When I was young (kindergaten or so) I got really sick in school so they called my mom, But after about 20 minutes my mom didnt show up. So the genius that i was i decided to walk home in the middle of the day, with a fever and teachers swarming around me. The thing that makes me lose my faith in teachers is that I was already out the door and down the street before they found me.
I lived in Okinawa as a kid. Indigenous to that island is one of the most poisonous snakes on earth, the Habu. My best friend and I went into the “boonies” one summer to catch one. We found one after about an hour and brought it home.
Mom was really mad.
Wow, great story. So tell us, how’d you get the computer in through those little holes???
:eek:
When I was 5, I used to go body surfing down the basement stairs. They were wooden, and I was headed for the cement floor of the basement. I almost always kept my hands up in front, just like you do when you body surf in the real surf.
I forgot to one day, and split my head open. What a mess. Mom takes me to the ER, and the Dr says, " Don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit, it feels just like a bee sting". Jerk !!
Then, there was the time that Kevin Federman and I stole the Synogogue Youth Group Advisor’s VW Beetle. He and I got two other fellows, and we lifted and carried it around behind the Temple. Gosh, but he was upset…
Cartooniverse
Body surfing down the stairs??? Head first??
Suddenly many things about Cartooniverse become crystal clear…
When I was little, (2 or 3) I got into my grandmother’s red lipstick, and smeared it all over my face and hair. Did I mention my hair was so blonde as a child that it was white? My mom had to cut most of my hair off, and was still left with some pink hanks of hair. And it gets worse folks, all of this is hereditary, guess who had a 3 YO with some pink hair this year? Be afraid, be very afraid.
About a year later, my mother had us outside in one of those round collapsing cages. They’re outlawed now, kids were getting their heads stuck in the diamond shaped spaces. I crawled under to go get a doll, and when I came back, asked my brother who was inside to lift it up for me so I could crawl under again. He wouldn’t help, so I took the doll and threw it over the fence/cage so I could crawl under again. To this day they still say that I knocked his teeth out with a doll on purpose.
Ditto for the fascination with electric sockets. My mother had one burned nickel returned to her a couple of times from the stores in our neighborhood after she had spent it. So she finally kept it. That or there are other kids in our neighborhood just as smart as we were.
[QUOTE
At least the intentions were always to miss.
I was glad when my brain grew back. **[/QUOTE]
knarf, you are my hero- it reminds me of the brilliant games i came up with as a youngster…
growing up, my friend rose was like a sister to me, about 2 years younger than i, she always thought my ideas were brilliant! (which they clearly were) when i was not endangering her life, self-esteem or toys…
brilliant idea 1) take your little sister into the woods behind the house to “get her lost,” and then get your ass lost. 10 points
brilliant idea 2) in effort to emulate movie stars, decide to get suave mature haircut not including stupid bangs…decide to perform said haircut on self…use safety scissors to chop off every last wisp of bangs leaving self with gopher-gnawed fringe of hair in the front. give similar haircut to rose after she begs to look as cool as me…receive violent tongue lashing from rose’s mother who holds me responsible for the sure social death i have sent her daughter too (age 6? 7?) another 10 points
brilliant idea 3) in effort to follow in footsteps of heroines in adventure novels came up with brilliant scheme to run away. after consultation with parents had hobo pack, snack and change of socks-- 3 hours later, when rose and i were several miles down the very busy harding avenue, we were picked up by some VERY IRATE parents. i still can’t figure out how i could be held responsible for this shenanigan despite the fact that i described our plan in detail…are we still keeping track of points?
I thought this was a good one, until I read some of the other stuff that’s been going on.
I must have been about twelve. My friend and I decided to make some bows and arrows. We’d done this before, but now we had money! We took a trip to the garden centre/ DIY shop and bought a pack of about thirty garden canes (green things, about 30cm long and 5-7mm in diameter). We also each bought what was, I think, beading, but to us it was a length of wood about a metre long, 20mm across and about 5m deep, long and very flexible. Finally, of course, some chord.
So off we go, sharpen the canes, bend the wood and affix the string. We started firing at, and puncturing, plastic bottles, which soon got boring. So, he went one side of the road and me to the other with 15 ‘arrows’ each and started firing them at each other. I was the one who got unlucky. I got hit 5mm from my right eye on the inside of my nose. Judging from the stories here you’ll all know how much head wounds bleed, and there was blood everywhere. It just didn’t occur to me how close I came to losing an eye.
A few years earlier, racing around the roads on my bike seeing how far over I could lean on the corners. Problem was that I wasn’t lifting the pedal on the side I was leaning towards, so at one stage the pedal hit the ground and flipped me right over the handlebars.
A few years earlier, finding Dad’s razor in the bathroom cupboard, smearing on the foam… more head wounds.
When I was twelve, something was wrong with our sliding glass door. My stepfather took it off and laid it on the dining room floor. My smart ass decided that it would be so cool to walk on it. The glass held up for about two seconds before it cracked. My parents were pretty pissed. Remember kids: deny, deny, deny!
My cousins and I played a game one Thanksgiving. I have no idea who suggested it, or where they learned it, but it was this. We all sat around the table, and held up forks. We took an apple, threw it up, and one of us would catch it on their fork. This person would throw it across the table, fork and all, and the other person would try to catch it with his fork.
Granted, it’s not as crazy/stupid as other things posted before, but as my cousins and I were talking about it this summer, we were asking what were we thinking. I mean - let’s throw forks at each other! It wasn’t like we were throwing them hard, but still.
Susan
I thought I was the weirdest person on this board.
So much for that!
Y’know how salt melts ice?
Well, will salt water freeze?
So, I boil water and dissolve a BUNCH of salt in it. Over half a box.
Then, I empty an ice tray and see if it freezes.
I put it in the freezer, and, uh, forget about it.
Fast forward a month later. Parents having a party. Need Ice.
Empty ALL the ice (INcluding the salty ice) into a big bowl.
People started complaining about “salty” drinks.
Anyhow… How do you separate the “salty” ice from the good ice, taste it?
All had to be thrown out, and my parents, very frugal folks, had to buy ice at the corner store.
Man. Did I hear it over that one!
We mixed petrol with lighter fluid and crushed up polystyrene. I think we threw in some sugar also & then crawled out in the middle of the night with my .22 air-gun, a small bottle of Camping Gaz and a saucepan lid.
Poured the mixture into the lid, put the gas botle in the middle, set light to it and retreated to a ‘safe’ distance. Then we took pot shots at the gas bottle.
All the pellets pinged off it and nothing happened for ages, then it went ‘pfffffffft’ and there was a little pop.
So we approached the thing, very dissapointed when:
BANG! - we were splattered with burning chunks of melted polystyrene, the gas bottle went up like a rocket, lights came on in the valley and dogs barked. Fortunately neither of us were hurt, he singed his eyebrows and I was unscathed (being behind him at the time). The saucepan lid had been blown so hard that the rim was warped and bent out like a beer bottle-top.
Do I win an honorary Darwin??
Uh, here is a list…
Locking myself in pitch black crawl-space attic, 2 hours later mom finds me (I am not particularly claustrophobic, but think premature burial) – age 5
Lassoing neighbor’s dog with working noose. Nearly killed dog, nearly killed by dog’s owner. – age 6
Mixing soap powder, cleanser, motor oil, STP, paint, wiper fluid, various random garage chemicals, drinking it. (not too much, just enough to satisfy dare, and make me puke) - age 6
Going hand over hand on the power line that went from our house to our garage, like, 40 times. – age 9
Sledding into/under a parked car at the bottom of a hill, fortunately was wearing shoulder pads (don’t ask), the kid who went right after me broke something and started spitting blood. – age 9
Stealing model rocket engines from Fred Meyer and making bombs out of the black powder and mason jars. – age 11
Stealing everything, all the time, even though I got busted by the cops, twice. – ages 11-14
Climbing on the roof of the school during recess by crab walking (you know, you brace yourself on either side and sort of crawl up) between pillar and side of school. – age 11
“Sledding” down steep hills (once again into parked cars) with friend on home made I-don’t-know-whats consisting of sheets of plywood with old roller skate wheels nailed to the bottom with sheet metal screws (yes I said nailed, we used hammer and screws, what do you want?)- age 12
Jumping off two story house onto mattress. – age 12
Playing “stick ball” with kerosene soaked flaming tennis balls. – age 12
Setting friend’s driveway on fire (soak boxes in gasoline, lay enough of them flat to cover drive way, ignite). – age 12
Setting friend’s lawn on fire (see above). – age 12
Setting CAN OF GASOLINE on fire, smothered with blanket. Yes, we walked over TO as opposed to running away FROM, a burning gas can. (see above, we forgot to move it far enough away from the burning driveway/lawn) – age 12
Jumping off of 20-40 ft high (can’t remember) closed freeway overpass into indeterminate depth water, with people in boats passing underneath (one guy died hitting a canoe doing just this). – ages 12-15
Climbing up conveyer belt in gravel quarry to tower to push bicycle off. – age 12
Steeling van from spa/hot tub store, went for joy rides (FOF was actual driver, so I guess I was more an accomplice) – age 13
Having a “bottle rocket fight” (shooting bottle rockets at each other from 5 feet away) at 2 AM, on acid. – age 14
Drinking 4 bottles of warm Cooks “champagne” (aKa “sparkling shite”) in summer time, wearing black jeans, black turtleneck, black motorcycle boots, black trenchcoat (I was/am a “dork”), tried to hit on classmates (oh, right, this was during a school day), failed. – age 15
Did the “hang out the window, shake hands with your friend across the roof of the car”, on the freeway, on acid. – age 16
Shooting out lights with a BB pistol, getting confronted by cop, unintentionally pulling pistol on cop (note to self, raise arms and tell cop where you have gun in your coat), on acid. (I was so terrified/high I had to tell the cop I had a birth defect that affected my hearing because I couldn’t focus on what was going on enough to answer his questions) – age 17
That is only the beginning, it gets worse, but even I get tired of talking about my self after a bit.
Hhmmm, decided my story was amusing, but not directly related to the OP, check it out at Humor in Medicine
One winter, while in high school, my friends and I made a paste out of toothpaste and oatmeal. I put on a hawaiian shirt, shorts, and sandles, and smeared the paste all over my face. I then walked down the main street of the town hitting on middle-aged women, while my friends video-taped the whole incident. The entire stunt was for a school project (we were supposedly selling the paste as a “make yourself irresistible” cream).
Another time, one of my friends dressed up as a stereotypical modern artist (beret, black turtleneck, etc.), and spread out a canvas in the middle of the park right next to the town’s main street. He then flung various condiments at the canvas and rolled around on it, while the rest of us videotaped him and conducted interviews on hapless passerby (“What does Sergio’s artistry do to you? Does it make you cry inside, or perhaps vomit?”).
Also, throughout high school, whenever my friends and I drove around town one of them (the same one who dressed up as Sergio and wallowed in condiments) would sit in the back seat with a 2-liter bottle of Coke. Whenever we stopped at a stoplight, he would take a large swig of his soda, roll down the window, and pretend to vomit. The rest of us would start screaming (“Let it out!” or “Oh my God he’s going to die,”) and we’d then drive off.
One time somebody called the police because I was pretending to beat the crap out of “Sergio” (I pulled all of my punches, but “Sergio” had a gift of being able to look like he was being beaten up) and a coupla pedestrians freaked out. One of the cops was none too pleased at our antics, but his partner had a good laugh, especially when their back-up showed up.
None of these stunts were particularly dangerous, but I think that they’d all qualify as being pretty stupid.
Once I was at my friend’s house (I was about, oh, seventeen-old enough to know better!), and we had a candle burning in her room.
I jokingly waved a tissue over the candle, where it caught on fire. I started to run to the bathroom with it, when it burned my hand, so I dropped it and stomped it out.
My stupid “could have killed somebody” trick happen on a camping trip Easter break to the ocean. Mom had brought at least 50 dozen eggs and didn’t miss a few dozen. We tried throwing them at cars from the bushes but our aim wasn’t that good. So, riding home on the freeway in the back of the camper pulling a boat, I took the screens out and we threw eggs at cars passing us! The State Patrol tried pulling mom over but she didn’t think they wanted her to pull over so they had to set up a road block. When the trooper opened up the back of the camper we pretended we were sleeping. When my dad found out about it he cracked me and my sisters head together and made us clean the grill.
In 5th grade I fancied myself an expert bicyclist.
So I decided to try riding my bike in a nearby parking lot with no hands. And my eyes closed.
I think I lasted 3 seconds.
Back in the days of high school, when a boys mind thought only of sex if a girl was nearby, and only of pyrotechnics if there was no female around…that’s when my friends and I had some of the best times of our lives. Browsing the internet one day, we ‘stumbled upon’ instructions for how to build a ‘potato gun’.
Immediately we bought a length of PVC pipe and built a quick prototype that consisted of a 6 foot long piece of PVC and a coffecan with a hole in it placed at the end. So we took it out to a parking lot and loaded a potato down the barrel. After spraying some hair spary into the coffe can, we took a match and stuck it up the small hole in the coffee can. BAM the coffee can went flying off the back of the gun about 50 feet before hitting a tree. All of us stood around with a look on our faces that said ‘we shoulda known that woulda happened.’ So we fixed the problem.
After getting a larger piece of PVC to replace the coffee can, using professional glue to connect the pieces, and installing an automatic grill lighter, we decided to try again. This time we shot out of my friend’s backyard, which is on the edge of a parking lot. Lining the gun up on his fence facing the parking lot (which had a fence on the other side of it about 100 feet away), we sprayed the hairspray, leaned back, and clicked the ignitor. click click ‘DAMN’ Something wasn’t working. My friend opened the back of the combustion chamber, looked in, and said, ‘I dunno’ and screwed it back in. Just on a whim, I tried the button again. BOOM! the potato launched out of the barrel and hit the fence across the parking lot. The fence (later estimated at about 3/4 of an inch thick) shattered, leaving shards of wood and mashed potato everywhere. 20 minutes later, after lots of yelling neighbors, the police showed up at the door. Thanks to cool parents, all charges were denied, and we got off scot free. What fun.
(we later learned that the combustion chamber had needed more oxygen for combustion to occur, and that’s why it worked after opening it and closing it again)
I was three, going back to my grandfather’s house through my neighbor’s yard.
My path through this grassy yard was blocked, however, by a huge, surly, sleeping dog.
How could I get by? Obviously, I couldn’t go through it, and I couldn’t go under it.
There was only one choice.
I climbed over the dog.
I remember clearly deciding to do this, and I remember clearly being in the bathroom as my mother cleaned my wounds. I can only guess at what happened in between.
It was only later that it occurred to me that I could have gone around the dog.
Daniel
You got that right!
I don’t know how any teen-aged boys survive to their twenties, with so much stupidity – I’ll share only two of many events.
In my own pyro phase, I had made many batches of black powder, of varying quality, using those three ingredients sold by any pharmacy. In search of a better bang, I convinced my dad to purchase a pound of black powder for me from the local hardware store (how I did this, I cannot recall). Up till this point, my only experience with gunpowder had been my own pitiful concoctions and the smokeless powder that I took out of bullets. My own stuff was hard to light (!); the smokeless powder burned with a robust, fast, steady flame.
I had no reason to expect anything else from this real factory-made black powder. I poured a decent pile of the stuff into a morter and pestle and set them on my back porch. I gingerly lit a match and deposited it in the morter. Whooosssh! The stuff burned in a big flash of a fireball, and I was more concerned with the neighbors complaining than whether or not I was OK. I went into the bathroom and quickly washed my blackened face and the match-arm. It was then that I saw that I no longer had eyebrows or eyelashes, and that my right arm had no hair.
I tried to skulk past the family room without my mom seeing, but she knew something was up. The next thing I knew, I was in a doctor’s office, getting my corneas examined for damage. I spent the next two weeks with my right arm and hand bandaged up, with no fingerprints to speak of. Pretty damn fool thing to do a month before going to boot camp!
Don’t think the Service taught me any better. While I was stationed in upstate New York one particularly cold winter, I had the brilliant idea of filling some two-liter soda bottles with water, leaving them outside overnight, and then taking them into the woods for target practice. I set them up on my favorite stump and took a few shots with my trusty Ruger 10-22. It went well for the first two shots. The third shot ricocheted off of the ice and flew back at me, passing within inches of my ear. I heard a sound like a fat bumblebee flying by me, and realized that I was about to shoot my dumb ass. I calmly put my rifle away and disposed of the targets.