"I may have learned my lesson, but maybe not."

June 22, 2016 11:23 AM

Are you having one of those days? At least you're not stuck inside a Barney head, right?

15-year-old Darby Risner of Trussville, Alabama, is recovering well, opening a Twitter account and going on the Today show.

posted by Etrigan (56 comments total)

I've been stuck in lots of things before

i feel a very strong sense of kinship with this delightful fool of a child
posted by poffin boffin at 11:26 AM on June 22, 2016 [20 favorites]

When I was around 6 years old I got my head stuck in the back slats of a dining-room chair. My dad yelled at me not to do dumb things and buttered up my neck to pull me out.

I immediately wondered, "How did I ever get my head in such a tiny space?" and proceeded to insert my noggin right back in, getting stuck for the second time. I did not yell for help this time, as even I realized Dad would be justified in disowning me for that monumental piece of stupidity.

I feel for ya, Darby.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:34 AM on June 22, 2016 [56 favorites]

That Barney head is just as afraid as she is.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:35 AM on June 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

I love you
You love me
One hundred and thirty more days till Halloween
Halloween
Halloween
With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you
Wont you say...
you...
love...
me...
[head explodes into a cascade of snakes and cockroaches]
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:35 AM on June 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

We have been here before.

"A child has been lodged in the Tunnel of Goats… If a nurse could please come to the Tunnel of Goats… A goat and a child have now become lodged together, and a nurse has become involved in the incident… Another nurse is required to remove the nurse mentioned previously…"

posted by happyroach at 11:38 AM on June 22, 2016 [15 favorites]

Ah yes, the Father Ted/SCP crossover ep.
posted by Etrigan at 11:41 AM on June 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

To channel another couple of 90s icons:

Butt-Head: I can't get out! I'm, like, stuck!
Beavis: That's cool.
Butt-Head: It's not cool, Beavis! I'm not sure yet, but I think it sucks.
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:42 AM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Can we all share stories of getting stuck in things now? I'll go :

At a Grandy's restaurant in TX when I was maybe 8 or 9 I noticed a little hole in the front door going in, like where one of those peep hole things would be. So of course I stuck my finger in it. Went right in! Did not come back out. I spent about 30 min in the door while restaurant staff tried to help me get out with butter and other gross stuff. Meanwhile, other people filed in and out of the restaurant, stepping awkwardly around the poor kid with his finger stuck in the door.

The lesson I learned is not to stick my finger in a random hole in a door, especially if that door is the door to a busy restaurant. I now pass this wisdom on to you.
posted by cubby at 11:43 AM on June 22, 2016 [19 favorites]

last week, literally one week ago in the year of our lord two thousand and sixteen, i got my finger stuck in the weight selector hole thingy where the pin is supposed to go on the leg press machine at the gym and my trainer had to get liquid soap from the bathroom to get me unstuck

i am an adult with a 401k
posted by poffin boffin at 11:45 AM on June 22, 2016 [71 favorites]

I once got my finger stuck in a snake. The mouth part, specifically. The snake bit me, so I grabbed its tail and pulled. Not the best idea, but in my defence I was startled because it was my first time being bit by a snake.

Pulling on the tail only sunk the fangs in deeper. I tried waving my hand around but that just made it thrash around and bite harder.

I had to stick my hand under water until the snake got bored and left of its own accord.
posted by LegallyBread at 11:57 AM on June 22, 2016 [17 favorites]

Related: Grown ass man got his finger stuck in the wall at Chipotle
posted by mhum at 11:57 AM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Related: Grown ass man got his finger stuck in the wall at Chipotle

An inglorious hole.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:00 PM on June 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

First time?

Oh, no, I've been stuck in things lots of times...
posted by Naberius at 12:01 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have another one!

A friend of mine owned a bar/restaurant with a couple of ball-return pool tables. A little kid, maybe ten years old got his hand stuck down a corner return chasing a cue ball. We kept him calm, he was on the verge of panic, while removing the tubes under the table. When we finally got the corner disassembled, he pulled his hand free still clutching the cue ball.

We showed remarkable restraint in not teasing him, laughing, or showing him videos of trapped baboons who'd had the same problem.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:05 PM on June 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

I gotta say, at least Darby put her head into something that was designed for putting one's head into.

I have scars from my various childhood stupidities, but none of them involved getting stuck where I ought not have been.
posted by sparklemotion at 12:05 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse. You could have the problems you have now and be stuck inside a Barney head.
posted by Anne Neville at 12:08 PM on June 22, 2016 [19 favorites]

i am an adult

Define adult?
posted by jeather at 12:09 PM on June 22, 2016

i am an adult

Define adult?

Gym membership (or really, any other bad commitment you can't get out of but try to convince yourself is worth it overall).
posted by Etrigan at 12:12 PM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I was bored on a road trip, pulled my legs up through the chest strap of my seatbelt, and then got stuck when MuddDude came to a hard stop and my seatbelt went into retract-only mode. Undoing the buckle just caused the belt to tighten further around my legs.

I was 22!
posted by muddgirl at 12:15 PM on June 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Came here for the Halloween III reference, was not disappointed.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:17 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

"This hole was made for me!"
posted by leotrotsky at 12:19 PM on June 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

Can we all share stories of getting stuck in things now? I'll go :

At a Grandy's restaurant in TX when I was maybe 8 or 9 I noticed a little hole in the front door going in, like where one of those peep hole things would be. So of course I stuck my finger in it. Went right in! Did not come back out.

I'm sure I've gotten stuck in things before, but this reminded me of a slightly precocious teen who was in an AP history course a year ahead of schedule. He apparently got bored or distracted enough that he stuck his finger in the hole in his desk, from the bottom of the desk up. The teacher wasn't too kind to the kid, so when he asked for help, the teacher just put a mug upside down over the kid's finger sticking up out of the desk. Somehow he got his finger out of the desk by the end of the class period.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:22 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maybe it's just me, but that's a normal sized Barney head, isn't it?
posted by humboldt32 at 12:25 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Life uh, finds a way.
posted by hot_monster at 12:25 PM on June 22, 2016 [11 favorites]

I've been stuck in what is obviously someone else's boring insignificant meager life for more than 5 decades.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:33 PM on June 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

I got my arm stuck under the front seat of my car when I was going to reach for something that had fallen underneath.

I was in the driver's seat and alone. I was about 2 minutes away from ... I don't know, calling 911? What does one do in this case?

Anyway, after I stopped panicking, I guess I was able to relax my arm just enough to pull it out. However, it was pretty scrapped up and bruised.

This was like two months ago. It was one of my finer moments.
posted by darksong at 12:36 PM on June 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

Jake Thackray, "The Hole"
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:53 PM on June 22, 2016

We could all applaud the glory of this small kid who got stuck in the railing. It's a video that has everything.

Edited to fix a bad YouTube link. Hopefully this one is legit.
posted by amanda at 1:00 PM on June 22, 2016 [11 favorites]

As a little kid, I got my foot stuck in a piece of playground equipment while on a field trip with my daycare. The counselors, who I realize now can't have been more than about seventeen, were totally unconcerned. I was able to get myself unstuck, no thanks to them, but at the price of losing my shoe to some inner void of the playground equipment, and had to hop most of the way back to daycare.
posted by skycrashesdown at 1:03 PM on June 22, 2016

I'm sufficiently accident-prone that I'm actually kind of surprised I can't think of any good "I got my x stuck in large object y" stories.

I have gotten my wedding ring stuck temporarily on the wrong finger at least three different times, and once spent a tense minute in a guitar shop trying to play it cool while desperately hoping my finger wasn't like stuck stuck, like Emergency Room stuck, in a too-small brass guitar slide I'd been fiddling with, but I feel like if you can walk around more or less unimpeded with your stupidity then it doesn't qualify for this particular weight class.
posted by cortex at 1:06 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

*immediately commences absentmindedly fiddling with wedding ring while rereading comment for typos*
posted by cortex at 1:06 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Somewhere in the Snide-fields of Alabama, a headless Barney bodysuit, lost and misunderstood, wanders by itself.

I said, "I do not fear those pants
With nobody inside them."
I said, and said, and said those words.
I said them. But I lied them.
posted by oulipian at 1:07 PM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think the scariest thing I've been stuck in was an escalator. My shoelaces were untied or something when at the mall with a friend when I was around 15. They got sucked into the escalator steps as I was going up and it pulled so hard I got knocked down. I got stuck at the top of the escalator for a bit. My friend's mom helped me somehow get the shoes off and then yank them out of the escalator but for a minute there I thought the damn steps were going to eat me.
posted by FireFountain at 1:13 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

My oldest brother is 6'5", and is fond of slapping at or hitting the wall over staircases on his way down.

Once, quite drunk, he did this, and got his ring caught on something. It cut deeply into his finger.

I believe he still has this habit, demonstrating that even smart people do dumb things.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:14 PM on June 22, 2016

I'm sufficiently accident-prone that I'm actually kind of surprised I can't think of any good "I got my x stuck in large object y" stories.

Me too actually! Most of my crazy stories are all kid stories like "Got a hair wrapped around her finger so tightly we had to take her to the hospital" which is just ... not that exciting, along with the usual tongue-on-mailbox stuff.

Oh wait, I do have that time I got stuck in my dad's garage.... which is not quite the same but it's definitely a fun story. And I forgot entirely about my Typepad account until right now. (and mathowie commented!)
posted by jessamyn at 1:18 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Could have been worse. At least it wasn't a giant stone vagina.
posted by Miss Otis' Egrets at 1:18 PM on June 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Once, quite drunk, he did this, and got his ring caught on something. It cut deeply into his finger.

He should talk to Jimmy Fallon about that. This story made us go out and buy silicone wedding rings.
posted by amanda at 1:19 PM on June 22, 2016

This previously is more about a thing getting stuck inside a person, as opposed to a person getting stuck inside a thing - but they both share the viral-media aspect.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:24 PM on June 22, 2016

Surely I'm not the only person who has (in the past) gotten a finger/thumb stuck in a closed, locked car door - while the keys were in the pocket on the side of the arm/hand that got stuck?

So there's cross-body self-gymnastics involved....
posted by mrbill at 1:36 PM on June 22, 2016

I think the scariest thing I've been stuck in was an escalator. My shoelaces were untied or something when at the mall with a friend when I was around 15.

I've never heard of this actually happening, but it has been a huge fear my entire life. (I was terrified to get on an escalator at all until I was 14 or so; of course, growing up in a town where the only elevator was a grain elevator, this wasn't much of a worry.) And as a notoriously bad shoe-tier, I am always super vigilant before getting on escalators still.

Still, somehow knowing that this happened to someone makes me actually feel better about my lifetime fear.

I get stuck in stuff so often you'd think I would have more entertaining stories about it. The only good one was actually similar to an episode of New Girl this season, when in college, I put someone's too small football helmet on my head as a drunken joke and could not get it off. I ended up sleeping in it and it came off the next day without disassembling the whole thing, which was the plan.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:37 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've never heard of this actually happening, but it has been a huge fear my entire life.

if you wear crocs then escalators might eat your feet.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:42 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

When I was in elementary school I got my elbow stuck in between the railing and the window. I suppose those railings are there to stop people walking into the window? Anyways, I was leaning on the railing while waiting for the bus, and idly pushed my arm down in there, and then couldn't get it out. Other kids alerted the adults and someone came out of the office and got me unstuck.

The secret trick is, if you straighten your arm your elbow gets small enough to pull back out. But if you panic and bend your arm so your hand is out, your elbow will remain stuck.
posted by elizilla at 1:48 PM on June 22, 2016

Ringo: The Fire Brigade once got my head out of some railings.
John: Did you want them to?
Ringo: "No. I used to leave it there when I wasn't using it for school. You can see a lot of the world from railings."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:32 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

That kid...that kid is BACK on the ESCALATOR again!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:38 PM on June 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

Once as a wee lad of 8 or so I got my entire self stuck underneath a 12' thornbush while sledding - the sled deviated from our snowy trough and i shot right into the bush, all the way to the trunk. I was probably in there for 20-30 minutes laid flat out and shouting in increasing desperation until someone else came to the hill and tossed me a rope to tow me back out. That sucked.

Another time when I was some age of teen, I woke up in the morning and rolled over to push myself upright in bed... only to find I had slept on my arms somehow and they were totally dead numb. This resulted in me flopping ludicrously once and then falling face first into the gap between my bed and the wall, where I was stuck upside down for far longer than I would have liked until my arms started working again. I was fairly sure I was going to die that morning.
posted by FatherDagon at 3:11 PM on June 22, 2016 [15 favorites]

I once got my arm stuck between the inner and outer tubs of a washing machine when my watch got hooked on the bottom edge of the inner tub. IE: when I was inserting my hand the band slid over the edge but then got hooked pulling it back.

As this was my last call of the day and I was working alone at the time in empty rental unit (when the Nokia Talkman was the cell phone that no one had), I was damn happy when I figured out I could use the side cutters that happened to be in my back pocket to cut my watch band freeing my arm. Otherwise I might have been stuck there until the next morning when they came looking for me when I didn't show up for work.
posted by Mitheral at 3:14 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I got stuck trying on a too-small vintage wedding dress once. I was not even engaged at the time. I ended up needing the help of the store owner to squeeze out of it. She was actually really cool about it, considering.
posted by to recite so charmingly at 3:45 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

We showed remarkable restraint in not teasing him, laughing, or showing him videos of trapped baboons who'd had the same problem.

Somewhere in the Snide-fields of Alabama, a headless Barney bodysuit, lost and misunderstood, wanders by itself.

Roland was a costume
From the Yellowhammer state
Two arms, two legs, tail, torso
Coloured like a cartoon grape

Sold by a Trussville pastor
To the Risner family
It became a favorite plaything
Of their daughter Dar-ar-by

Ro-land the Barney costume
Ro-land the Barney costume

Darby grew as children do
And played with the costume less
But of all the parts of Roland
She liked the head the best

For prankin' and tomfoolin'
It fit her like a glove
So she kept the plush head handy
And gave the rest a shove

Ro-land the headless Barney costume...
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:55 PM on June 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

I got stuck trying on a too-small vintage wedding dress once. I was not even engaged at the time. I ended up needing the help of the store owner to squeeze out of it. She was actually really cool about it, considering.


I was racking my brain for Things I Have Gotten Myself Stuck In, most of which were barn-related, but this. THIS.

See, I will find articles of clothing in thrift stores, that are so elaborate that I have to try them on, because how are they even clothes. And so that's how I end up in the dressing room with one arm tied to my head and one behind my back and if I move either the wrong way I will strangle myself but I don't have much time because the skirt or whatever is entirely over my face AND THIS IS HOW I AM GOING TO DIE.
posted by louche mustachio at 6:51 PM on June 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Went looking for Beaver Cleaver getting his head stuck in a fence & found so much more. Just a couple (that haven't lost their pictures to link rot):

Newlyweds Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello get stuck together inside a tuba in "Love and the Tuba" (1971).

A 1967 episode of That Girl, "This Little Piggy Had a Ball," involves Marlo Thomas getting her toe stuck in a bowling ball.
posted by morganw at 8:42 PM on June 22, 2016

MY PEOPLE
posted by Space Kitty at 10:22 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Surely I'm not the only person who has (in the past) gotten a finger/thumb stuck in a closed, locked car door - while the keys were in the pocket on the side of the arm/hand that got stuck?

I have never done this personally, but one time my mom locked my entire hand in the sliding van door. I was probably about 5. I was lucky that I didn't suffer more than some soreness and bruises, but I do remember my mom panicking as she was trying to get the keys back out of her pocket.

I think cars and my arm just don't get along.
posted by darksong at 6:02 AM on June 23, 2016

My three year old came in, crying, her toilet seat stuck on her head. (It was one of those mobile toilet seats you place on top of the adult seat.)

I didn't laugh.
posted by Omnomnom at 3:30 PM on June 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

Amateurs, all of you! When my immersion blender got stuck in a pulp, I was too lazy to unscrew the blade part from the motor part and just used some fingers of my left hand to very quickly get some of the stuff out, so the blade could start turning again. Which it did, when my right hand somehow managed to press the button for a fraction of a second while my left hand was still at work. Of course now it was actually stuck and every tiny movement of my left index finger was terribly painful, so I had no other choice than to use my right hand to call an ambulance. The paramedics arrived ten minutes later with a good laugh, but no appropriate tools, so this is me (warning: some blood) at the hospital half an hour later. Luckily, it was a very slow Saturday at the emergency department, so we all got some more laughing done; at peak time, there were eight people in the small room, most of them just to be part of the silliness. A medical student kindly took that picture for me—and one for herself, without my face, as her first contribution to the “break room fridge door of curiosities”.

Some local anaesthetics and a brisk clockwise turn by the doctor later, everything was good again. I even got the blender back in working order! In a transparent plastic bag, which I had to bring onto the train back home, but had nothing opaque inside of which to put it. The combination of a bandaged finger and a blood-stained blender does draw some looks. At home, the doctor’s letter (“Therapy: Local anaesthesia, removal of blender, cleaning.”) went straight into the folder with all my other Important Medical Files. (This is a lie. I brought it with me to a housewarming party I attended later that same day.)

This happened four months ago and I’m 25.

And all this nonsense didn’t cost me one cent. I’m very grateful about the German public health insurance system’s lack of interest in how much of an idiot you are.
posted by wachhundfisch at 3:39 PM on June 23, 2016 [11 favorites]

Oh, man, darksong, that just brought back to me the time when I was a kid and me and my mom and one of my sisters were packing up the minivan after finishing up a housecleaning gig. And by whatever weird sequence of events, I ended up with my hand resting on the back of the van while my sister helpful shut the back door, and, wham, there I was with a thumb inside and being like HEY, UH, WHAT THE FUDGE SIS. Similarly miraculous that I just ended up with a sore thumb.
posted by cortex at 3:42 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've heard lots of stories about fingers in car doors in my life without hearing of any serious injuries as a result (please no tales of degloving now). I wonder if fingers not being destroyed by being closed in a car door isn't one of those hidden pieces of engineering. Like there is an engineer at every car company (Oh ya, that's Bob our finger guy) slamming hotdogs stuffed with raw chicken bones in the doors of every proposed model to make sure they don't cut fingers off. 'Cause I imagine if your minivan gets a reputation for cutting off kids fingers that is going to effect sales even if the wounds are self inflicted.
posted by Mitheral at 4:19 PM on June 23, 2016 [10 favorites]