Your Great "Oops" Moments From Childhood

In My Humble Opinion
21

When I was in kindergarten, I needed something for show and tell. I was able to procure a copy of my parents’ record of The Nutcracker Suite. That would be neat to show everyone. I first showed it to a kid I shared a desk with. I knew all about records. You played them with a needle. A needle is kind of like scissors, right? Ignoring the protests of my classmate, I “played” the record with the scissors. No luck. Music didn’t spring forth. Hmm, maybe I was playing the wrong side…

Not my own adventure as a kid, but someone else’s:

My girlfriend’s daughter is a top fashion designer. So far, she has designed for such supermodels as Barbie, American Girl, and Hello Kitty. One day she decided she was going to make a very special pair of pants for Barbie. She just needed to procure a bolt of some very hip material to fashion them from. She searched high and low for just the right fabric. She found it at a little boutique called The Top Drawer of Mom’s Bureau That Kids Aren’t Allowed to Look In. It was there among various lotions and battery-powered microphones. She then got some scissors and went to work on the garment.

And so came the End of the World for the naughty stockings.

22

I have a nephew, the same age as me. We were both very well behaved, quiet kids… until we got together.
My mom had a 1968 Chrysler that was so huge she parked it on the street when we visited my brother and his family.
Me and my nephew were playing at the end of the gravel driveway. The driveway was new, so the gravel was nice and chunky. We were bored and trying to think of cool things we could do with these great rocks we had at our disposal.
How could we resist the little shiny, green door to the gas tank? We thought the rocks would make a cool rattling sound when the car was moving.

23

Of all possible outcomes to that story, I think that’s the least troubling.

“Look, Mommy! Barbie has a new car. I call it the Astroglide Rocket!”

24

I was like 5 and my parents and I were at a quiet restaurant. In the middle of dinner I put my silverware down and said
“I’m not going to eat anymore”
My parents asked why.
“because I DON’T WANT TO BE FAT LIKE THAT GUY” and I pointed to a big guy at the other end of the room.

25

Good point. A little girl getting Barbie to ride a big dildo is probably not conducive to wholesome values.

On the other hand, cutting up mom’s clothes to make doll clothes displays a curious lack of forthought.

26

I wasn’t in school yet, so I must have been 3 or 4.

I decided to be helpful and wash the upstairs bathroom wall for mom. (not that it matters, but it was pink plastic tile)

When Mom came upstairs to see what I was doing, she was irate that I’d used almost an entire tube of Colgate to smear up the walls.

I just couldn’t understand why she was upset. I had only really started. I was planning to wash off the toothpaste with wet toilet paper! Plus, the bathroom was minty fresh! :smiley:

27

In first grade, I was in a carpool with a kid who hated me for reasons that I either never knew or have escaped me in the intervening (mumble-mumble) years.

One winter day when his mom was the driver taking us home, I was slow getting into my coat, gloves, boots, hat, etc., and he told her I wasn’t at school that day, so she went on without me.

I had managed to put my boots on the wrong feet, and after standing around trying to figure out what happened to my ride, I just started walking. First time I’d walked to or from school. I don’t remember why it didn’t occur to me to just call home.

28

That really sucks!

But it reminds me of a double-oops (on the part of me, and my mother), when I was about 10.

Summer evening, about 7:30. Mom needed take Bro2 or Bro3 to get something at Sears, in a shopping center about 2.5 miles from home. Library branch in same shopping center, so I begged to ride along. No, says Mom, I only want to be there for 10 minutes. Please, says I, I really WILL be only 10 minutes.

She dropped me off outside the door and drove to the other end of the shopping center to do her Sears errand. I swapped out my books in no more than 5 minutes, and went back outside to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

At 9 PM, I gave up and started walking home. On a road with no sidewalks, just a shoulder. And no streetlights.

Most of the way home, some neighbors saw me, stopped, and gave me a ride the rest of the way. By now it was nearly 10 PM.

Got home, went downstairs to the basement where the parents and a sib or two were watching TV. Sat down. Nobody said anything.

After 10 minutes, I finally said “Thanks for leaving me at the library!”.

Mom said :eek::eek::eek:.

So - double-oops. Didn’t occur to me to phone home, but hey, I was 10. Mom totally forgot me. And it finally just now occurred to me: I wonder if my brother really forgot me, or just decided not to say anything! :confused::mad:

29

This wasn’t so much an oops as a big brother moment. I was probably 9 or 10, brother 4 years older.

We were left in the car one night while mom, dad, and sis went into a store for a few minutes. My brother had a great idea. He said that when the family returned, we should sing Happy Birthday to them. Tee hee! That would be a funny joke to play on the family! HA HA!

So they came back and got in the car. Brother and I looked at each other, and began to execute our grand conspiracy. We took a breath, and got ready to sing. Suddenly brother shut up, leaving me to go “HAAAAaaaaa…” all by myself.

30

It’s amazing how sometimes the most opportune situation can override any form of common sense whatsoever.
An apple tree + a tree house + apples + a road + passing cars = ?

(You do the math)

31

My husband and his brothers used to do the same with tomatoes that had fallen off the tomato trucks rumbling by their house. Until one of the tomatoes hit the elbow of a passing trucker…

32

After Incident Report:
Washington State
May-ish, 1980

Our father had just purchased a shiny new black VW Scirocco. Being the first nice new car our family had ever owned, he was naturally quite in love with his new baby.

A week later, a mountain near us decided to explode in hellish volcanic fury. Mt St. Helens. We had a fun family day watching the eruption that morning from our back patio, and a few hours later retired inside as the ash “snowed” from the sky and the world turned into a “greyout”, oohing and ahhing all the while.

My brother (6 yo) and I (10 yo) awoke early before our parents in excitement, threw on our boots and coats, and ran outside into a wonderland covered by 4" of wet grey ash. This stuff was cool! Kind of like wet clay! We had a grand old morning of ash ball fights, sculptures, and “fingerpainting” every surface that we could find ash on. Much of our work was gleefully obscene, and we shrewdly wiped the words and pictures away that we knew we’d get in trouble for later.

That evening our dad drove his new baby, the car, down to the car wash to clean off the ashfall, and returned home so mad that he was beyond mad. The kind of mad that makes kids quiver helplessly.

You see, wet ash is very abrasive, and he found “fingerpainted” deeply into the black finish of his new car every whimsical thought, word, drawing, and obsenity that a 10 and 4 year old mind could conjure. “Billy is a dick” scrawled on the hood with a crude drawing of a penis, stick figures on the doors with huge boobies, stick animals copulating on the fenders in strange manners…

He had to drive it around for 2 weeks before he could get it repainted.

33

You’ve got to wonder if he and your mom didn’t laugh about it after y’all had gone to bed. I mean, come on! :smiley:

34

My parents had seen fit to leave me alone on a Saturday morning (probably out hitting the yardsales), so I couldn’t have been that little. I was playing with my toys, one of which was a wind-up Godzilla, with foot-over-foot action. Also, a flint and wheel assembly that made sparks shoot out of his mouth. Unfortunately, I had him walk right past a smoke bomb.

Yup.

So I ended up running around in circles, panicking, with a lit smoke bomb in the house. I finally ended up tossing it down the kitchen sink, where it scorched the drain. It also left a smell of lightly-rotten eggs in the air. Fortunately, my parents didn’t come home 'til some time later, so the smoke and smell had dissapated. The scorch mark in the sink must not have registered, though, as I was never questioned about it. And, of course, I never volunteered the answer.

35

Not so much when I was a kid, but when my nieces were kids… I have a hard time not laughing about this anytime I think about it.

So my sister and her nieces, me, and 2 other brothers were eating dinner at my dad’s house – in the “dining room”, not the kitchen. Everyone knew that we had to take extra care to keep the dining room clean, since it had carpeting, nice paneling, etc. as opposed to the linoleum in the kitchen. So my sister had laid down a large black garbage bag on the floor, and then proceeded to put my niece’s high chair on top of it. The bag would catch the majority of the cra…, er, stuff that fell off or was thrown from the high chair.

My niece was maybe 1 1/2 at this time – she we starting to talk, but she was still a very messy eater. Since this was a Sunday dinner, we had chicken and ham, mashed potatos, broccoli, and other sundry things that my niece was having a great old time smooshing up by hand and sometimes even putting some of it in her mouth.

At one point in the conversation, my brother (who’s name shall forever more be “mud”) raised one hand high over his head and loudly said “THANK YEEEWWWWW”. To which my niece responded by raising one hand over her head and saying “ANK UUUU”. Everyone thought this was adorable, including my brother, who then spread his arms wide and loudly said “ALRIGGGGHHHHTTT”. My niece responded in kind.

And this is where my brother had, er, a lapse of judgment, because he then proceeded to slap both hands to ears saying “OH NOOOOO”…

You’ve got to picture this. My niece is already wearing a fair amount of her dinner, her bib is dirty, and remember that she’s been feeding herself mashed potatos and broccoli – with her HANDS. :slight_smile:

My niece thought this was hilarious. My sister, on other hand, just about killed my brother.

J.

36

These are hysterical.

Here’s one. When I was four or five, my beloved aunt, who was only 17 or 18, was running me to the supermarket. I was a very verbal kid, kind of a loudmouth really, and also a very good reader for my age.

I saw a supermarket sign that read: YEAST.

I watched a lot of television, and thus, a lot of television commercials at that time in my life. There is only one context I’d ever heard the word ‘‘yeast.’’

I was so excited that I’d figured out the meaning of this word that I belted out, in a rush of enthusiasm and triumph,

‘‘YEAST… INFECTION! YEAST INFECTION!’’

I think she about died from embarrassment.

37

Reminds me of the time we moved into a house with brand-new carpet. My mother was very strict about no eating in the living room–and ESPECIALLY no Kool-aid, this being the really serious late-70’s red kool-aide that chemically bonded to stain any fabric it touched. Worked well until one of us drank a big glass, walked into the living room and threw up.

38

This is the funniest thing I have read in quite some time.

My story (or one of them) -

A BB gun from 50 yards can’t hurt a 30 year old 1940 something tractor. Or so my bored cousin and I thought. The thing was mostly cast iron.

It did make a nice ‘ding’ sound when we hit it though.

Scratch one radiator.

39

Took my kids to a friend’s house for a playdate. Heard a strange buzzing sound coming from the kids room.

Me: “Xander? What are you playing with?”
My five-year-old:“Vanessa’s toy rocket.”
Me: “Oh, ok.”

Beat.

Vanessa’s mom: “Um, I don;'t think she has a toy rocket.”

We both turn our heads as Xander comes running down the hall making swooshing sounds clutching a surprisingly large vibrator, merrily buzzing away.

Best playdate ever.

40

OK, the vibrator rocket made me laugh out loud.:smiley:

My mom was a smoker, so an ashtray and matches were always on the back of the toilet on the upstairs bathroom. When I was in need of something to occupy me while I was seated, the ashtray and matches provided a lot of entertainment. I was REALLY surprised, though, at how quickly a roll of toilet paper – even a roll in one of those wall recesses – could whoosh up in flames, with little flakes of black ash flying everywhere.

Mom later interrogated me about whether I’d been playing with matches in the bathroom. Dang! How did she know?!?