I have a pretty horrible track record with curbs.  For some reason, they seem to be one of the biggest problems in my life. 

When I was 17, I was on my way to a Super Bowl party in my dad's car (the party wasn't in his car; his car was my means of getting to the party [most people probably didn't need that explanation]).  As I was making a right turn into a shopping center, I misjudged the size of the opening and hit a curb at 30 mph.  That's makes me sound stupid, so let me clarify:  There were two openings to the shopping center, and they were separated by a small concrete island.  Since some entrances to parking lots have a bit of a lip where the curb would normally be, I thought the two openings were one big opening with a slightly larger lip in one section.  So I hit that bad boy head on.  And the reason I was going 30 mph was because I was on a road with a pretty high speed limit and I have this obsessive compulsive fear of being in someone's way as I make a turn.  So my objective was to exit the road as quickly as possible.  And I did.  And I hit a curb.  At 30 mph.  It popped the right front tire and bent a few things in the process.  I pulled into a gas station (with the tire hissing as it lost air) and had it replaced with the spare, at which point I drove home in shame and misery. 

I bought my current car on July 10, 2004.  It was brand spanking new and shiny all over.  Exactly 2 weeks later, I drove to Pennsylvania for a party at the brother of the girlfriend of a friend's house (he's also a friend of the friend and a friend of me; hopefully that clarifies things).  As I pulled to the side of the road to park my car, I misjudged the distance between the curb and my car, and I scraped up my brand new, factory-installed plastic hub caps.  I was mortified.  I got out of the car to check the damage.  It wasn't life-threatening or vehicle-disabling, but it was ugly.  I thought, "Meh, I'll just buy new ones.  Walmart sells hub caps for like $15."  Exactly 2 years, 3 months, and 15 days later, I still haven't gotten new hub caps.  And in the process, I've scraped them at least 10 more times. 

Several months ago, I went on a company-sponsored trip to Las Vegas for a conference.  I rented my first car:  A white Chrysler Sebring convertible, the most common rental car on planet earth.  I drove to some place at night and parked in one of those parking lots with the concrete slabs (similar in size to a curb) separating the spaces.  I went into the building and eventually came out to drive home.  The parking lot was mostly empty, so I thought, "Pull-through!" and went for it.  That's when I hit the concrete slab.  It made a horrendous noise:  The same noise anything makes when it hits any part of a car.  I stopped the car and got out to check the damage.  It wasn't a big deal; I had merely driven over the slab.  The problem was that I actually got the front tires over the slab, meaning I would have to get the tires back over the slab in order to get out of there.  I got back in the car and put it in reverse.  I heard painful car-crushing sounds and found that the car was actually moving the slab instead of rolling over it.  I didn't know those things could move.  So I tried my only other option:  Pull-through!  I bull-rushed over that thing and got the car into a safe position.  I got out of the car and looked around to see if there were any witnesses (for the sake of my reputation, not for the sake of the car), and I kicked the concrete slab back into place.  The car actually didn't have any noticeable damage, so I drove away and pretended the whole thing never happened. #travel