Is there a statute of limitations on stupid stuff you do? Because I’m going to admit to one of my own dumb acts. It seems ridiculous now, and even at the time I did it—some forty years ago—I knew it was immature and imbecilic.

I threw an iron into somebody’s yard.

You’ve probably heard of people throwing an iron or a driver—possibly a putter—when they’re playing golf, but this was a clothes iron. You know, the small appliance. You plug it in, it heats up, and you smooth out the wrinkles in a cotton shirt. That’s what I was going to do with an iron I bought. I plugged it in, but it didn’t get hot.

The wrinkles in my shirt stuck out their crinkly tongues at me.

I had bought the iron at a yard sale a block and a half up the street from where I lived with a couple of other bachelors. I won’t tell you where I lived or who those bachelors were. I don’t want to incriminate my friends, even if the statute of limitations on stupidity has expired.

I paid a dollar for the iron and, while there was no written guarantee—no sticky note with, “It works!”—there’s an assumption that yard sale items, absent a warning, will satisfactorily perform their role in society. Or … I assume there’s an assumption. Honestly, I don’t go to a lot of yard sales. All I knew was, my new iron didn’t work.

It was a Saturday, and my buddies and I were going out to a bar. When I tried to freshen up a button-down and make it almost look like it came from the cleaners, I couldn’t get my newly purchased iron to heat up. And I was steamed.

I went with Plan B for my attire, and, as we were leaving the house, I grabbed the dead iron. “Let’s swing by the yard-sale house,” I said. Later, “Get close to the curb and slow down.”

And then, leaning out of the car window, I heaved the broken appliance into the yard of the shady yard-salers. I used the two-handed chest pass I was taught at basketball camp in 1969. One thuddy hop and it settled, taking a small divot out of the grass. We proceeded to the bar, and I didn’t give the iron a second thought—that night.

Over the years, though, I’ve thought about that faulty appliance surprisingly often. I don’t know what return policy the yard-sale people had, but I bet they would have given me my dollar back if I had acted like a normal human instead of a vengeful iron hurler. Or I could have just thrown the daggone iron away. But I didn’t.

And why do I still remember this impulsive act? My friends didn’t press me for insight that night, and I’ve never reconciled my rash action. But I do think about it from time to time. Through the years, I’ve told myself it was funny … I was funny … to throw an iron in a yard. Back then, I wanted to be a wild and crazy guy like my idol, Steve Martin. I wanted to be as cool as that iron was. But my joke fell, um, flat. If there’s a fine line between funny and stupid, I crossed it that night.

And Lord knows I crossed that line repeatedly—daily … hourly—when I was a young man. And occasionally as an old man. I don’t think about all the other idiocies, though. Maybe I’ve repressed the memory of the million other acts of stupidity and designated the flying iron to represent them all.

Whatever the case, I now apologize. To the people who sold me the iron—probably in good faith—for one dollar forty years ago: I’m sorry. And for every other person who endured an act of stupidity perpetrated by me, whether as a victim or a witness: I extend my sincere apology. I’ll even apologize to the clothes iron: I was wrong to throw you out the window.

Everyone can perhaps take comfort in knowing I have mostly retired from rash, irresponsible behavior. I haven’t hurled an iron since that evening in 1986.

So maybe the old iron has been thrown twice. I tossed it once, some 40 years ago. Now, as I write this essay and unburden myself of this weighty memory, maybe I’m finally throwing it away for good.

Except … as I casually searched “1980 clothes iron,” I discovered that a vintage GE Light n Easy iron now sells for forty-five dollars on eBay. And maybe that’s my punishment. Had I held on to the yard-sale iron, I could’ve reaped a 4,400% return on my investment.