I don't know many tough guys. Probably one of the toughest is my newest brother-in-law. He comes off as supremely confident, but he's an extremely nice guy. But word is he can fight pretty well, or something.

(for the record, I have a toughness score of .02)

(Stories of really tough females are also welcome, of course)

I used to date this bartender who was pretty tough. One night, a fight broke out in the bar. He leapt over the bar (which in and of itself was pretty impressive, since he was 6'5" and 240) and grabbed the two guys by the scruff of the neck, knocked their heads together, and shoved them out the door, all within two seconds. They struggled to their feet, dazed, and he said loudly but calmly: "You stay the FUCK out of my bar."

I don't know if it was the toughest thing I've ever seen, but his control and speed was pretty god damn impressive.

The guy i met last night.

I have about the same toughness score that you do, agropyron. The toughest guy I know is dead, but when he was alive he once threatened to shoot me because I refused to let him borrow my surf ski. Needless to say, he ended up borrowing the surf ski and I never saw it again. He was moy brother-in-law and I wasn't the only one who was glad when he died of a heart attack at 40.

I completed the course work for my Masters while simultaneously caring two days a week for my father (who was dying of lung cancer) and doing whatever I could to support my mother. (I gave my last class presentation the day of his memorial service.) That same year, as a single parent, I got my son through Grade 8 at a high school he loathed, before pulling out all stops to get him into an alternative program in another school district. Yeah, I'm tough, I figure. *walks through Mecha like a gunslinger*

Tonight I went to open a bottle of wine and the corkscrew broke off inside the cork. I'm attributing that to my massive strength and feminine toughness, rather than the (more accurate, I'm sure) poor quality of the corkscrew.

But damn, I really wanted that glass of wine.

The guy who's chewing on my arm says that I'm pretty chewy and tough.

I knew a fellow in college that used to be special ops - army. You wouldn't know he was dangerous or tough by looking at him.

He taught me how to hide in a sliver of shadow and if you stood right next to me, you wouldn't know I was there until your neck was cut open. I wasn't never very good at the stealth stuff.

I also have no doubt that he had actual practice to maintain his skills. I could see it in his eyes.

I once kicked down a door.
Other than that, I'm a complete pansy.

I knocked the wind out of myself once.

I'm pretty tough, I think. Or stupid. Probably just stupid.

My father shaves dry. The only two liquids I've ever seen him imbibe are coffee and beer. He does not wear a coat. He is hardcore.

I'm weak. It's why I don't get the ladies.

When I was a kid I had to walk 30 miles uphill to school. Through lava. Both ways.

I'm wicked tough.

I've known a lot of tough people, though. You really have to develop some toughness to get through life. That may not be the same as being the kind of person who regularly kicks asses, but some of the toughest acts in this world have nothing to do with physical intimidation of another. I think of toughness as more of a refusal to be beaten. By anything.

Amro, when that happened to me, I used a pair of pliers to pry the corkscrew wire and cork out of the bottle neck.

OK. So this is what happened. We were getting ready to load up the leftover booze, kegs and mixer from the ART BOMB party, which we'd stowed in the basement of the Capitol Hill Arts Center. Tim asked for someone to help guide his van down the ramp so we could load it up. I wasn't ready to pick up anything heavy yet and was busy with a bag of sour cream 'n' onion potato chips (I was craving salt) so I quickly volunteered.
Tim backed the van down the ramp and was about ten feet from the bottom. I was standing behind the van, maybe three feet from the wall. Everything was going fine when suddenly the van started coming back toward me. I thought, "What's he doing?" then "Shit! I'm gonna take a hit!" and got my hands up right as the van hit me. I went flying back into the wall and I could feel the bumper pressing hard against my legs. I thought for sure they'd get broken but my upper body cushioned most of the blow and my left leg got a nasty pinching between the bumper and the wall. Tim had slammed the van in park just in time and that was the only thing that kept me out of the hopital...or the morgue.
My leg hurt like hell, but I could tell it wasn't broken. If anything, I was pissed 'cause it hurt! I was stumbling around the theater space just inside swearing and trying to walk it off, but at the same time my brain was telling me it was OK, I wasn't seriously injured. I saw some red stuff on the ground and almost lost my shit, but I realized it wasn't from me...must've been from a performance the night before.
After a while the pain levelled off...I'd taken harder dings in football practice in high school. I didn't want to go to the hospital, but the fellas (who were pretty freaked) insisted I go. Aaron drove me up to Swedish, but there were 30 people in there, all looking completely miserable and I didn't want to spend 4 hours waiting from someone to tell me to go home, elevate my leg, take some aspirin and put ice on it. I had a date that evening! So we came back the the CHAC, I got on my bike and road home.
I changed into some shorts and saw my left leg had swollen up so much that it felt more like wood than flesh. So I popped some aspirin and kept it elevated. I knew the shin was bruised but guess what? Couldn't see it. I hit the hot tub later and worked it make sure I had full range of motion.
Tim and Aaron both called to check on me. The dent in the door of the van was pretty huge! Tim says he's suing for damages!
Even though I thanked my lucky stars...I felt about ten feet tall and bulletproof. Which led the small but sensible voice (which sounds a lot like my mother) to admonish me: "Boooy, you better sit your black ass down, before something really bad happens!"

Heh.

One of my ex-boyfriends is doing eighteen years for murder. He was pretty tough.

Ok, Specklet was winning until LeeJay chimed in.

I'm really tough. I have recently been coming to the conclusion that becoming incredibly tough and even setting it as a life goal, which I did in my teens, was one of the more giant mistakes I have ever made.

I am tough like jokeefe - I've been a single mother for 20 years. I'm tough enough to make my kids some kind of school lunch every day because it embarrassed them to be in the free lunch line. I'm tough enough to take a dying animal to the vet and hold him as he goes. And tough enough to read the Wall Street Journal to my dying father in his last coma moments.

And I'm tough like black8 - I fractured 3 ribs, went to work the next day, worked 80 hours that week that culminated in a gala wine auction for 200 people (I was the event planner) where I was lifting cases of wine all night and never took anything stronger than guinness and ibuprofen. The doc-in-a-box who told me that if my ribs had been really broken I would have gone in before 72 hours were up was wrong as he could be. I didn't even know how badly I had been hurt for 2 years, when I had to have a CAT scan for what they thought was a shadow on my lung. It was scar tissue from three seriously smashed, barely reknit ribs.

Heh. He was a psycho, although I didn't know it until a few months in. He made some threats but both my father and brother are cops (well, my father was until he retired) and he knew better than to push me. Although I did end up having to change my phone number. I also found myself taking extra care to look over my shoulder at night, at least until he got locked up.

mygothlaundry, I have a lump in my chest where I broke a rib in a boat racing accident, but didn't realise until I had a chest x-ray some years later and the doctor asked how I broke them. The accident was the only thing I could think of where the pain matched the (apparent) results.

Amro, when that happened to me, I used a pair of pliers to pry the corkscrew wire and cork out of the bottle neck.

It broke off below the top surface of the cork, which is still level with the opening of the bottle! Utterly irretrievable, at least until I buy another corkscrew.

Also, I guess being a single parent for 7 years made me tough in some ways, particularly the ways that jokeefe and mygothlaundry describe. I have never really thought about it being tough, sometimes you just do what you gotta do.

amro, if you are desperate, you can push the cork into the bottle. if you are really desparate, just smash the top off the bottle on the edge of the kitchen bench (or park bench, if that's where you are).

Toughest guy I know is Charlie Johnson. Montana middleweight golden gloves champ during the Depression. Navy Pacific Theater middlewight champ during WWII. Spent a month trapped behind enemy lines in the Pacific Island when he was a Marine. In his seventies, he was still not taking guff from young bucks and several times got arrested for beating the crap out of husky 20-year-olds who were stupid enough to take a swing at him during a traffic altercation. In one of these cases, the judge said, "Charley!?! You again? What idiot here took at poke at you this time?" Case dismissed. His son Tip is pretty damn tough, too.

Second toughest guy I know is Tony Bankston. Poisonous snake catcher (world record water moccasin among other things), aligator wrestler, Cobra pilot and platoon leader in 'Nam, deputy sheriff in the Deep South, gold prospector, fraud investigator for the DoD. In a tough spot, I think I'd rather have Tony standing next to me than anybody else. Never lost a man during his time in 'Nam.

Toghest woman has got to be Shar Burns, aka "Shark." Wharf rat, boatwright, cook, artist. She and I spent a lot of enjoyable time girl-watching together. We both prefer girls to boys.

All three, totally excellent people in every way.

I'm pretty tough, I think. I hurt myself a bunch (unintentionally, of course), but I don't cry. Pain doesn't bother me. (Discomfort, like back pain, on the other hand....) Of course, there are all sorts of different measures of toughness. One of them is enduring pain. Another is enduring hardships. I'm happy to have survived both.

I can't think of any guys I've known who are tougher than I am. I don't say that by way of bragging -- it's just true.

I saw my dad beat a guy up while he (my dad) was still on crutches after a surgery.

What's a surf ski?

Surf Ski

I once stole a child's ice cream in Reno just to watch him cry.

My mum is "single mom" tough, no doubt. I'd also avoid my oldest brother if he ever got really pissed off; he's 6'5" and as strong as an ox.