Social Question

longgone's avatar

How do you react to accidents?

Asked by longgone (19713points) March 13th, 2020

In particular, I’m thinking of clumsiness resulting in spilled milk or plates being dropped.

My dad is a bit of a nervous character, and he used to get startled – and startle everybody else through his frantic attempts at repair – whenever there were accidents.

As a result, my sisters and I are purposefully calm. It’s probably a bit freaky to watch all of us turn into sleepy sloths whenever something drops, but it certainly makes for a nice and quiet dinner.

How about you? Do you swear? Freeze? Yell? Clean? Does it make a difference whether you’re the culprit, or someone else?

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15 Answers

lucillelucillelucille's avatar

I just dropped a cup on the floor.XD
It had nothing in it so I didn’t need to get creative with language.
I have a lot more tolerance for other’s mistakes. If they dropped a cup on my floor. I’m not going to get mad.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

I just say “Well shit!” And clean up or throw away and done

Patty_Melt's avatar

I do pretty much the same as Lucy.

I have days when my brain and extremities don’t communicate well. After half a dozen mishaps I will let loose of a tirade. If it doesn’t balance out soon I switch to crying.

johnpowell's avatar

Around 1999 I was walking to work and I saw the most fucking horrific thing I have ever seen.

I worked at movie theater as a projectionist across town from where the link above goes. Our general manager at the big theater was moved to the small one screen theater as he was being groomed for district manager. And the district managers office was at the one screen theater.

But I did paintball and camping trips and stuff with the manager. So he asked me to come over and clean up the booth at the one screen place. I only lived a five minute walk away. So not a huge deal. He paid me for 4 hours if I did 60 minutes of work. A fairly sweet gig.

Yeah… The See’s candy truck.

So one day I was walking to change the oil in the projector. Around 2PM and 22 of Mickeys hangover. 30 bucks for a hour of work. I will work through this.

So I was pretty much in the exact spot as the google maps street view image above. And shit got bad.

A See’s candy truck (big 20’ truck) had turned that corner and went over a guy in a wheelchair crossing the street. And the dude freaked and kept driving. So in the end there was a ball of flesh wrapped in a wheelchair mesh in a puddle of blood with a candy truck speeding off.

It was by far the most horrific thing I have ever seen.

Patty_Melt's avatar

Suddenly I feel like going back to political threads.

JLeslie's avatar

Accident around the house. I’m calm. I’ve always been calm. I’d probably rush over to help and reassure them it’s fine, as long as no one is hurt. If someone left a pot handle sticking out rather than to the side and child hit it and was burned with hot oil I would lose it! That’s not a simple accident to me, that’s downright dangerous negligence. Things like this can happen the one time you leave a pot that way, and I would be understanding of that, anyone can make a momentary mistake, but if the person has a history, and just never learns, I would be sick about it, and have difficulty getting over it.

If it’s something that was too close to an edge, like a glass very close to the edge of the table, I might be slightly annoyed the glass was put there, or something a glass put in the floor that someone doesn’t see and knocks over, sane sort of thing. Still, I’m calm. It’s like a told you so moment, but I don’t tell anyone so, they know already. Unless, it’s a 5 years old, then you might need to remind them it’s better to put the glass away from the edge.

More recent I’ve been dropping more things, and what I think about is that I think some things are physically changing in my body. When it happens I also have been considering that I need to be compensating maybe. More careful than in the past.

Inspired_2write's avatar

I immediately go into rescue calm mode trying to do what is necessary to help.
My late mother was like this as she maintained calmness at the most trying times in our life that included a house fire of which she calmly woke everyone up and gathered all our needed items and got us all in the car.

Another time it was a flood and she quickly managed to pile everything up in a pile and us to girls at age 4 or 5 yrs old sat on top until help came.

She would carry a metal tray from the oven that caught on fire and calmly take it outdoors to cover it in snow ( winter time).

She was the pillar of strength that taught us through her own actions.

It is very odd that my late father was a professional Boxer looking muscular etc yet he crumbled under pressures that my late mother took on.
So in truth it was Mother who was strong and Dad needed her internal strength while she needed his physical strength.

ucme's avatar

I tend to fire the perpetrators…mostly!

raum's avatar

I curse.

But that’s not much of a indicator of how upset or startled I am. I just curse a lot in general.

Jons_Blond's avatar

I don’t react like it’s the end of the world like some people. I treat it like a minor inconvenience. I mutter a curse word then clean it up.

PaisleyFaye's avatar

If I were the one who spilled something is just causally clean it up, with no care at all who’s watching me. But if it were someone else who made the mess I’d try to be quick about it and find something to help clean it up.

longgone's avatar

Thanks, all!

RabidWolf's avatar

Traffic accidents I run toward the scene. Hey, somebody has to get there to render help. Some people just stand there with their thumb up their ass. My first thought is: “JESUS H CHRIST! LEAD ME, FOLLOW ME OR GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY.”
At work one time a girl slipped on some grease and would have fallen into the vat where the grease would be filtered back into the fryolators. Instinctively I caught her and held her for a moment. “You got your feet back under you?’ She said she did.. I released her, the boss jumped me out, said for me to just let them fall. Later a well-built guy showed up and wanted to talk to me. I thought oh shit here we go. I was just trying to do the right thing. That kid would have been seriously hurt. He put out his hand and thanked e for helping his sister. I, of course, told dad, and he explained it to me. The girl could turn around and say I was groping her or looking for an excuse to grab her. It’s also called sexual harassment. I did what I did out of reflex, not out of any conscious thought. The thank you I got was worth me being chewed out. I stopped a very bad accident from happening.

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