# Innocent things you did as a child without repercussions, that would get you suspended today
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 24, 2015, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469 "2015-04-24T19:34:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/41 "2015-04-26T04:57:47Z")
In 8th grade, my Spanish teacher let us all have small cups of sangria.
We used stand right outside the high school doors and smoke, quite often with teachers and the liaison officer.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/42 "2015-04-26T05:05:03Z")
> [@MissTake](#):
>
> We used stand right outside the high school doors and smoke, quite often with teachers and the liaison officer.
Same here. We could smoke anywhere on school grounds, as long as it wasn’t in the school building itself. My history teacher bummed so many cigarettes off me that I once called him up on it–and the the next day, he handed me a carton of my preferred brand. (The legal age for smoking in those days was 16 in our province, and since I was 17, a teacher giving an over-16 student cigarettes was nothing illegal or out of the ordinary.)
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/43 "2015-04-26T05:27:12Z")
In 5th grade, while the other kids were out at recess, I paid a kid $1 to pull his pants down for me. In spite of being only 10, he had already reached puberty . . . and was HUGE!
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### Author:  [@Ispolkom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ispolkom)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/44 "2015-04-26T05:47:13Z")
Growing up in North Dakota in the 70s, carrying a pocket knife in elementary school went without saying – I can remember a teacher asking to borrow a student’s.
In high school phys ed. we had “hunter safety,” which meant shooting .22 rifles at a range. Perfectly normal, though many students resented having to use the inferior rifles the range provided, rather than bringing their own. The odd thing was that the teacher insisted on us learning to use a web sling (sort of [like here](http://www.illinoishighpower.org/general_highpower_info/ISRA%20SR%20Sling.pdf)), a tactic he had learned at Parris Island in 1944. Since it kept the instructor alive on Okinawa, he knew that we should learn it, even if deer aren’t as dangerous as dug-in Japanese soldiers, nor are .22s as powerful as M-1 Garands.
Of course, it’s all relative. My father, who graduated from Billings (Montana) High School in 1941, sold pints of whiskey and condoms out of his locker, and brought his rifle to school if he planned to hunt rabbits after classes. That was, mind you, a city high school.
Come to think of it, though, the whiskey and condoms would have gotten him booted if discovered.
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/45 "2015-04-26T09:48:03Z")
When I was 7, I took the clothes off of my 7yo neighbor girl and we played “Doctor.”
At 57, I don’t think I could get away with that.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/46 "2015-04-26T14:30:03Z")
Not if the girl is seven.
That would be wrong.
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### Author:  [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/47 "2015-04-26T14:46:18Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> I took a typewriter to school once in 4th grade.
Yeah. Those things aren’t road-legal.
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### Author:  [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/48 "2015-04-26T15:57:08Z")
In high school gym class, we took a unit on archery complete with shooting arrows at targets. My high school also had an outdoor smoking area for students and an indoor one for teachers. There were also a lot of pickups in the parking lot with long guns in racks.
I was in HS 1977-1981.
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/49 "2015-04-26T17:21:19Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> Not if the girl is seven.
>
> That would be wrong.
It would at least be frowned upon.
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### Author:  [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/50 "2015-04-26T18:34:55Z")
My husband’s high school yearbook contained a joke photo of the yearbook staff “mutinying” against the student editor. He was standing by the wall with a blindfold and a cigarette and they were “shooting” him with rulers and two-by-fours from shop class. It would not be considered funny today.
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### Author:  [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/51 "2015-04-26T20:01:36Z")
My mom didn’t think it was a good idea to take my dad’s Japanese WWII sword to school for show and tell. She suggested the U.S. Civil War Army pistol instead. They wouldn’t let me show it- teacher put it on a high shelf until time for me to go home. It was kind of heavy for a 7 year old to carry that old thing those three blocks.
I also used to carry OTC allergy meds in my pocket at school, starting in junior high.
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### Author:  [@funky\_little\_lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funky_little_lee)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/52 "2015-04-26T20:35:03Z")
In high school (late 1970s), I used to do “pen art” for other kids in study hall. Basically, you take a crystal stick pen, light up a cigarette lighter, and hold the pen over the flame just enough to make the barrel flexible, and then twist it into cool and intricate patterns.
I would do this all the time, and it wasn’t like I sat in the back of the room–my seat was in the second row back. The teachers had a perfect view, and none of them ever said a word. Nowadays I would probably be suspended and have to go to some kind of counseling, but no one cared back then.
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### Author:  [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/53 "2015-04-27T20:37:31Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#):
>
> I was a terminal goody-goody, but we did have a song that probably wouldn’t go over well today:
>
> _Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay
> We’re off from school today
> Our teacher passed away
> We threw her in the bay
> She scared the fish away
> They found her yesterday
> Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay
> Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay_
>
> Yeah, real gangsta stuff! 😃
>
> Oh, I almost forgot. Ninth grade science fair - on student made a still and distilled… something… into pretty much pure alcohol. The teacher went around the classroom with an eyedropper and anyone who wanted to try it got a tiny squirt on the tongue. It was potent stuff - I remember taking my glasses off to let the steam escape my eyes! 😃 I’m pretty sure he’d not get away with that today.
trouble in school-heck repeating such things could get you charged with a felony in Los Angles these days! At least conspiracy, you are encouraging violence. tsk, tsk.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/54 "2015-04-27T21:27:21Z")
I had the occasional asshole pick a fight with me. Would’ve strangled one of them if I had managed to catch him; I got delayed in the principal’s office, he got suspended.
A different one and his toady jumped me in the boy’s room after school when I made a pit stop on my way out. The instigator got a literal ass-kicking while the toady stood by and watched.
Then there’s the time when the school administrators thought I had been in a fight. I was in the locker room after gym and one of the older guys, with my permission, demonstrated his strength by picking me up. But he held me for too long and I urged him to let me down. That didn’t work so I slapped him upside the head. Oh, he let me down all right.
Sucker punched me as well. Took my breath out and I started hyperventilating so much trying to get it back that the PE teacher sent me to the nurse, who sent me home. Only I didn’t go straight home.
One of my sisters was the only one available to pick me up and she had some errands to do in town afterwards. By the time we got home, the principal had called several times and was getting concerned about my welfare. I set him at ease when he finally got hold of me and I told him it was simply some horseplay which got out of hand. Nothing happened to that other guy; boy, was he grateful.
My sister had dropped me at a video arcade so I would have something to do while she was busy. I was still full of adrenaline and got _the_ high score on that arcade’s Battlezone, adding a pair of zeroes on the end of the previous high score.
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/55 "2015-04-27T22:54:23Z")
Threw a guy over the railing and down a stairwell right in front of my HS social studies teacher. The guy I threw fell from the second floor to the first. Landed hard, but didn’t break anything. Shit-heel sucker punched me as we were coming in from a fire drill. Fuck him and his John Lennon glasses and his dingo boots. The teacher just shook his head and told me to go to class.
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### Author:  [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/56 "2015-04-27T23:01:01Z")
I’m so venerable, in grade school days everyone walked home for lunch and then walked back to school. Some days we didn’t go home at all. We would bring sandwiches and play in the park across the street from the school until we heard the bell ring. In today’s world they would probably have arrested our mothers for child neglect.
In high school, we went on a weekend camping trip with our coach, a man (we were a girl’s team) up at the lake. No one thought anything about it and no hanky-panky ever went on during my time there, but today I doubt that we’d be allowed to do that, either.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/57 "2016-02-29T12:37:09Z")
> [@skdo23](#):
>
> During my obligatory weekly phone call to my parents I told my mother, who taught elementary school during the early 1970s before having me, about this thread and she asked me to add that each year back when she was teaching she would regularly receive several bottles of wine and at least one bottle of “spirits” as a Christmas gift from her students.
We had a birthday party every year for our high-school German teacher. One year ('71, I think) we gave him some cheesecloth and beeswax for his bald spot. 😃 The next present we handed him was a fifth of whiskey.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2016, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/58 "2016-02-29T15:04:12Z")
My first year of college in 1967, smoking was allowed in the classrooms. There were no ashtrays, so the butts just ended up on the floors. Inconceivable now.
Up until I got a driver’s license, I walked to school every day (starting with first grade) without a problem, and it wasn’t usually a short distance. Nobody thought anything of it.
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2016, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/59 "2016-02-29T15:28:43Z")
On a few separate occasions in eight grade, I bloodied the noses of some kids who were actively bullying me. Sure, it was self-defense, but that doesn’t seem to matter these days; there are plenty of stories in the news of kids being suspended for physically defending themselves from bullies. But my incidents happened 30+ years ago, so no consequences for me.
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### Author:  [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/innocent-things-you-did-as-a-child-without-repercussions-that-would-get-you-suspended-today/718469/60 "2016-02-29T16:23:38Z")
Like lots of people, I had a hard time in high school. I maintained a “hate list” of people I couldn’t stand and who I wouldn’t have minded if they disappeared from the face of the earth. Now I would \*never \*have done anything to them - even if I’d been so inclined, I wouldn’t have known where to begin. I lost a list at one point and when it was found and my handwriting recognized (after all, most things were turned in handwritten then, so it wasn’t hard for it to be figured out), it was returned to me with only the mildest of questions about whether things were ok.
Today, though, that would easily have me seen as someone out to do harm to others, likely leading to my suspension with counseling at a minimum, possibly expulsion.
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