email me, likely via some sort of satellite internet connection – from the other side of the fucking globe. People, man. The hell is wrong with us?
We did see a lot of strange things as we canoe’d in my misshapen potato, including a lot of fires in the forests around the lake, like this one in a tree:
Was this from lightning? The remains of a controlled burn? It appeared that large areas of the forest were burned recently, and there were still a few fires like these. We put this one out and a few others, which I hope was okay. If it was a sort of controlled burn, it didn’t look that controlled, and besides, I think most of the burning was completed. I’m not sure. It just felt wrong to leave a tree on fire.
We did meet this guy, though, He’s wondering if you’d like to read his screenplay. It starts at the end and works backwards!
Oh, also I’m heading to the Hyundai Ioniq 6 drive today, so let me know what you’re curious about for that car!
I guess it depends what kind of plant is burning, and how much of the smoke you’ve inhaled…
This may not be high on your priority of things to assess with the Ioniq 6, but I’m curious as to whether it has a decent frunk.
Aww, a little anole! I’ve always wondered what they think — they’re scooped up by giant bipeds, but instead of being devoured, they’re petted, passed around for more petting, then released. I swear the ones near my house were used to people.
I was going to jump on board with the “whats up with the crazy canoe guy” sentiment, but than I went and looked at your canoe – https://jalopnik.com/a-nissan-pao-makes-a-perfectly-capable-canoe-hauler-in-1844444008..
That may be the worst canoe I’ve ever seen. In fact, I can now fully understand how that may have offended the sensibilities of a guy who is the editor of a canoe magazine. In car terms, it’s like someone made a bad fiberglass copy of a yugo to put on display somewhere that just needed a car shaped object. That doesnt forgive the bad father comment – that part is still crazy and uncalled for, but dang man – what you have there is a roughly canoe shaped object, not an actual canoe.
i’ve seen worse
It seems serviceable, though? Clearly it’s getting down the water okay, even if it is rough.
I think the priorities of a rude canoe mag editor and a dad looking to float around with his son are far, far different. “Just don’t leak” comes to mind.
I’m with you man – if Tom thinks your canoe choices are terrible and misshapen, what sort of a malfunctioning firearm are you going to end up with? Probably a rare Slovenian double-ended blunderbuss with a milk-jug lid standing in for some crucial component of the firing mechanism.
whistles in feigned-impressed note
“Looks like we got ourselves one of them high-falutin’ canoe experts here, fellas!”
Just because it has a farm tag on it doesn’t mean you can use it for plowing, Jason.
So many COTDs in this thread.
Reminds me of the time I drove my dad’s truck off a meter high vertical drop. I’d been there before so I knew you couldn’t leave that way but it was twilight and I’d been skiing all day so to my eyes it looked like a perfectly normal, level road. It wasn’t. Truck was fine!
Hi li’l anole! Glad you survived the burn!
Dang, that just adds another level of disturbing that Tom [former editor at Canoeing magazine] told you to take up killing animals for fun. Good grief. That’s gotta be mighty satisfying that you’re still using that canoe some three years later which is more than his prediction of “a period of months” (never mind that three years is 36 months & could technically be considered a period of months.)
All in all, all’s well that ends well, then.
I agree, you are an idiot.
Well ain’t that a son of a ditch!
I’m not sure a work farm qualifies for farm use tags.
I appreciate you putting out the random fires; it seems like they really shouldn’t be there.
Also I empathize completely about the ditch. When I was a teenager, I was riding off-road on a dual-purpose bike and a ditch jumped out in front of me. The front wheel stopped immediately and I went airborne, doing a bad Superman impression over the bars.
It was a learning experience. 😐
As someone who has been around controlled burns for a long while, and who has a brother who is currently a Florida State Forestry Fire Fighter/Ranger/Smokey Bear-type-person, you did just fine putting out the fire.
Controlled burns get started from the edges, and the fire fighters ensure that the outside edges are cleared and that the fire can’t “jump” to the next section. Once the edges are burned far enough away they pretty much just monitor it for safety, then move onto the next section. Depending on the area, there may still be a small fire going that gets un-noticed, but its usually not likely and it is always far enough inside that even if it consumes a whole tree there won’t be enough nearby to allow it to progress to the next area.
maybe we can learn about Canoe Tailllights from this. Or canoe Wipers. That may actually be a thing, but I dunno cuz all I have is a pontoon boat and a kayak. And a stand up board. Not to be confused with my stand up act, because I DO NOT have one of those.. Cheers!
A guy with the nickname “Torch” is putting out fires? I feel like there is a joke in there somewhere… Insert Archer gif “Damn, I had something for this!”
Why yes officer, I use this truck to farm stories for my website. I believe these plates are valid.
See if the Ioniq 6 can get stuck in a ditch. It would then be an Ironic 6.
Jason – quit beating yourself up. . .
It wasn’t your fault.
The ditch moved.
Sounds crazy? Maybe but if a wall moving was a good enough excuse for Ayrton Senna crashing, well…
https://www.essentiallysports.com/greatest-f1-story-when-ayrton-senna-crashed-because-the-wall-moved/
I’ve never heard that one before! Super interesting given the wall HAD moved (a little)
What’s the Ioniq 6 Roof Rack situation? (seriously…)
I don’t know if the asshole telling you to take up hunting meant that as an insult, but it kind of feels like he did.
I have to wonder if he was so concerned about your relationship with a weathered canoe how he thought providing you a gun was going to provide a healthier relationship? How about hunting from the canoe? That sounds better.
I am excited to learn all about the Ioniq 6. Other than standard handling questions, road noise and trunk utility are the things I would be interested in hearing about. And the difference in feel driving the AWD vs the RWD, if you get the chance to drive both.
Driving your truck into the ditch was the least of your problems. That flame was guarding the portal to the Upside Down. Now we have demogorgons. Nice job, Jason.
Given the canoe email and, well, everything else, are demogorgons really worse than the humans we already have wandering around?
Give them a week, and the demogorgons will realize the best way to torment us is by joining HOAs and any organization that has “Concerned Moms” in the name.
Only if Tipper Gore is on the board.
It’s not really a farm use truck until the Farm Use license plate gets a little wrinkled up. You’re official now.
Dude! Did you not read the article?
He drove in a ditch.
He’ll never get rich.
He’s in the farm truck now now now.