Child hood confession.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

After reading the pit thread on kids choosing games,
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=162362&perpage=50&pagenumber=1

like eeny meeny, one pototo and the like, I recovered a repressed memory of personal shame.

I always cheated :frowning:

When I was about 8 I realized that it always had the same number of sylables in the chant, and therefore by carefully choosing who in the circle you started with you could always choose who the winner or looser was going to be. I figured out how to do it for any number of players up to about 12. I was so proud of myself always getting the big piece of cake, and never having to sit out a game.
My treachory even went so far that I always kicked one kid I hated (Brian big-nose(came up with that myself, I was such a clever little kid)) before anyone else, and he used to go and cry.

I will prepare myself to damnation in the previously unknown 8th circle of hell reserved for people who cheated at eeny-meeny-miny-mo

2

That’s about a 4.0 out of 10 on the Evil Scale ®.

I did it too… Only for little things like I’d use it in magic tricks and stuff to make people go “oohh” when I’d narrow down something or other to whatever object I wanted.

3

HEY! SO did I! I used to look at how many were playing and act all kind and stuff then say nicely, “Why don’t you go first?” They’d thoughtfully not object and then I wouldn’t get picked. muhahahahah! :slight_smile:

4

I didn’t cheat on games (other than against my brother) but I do have a child hood confession.

We moved into a new suburb and for some reason I took a dislike to the people building next door. One night I snuck out with mums scissors and cut all the string that had been set out to mark where they were laying the concrete foundation. My mum knew what had happened and I got in so much trouble but the neighbours never found out it was me.

5

I learned not to cheat when my dad grounded me for a full day when I peaked at the next card in a game of War (you know, where you flip cards and the highest wins)… yeah - my dad is a bit competitive and he taught me to not cheat.

…

Well he taught me to cheat better.

6

I cheated on three spelling tests back in the 2nd grade. My reading teacher at the time was a very creative person, always combining other subjects with her class, and we had some tests that involved spelling as well as stuff like geography and science. I never was very good at the parts that didn’t involve spelling…so I would hide my spelling sheets in my desk and look at them. I was never caught, but I never told anybody either. I just stopped because I was so ashamed of doing it. (Unfortunately, some classmates of mine never learned that lesson and continue to cheat on tests. But that’s another story.)

But, I never cheated at eeny-meenie unless I was playing with my siblings…because, after all, younger siblings are always fair game. :smiley:

7

Since the statute of limitations is up on this one…

I was seven, I think. Third grade, or so. There was this one kid in the class, that I just couldn’t stand. He was a bully, and a jerk, and while I wasn’t his favorite target, I’d taken enough crap from him, and watched him dish out plenty more, to be sick of it all. He was one of those guys that drove you nuts, yet never got himself caught by anyone in authority. He was, in short, in need of being “taken down a peg or two.”

So, his seat, in the classroom, is right next to the big heater/airconditioning unit, under the windows. One morning, whilst in the classroom, but before class had actually started, we’re all milling about, yakkin’ it up, no one’s taken their respective seats just yet. The jerk (sad that I can’t even remember his name, now) is at the back of the room, up to some form of student terrorism or another.

It’s a cold December morning, and as the teacher hasn’t yet arrived (he was just out in the hallway, but preoccupied, yakkin’ himself with another teacher) the heater’s not on yet. So I stroll real casual-like over to the heater, and yank out the little alan-wrench looking gizmo that’s used to turn it on, or at least adjust the temperature. Into my pocket it goes.

Bell rings, seats are taken, and in strolls Mr B, directly to the heater. He looks down at the jerk, sitting practically on top of the thing. Asks him where the wrench is. Gets dumbfounded look in return. This answer is found inacceptable. The jerk is already under suspicion of theft by this teacher from some other incident (that he was, in fact guilty of, though no one in authority had ever been able to prove) only a month or so before. Something of the teacher’s he’d swiped off his desk, I think.

What followed was one of the high points of my elementary school memories, as the jerk is dressed down verbally for about ten or fifteen minutes, until the big, tough, bully looks like he’s ready to cry. Payback had finally arrived. A room full of his former targets (well, not full, but it did include most of us) smirked and grinned at each other, with only myself the wiser.

Every time I started to feel a bit guilty (or chilly, as it took a custodian nearly an hour to show up with a replacement doo-hickey) I remembered the verbal (and, of course, physical) abuse this schmuck had dished out, in the classroom, on the playground, and in the streets of the town itself. And the fact that this puke had never been caught in the act. And I smirked right along with everyone else, and kept my lips zipped.

I seriously considered trying to plant the thing on him at some later point in the day, but couldn’t work out just how to do it without getting busted myself. In the end, I…

Well, hell, what did I ever do with that thing? That’s escaped me as well, it seems.

[sub]Sadly, this only took the wind out of his sails for a month or so, but at least nobody else got beaten up on the playground until after the Xmas/New Year’s break ended.[/sub]