What stupid thing did you do as a kid for which you were caught and punished?
No high school stuff, just k-8.
I love kid stories! If it’s not you, but your kid, that’s ok too.
We had some super fancy solid wood Ethan Allen furniture (like this stuff)that us kids were only supposed to get near at holidays. One Christmas dinner, I noticed it was super soft. I could sink my fingernail into the edge of the dining room table and make a little crescent shape. Fascinated by this, one day I was alone upstairs and sat on the floor next to the desk in the study and started carving. I can’t remember what I used but it was a sharp point. I made one vertical line and realized, uh oh… No way mom will not see that. I was in trouble. So I quickly devised a plan to frame my stepbrother (2 years younger). I made the line into the first letter, admired my font, as I’d used preschool style block scratch like he would use, and continued carving the rest of his first name. The finished work of art was about 3x5". So a few days go by and sure enough, mom asks me if I knew how that got there. I said I donno. So she drags my stepbrother in and asks him. Apparently he was more convincing. She sits me down and says, I know you did this because no one would be stupid enough to carve their own name. :smack:
So that’s the first time I remember getting the ol ‘the lie is worse than the crime’ guilt trip speech. I’m sure I was grounded to my room without TV or visitors for a while. That was our go-to punishment.
I got sent to the principal for getting into the world’s stupidest playground fist fight - over whether Billy Idol or Billy Joel was better. :o At least I was on the correct side (Billy Idol, of course)
Cheated on a test with two other kids in 8th grade. It was stupid. I was smart, I didn’t need to cheat. Neither did the other kids, really. Pretty sure I was trying to impress them.
Got caught, totally forget the punishment. It didn’t scar me for life or anything…even then, I knew it was a useless thing.
I stole colored paperclips at a friend’s house. The parents caught me and told me to empty my pockets but I hid it so they had no evidence. Then I hid it in my board game but I think the daughter saw me and the mother gave me a bit of a lecture. Then at about that time I stole one of the son’s small transformers. One morning I went outside my house and pretended to find the transformer on the street and told my dad. At night I was in the bath and the family visited and asked about the transformer. I said that I found one like that. I wasn’t really punished though. I don’t think I’ve been punished for anything.
Three other guys and I stole a case of Old Crow pints from the unlocked porch of a liquor store owner. We got caught, and had to go see a juvenile judge, etc. The worst punishment was getting drunk on Old Crow. Sixty years later, the smell of it still makes me want to vomit.
In grade two I convinced a classmate and my younger brother in kindergarten to run away from home.
I had been reading about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, thought my parents didn’t like me, and I’d rather just hop a train and live a life of freedom from their oppression.
So, with an apple each, and a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, we went in search of our freedom. We made it half way to the railroad tracks and came upon a large empty cardboard box in a field. This would become our bed for the night.
Now, I was only what, 7 years old, and didn’t comprehend what might have been unfolding back at home as the sky darkened and we were nowhere to be found.
As it turns out the police were called in full force. Probably the biggest damned thing most of them in our sleepy little city had ever been involved in. Neighbours and friends were called and everyone was out looking. The local radio station was called and we were all over the news.
Meanwhile, back in our cardboard home (a la the Four Yorkshiremen sketch) we were blissfully unaware what was happening. We ate our apples. We shared some Juicy Fruit, and were looking forward to hopping a train to Chicago, or someplace exciting. Screw our parents.
At about 11:00 PM we heard calls coming from nearby. Drats! They were looking for us. I was bound and determined to stay put in the luxury of our palacial box, but my 5 year old brother (the wussy!) was scared and wanted to turn ourselves in. Sigh… so we never made it to Chicago. We didn’t really get in any trouble. By the time we got home my poor mum was a broken lady convinced we were dead. It was a watershed moment in our relationship. I guess she cared after all.
When I was around 6 or 7, my friend and I snuck in to a neighbours garden and ate some carrots when they weren’t home. I remember pulling them out and going around front to wash them off with the outside tap before eating them. A few hours later there was a knock on the door…it was the police. Yup, a neighbour to the neighbour saw what we did, knew who we were, and called the police on us. My friend and I had to walk up to the house and apologize to the owner. That was a big, scary, embarrassing lesson. :o
Playing with my two cousins and grandma’s house. We wandered a couple houses over to the train tracks and created a huge pile of anything we could find on the tracks, mostly tree branches, hoping to hide in the bushes when train came and watch it collide with the pile. Our mothers found us first, dismantled the pile, and we were all punished. However I think the real punishment was not being able to see what the train would have done.
Around 1st grade Mom put me in a pretty little dress for picture day. Standing in line for the photographer, I started talking to the girl in front of me. She had on this necklace I was admiring. I was mesmerized by it. I asked her if I could wear it for my picture too. She agreed and loaned it to me after her photo was done. I just knew I was stylin’ and smiled big for the camera. Then gave it back to her and promptly forgot all about it.
Weeks later our teachers send us home with our packet of school pictures. Mom takes one look at them and says, what in the world is that around your neck?! There I was, huge grin and all, sportin’ the most ridiculously huge bohemian 60’s bronze medallion necklace, complete with spiked sunburst and an embossed scene of deer or elk leaping through the forest, and a not-so-feminine thick bronze chain. It looked more like I had a medieval shield across my stomach. It was the size of a large grapefruit, ugly as sin, and far too large to look right on a child. I was Flavor Flav! It ruined my picture. Mom was so mad. Back then there was no such thing as retakes, and school pictures were a very big deal. I was so embarrassed. Family members still laugh at it. I wish I had it handy, I’d scan it so y’all could see.
In 6th or 7th grade my best friend and I used to hide in one of the girl’s bathrooms and do our hair and stuff instead of going to lunch. As long as we were quiet, the hall monitor would never notice. One day we decided to add to the plethora of graffiti on the walls with black magic markers. We stood on the toilets to reach up high because no one would guess it was us since we weren’t that tall right? Well, we got to laughing uncontrollably. Who walks in but the Asst. Principal! Kinda hard to explain why you’re both standing on a toilet facing the wall, marker in hand. We got detention for a few days, but the best part was she made us come to the school that Saturday, sent us to the janitor for rags and buckets of soap, and we were left alone in the bathrooms for hours to wash the walls. We had a f’ing blast! There were suds everywhere. We would saturate those cheap brown paper towels, spread them flat, and launch them up at the super high popcorn ceiling where they would splat, dry, and stick there like plaster. Plus, we had to wash the boy’s room too and at that age to be the only girls at school who’d been in the boy’s room was a mighty big deal. We still skipped lunch but we never graffitied again.
I grew up in a neighborhood of row houses with chain link fences dividing the yards. My mom did not want us climbing the fences, but c’mon, when your sneaker fits perfectly in the little diamonds and you’d have to walk a whole 30 feet or so to get out of one yard and into the next, why not climb?
Well, for one thing, when going over the top, your shorts can get caught and torn. I was all of 6 and I was sure I would be grounded for life, so I decided I could fix my shorts.
They were pink. My mom had a cigar box with squares of fabric, so I found a pink one. My mom sewed a lot and while I’d never operated her sewing machine, I’d watched enough to know how it was done. I took my pink shorts and sewed the pink patch on the outside… in dark green thread (that’s what was in the machine at the time!)
Yeah, I was found out, but I don’t think I was punished too badly. And I was the only one of 5 sibs to ever sew - eventually, I was making most of my wardrobe. Thinking back, it’s pretty impressive that I figured out how to run that old Necchi with the knee-operated motor.
I set a vacant lot on fire, which spread to the neighbor’s fence. In my defense, I did it because my brother wouldn’t let me play near his proper Boy Scout fire so I started my own. When it got a little out of control, instead of helping me stamp it out my brother ran home to tell on me. That’s how it spread - it was his fault. I’m the one who got in trouble.
On a family vacation, after several grueling non-stop driving days we arrived at our motel in Gatlinburg. My parents decided we were old enough to leave alone while they took a break from us and had a nice dinner. Our room was actually three rooms in an L-shape - main bed/living room, kitchenette and a smaller bedroom with bunk beds in back. My brother and I decided to race each other from room to room. This entailed starting at the top of the bunk bed, jumping down and racing to the two main beds (jumping from one to the next), bouncing off the wall and returning the way we came. My parents were met by the manager as they returned from dinner. We were on the second floor, and families in four different rooms below us had called about the noise. :eek:
Once I broke the ignition key on the car.
Another time I got hold of our neighbor’s parakeet, and presented it to our cat.
Both times my Dad hustled me into the bedroom, took his belt off, and proceeded to give me a severe whipping.
Back when I was a youngun of about 8 years old, one of the neighbor kids a few houses down (also about 8 years old) decided that he wanted to be a fireman when he grew up. So he figured that practice was needed in order to “get on the team” one day and drive one of those cool, shiny red trucks.
Well, the entire batch of kids in our neighborhood used to get together and play, and he was telling us about his great idea for practicing. “NO! NO WAY!” was the general response. He said “Watch me practice!” The rest of us kids, being smart younguns, ran away. But a few stayed to watch from behind a neighboring yard, and told the rest of us afterward how it turned out.
He got hold of a lighter. Gathered some leaves and sticks and made a small pile in his back yard and lit it. Stomped it out. “Yeah!” More leaves and sticks, light the pile again. This time he runs to the back steps and then back out to the fire in the yard and stomps it out. “Woohoo!” he’s thinking, “I can do this!” He gets more sticks and leaves and builds a third pile, lights it, and this time for more challenge, he runs all the way around his house before dashing over to the fire to stomp it out. “Yeah!” Okay, now for the serious challenge - the one that proves he’s gonna be a real firefighter some day. He made a fourth pile of leaves and sticks and lit the pile. Ran out of the yard and down the street - gonna run to the stop sign and back again! Yeah! Except as he reached the stop sign he heard sirens and looked up to find a fire truck passing him, heading towards his house!
One of us kids who ran away at the start had told their mom, and she called the fire department. So at least no houses went up. Most of the back yard was gone though. I never heard if he was punished or not - but he did end up becoming a fireman as an adult!
In the second grade, I got in trouble for something, do to remember what. Not doing my homework, or something. The teacher gave me a note, which I was to have my mother sign and return to the teacher. Well, I’d seen my mom sign her name plenty if times. How hard could it be?
Now, there were a lot of potential problems with my plan, starting with the fact that I has the hand writing of a second grader. But even if I’d been able to reproduce it flawlessly, there was a more fundamental mistake. I handed the note back to her the same day, before school was even over. :smack:
I’ll bet little you was feeling mighty smart until that moment.
I once found my brother crying in the built-in laundry hamper. He had changed a D on his report card to a B before presenting it to our mother to sign. When he tried to change the B back to a D so the teacher wouldn’t know what he had done, he rubbed a hole in the card. BUSTED.
I’ll bet little you was feeling mighty smart until that moment.