Unintentionally disastrous childhood acts

In My Humble Opinion
21

I loved chocolate milk as a child. I loved my tropical fish too. Having a generous nature, I decided to share my chocolate milk with them…

Worse than that was the time my cousin and I were giving each other rides down her very steep driveway in an old stroller we found in the garage. The stroller veered off to the side where the front wheels went over the edge and hovered over a four foot drop to a pile of jagged stones while I tried to pull it back onto the driveway. Weighing all of thirty pounds, I couldn’t pull her to safety so, using my best 4 year old logic I shouted, “Wait here while I go get help!” Then I let go and ran to the house. She still has a scar in the middle of her forehead. People were very mad at me when they raced her off to the emergency room. My cousin, God love her, bears me no grudge.

22

Nope, central Florida. But when I posted that I was thinking “wouldn’t it be interesting if that poor kid was on this message board”. I guess I’m not the only who didn’t realize cartoons weren’t real-life…

23

Gah!!! Reminds me of when I was about 8, and as a beloved classmate had stood up to colour a picture on his desk, I impishly scootched his chair away, so that he would have a pratfall just like the cartoons, too – but I learnt the same lesson that day. Poor little thing sat down hard, and hit his back on the edge of the chairseat on the way down, knocking the breath out of him…I still feel terrible about it, and when he shouted at me that I was mean, and it’s 30 years later!

24

When I was about 3 we used to visit some friends of my mom’s, who had an old mutt dog named “Abner.” For some reason, Abner loved acorns, so I happily fed them to him, as many as he wanted. Later I was told that acorns aren’t good for dogs, but Abner lived quite awhile so I guess I didn’t do any permanent harm.

I also crashed my mom’s car into another car at about the same age–she’d left me in the car long enough to drop off some books at the bookmobile (about 20 feet away). I released the brake and the car cruised backward about 10 feet and crashed into a parked car. She was not pleased–at herself, for leaving me in the car. As I recall (and recall is a bit fuzzy, I admit) she didn’t even yell at me, just made sure I was okay and took me off in search of the other car’s owner.

25

It’s fun; try it! Stick a whole raw egg (in the shell) into a measuring cup full of vinegar. Gradually, the vinegar will replace the calcuim in the egg with something else (dunno what), turning the formerly normal egg into a semi-transparent rubbery egg. I don’t know exactly what you’d do with it, besides play with it for awhile and then throw it away. Useful, they ain’t.

26

Like 10 years ago, Dairy Queen used to serve ice cream in these little baseball helmets. What was I gonna use these for? Well, I had a cat that would fit the helmet perfectly, so I rubberband the helmet to his head. I found out that cats don’t like helmets.

27

Oo! Crayons has a project tonight!

To the OP:

A friend of mine nearly drowned trying to walk on water. (Adults take note: It doesn’t count as “supervision” unless you are awake and actually supervising.)

Ya, see… My friend had those inflatable “water wings” that you wear around your biceps to stay afloat. So of course she figured “if they make me float from the arms up when I’ve got them on my arms, then if I wear them on my feet…”

The thing is, it did actually work, for all of two steps. Then she flipped upside down. The water wings were basically lifting her up by the feet, with the rest of her underwater. She struggled to get them off, barely did, and luckily was close to the pool’s ladder, so when she sank to the bottom, she just climbed up the ladder.

Her aunt slept through it all.

28

Well, it would be pickled, more or less, wouldn’t it? Could you eat it?

I don’t think I did anything intentionally or unintentionally destructive or deleterious to human or animal life as a toddler or small child, although there was the one time I made my sister retrieve a plastic football that was well within the leash radius of our elderly and quite cranky Basenji.

29

My first attempt at cooking was a unique recipe for hot chocolate: a Hershey bar and water, in a disposable plastic cup, heated in the microwave 10 minutes (or until flaming!).

My grandfather loves to tell his tale of a prank gone wrong. Apparently the principal of his school lived right next door to the school itself, and him and his friends decided it would be hilarious to tie a long rope from the principal’s bumper to the bell on top of the school, so it would ring when he pulled away. They were discovered just as they were completing the deed, and when the principal hopped in his car to chase them down, he hit the gas hard. It brought down the bell and most of the steeple it was housed in. :smiley:

30

How about projectile vomiting on the priest during your First Communion, in front of an audience of ~400?

I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t even sick. But it happened, and my parents were never the same after that.

7 years old. First Communion was a big deal in our family as my parents were active in the church (Dad was married to stepmom #1, who was a fearsome little social-climber). Anyway, on my special day, we kids were lined up and kept waiting in a very hot room. Getting thirstier and thirstier, I spied my older sister and, after getting her attention, asked her if she could get me some water.

“No, I can’t. You’re not supposed to drink before the mass or you’re going to Hell.”
“But I’m thirsty!!!”
“If you drink, you’re going to Hell,” she said smugly, “but I’ll tell you what I did. When you drink from the chalice, just take a big gulp. It’s grape juice and there won’t be many kids after you, so it’s not like nobody else is going to have any.”
“Thanks!”

So, after an interminable wait we finally start. And I’ve gotta tell you, I am THIRSTY!!! So I wait while all the kids are called, getting thirstier and thirstier the whole time. Finally, the priest intones my name:

“JohnT, yadda, yadda, yadda. Drink from this cup…”

Whereupon I literally yanked it from his hands, tilted it up pretty high, and took 3 or 4 big, HUGE gulps… of wine.

Guess who is extremely allergic to alcohol, to the point where my stomach immediately and violently rejects it? Guess who found out during his First Communion?

My eyes got huge, my face turned red. I remember turning towards the audience looking for my traitorous sister, when I then turned my head back towards the priest, dropped the chalice, and Linda Blaired all over the front of the priest. Wine, breakfast, remains of the previous nights snack, all came out and splattered the priest, the altar, and the chalice.

He jumped back in shock, the kids erupted in laughter, the audience… well, I don’t remember what the audience reaction was because I was consumed by the fact that I had, for the first time in my short life, really, truly, fvcked up. And big.

I acted sick, which was pretty simple because I was sick. But still, one just doesn’t do such things… not in my family, you don’t, and I suspect, not in most families. I’m not too sure what happened afterward… whether the ceremony continued, whether the same priest had to finish all messed up or if he had a chance to clean, nothing. Except that my parents were truly pissed.

My parents resigned from their church duties that week, found another church, and eventually got divorced about 3 years later. I don’t think that my first communion was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but I do think that it was when things started to go wrong between them. Which was alright by me, as I couldn’t stand her.

31

Oh my gosh, JohnT, you poor thing. I’m feeling sorry for you, retroactive 20 years or so.

Gosh, I don’t know. Tell you what; you try it, and let us all know. :smiley:

32

OMG, my cousin did the same exact thing! My grandmother had had the infinite wisdom of picking this time to give in to his request for a Whopper with cheese directly before the sainted event. Add to that that this was an old Polish congregation that insisted on copious amounts of incense. Frankinscence - bleah! What I can remember most with crystal clarity (despite the fact that I was only six) was that you could see the pickles…

Nothing like barfing up the Body of Christ to really lock in your place in heaven…

To everyone’s credit, I don’t think too big a deal was made of it. He was mortified enough.

33

Okay, with 32-some responses, I think it’s time for a summary progress report. Thus far we have :
[ul][li]4 unfortunate incidents involving fire[/li][li]5 involving animals[/li][li]6 involving cars/vehicles[/li][li]3 concerning appliances[/li][li]5 concerning forms of self-harm encompassing eye-poking, tooth-chipping, poison-eating, pencil-jabbing and drowning[/li][li]8 occurences of harm against another, including 2 barfing-upon-clergy and 2 pencil assaults[/li][/ul]

I have to conclude so far that the most dangerous thing one can do is to leave a **child ** in a car with an animal, **another child ** and a priest, a pack of matches, a **microwave ** and a pencil.

DON’T DO IT, PEOPLE!!

34

We had a really bad storm one day that downed a couple of trees in the front yard. My sister and I decided they’d make a really great playhouse, but they needed a coat of paint first. So we lugged some paint cans over from the garage and proceeded to paint both trees. Well, that was kind of slow-going. You see, it was tough to paint all those leaves, plus the trunk, plus all the branches. So we decided that the garage floor needed a coat of paint instead. We started painting that. But it sure was big. I remember thinking to myself that the garage had to be big to hold a car… a car. Yeah, a car! We can paint the car! Just as we were raising our brushes to paint the burgundy stationwagon with wood panelling white, our mom came out and saw us and nearly had a heart attack. It was a terrible moment, and one I’d never care to repeat.

35

john t, i can only imagine the priest’s version of your story.

36

Was kitty okay? Eeek!

My little sister kept annoying me one day and so I could finally go in my room and play in peace, I tied her to one of our little chairs with an old scarf. She was all right (and we still laugh about it), but now that I think about it, I could have really hurt her, if she got caught in the ties.

(My mom found her about five minutes later because she was yelling).

37

Ummm, was Mrs. Crutcher your third grade teacher? Because I stabbed a kid in the arm with my pencil, in third grade. It wasn’t an accident though.
Sorry about the mark.

38

When I was little, I lived in a house on hill that had about a 20-some degree slope, maybe steeper. This slope was about 150 long, top to bottom. In winter, it was safe, but in the summertime, me, my brothers, and my sister would ride a wooden wagon down the hill, Calvin and Hobbes style. There were many wrecks and injuries, but none serious. We could build up some serious speed though.

When weather was bad, we would ride a sled down rough, wooden stairs and smack into a concrete floor.

I really miss that house.

39

This slope was about 150 feet long.

40

Overlyverbose, have you ever read a picture book by Peter Spier called Oh, were they ever happy? I recommend it. :slight_smile: