Brilliant 
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I did an upgrade to a vascular lab (when working for Philips) in guys hospital 20 ish years ago… It really was the first one in the world and high profile etc…
Day one, the ever helpful me took off a of the covers and rested them again the wall, all good…
2 weeks of upgrading done and time to switch on… Zilch, nada.
Hospital engineers blaming us, we were blaming them as we couldn’t switch on.
All connections checked and rechecked but no, nothing.
3 days later, Philips sent over their head honcho and couldn’t find anything wrong.
I arrived early one day and decided to put the covers back on…
Lo and behold, I’d doomed the installation from the start as I’d rested the covers Against an emergency stop which is why it wouldn’t work. Doh.
Obviously, I told no one but when people arrived and it was working, i said that I’d just reseated the mains connections and viola, superballs was born!
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When I had my first Superduke I remember riding around through the sticks looking for fuel. I came across one of those little one man band filling stations/garage and promptly stopped for a fill up. I remember thinking the grubby looking pump had a different look to it but the handle was green so happy days, filled to the brim. It was only when I went to pay, the attendant informed me I had a full tank of heating oil 
Luckily for me there was a garage attached so I was able to siphon the tank and refill with petrol. Expensive fuel stop
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When I had my Sprint ST I pulled into my local garage for fuel before going for an evening ride. I started to fill up and noticed a bloke at the opposite pump looking at my bike and smiling at me. He eventually came across and said what a lovely bike, I was on cloud nine with his compliments until he said “didn’t know they ran on diesel”. Doh pushed the bike off the pumps and call the RAC (recovery company for oversea friends). Spent 4 hours waiting for a recovery truck and a trip to their garage to have tank pumped. Never did get my evening ride.
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Well, when I was 16 I had a yammy 125 and I had a mate who had one of those horrible lambretta scooter things. We were poor school kids who scraped by on 2 shillings worth of fuel and the odd packet of 5 park drive. We were parked up outside my house one day wondering what to do. I suggested we ride to some place, can’t remember where. My mate said he didn’t have much fuel so he lifted the seat and opened the fuel cap. We both peered into the dark depths of the tank but despite rocking the bike we couldn’t see how much fuel he had left. Being a particularly bright spark, I whipped out my cigarette lighter, flicked it on, and placed it over the open fuel cap. A nice blue flame appeared and did a slow, sexy dance. We stood there watching aghast. I remember waiting for the flash bang. After a couple of seconds my mate put his hand over the flame and of course it went out. He swore a bit. But, I learned a bit about fuel tanks etc and that they don’t blow up like they do in films.
I have done more stupid things in my life but will I tell ?
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Well i managed to hard tail my 1st bike, an RD200 by fitting (bodging) rear crash bars from an RD250 to the top and bottom shock mounts.
I kept blowing main fuses on my TD1 race bike until eventually running out of spare fuses at castle combe i found a .22 short rifle brass case in my toolbox and wedged it in ( it’s only a 10 lap race, what could possibly go wrong) after a few laps my bollocks seemed to be warming up, turns out the loom was on fire and my plums were getting toastie…i flew into the pits and hopped off holding the bike at arms length (no stand and fibreglass fuel tank) a marshall dashed up and sprayed me and the bike…mainly me with foam.
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I managed to lock myself inside the car on a lunch break?!
Imagine the scene, sat in a hospital carpark, fiddling with the controls of a new (company toyota auris…crap) and “oh, what does it do if i turn off the internal key sensor?”
Turns out, nothing for 2 minutes and then the doors lock and the car shuts down…
20-30 minutes later, i called the toymota dealer to ask how to exit the car…
Turns out that you hold the fob on the start button and viola, freedom…
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Similar to the above. Years ago I worked for a Saab dealer and borrowed one of the cars to go to a meeting (I had never driven one before). All went well and I pulled into the car park at my destination and tried to remove the ignition key. Try as I might, that key would not come out. This was a time before mobile phones were common so I had to head to the meeting office and ask to borrow the phone - hoping that no one would steal the car in the meantime - to phone work and tell them the ignition was faulty and the key was stuck in the ignition.
They said “have you put it in reverse?”
I said “WTF would I put it in reverse?”
They said “because on Saab’s you have to put it in reverse to remove the ignition key”
You live and learn….
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Neal and DCT…… you make me feel so much less incompetent …in a good way… 
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Years ago.
My wife lost her credit card. Searched everywhere, no chance.
Then she said she gonna cancel the card at the bank.
In the meantime I go on searching in her car and finally found the card in the little space between the seat and the middle console.
As I proudly came back with the card, my wife told me she made a mistake and cancelled MY card number… and as she noticed it cancelled her own card.
We had our 2 cards, and had to wait for a week for new ones to be sent.
Epiloque, we are still married
Good to see this thread revived. 
When I was about 19, a friend of mine moved some about 20 miles away for a job. He had the attic room in a large Victorian house, which was great with all the space but it didn’t have any heating so got a bit chilly in winter.
I used to hang out at his place some weekends. One time, fed up with the cold and having to sit under blankets to stay warm, we went in search of a heater in the rest of the house, and we discovered one under the stairs - hoorah! Much cheered by our find, we hauled it upstairs and plonked it on the floor. Then we noticed it didn’t have a plug. So we went hunting again for a device to donate one. A kitchen knife was pressed in to service as a screwdriver, and before we knew it, we were ready to plug our heater in and enjoy the sweet, sweet convection. In to the socket went the plug, and we hit the switch…
Fans whirred and we cheered once more at our good fortume that it was working. But there was a problem. After a few minutes we became disappointed, then perplexed, at the lack of heat being generated. After a few more minutes realisation dawned. Whirring gently on the floor was a cooker extractor hood. 
After I graduated in 1972, I applied for all sorts of jobs, and the first one that offered was as a Planning Assistant in the Staffordshire County Planning Department. I badly needed a job, so I turned up on my first day at the town centre offices in Stafford, parked round the back, went inside, and was taken to a large general office and introduced to my new colleagues.
About twenty minutes later, a girl came round and asked: “Has anyone in here parked a motorbike and sidecar in the County Planning Officer’s space?”
Oh dear, not a good start…
And side car? How big was your sandwich box?
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My main transport at the time was a Velo Thruxton, but it was temporarily off the road, being fixed after a 70mph blowout on the M6. My backup vehicle was a BSA A50 and chair, which had rather more general luggage capacity than the Velo.
I’ve never owned a sidecar outfit since. It was painfully slow, but quite fun to drive once you’d got the hang of it.
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When i was 11 or so me and some mates chipped in together and bought an ex RAC ES2 Norton with the tool chest sidecar for the princely sum of a £10, the tyres were stuffed with straw, we could get 7 of us in, 3 on the bike and 4 in the sidecar, just to ride around the fields. Be worth a fortune now.
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Especially if it was the original straw from Bracebridge Street.
Not very long ago I may have walked into a Nissan dealer and asked about a Yaris GR four which of course is a Toyota 