Ate a whole bar of soap in high school. I was in a military school, and it was an initiation/bet in a certain extracurricular group.

At practice one day, they asked if anyone wanted to earn $300. All the hands shot up.Then they asked if anyone wanted to eat soap. All hands drop. Then, they asked if anyone wanted to eat a bar of soap for $300. Me and one other dude raised our hands again. After practice we went back to the dorm of one of the group leaders where they laid out the rules: entry fee is $25. One bar of soap, cut into six pieces. The four smaller pieces are too be eaten in one bite, chewed minimum of ten times, and swallowed. The two bigger pieces had to be bitten in half, chewed, and swallowed. If you got all the soap down, you had to keep it down for 15 minutes. If you get this far, you keep all the entry fees of everyone that’s failed before you.

Guy before me taps out halfway through. I finish, and hold it down for the required 15 minutes, as the leaders get more and more agitated. After i win and they give me my money, I’m informed that I’ve just ruined the party they hold every year after the last major inspection is completed. Turns out, they’ve been running this scam for years as a way to grift money from younger members to fund their own shenanigans. I’m told that I’m not to return to practice the following day, as I’m not longer a member of the club.

Joined yearbook instead, and bought a lot of pizza for my friends that semester.

physically mailed requests to opt out of binding arbitration agreements

I’ve seen all our known planets with my own eyes, including Pluto. Not many can say that.

Also, while leaning against a rail one morning; groggy, motionless, and unsuspecting, I once had a wild songbird land on my finger. When I felt the grip of strong tiny claws, I screamed and hurled it back into the sky.

I believe that still technically makes me a Disney princess.

Cool? Definitely not, or at least I don’t think so. And I very seriously doubt anyone would be jealous.

I used to go up in the mountains by myself. Bare minimum supplies, like a knife, the clothes on my back, and an emergency pack for “in case shit”, that if I had to touch, the trip was over. I also went armed because shit can happen.

Now, I did this for years, and it was very rare for anything bad to happen at all, and the worst stuff wasn’t life threatening except once. I’d run across bears, a few crazy people, maybe twist an ankle or some such.

But that one time.

So, there’s a feral dog problem. They’ve interbred with what’s called the eastern coyote, which itself is supposedly a mix of coyote, wolf, and a little dog.

The eastern coyote is rarely a problem. Small family groups, avoid people. If you see them at all, it’s unusual.

But when they mix with dogs, and those dogs are feral, the packs get bigger and they tend to not be scared of humans.

Well, I was cooking a fish I caught during one summer when the weather had been dry, and small animal populations were low.

The smell brought a pack in. Enough of them that they tried to circle me in and come at me after the fish I threw to them wasn’t interesting enough.

I had 14 rounds on me, and I needed most of them. The first couple of shots missed because I was fucking terrified. At that point, I’d never taken any training for shooting under pressure, so I was panic breathing and shaking hard.

You’d think the sound of a 45 going off would have scared them off, but it didn’t. I dropped a couple of them, swapped mags and dropped two more before the rest ran off. One of them, I had to finish because I didn’t get a clean shot because it was early in the half a minute it all took.

I hiked my ass back out as soon as I could stop shaking and keep my legs under me. And I did the hike with a nice wet spot because I pissed myself a little.

Went to the ranger station, reported it, did all that crap and went home.

Now, there was also a less dramatic event not maybe ten miles away where I found a body. Suicide, shotgun vs head. That was not fun either; but plenty of people have found dead bodies. Those were the two worst things I ever had happen up there on my own.

As a kid, I once killed a fly by squeezing an empty yogurt bottle, propelling the lid of said bottle and squatting the fly on the wall. I did that on purpose and it took some attempts.

I’m the first of my kind to land on a payroll on my line of work in my country. I’m the reason my job recognized in the national job definitions papers.

I exemplified other companies that we’re worth permanent hiring, so I know at least 50 people got permanent jobs a few years after I did.

(We’re usually hired for gigs or projects)

When I was in my middle school I rode my bike in a circle for 7hrs. It was on a bet for a lizard. If I could do it my dad would have to buy my a bearded dragon. I got the dragon. I had that thang on me. But he passed away

Drank breast milk straight from the source as an adult. I highly recommend it if you get the opportunity though.

Been in a plane crash.

It was a Beech 18 that experienced fuel starvation on climb out. The pilot raised the gear and belly landed it in a freshly tilled corn field off the end of the runway. It was a lot like being in a car accident, just lasted longer with a lot more rending metal noises. The port engine was ripped off and was sitting about 50 feet behind where the plane came to rest.

It wasn’t cool, believe me…

Waaaaay back in college (this was over a decade ago), I wrote a 16-page paper making the argument that there were only four continents, not five, six, or seven as various countries proclaim:

The Cliff Notes:

• North America and South America can be still considered a single continent due to the fact that the Panama Canal doesn’t fully bisect the two landmasses. (The Isthmus of Panama is still very much wild rainforest and lakes, and the canal is essentially two points on each side connected by a boat route across multiple of these lakes).

So, #1: America (alt. the Americas)

• Europe and Asia are not actually bisected into two landmasses, and if anything any physical connection is reinforced by the fact that the boundary is the Ural Mountain range.

So, #2: Eurasia

• Prior to the construction of the Suez Canal in 1869, Europe and Africa were indeed the same landmass, connected by the Isthmus of Suez. However, as the Suez Canal is a sea-level canal, it is created by literally cutting the landmasses apart down to relative sea levels.

So, #3: Africa

• Australia…Yeah, I didn’t see any reason why it should lose its status as the world’s biggest island and smallest continent.

So, #4: Australia

• Antarctica I didn’t consider a continent because it’s mostly ice, and if Australia is considered the minimum bound for how big a “continent” should be, then, well, the portion of Antarctica that is actually ground below all that ice is actually a smaller contiguous size than Australia, ergo it cannot count as a continent.

'Course now I’m older and realize that was all bullshit. Lol. Sure it makes sense from a geological standpoint (but even that is bullshit as geologically there are no “continents”, only plates), but a continent is more than its geological structure; it’s geological, political, and economic, all three of these rolled into one.

Sources for Images Used:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural_Mountains
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal

I managed to knock myself unconscious and give myself a pretty nice concussion during a particularly heated pillow fight at a summer camp. Pretty sure that’s about as unique a feat as I’ve managed thus far.

I used to think that all the times I had to survive drowning were unique, until I met my coworker who almost drowned to death in the same wavepool as me, despite us growing up in two seperate states a few hundred miles apart.

I still hope drowning three times is fairly uncommon, but at least one of those pools is just hella dangerous I guess.

Was the first person in Australia to complete dual recognition (tertiary certificate through VCE )

We were the pilot. Of the small class, two dropped out, third failed. I passed with a cert iv in horticulture alongside my VCE.

Hmmm, for something that very few other people on lemmy have?

For the general world?

I tried to talk someone out of suicide and failed. Can’t think of something less cool or envy-inducing.

I caught a (wild) rabbit with a bucket.

It was running from a dog and fell into a window well. It got so panicked when I climbed down it almost made it out on it’s own (it was about 8 feet deep). So I set the opening of the bucket against the wall with a small gap, to give it somewhere to hide, then went to the other end of the window well, and it crawled right in when I approached again. Covered it with a towel and lifted it right on out.