Stuff You've Never Done

What are some things which may be considered "typical" that you've never done or never learned how to do? There's a big one for me that I'm a bit embarassed to admit but here it goes,

1. Manual transmission - Yup, I have not learned how to drive a manual transmission car. My driver education class in high school only had automatics and then I didn't actually own a car until after college. The three vehicles I've owned since then have all been automatics.

I've never been drunk, and I've never watched a game of rugby.
Yet somehow I'm still very very Australian.

Manual transmissions aren't as common as they used to be. I had to learn because my dad had a truck that was stick shift when I was in high school and it was what I ended up driving a lot. Somehow my little sister ended up with her own car which was an automatic and never had to learn.

I have never changed my own oil in my truck. I figure I could if I had to, but it is easier and faster to take it to the garage down the street. I have changed the oil in lawnmowers many times though, so I guess I am not totally out of the loop for it.

I've never had sex with a relative, nor have I ever eaten my own boogers, but I still call myself an Arkansan.

I've never cheated on a wife or girlfriend.

At the same time

I've never stood waist deep in a tank full of live squid. I don't know, I guess I just never got around to it.

OK, but seriously folks, and this is embarrassing, I never learned how to roller skate. I tried once or twice, always ended up on my butt with a bunch of little kids laughing at me. So, the persistent person that I am, I quit. I also tried ice skating once and failed miserably at that.

Oh, and snow skiing. Never did downhill, but I did try cross country one time. And I stunk.

Roller skating I did master pretty well when I was a kid but I tried ice skating once and hated it. I fell on my sore butt a bunch of times.

I've only snow skied once but I had a good time. It took me probably 2 hours or so before I got the hang of it.

Its true that those with a proper IQ drive, those without IQ drive slot car's, sorry I mean automatics.

Seriously though Panzer, come on get your finger out your arse and buy a proper car. Half the enjoyment of driving (A to B is a by product of the enjoyment) is the gear shifting, finding a nice bendy road and being able to get that right shift just when the power goes on etc.

Man I cant imagine having to drive an automatic, you might as well just have two big red buttons, start and stop.

Never went rock climbing or rappelling. Both of Which I highly want to do someday. But Theres no such place around here thats hilly enough.

I have never went snow skiing. It's something I have always wanted to do and never got around to doing. It's strange because I know (knew) how to surf from when I was an army brat in Hawaii. (ages 12-16). I don't see snow skiing as much different because it is probably all about learning to balance your body.

Cue ye olde English toast:

"To wives and sweethearts....












..may they never meet!"

you'll know you have mastered stick shifts when you can shift without using the clutch...(does not apply to getting into 1st gear) and, double clutch a truck.

Watch some old classics, learn to drive manual shift, busy year coming up

can drive a stick
rappelled out of a Black Hawk
can rollerskate
can change own oil


....never had a Ménage à trois before though

I am sure your wife will let you bring another guy into the bedroom.

Haha she already left me (6+ years now) for someone else, good riddance though.

Let's see... the only thing (R Rated and under) that comes to mind, that's commonplace, is 'snowboarding'


It's kind of strange to think that a guy can't drive a manual transmission...I thought it was just genetic knowledge. I always thought the manual on the column was nifty...but then I thought the 8track player in it was cool too.

If it was up to me everyone would learn to drive in an old panel van (so they learn how to use side mirrors), with 3-on-the-tree, no power steering, and no power brakes. The very first thing on the driving test would consist of the tester parking it halfway up a San Francisco-style hill, setting the park brake, and telling you to get up the hill. If you roll back more than a foot you fail.

Ain't that the truth! When I went looking for a Jeep I had 1 stipulation - it MUST be a stick. Guys I work with were telling me "oh, you're gonna hate it after a while, shifting in traffic sucks, etc." Well, I've had it almost 6 months now and it's still the most fun-to-drive vehicle I've ever owned. That 4.0l is peppy as HELL, especially with 3.73s & 30x9.5-15s, the Jeep (2000 Wrangler) handles like a dream, and I almost never take the interstate any more because it's just so much fun driving the back roads. Once I got used to the drivetrain's "personality" I was able to shift so smoothly you can't even feel it. There's no better vehicle than a Wrangler w/stick for real seat-of-the-pants driving.

Master And Commander quote ! Nice

Drugs. Apart from coffee, tobacco, alcohol and a few joints in high school, I have never done any drugs

Never went skiing either, but I don't really regret it as I'm really not a big fan of snow.

Never rode a motorcycle or anything with two wheels and an engine on my own. Always sat at the back. My only solo attempt resulted in a big hole in my knee and messed up teeth : See thing that I have 'not done' n°1

Cheers

Nico

I have done it ALL and live to gloat about it, at least that is the way I know I sound sometimes. One of my sons told me that I must be an ageless vampire, because I am not old enough to have done the things I talk about in one lifetime. I read lots of things on this wonderful back fence that I never even tried. Have repelled out of helo, ridden elephants, assisted a lion in a breach birth, and of course can drive a stick shift!

I never owned a car.

Beat me to it - brother, it's a lost art.

For me, it's SCUBA. Just never got around to it, though I'd like to learn.

powered paragliding

Coffee and booze (and uhhh, Cheetos) only. Not even marijane. Figured I was qwazy enuf already. Can't even drink anymore because of the allergy medicine.

Never been in a airplane, well i was in a c130 once but it wasnt moving.

This.

I must admit something else concerning manual transmissions. My girlfriend's car is a manual and she tried to teach me one afternoon how to drive it but I got all flustered and gave up after I couldn't get the coordination right between my foot on the clutch and the hand on the stick. Doh!!

Wouldn't want to do that too much in a new-ish car though..messes up the synchromesh. Still, it's fun to do every now and then. That's proper driving, matching the engine and tranny speed and changing just at the right moment. Now, imagine being a Formula 1 driver in the 60s, and doing that at 150mph, in a car where you sit on the fuel tank, without a seat belt, on rock-hard tyres, at a time where safety was a foreign word!

Nothing to be embarrassed about! I bet most yanks or a large portion do not know how to drive a manual transmission vehicle. So take comfort there are many many others like you!

My first vehicle was a manual transmission...in fact, come to think of it I have owned 8 or 9 vehicles (and 3 motorcycles) and only one of them had automatic transmission (and that was an old VW Beetle with that 3-gear auto/manual transmission hybrid-thingy).

I have never watched an episode of "Friends"
I have never watched an episode of "24"

LMFAO!

Same here but I have seen bits and pieces of scenes from a couple of Friends episodes.

I have also never seen an episode of "Lost", "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars".

I learned to drive in my dad's 82 Mazda B2000 pickup w/ manual tranny. I hate driving anything but a manual. I forced my wife to learn by buying her a new car that was manual and now she doesn't like automatic either. About 5 years ago when I was looking to buy a Civic it took me forever to find one that was a manual. It is hard to find very many cars these days that aren't automatic. So sad. What makes me really sick is when I see a sports car, like a Corvette, that is automatic. Sheesh!

Anyway, things I have never done:

Drugs, cigarettes, cheated on my wife or girlfriend, snowskied (although I do snowboard), never driven a motorcycle, never been in a commercial airliner and scuba (would like to try though).

I never saw The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or Chuck Berry live in concert.

I saw the Stones in concert back in 1994 but I never did see the Beatles.

When I was fresh out of the service, I took a job with a friend's father. He put up guard rail, fencing and signs on interstate highways. The crews all knew how to do the work, he just needed a foreman to make sure they did their work, and took care of payroll when out of town. Part of the job was to drive the tractor-trailer rig. The tractor was a gasoline motor Autocar with an eight speed tranny, if I remember right. It had an electric high/low shift button on the shifter. Push down for low in first gear, pull up for first-high, down and shift to second-low, up for second-high, etc. The engine speed had to be a pretty close match for the high/low shifter to kick in, so a quick rev usually let the engine pass through the proper RPM long enough for the solenoid to make the shift. He asked me if I knew how to drive the rig and I bluffed my way through the first few miles. I had earlier learned to back a short trailer behind a jeep, and found out that a 45 footer was actually easier, or at least didn't jack-knife as quickly. I did cut one corner short that first day and clipped a power pole guide wire, but all it did was shake the wires up and down that block. I learned about wide right turns that day!

I'd probably have a better chance of flying an F-16 than driving a tractor trailer.

I never learned how to throw a baseball or a football.

What do you expect...my dad was an aerospace engineer. I DID learn how to make model airplanes and fly them.

ditto on all three! I have such terrible balance that I was a complete spazimodo in the rinks and hills.

However, now that I live in an area with a proper winter I am dying to try outdoor ice skating!

I could throw and catch a football reasonably well, punting was just OK. But kickoffs from the tee? No. No distance and no height.

Baseball was another matter, and embarrassing. I could throw one OK, but I was never a pitcher. My baseball skilz sucked, so I would end up out in right field where I could do the least amount of damage. Someone would hit a fly ball out there and I'd run underneath and the damn thing would go right over my head.

I also remember a time, this is painful, in high school. I was at bat and the catcher would say "swing!" just as the ball got there. And, of course, I'd swing and miss. Rinse, repeat.

Humiliating.

I make fun of my mom all the time because she was born and grew up on an island (Cuba) and she never learned how to swim.

I can swim decently, but I never really learned how to dive. I'd always belly flop.

I can dive off the low boards and belly flop off the 10+ Ft high ones haha.

Fart. People around me do though

Yeah sure, we believe ya!

Whatever you do, don't pull Ghost's finger.

They are not hard on the highway, but take getting used to in tighter spaces. One time the boss sent me to Tennessee by some crazy back road route that I discovered later was to avoid the weigh stations. I was hauling wooden posts and rails for a Skyline Parkway fence, plus our tractor with front end loader bucket and rear auger. I got to a tiny wooden bridge that was way under my weight capacity, and it was several miles back to the nearest alternate road, with nary a place to turn around. I backed up a couple hundred feet, and hit that bridge going about 40. It shook several planks off the surface but didn't fall in. That was all before GPS and maps did not even have the road on it that he gave me written directions for. We had a bit of a pow-wow over that one.

Good posts Coasty. On a road trip once I had my wife and two boys get out of the van and walk over a rickety old bridge on a dirt road in Colo. Then like you said I hit that SOB at full throttle and was probably more airborne than on the road after hitting the lip at the start of that old relic.

Hey, I can and do, drive a stick BTW, ever heard the phrase, "Tell it to the Marines!"?

I promise I will never watch an episode of American Idol or Dancing with the Stars...cast in concrete..

I guess in all honesty there's a ton of stuff that I just haven't done. Not really any of the extreme sports stuff. But really, the list is very long of what I haven't done. I haven't been able to answer because I can't really think of anything important that I haven't done.

Did anyone mention "kill someone". I haven't done that. That's about the only original thing I can think of saying.

Yes I have as well as "Get it right the first time!".