Post the bad stuff you did as a kid that still makes you cringe when you think about it. Nothing too depressing please.
For me, I grew up on a farm and like a lot of kids I was given a BB gun at a fairly young age. I used to go to the field where the bull was kept, stand outside the fence, and take pot-shots at his balls.
I never hurt anyone (or anything, I guess) on purpose, but I got caught stealing from my baby cousin’s piggy bank. I stuffed my pockets full of all the quarters and nickles. This happened three times, and his mother couldn’t figure out what kept happening to all the coins in this two year old kid’s piggy bank. Finally on the third time my mother caught me, and I was mortified.
When I was about 4 or 5, I was getting hauled through the local J C Penny store by my mom as she shopped. I amused myself by removing the price tags from items, knowing full well it’d cause turmoil and confusion.
Caught by a clerk and lectured by my Mom.
That was pretty much the worst of it when I was a kid, I always did want to ‘do the right thing’ and be responsible. Until I discovered sex.
Our neighbor grew pumpkins. One was so big that he was going to enter it in the county fair.
A week or so before entering it into the fair, the neighbor (“Mr. Jones”) invited us over to look at it. The pumpkin was in the backyard next to the house, and had already been picked.
So a couple hours later - when no one was looking - I grabbed a big knife from the kitchen drawer, went over to the neighbor’s house, and put a huge, deep gash in the pumpkin.
The next day my parents said me, “Mr. Jones was just over here. Did you stab his prize pumpkin with a knife?” I responded, “Yes.”
They were not amused. And I would assume quite disturbed at what I had done.
Slashed some car tires when I was hanging out with a Bad Person. He did shit like walk through a grocery store slashing open bags of flour, rice, etc. I still feel badly about the tires.
I used to play (mostly) harmless tricks on my mom. One time I ever so slightly loosened the light bulbs in all of the lamps. She went and checked all the fuses, to no avail, until she finally discovered the truth.
Another time I poked holes in the leaves of her African violets with a pencil and blamed the damage on my imaginary friend. I was sternly advised that if my friend did anything of the sort again I would get a spanking.
My older sister had a winter scarf with long fringe. I had just learned how to braid, and I braided all of the fringe. Then I braided the braids. She was spitting mad.
Finally, when I was really young, definitely less than 5 years old, I got ahold of a pair of scissors and cut the ears and tails off all my sister’s stuffed animals. When asked why I did that, I said it was so that I could pretend they were there.
Burned ants and other bugs with a magnifying glass.
We used to steal from the corner store, nothing big just the occasional pack of gum or bottle of pop (soda).
Once I keyed the door of an old jalopy (that was still being driven) with “fuck.”
Then there was the time in grade 2 where I convinced my friend and my kindergarten-aged brother to run away from home with me. We made it till about 11:00 PM when we surrendered. The police, the media and all the neighbours and family friends were out all evening looking for us. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal. Hooo boy!
Yeah I still question the wisdom of giving young kids BB guns. The bull might not have died when I got his testicles with it, but he probably wished he did.
When I was sub-five, I lived in a set of apartments with shared courtyards. In the courtyard, I found a plastic ride-on Snoopy. Cool, I thought. Rather than ride it (because it wasn’t mine and that would be wrong), I got it in my head that it would be fun/nice to ice it, like a cake. So along with a friend and some plasitcware, I proceeded to decorate it with chocolate frosting. Smeared that shit all over it until my mom came out and gave me a visual representation of what parental horror looked like.
Oh, it wasn’t actually chocolate frosting. What kind of a five year old has access to chocolate frosting? No, it was dog shit. I was being literal a few sentences up.
Set a hamster lose at the Thanksgiving table and nearly caused a heart attack when the hamster showed up in front my mom’s asshole friend Laura. The hamster was a nicer thing than she was. Also convinced my younger bro to wear tights as part of his Halloween costume. He was going as Peter Pan.
I shot crows with mine. Because the were “scaring away the littler birds.”
Once, with a friend, we were out looking for crows, this time with a wrist rocket. My ammo was some small bathroom tile left over from a remodel. I looked in a rose bush and said “Look! A crow!” and proceeded to snap it’s neck with the slingshotted tile. Upon closer inspection we saw that it was a Robin. Crows don’t generally hang out in rose bushes.
Also, I was party to a stop-light shooting with a friend who had a pellet gun that looked just like a .45. Cops pulled up just as he was finishing blasting out the glass. They actually pulled their weapons on us, since they couldn’t tell in the darkness whether the pistol was an actual .45 or not. They drove us home (about 300 yards) and woke up my parents to hand us over. I don’t think they ever noticed that the glass was shot out. They were more concerned about the weapon.
Just remembered another one. The road in front of our house was a pretty fast one, 55 mph if IIRC. The aforementioned rose bushes were planted along this road. In the yard on this side of the bushes was my grandfather’s vegetable garden. Every year he grew gorgeous, delicious tomatoes, and a lot of them. One night, with yet another friend, we went to the garden and picked tomatoes off of the vine and threw them at passing cars and trucks. One car or truck was actually a motorcycle. The individual operating the vehicle was clearly not amused, and slowed down to see if he could spot the perpetrators, but our yard was so wooded that it was easy to hide. I think this one makes me cringe the most, since we not only endangered a life, but we also destroyed so many of those beautiful tomatoes.
When I was little I told a friend that my father had shot me once, but he didn’t mean to.
I don’t know WTH I was thinking.
Now, if anybody ever reads my posts they’ll know that would have been the father that I loved, who had been killed in a car crash. And that years later my stepfather actually did shoot at me, but I believe he meant it.
I used to rent games and take them apart, pull the circuit board out and replace it with a crappy game that i purposefully dunked in saline solution. Then I called the rental place and told them the game didn’t work and get a refund.
Had sex at age 12…I guess that’s still considered a kid?
I talked a younger kid into pee’ing on an electric fence.
I was about 10-11. My father had a collection of 19th-century silver dollars on top of his dresser. I stole the coins and spent them on candy, comic books, etc. I could have sold them for a fortune, but no, I spent them for exactly $1 apiece. The store clerk must have loved me.
My father was not amused, and took out his anger with his belt.
Firman? Is that you? A junior high friend did exactly the same thing. I collected coins and told him not to do it (they were Carson City dollars), but he just shrugged. We didn’t see him for a month.
Speaking of BB guns, my brother and I shared one when we were about 8 - 10 years old. We never did put our eye out. But, we did take great fun in shooting at the back door of the old lady behind us.
Har har har. We’d shoot; she’d come to the door scratch her head and wonder what was going on while we hid in the garage. Well, after a month or so we were outed and my dad had to pay for a replacement screen door for her. I’m amazed my brother and I were still alive after that.
Yeahhhh, I did this too. Feel pretty bad about it now, especially after a lecture from my organic chem professor about how people who burn ants with magnifying glasses are terrible bullies. (Not directed at me, but still, made me squirm.)