My grandparents had a ranch, so as a little kid I had a horse. I spent every summer out there riding around.
At about five years old, my aunt took me to see the circus. I was mighty impressed at the bareback riders, and figured I had a horse, so why not? I had my horse stand still in the middle of an open field while I very gingerly climbed into an upright position, then stood there wobbling and yelled “H’ya!”. The horse took off at a dead run, and I fell straight off the back and landed completely horizontal, face up, on the hard hard ground.
What makes this a really, really stupid trick is that I decided that all I needed was a little practice. So I kept trying; twice a week or so for about two years. Never got further than the first step. It’s a wonder the back of my head isn’t flat.
Poor mannequin! I couldn’t bear to do anything that terrible to MY mannequin (yes, I keep a mannequin in my dorm room)!
A few years ago I set the trash can in my room on fire. I really don’t want to talk about it for another 30 years or so when I’m able to laugh at myself.
Glad to see I am not the only idiot that experimented with electricity. Pretty sure I have posted this story before, but here goes.
9th grade, I am a teacher’s aide because I am known as a bastion of responsibility in the school. So much so that I am an aide at a time when the teacher had no class to teach and was doing school leadership work elsewhere. This meant that after about 20 minutes of tidying up chores, I usually had 40 minutes of completely unsupervised time in a classroom with no people and lots of things to hold my attention.
One day (did I mention my bastion of responsibility reputation?), I decided to see what would happen if I plugged in the overhead projectorwhile a metal flyswatter handle was wrapped around the prongs on the electrical cord. Did I also mention I was ranked in the top 10 of my class and really good at science? Yeah, amazing how the fact that I had a pretty good idea what would happen played no role in stopping me.
So, I plug in the cord. Or, more accurately, I barely get the prongs into the outlet when a massive spark and flame shoots out leaving a 3 foot long black streak on the wall while at the same time knocking me down due to the power of the electrical shock. After a moment of discombobulation, my first thought is “Whoa, cool!” Of course, I knew I had to clean up the mess I made. Throw the windows open to help dissipate the smell. Use lots of cleaning fluid on the wall to get rid of the scorch mark.
Only after leaving the room to head to my next class does it dawn on me that the power is, and has been, off at my school since my little stunt. A shame no one ever found out that I was the one that caused the black out.
The list is so long it’s scary. A dumb one that looked pretty cool (or so I’m told) is when I jumped from the top of the third story of our house on to the trampoline.
We were in the middle of a “look what I can do” contest and at my turn, I decided I would one up everyone and jump from our third story onto our trampoline. I’m not very good with distances but it has to be 40 or 50 feet. I remember looking down at the trampoline and thinking “all I have to do is hit it”. That isn’t entirely true, as even at 14, I was about 6’1 and 200 lbs (I am now right about that size at 25 years old) and when I hit the trampoline squarely, I promply hit the ground beneath with the trampoline providing little cushion (it did slow me down a little but it still hurt like a sunofabitch). I then flew a good distance right off the trampoline. I had no serious injuries but my butt was sore for a while.
We grew up on a farm with little to do but put ourselves in harms way. Hell, one time we decided to see who could stand in a campfire we built the longest. We had a creek nearby so noone was seriously injured but I lost my eyebrows (I don’t remember the age, I was probably 9 or 10)
We used to have apple fights all the time. My cousins, brothers, and I all have a few concussions because of that.
In the hay loft (for those city folk, it’s a bigass building with a whole lot of hay) we had to giant swings built about 20 feet appart and hung from the rafters pretty near the floor (a little over 40 feet of rope). We would take off from opposite ends and see who would fall off when we collided. The collision hurt like hell and I broke my nose once doing this.
I’m sure there are hundreds more, but as you can now imagine, I have trouble with my memory.
Way, way, way back when I was still riding a tricycle, a bunch of us went riding around our neighborhood. Our house was on a street that was kind of U-shaped, with houses in the middle, and on the other side of the U there was a semi-steep hill.
Well, when you’re 5 it’s pretty steep.
Anyway, we started going down the hill and I took my feet off the pedals which started spinning around fairly fast. I watched this for a few seconds then put my feet back on the pedals.
Very bad idea.
I flipped over the handlebars of the trike, slid about 15 feet, did I mention I was wearing shorts and then the trike landed on top of me.
when I was about 10, my family and my cousins’ family went camping together. The campgrounds had an asphalt road winding through/around it where the speed limit was 10mph. There was a very steep hill (I’m talking damn steep, where you’d most definitely need to ride your brakes down it the entire time).
Well, we didn’t drive, but we had bikes. But we figured that the speed limit didn’t apply to us, only to cars. So we’d get some good momentum and VWWWWWWOOOOOOOSHHHHHH down the hill. On a 90+ degree day, we’d feel icy cold from the wind, if that gives you an indication of how fast we were going. It got to where your bike started to wobble back and forth from the trip.
So we stopped.
HA ha! No, actually we decided we needed to keep pedalling at top speed the whole way down the hill (did I mention that the road also curves on this hill, and the view is obstructed by trees?). So now we’re going even faster and wobbling even more.
And hey! there’s a white mini van rounding the corner!
Whooboy, to this day I’m glad that van was able to move to the extreme side of the road while we flew by (and that he wasn’t able to get a good look at us either :D). After that, we did stop (for at least the day anyway).
Waal… was trying to push open a stuck door. Didn’t have any shoes on, so couldn’t kick it as usual. Then great idea: running start, right arm held out in front, surely door will open that way. But forgot about glass panes in door. Glass tore open several sections of right arm, 20+ stitches. Lucky tendon wasn’t torn. Door opened, though. This was at 15, btw. Can’t think of any more right now…
When I was about 12 me and a buddy of mine thhought it would be cool to hop the train that came near by my house. Well the thing is my house was on the edge of town so when we hoped the train it was only going about 5mph for whatever reasons. When the train got outside the city limits it began to pick up speed; so mcuh so that we were afraid to jump back off. Finaly after what seemed like forever, the train slowed back down again so we could jump off. I wound up calling my mom (collect) to come get us. It was an hour and a half drive both ways. Needless to say she was not pleased.
Another one: When I was about 8 or 9 I used to have this big ass sling shot. It was actually ment for use at the beach. What it was; it had two sticks that you would stick into the ground about six feet from each other then you would take the rubber sling part and and conect them to to the sticks then you would take water ballons and put them in the sling, take about 5 steps back and zoooomm those damn water balloons would sail for about 70 to 80 yards or so. Well me and some friends thought it would be funny to get up on the roof of my house and slilng waterballoons at cars passing by. The only thing is that it was dark out and at the corner of my house were a bunch of trees that blocked our view of when the cars were comming. The only way we could tell if a car was comming, is by the headlights that would gleem through the trees. So anyway we see our first car comming by. We get ourselves into position and woosh! its a direct hit! The bad part about it though? (as if this were not bad enough) It was a police car! Needless to say we got the hell out of there! Thank god that cop didn’t find which house that came from.
Shakes-I think they did the slingshot dealy on Malcolm in the Middle*, on Halloween.
Damn, these are funny.
When my dad was in college (I think), he and his four sisters cooked up a little scheme. His youngest sister, my Aunt Katie, was sixteen at the time, and had a paper route. One of the neighbors wasn’t paying, so they put a cherry bomb in the newspaper mailbox. BOOM!!!
Damn, I wish my dad would tell me all the stunts he pulled.
When my grandfather was a kid, his parents went out to a party. That night, my grandfather, a couple of his sisters and one of his brothers convinced the then youngest, my Great Uncle Franny, that he was adopted. Had him in tears until my great-grandparents got back.
My other grandfather (mom’s dad), used to pull the burning bag of dog crap on people’s porches.
There have been many over the years, unfortunately! LOL One of the earliest, though, happened when I was almost 6. We had gone to an in-land lake for a weekend with some friends; their son was the same age as I. We went for a dune-buggie ride and he and I went “hiking” in the dunes. We came across a bed of what appeared to be dead embers; he walked over them, then dared me to do the same. Naturally I attempted to do so, and just as naturally I happened to step upon a still glowing ember (it wasn’t too hot, but just hot enough …)
I spent the rest of that weekend laid up in a hammock in the back yard of the cottage. My feet have been tender ever since …
I was a fairly quiet, obedient kid with fairly quiet, obedient friends, but I did manage to set the underside of a toilet seat on fire as a teenager.
Yes, only the toilet seat.
Yes, the underside.
I was going through a bit of a pyromaniac stage, and was setting some sheets of scratch paper on fire. Eventually I worked up to 11x17 and bigger pieces of paper. So, like a responsible little sp00ky kid, I went into the bathroom, figuring I had several water sources if something got out of control.
One piece did get out of control and started shooting flames up towards my hand, so I flung it into the toilet. Two-foot-high flames shot up out of the toilet bowl for about half a minute, until it finally burned itself out.
Phew, I thought. Then I lifted up the toilet seat. The underside of it was completely black and bubbling in many places.
The grownups, suffice it to say, were not happy.
Oh yeah, and then there was that time I gathered all the dead trees and branches in our backyard (we live in a wooded area) into a giant pile, emptied all the lighter fluid (three cans) onto it, and then flung a match into the pile.
You could see the flames from the street, I’m told. I was too busy cowering near the hose and hiding from my mom.
My dad is twelve. His dad comes home from work and tosses his keys on the kitchen table, as he always does. Ever so quietly, my dad scoops them up, then just as quietly steps outside to the car. I’m not sure how he got it started quietly, but he did, and made a circuit around the neighborhood, slowing down to wave at the girl he liked, who was on her front porch. He returned home just about the time that his parents realized he’d been out.
“How did you know how to drive?” my mom asked, years later. (Remember, this was long before automatic transmissions.)
Age five. In the backseat of my parents Corolla wagon, driving through Nova Scotia. I decided to see what happened if I tied a string tightly around my big toe. After a while, my older sister remarked on the purple swolleness of said toe. Thank Jebus for that, or I would be walking in circles.
My favorite kid story is from my Grandfather ( known to me as “Pucka”) Seems Pucka was an unruly child who acted up quite a bit in school. One day, Sister had had enough of his antics and banished him to the kneespace under her desk. She must have forgotten he was there because she later sat down and began grading papers. Pucka tied Sister’s laces together:eek:
I’m sure God got a good chuckle out of that, and didn’t damn my Pucka:D
I’m like dragongirl, Member 10K, ResIpsaLoquitur, stofsky, and Mullinator: would-be electrical mad scientist.
I was about 9 years old; one night, I thought, why bother with a lamp fixture when you could simply plug a lightbulb directly into the socket? If it had a plug. So I fixed up a lightbulb with a “plug” by attaching two short lengths of wire to the end. Plugged that into the socket.
Instantly was rewarded, not with an illuminated bulb, but with a huge shower of sparks in the instant darkness, at the same time as the thump of the breaker shutting down all the power in the whole house. My parents came rushing to see what was wrong, and when I fessed up, they were less angry than they might have been, anger outweighed by their relief that I wasn’t killed. Good thing glass doesn’t conduct electricity.
Legomancer and Super Gnat: I can relate. When I was five, my kid sister and I amused ourselves by racing each other the length of the living room, going opposite directions. At either end I would put up my hands to stop my forward momentum, allowing me to turn around and race again. I was undaunted by the panes of glass in the windows I kept slamming my open palms into. Mom hollered from upstairs to quit it, that if we kept it up, someone would put their hand through the glass. Did I heed her? Nooooooooo. Right after her warning, my left hand broke through the windowpane and the jagged glass slit my wrist. Mom wrapped it up and rushed me to the ER. I got five stiches and still have the scar 38 years later.
Ah yes, trampolines. I’m really surprised there aren’t more trampoline stories in this thread; they’re lawsuits waiting to happen, believe me.
I was about 9, and had been invited, along with the rest of my soccer team, over to Milton’s house (our left wing). What made Milton’s house much cooler than almost anybody else’s house was that, in addition to a trampoline, he had a jungle gym in his back yard. We bounced on the trampoline for a good hour, and then I got the bright idea to jump onto it from the jungle gym (which was a good ten feet higher than it).
You’re familiar with whiplash?
My head snapped forward upon my hitting the trampoline, then violently backward upon bouncing upward; I crumpled to the surface, bouncing a couple of times.
I was walking with my head at a 45 degree angle for a week. My mom was terrified that I’d broken my neck (it was “only strained”), and forbade me to ever set foot on a trampoline again (which I’ve mostly obeyed).
Ouch. My neck hurts, almost 25 years later, just thinking about it.
SUPER GNAT, one similar to yours (not exactly a stunt this one but hang on) - used to have wall to ceiling pation doors going into the garden. As a kid of 10/11 went running out to play in the garden and choose the side that was still closed - tore my knee open, 15 stiches etc. The stiches were put in by my next door neighbour who was a nurse and who was really good (gave me a lollipop while she was doing it and stuff). She was really good considering a week before I’d decided to build a fire in between our fence and their shed and had burnt it to the ground…:rolleyes:
SUPER GNAT, one similar to yours (not exactly a stunt this one but hang on) - used to have wall to ceiling patio doors going into the garden. As a kid of 10/11 went running out to play in the garden and choose the side that was still closed - tore my knee open, 15 stiches etc. The stiches were put in by my next door neighbour who was a nurse and who was really good (gave me a lollipop while she was doing it and stuff). She was really good considering a week before I’d decided to build a fire in between our fence and their shed and had burnt it to the ground…:rolleyes:
