Stupid Things We Did As Kids

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

When I was in 5th grade, I had gotten a BMX bike, but it was a really crappy one and I hardly ever used it. There was a new development and road being built next to ours and there was a fairly tall hill, maybe 60 feet high. My friends and I got the idea to take my BMX bike to the top and let it roll on down to the street below. Sometimes it would make it all the wayd down upright, but usually it would end up turning and flipping over and over.

One time we let it go just as a county police car was driving by. The brake lights went on, but the car never stopped. :smiley:

Given how crappy the bike was, it was surprising that we were able to roll it down the hill over 400 times before it finally fell to bits.

82

This happened when I was about seven. I’d had hearing aids from when I was four and I was constantly being told never, ever to get them in water–they’ll break.

I was curious about exactly what “breaking” meant. Would there be sparks? Would I be electrocuted, and die? Would I hear any funny sounds as the hearing aids broke?

So one day me, my parents, a couple friends and a couple of my brother’s friends were at the pool. Usually I’d just put the aids in baggies while I swam. But this time, I kept em in, and nobody noticed. So I walk over to the shallow side, not wanting to just DIVE in. I’m standing about waist-high in the pool (on the steps), kids all around me…

and then Dad comes FLYING into the pool, grabs me around the waist and hauls me out, yelling right in my ear: “You have your hearing aids in, Megan! Don’t you remember?!”

They thought I’d forgotten I had them in :stuck_out_tongue: No, silly parents! I was just conducting life and death experiments!

(The hearing aids were not damaged. Had they been, I have since learned, they would just quit working. No spectacular stuff, alas.)

83

The Tracks, OH Lordy the tracks.

My childhood home was blessed with the best backyard playground equipment a demented, delinquent lad could ever dream of. Not 1 but 2 glorious sets of high speed, full fledged railroad tracks. Yep, not 300 feet from my back porch. I cannot begin to list the items that were crushed beneath the screeming 50mph wheels of a 3 engine, mile long, smoke breathing, dragon of doom.

pennies, bah! smashing coins gets old after about one day.

we would line up 20 feet of railroad balast rock on each track rail and stand 15 feet away and watch the the enusing hail storm as the rocks were pulverized into powder.

ya know those spikes that hold the rail down to the ties? wow do they spark when they get stuck under a wheel!!

also if you stand real close to a train buzzing right in front of your face you get this really cool whoozy feeling in your legs…NEAT!

84

The same group as the basketball and darts incident mentioned by NameAlreadyTaken… We had a vine of wild gourds growing in the front yard. They were really pretty and fun to kick around. So, close to 4th of July, one of the crowd decided to try and blow one up. He pulls it off the vine and starts to dig a hole in one. We all go, “Oh my god what’s that smell?” Turns out that wild gourds smell like the worst imaginable body odor on earth. By now, the juice and smell was all over Steve. So, he figured he would finish the task and put about 10 firecrackers in the gourd, lit it and threw it in the air. The result was that everything for a block, including all of us, got covered in juice and bits from the gourd. The entire neighborhood smelled atrocious for 2 weeks, and we showered and showered and showered but the smell would not go away. Steve was not allowed in any of our houses for days. I can still smell that nastiness.

85

I am another child of the tracks, living a few hunderd yards from Kaiser Steel’s iron ore trains, timing my placement of rocks on the rails in between the rolling wheels of the ore cars and watching the rocks get pulverized. Mom took a tree branch, ran those few hundred yards to where I was and whipped my ass all the way home.

When I was 4 (one year after the railroad incident), I talked my 3 year old brother into eating a “candy bar” that was convieniently laying on the lawn…it was the first of many incidents involving dogshit.

We did Lawn Darts as well, throwing them in the meridian of the main street of our little town, except we liked to make a hoop with our arms and try to get the dart to fall inside our “hoops” to score points against each other. My brother started to display unlucky tendencies at about this age, and it would plague him during the rest of his childhood.

Anybody take their bikes at full speed and brake them in the gutters that had a nice coating of algae? Skinned quite a few knees, but my brother skinned knees, elbows, shoulders, chin and other exposed areas. For his sake, we moved. Unfortunately for my brother, his bike was not left there.

Skateboarding, downhill and downwind with my windbreaker held up like a set of wings made for rapid transit, except when you came to a four way stop at a busy intersection. I learned to shoulder roll onto the grassy area by the side walk, but my brother seemed to have an affinity for stopped and parked cars to stop his progress. Now he is starting to chip his front teeth, skin half an ear off, and puncture himself on nails and wire in the street and denting a few vehicles in the process.

When they were building houses in the field across from our house, they made these lovely trenches for pipes and left it that way all summer (1973/4, when Nixon added that extra hour for Daylight Savings Time) and we played “Trench Warfare”, throwing dirt clods at each other, one time hitting my brother in the head with an embedded rock, and another time, hitting an unstable part of the trench and caving the dirt on my brother with his two feet sticking out. Next time we used our motorcycle helmets and we chalked up the cave-in as a rare event that’ll “probably” not happen again.

Our flames of choice was mom’s AquaNet and her Bic lighter when I accidentally singed the right half of my brother’s hair on his head. I was on restriction for 2 months until his hair looked normal. Lots of insects, weeds, and plastic army men perished during our 5 year “Reign of Fire” campaign.

My brother’s skills in bike riding improved…not only can he hit parked and moving cars, he broadened his skills to include (but not limited to), garage doors, trees and curb gratings. His favorite method of dismounting from his bike was hitting the front brake hard and flying over the handle bars. He would extend this talent to include motorcycles when he was a teenager. Dad told my brother to start wearing his helmet whenever he went outside.

Oh yeah, and then there was more dogshit. My brother and I were sick and tired of cleaning up after our dogs (our backyard had a pool and rocks and plants covered the rest of the yard) so we got the great idea of making the shit “disappear”. We took the brick of firecrackers that we got while in Mexico and stuck them in the piles (we had fat poodle and a german shepard that kicked out cow patties) and lit them. It worked great until my brother had a nasty smell about him at dinner…the back of his tee shirt had a patchwork of creatively strewn dogshit all over his back…mom just shook her head and made my brother eat outside that night.

Oh, the stitches my brother got on an annual basis…sliding into a sprinkler head when we were playing pickle (cutting his knee wide open with nerve and tendons exposed), flipping the motocylcle and landing on some sharp rocks, (repeating the same injury except on the other knee), jumping off roofs into hollyhock bushes, etc., etc., etc…

Wait, there’s more…naw, I’m too tired right now…

BTW, he’s still alive…

86

There was the time my best friend and I, aged seven, put an entire pack of Hubba Bubba into our mouths and tried to blow the biggest bubbles in the world. The bubbles we blewwere bigger than our heads - which meant that when they burst, the gum went all over our faces and hair! We tried to get it out with soap, water, even tissues and butter - in the end we looked like half-plucked chickens greased for the oven, with a Head&Shoulders marinade. Our Mums were not pleased, especially when they had to cut some of our hair off to get rid of the gum.

We live by the Thames estuary, and at low tide the river is banked by about a quarter mile of thick sucking mud. One day a friend of mine bet me that she could walk further out into the mud than I could without chickening out and running back. We both walked out until the mud was halfway up our thighs, and we could hardly move. That was when we both lifted our feet and felt our shoes stay stuck in the mud.

At this point my friend gave up and so I felt victorious as I squelched and squirched back to shore. didn’t feel so good walked barefoot and muddy all the way home though, especially since we had to go through the main shopping centre to get there. ::rolleyes::

My friend gave up before me so I felt victorious as I squelched and squerched slowly back to shore. Only problem was, the mud wouldn’t give up our shoes,

87

Ooops, please delete the last sentence in your minds, people, as I forgot to do it in my post!

88

I played dead one time in elementary school and 2 fire trucks came and an ambulance. lol… I loved the attention, didn’t work the second time though.
I once collected crawdads with my bare hands and kept them in a bucket in my three story playhouse. I filled it with water and fed them grass several times a day.

Turns out crawdads don’t eat grass. They turned ghostly white and died. I flung them at trees.

89

Oh my god.Your brother did that,Sam and he still LIVES?
Egads!

IDBB

90

I had forgotten about the mud - it wasn’t officially spring in our household until we had all filled at least one (normally both) boots playing in the spring run-off in the ditches, and usually losing at least one boot in the process, too. Ah, that feeling of ice cold, tar-like mud oozing and squelching between your toes as you abandon your boots and walk back out of the garden in your stockinged feet. Ah, the look on mom’s face when you try to slink into the house without her noticing.

91

Fire:

I, new boy scout that I was at the time, thought I’d practice my skills in the tunnel of the drainage ditch under a road in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, busybody nutso neighborbitch was driving across just as the smoke got thick. Neither the firemen nor my parents were proud of me for trying to be a good scout.

Steel:

Summer before 3rd grade. We have some dowel rods in the garage, garbage bags, and duct tape, along with some string. Instant kite. Trouble was, I didn’t go inside to get the scissors; instead I got the box knife from the toolbox. Five minutes later, I was on my way to the hospital to get my right pinky reattached.

I’ll also put here the time that I thought I could beat my little brother at darts if I put my hand over the bullseye.

Bone:

18 years old and never had a broken bone (despite several incidents involving stitches). Started dating a friend’s ex. He wanted to fight, and being the 18-year old idiot I was, I accepted. The only punch he could throw was a roundhouse, which I easily blocked with my left arm while I hit him in the mouth. After many repetitions of this, he gave up. I won the fight. Then at 3 a.m., I awoke to a right hand swollen to easily 3 times its normal size. One impacted boxer’s fracture, two pins in my hand, and 8 weeks later, I was back in action.

Air:

At 21, I was working as an exhibit tech at a science museum (Omniplex, for those around OK City). They have a Foucault’s Pendulum that hangs through an open skylight, covered by an outhouse-sized shed. After a windstorm blew through town, we had to go up and move the shed back over the open skylight. I and two others climbed inside the shed, and the other four guys were outside. As the inside three were grunting and straining to replace the shed, the outside four were inspecting a bird’s nest with chicks that had been blown up on the roof. Then they decided to assist. The thing moved so fast that it knocked me through the open skylight (none of us thought about wearing safety belts, which later proved profitable in workman’s comp), to fall 35 feet, ass first, onto an inlaid wooden platform below (which saved my life, since it buckled and absorbed much of the shock). I bounced two feet in the air and landed on my left side. Several months later, I got out of the wheelchair, and recovered from a broken pelvis, spiderwebbed (doctor’s term) sacrum, four cracked ribs, shattered humerus, four cracked bones in my hand, and too much time with a sadistic physical therapist.

By the way, I can tell you when it’s going to rain.

92

I have no idea what posessed me to do this. When I was three I was at a barbecue at my parents’ friends’ house. I was wandering around the patio, and for some reason, decided to sit on a large cactus. Ow. My mom spent the entire evening picking cactus needles out of my cute little toddler ass.

Also, I’m sure many of you have done this. My house was one story, so whenever I went over to my friend’s two-story house, I was thrilled by their staircase. We spent many an afternoon “surfing” down the stairs on a piece of plywood. Upon reaching the bottom, the plywood would skid for a good 10 feet before THUNKING into the wall. There are still chips in the paint there. I pretend to know nothing about them.

93

Ahhh here’s another one that was probably more stupid than dangerous. We invented this game that we simply called bumper. We would take turns trying to knock each other down. The game went soemthing like this. One kid would stand on one end of the yard and the other would of course line up about 20 yards away. Then one guy would start running full speed and basically try to knock the other guy down. The only rule was that one guy stood absolutely still while the other guy ran at him. You couldn’t move or duck or anything. If you got knocked down you lost that round. If you stayed standing you won. The the guy who got hit would then become the guy who tried to knock the other guy down. See that’s why we called it bumper. We used to do this for hours at a time. Back and forth getting the snot knocked out of us and then knocking the snot out of someone else. Somehow this was fun.

94

I was 13 and visiting my relatives in Alabama. Fireworks were legal, and rather than buy a bunch of little stuff, I invested all I had in The Mother Of All Skyrockets.

My cousins spent their money on firecrackers and other sparkly things, and we all set to staging our own 4th of July display in the empty field across the highway from my grandmother’s house. All of our parents were peacefully sitting on the porch…probably placing wagers on whose kid would get blown up first.

After all of the ‘little’ stuff had been detonated, it was my turn. I figured that, rather than just igniting my rocket so that it would go straight up, I’d angle it a little so that the people on the porch would have a better view.

A leeetle too much angle.

I lit it and watched as it took off toward my grandmother’s house. “Hm,” I thought, “It’s going to be close.” Then the pull of gravity caused it to nose over and head directly for the house.

Now, I have to mention that my relatives come in two sizes: Very wide or extremely skinny. Funny thing, though…they can all run nearly equally fast. My aunt (Type 1) barely outdistanced my father (type 2). My gramma (type 2) did manage to speed past my other aunt (type 1). My mother (silly her) ducked inside the door.

The rocket was still accelerating when it hit the roof above the porch. The display was marvelous. Good thing my uncle had the presence of mind to grab the hose and extinguish the burning remnants.

It’s been more than 30 years since the incident, and whenever there’s a get-together, someone always brings it up. “Remember when you tried to blow up gramma…?”

95

Rysdad- I can picture a old grandma type person trying to run with a walker with a rocket headed straight for her. That’s a great image, something I would expect to see in a movie. Glad she came out ok.

Before reading this thread I always told my wife I wanted a boy because boys seem to be cheaper than girls. Now maybe I’ll have to rethink that as the hospital bills may even things out in the end.

96

We used to play a game we called “sleeping bag wrestling.” No, it wasn’t that kind of sleeping-bag-wrestling… instead, we would crawl into the sleeping bags headfirst, and then beat the living crap out of each other. It wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone, because the sleeping bags would cushion the blows… in theory. Tell that to my head. I was knocked out when my best friend pile drived me when jumping off the couch at his birthday party. (I got him an Insecticon™ toy that year! It was sweet!)

97

lovejoy, you wouldn’t be reffering to The Battle of the Bags, would you? If so, you’re one of my childhood friends, and I’d like to know which one. :slight_smile:

98

I don’t know how I made it to sixteen, much less sixty. When I was about seven I stuck my finger into a light socket to see what would happen. I thought the jolt would rip my arm off.

At about eight I was playing in the backyard and saw my dad’s old push-type lawn mower leaning up against the house. I startted spinning the blades with my finger to watch them spin. On about the third try I didn’t get my hand out of the way in time, and cut the pad off my index finger. Hospital trip number one (to try to stitch the tip of my finger back on). The flesh grew back, and there’s no scar.

At nine, I was riding my bike on the cul-de-sac street we lived on, doing tricks I thought were pretty cool. I rode with no hands. No problem. Then I stood on the seat as the bike rolled along. Still no problem. Then I got the bright idea to let go of the right handle. Not smart. My weight caused the wheel to jack-knife to the to left, pitching me to the pavement. Fortunately, only my wrist was broken, not my neck or my skull (nobody ever heard of padding or helmets for bike riders in those days). That was hospital trip number two, and one of the most painful experiences of my life as the doctor and about three nurses held me down and reset my wrist with only a couple of shots of novocaine.

Then there’s the time I got a toy fire engine pumper that really pumped water (through about a 1/16" tube . . . real power, you know). I wanted to try it out, so I filled the tank with water, went out into the garage and set some cardboard boxes afire so my pumper truck could put them out. My mother caught me, and she put the fire out. Then she set my butt on fire (so to speak) with a ping pong paddle with holes drilled in it to cut down on wind resistance. I learned it really isn’t safe to play with fire!

The best one, though, was perpetrated by my buddy down the street. He had a couple of firecrackers left over from some contraband somebody in his family had smuggled back from Ensenada, Mexico. They were not M80s, but just little lady fingers. Not much power, but lotsa bang. His dad had a 55-gallon steel drum in his backyard, filled with water. My bud thought it would be fun to make a homemade depth charge. He got an empty mayonnaise jar, filled it up halfway with rocks for ballast, leaving the top half with enough air so the fuse wouldn’t go out for a couple of seconds with the lid on. Then he put the firecracker into the jar and lit the fuse while I quickly screwed the top on to keep the water out. He dropped it into the water. It got about halfway to the bottom when the firecracker blew. The blast ripped the welded seams out of that barrel and sent water flying about ten feet into the air. We were soaked, That was really cool!

I never did find out what his dad said when he discovered that barrel torn to pieces.

Then there were match gun fights. A friend and I made match guns out of spring-type clothes pins and shot flaming matches at each other. We were about sixteen, and knew better, but…you know. The worst we got out of it was a few holes burned in shirts and pants. Flesh was spared.

Good grief! To think, that’s the age they were giving some of us driver’s licenses! YIKES!

99

I fairly lived on the beaches of Lake Washington when I was a kid, and most would have wooden “island” docks out in the middle of the deep swimming area-- no walkways to them, you have to swim to them. My friend and I loved to hang out underneath these things (strictly forbidden, of course). Here, we were totally out of view of the lifeguards and all other beachgoers. An added element of danger (read: fun) was that when speedboats would pass, they’d create huge waves that would more than knock up against the bottom of the dock. If we’d ever been caught totally by surprise, we certainly would have been knocked out and then drowned. Usually we’d see the wake coming and swim out from under the dock, but a few times we didn’t see the waves until the last minute, so we’d simply dive as deep as we could on one panicked breath. Good times.

There was also the time when I was five, and decided to help Dad split wood when he went inside to take a rest. The stupid piece of wood wouldn’t stand on end, so I laid it lengthwise on the patio and swung the axe as hard as I could. Imagine my surprise when the axe bounced off the wood and the blade landed on my big toe. Cut it all the way to the bone. Good thing I wasn’t stronger.