# Your Great "Oops" Moments From Childhood **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 10, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644 "2009-04-10T14:42:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/61 "2009-04-15T21:57:10Z")
> [@mamakat](#): > > I was about 5, and thought makeup was very exciting. Mom was taking a nap, and I decided to take the opportunity to use her blood red lipstick on every single inch of my face. Mom waking up with my bright red face inches from hers was not a good thing! > > And in 4th grade, when I brought a live grenade to school in my backpack. That one is pretty impressive! Was the ring thingy intact? (I don’t recall whether grenades explode on a timer if the ring is pulled, or only on impact). Did you get caught by the teachers? How did you get your hands on such a thing anyway? And just how long WAS it before you were able to sit down without wincing? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/62 "2009-04-15T23:34:30Z")
I projectile vomited on the Bishop for the Diocese of Atlanta during my First Communion. What do I win? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/63 "2009-04-16T02:27:56Z")
Once I got the great idea to take the TV off the rickety TV stand and push my little brother up and down the upstairs hallway on it “like a ride” (I told him.) We neglected to take into account a) just how heavy the TV was going to be and b) how squeaky the wheels on the cart were. We were able to get the TV off ok together, but when we pushed the cart about an inch it let out a _CREEEEK_ and my mom immediately yelled up the stairs “YOU KIDS AREN’T PUSHING EACH OTHER ON THAT TV CART, ARE YOU?” We both (of course said) “Nooooo?” We heard her set one foot on the bottom stair…my brother made a Barney Fife dropping his gun sound and ran into his room leaving me to try and heave the TV back onto the stand myself. Needless to say a 7 year-old cannot lift a 1970s television onto anything and there was hell to pay once dad got home. Another weird one: I was bopping around my room singing “Popeye the Sailor Man” and boxing. I saw a crack in one of the windows and aimed at it and my fist went right through it. I was completely unharmed and standing in a pile of broken glass. I walked downstairs where my mom was at the table paying bills or something and said “Uh mom? You’re going to be really mad but I broke a window.” She didn’t believe me at first until she came up and saw it, and then she freaked out because she couldn’t believe I wasn’t hurt - I couldn’t believe I wasn’t in trouble! ---
**Author:** ![velvet\_goldminer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5daacb/32.png) [@velvet\_goldminer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velvet_goldminer)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/64 "2009-04-16T03:31:12Z")
When I was 4 I stumbled upon an interesting and exciting new medium perfect for the art of mud pie making, (or making mooshy gooshy pie as I called it.) I was banned from dragging buckets of water through the house and out to the yard, guess I soaked the carpet one too many times for my moms liking. It was weeks of no pie making because it hadn’t rained so I had nothing to practice my art with. until… I spied my neighbor mixing up a concoction that looked like white mud. What 4 year old back yard baker can resist that? And really shouldn’t people share these things anyway? so off with my trusty pail and shovel I go… and proceed to dig up half my neighbors new concrete sidewalk. Mom peers out the window to see me up to my elbows in the yard rolling out cement pizza. neighbor was not happy. then of course there was the time my sister and I decided we wanted to be robots so I painted her head to toe with radiator paint. she looked awesome.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/65 "2009-04-16T03:36:35Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I projectile vomited on the Bishop for the Diocese of Atlanta during my First Communion. > > What do I win? 😉 An ETERNITY IN HADES!!! Before or after you received the host? One wonders what the proper Church-sanctioned method is for dealing with the freshly-barfed-up Body of Christ! ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/66 "2009-04-16T03:51:18Z")
Just remembered this one (it’s my brother’s tale, not mine). Baseball bats don’t work well as flyswatters. Nope, not even when the fly is clearly backlit by the light streaming through the window it’s crawling on. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/67 "2009-04-16T04:08:55Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > One wonders what the proper Church-sanctioned method is for dealing with the freshly-barfed-up Body of Christ! Crying tears of laughter here!😃 Thanks **Mama Z**. Just what I needed Q ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/68 "2009-04-16T04:25:55Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Before or after you received the host? > > One wonders what the proper Church-sanctioned method is for dealing with the freshly-barfed-up Body of Christ! It was after. I was gulping the wine (I was VERY thirsty and my sister told me it was grape juice, so I did more than sip) and apparently found out that I didn’t care for the taste of it. At all. Since then, never had a desire for alcohol. ---
**Author:** ![Caveat\_lector\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@Caveat\_lector\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caveat_lector_1)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/69 "2009-04-16T04:45:08Z")
Ha! We were given a sip of unconsecrated wine as part of our preparation in order to prevent things like that. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/70 "2009-04-16T04:52:35Z")
> [@Caveat\_lector\_1](#): > > Ha! We were given a sip of unconsecrated wine as part of our preparation in order to prevent things like that. I might have been given the sip. The problem was that the specific day of my FC I was really thirsty, but my sister (who, being the “senior” class of the parochial school I was in, was involved somehow in the ceremony) insisted that if I drank or ate ANYTHING prior to my FC that I would assuredly go to Hell. So I waited, and waited, and waited, and by the time it was my turn I developed a cunning plan of drinking more of the “grape juice” than a mere sip - but not so much that it would be noticable. Oops! ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/71 "2009-04-16T05:11:52Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > How about this? > > My brother and I would build a realistic dummy, stuffing jeans, a shirt, shoes and a hat with crumpled up newspapers. Then, we would place it in the street in front of our house as a car was coming, then dive into the ivy hedge to hide. > > There is really nothing funnier than squealing tires, sudden swerving, and adult cursing, is there? > > :eek: :eek: You’re sure you’re not secretly Macaulay Culkin, right? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDLkFEhJVTw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDLkFEhJVTw) (sorry for the bad quality) Anyway, mine was done knowing FULL WELL that it was grade A stupid, but I was curious. Once in Middle School I was waiting for my private lesson teacher in the band room, no one was there, no director, absolutely alone. So I decided to see what EXACTLY happens when you put two ends of a paper clip in an outlet. I make the paperclip into a “U” shape, I’m about to put it in, I tell myself “wait you idiot, you might get shocked!” Now, a less insane mind may call this good advice, however to me that it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it, just that I shouldn’t be in direct contact with the paper clip (hey, it’s probably why I’m not dead right now). So I find a clothes pin lying around (we had our spring concerts outdoors so we needed some clothes pins to keep the sheet music from flying away), stick it in _FLASH_ _SHOCK_ _SHORT_ _SMOKE._ Being satisfied that that was a good enough explanation of what happens for me (well, not really, I asked about the physics of it a while later), I removed the paper clip and threw it and the clothes pin away. Nobody else ever knew why that outlet ceased to work… nor did my teacher ever find out what that burning smell was for a couple days. “Hmm, why isn’t this outlet working? It worked yesterday.” _Plays along with nonchalant “no clue” reactions of everyone else_ ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/72 "2009-04-16T13:07:10Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > I was 5 or so. I was playing with some toys in the bathroom sink, and didn’t want to be disturbed. So I locked the door using the bolt-thingy. Then I couldn’t get it unlocked (and there was no way to undo it from the outside). > > Mom had to coach me out the window (first-floor, fortunately). Then when my oldest brother got home from school, he had to climb in the window and undo the door lock. I did this in the bathroom when I was about 11 or so - except I broke the lock, door had to be taken from the hinges. Guess it was the karma of my father though, my daughter managed to lock herself in the bedroom (snib lock from the inside, we kept the room keys in a drawer in the room) when she was about three. Couldn’t unlock the door. Only problem is we live on the 8th floor of an apartment block. I had to climb out the kitchen window, along an airconditioning ledge and then remove the louvre (?) windows from the 2 foot by 18 inch bathroom window and climb through - all the while my darlink daughter was screaming because she was alone ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/73 "2009-04-16T13:15:38Z")
I was just a youngster and was over at elderly Aunt Stell’s. She was at the kitchen sink doing something and I was behind her at the table… laughing, then laughing more, then clapping my little hands with glee. She turned to see what could make me so happy and saw I’d lit the entire breakfast table spread on fire. ---
**Author:** ![TJVM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b38774/32.png) [@TJVM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJVM)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/74 "2009-04-16T14:04:13Z")
When I was 8 or 9 I sold my entire train set to a neighborhood kid for the princely sum of three dollars. By the time my parents found out, everything had already been hauled away; they had to go over to the neighbor’s house and arrange to undo the transaction. Around the same time, I got bored during a very long car trip. This was in the 70’s, and the car doors had those old locks, with the knob on the door that you pushed down to lock, and pulled up to unlock. I tied a piece of string around the “head” of the door lock knob, and looped the string through the hook on the ceiling that you can use to hang dry cleaning or whatever. So, I could pull down on the rope, and, using the hook like a pulley, the door lock would get pulled up. So far, so good. But, for reasons that now escape me, I decided to pull really, really hard on the string, until – pop! – the lock and the entire lock mechanism it was attached to came right out of the door. I handed the device up to my dad, who was driving, with some casual remark like, “uh, dad, this came out of the door,” like that sort of thing happened all the time. My nonchalance did not impress him, and that door was never again openable. I’m sure it was exactly what he needed in the middle of a long drive. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/75 "2009-04-16T14:55:10Z")
One day when I was 7 or 8 I decided I didn’t want to go to school. I knew that the only way to convince my mom that I was ill & couldn’t go was to demonstrate I had a fever - if I complained about feeling sick she just shoved a thermometer in my mouth and if I was normal in temp off to school I would go. Well, in went the thermometer and my mom left for a few minutes. I knew I wasn’t sick, so how to demonstrate a fever …? Why, put the thermometer on the bare bulb of a lamp for a few seconds, of course! My mom quite failed to believe I had a fever of 140 degrees - I just got in a pile of shit & had to go to school anyway. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/76 "2009-04-16T16:35:01Z")
Can’t remember how old I was, but certainly old enough to have known better… I somehow thought that it would be OK to heat milk on our electric stove in a plastic container. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/77 "2009-04-16T16:57:50Z")
Re: technicolor barf on the good carpet… One day, I think I was 8 and my sister was 9, we decided to make “alien food” from another world (I swear were were totally influenced by seeing the multi-colored putty they ate on Star Trek). At our ages we had limited kitchen experience, so we made only what we knew. Instant oatmeal with VAST amounts of food coloring to make it an alien green. Cream of wheat with VAST amount of food coloring (bright pink, IIRC). Orange juice also turned a violent hue. Kraft Dinner that was supposed to be purple, but didn’t come out right so we just kept adding food coloring until it was just a brownish mass,. We boiled some hotdogs but found they were actually hard to color well, so we just cut them up and put them in our brown KD. We gave our concoctions alien sounding names, like “gunkerfloo” and proclaimed them to be exotic delicacies. The cream of wheat tasted awful with all the food dye, so we had to add copious amounts of sugar, like maybe four table spoons each. Then we tucked into our alien feast. Then we went to the basement watch TV. I think Good Times was on. Suddenly I felt a little… well… bad. Now, we were only a few feet from a perfectly good laundry sink, but I had it in my head that you were supposed to puke in a toilet, so it never occurred to me that the laundry sink was a good plan B. I bolted up the stairs and blew richly colored gunkerfloo all over the landing. When she heard the loud retching, my alarmed sister dashed up to make sure I was okay. She was so revolted by the mess that she instantly spewed all over the stairs. Wall to wall carpeting in that house, except for the basement, where we had been. Our latch-key kid days nearly came to an end. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Beginning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@New\_Beginning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Beginning)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/78 "2009-04-16T17:48:20Z")
When I was like 3 years old, I was in a playground filled with sand, playing with a bottle and a straw (presumably from something I had just finished drinking). I filled the bottle with sand and proceeded to drink using the straw. Now, you have to understand that I knew this was stupid. I wasn’t actually planning to drink sand, but to stop the flow with my tongue. In an instant, my reaction time proved too slow, and I immediately barfed hot pink. No one had seen, and I quickly covered up the evidence with more sand. The embarrassment was so strong that I didn’t tell anyone for over 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/79 "2009-04-16T19:37:10Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > Did the same thing with snowballs at my friend’s house. We hit one guy’s vehicle and he slammed on the brakes and stopped in the driveway. We were behind some trees up on little hill, we took off and ran into the woods, expecting to be pursued. Instead the guy went up to the front door of my friend’s house and talked to his mother. I got the hell out of there! Lesson to 8 year-olds: If you are hiding behind a snowbank, throwing snowballs at passing cars, it is best to verify the car you are targeting is NOT a police cruiser. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644/80 "2009-04-16T19:47:15Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#): > > When I was a little kid, roughly six or so, we went to a family reunion at my great-aunt’s place up in Vermont. She had a huge spread up there – couple hundred acres – which had been in the family for generations. > > Another thing that had been there that long was an old barn which was in desperate need of being knocked down. So, since there were a ton of people up to visit, that sucking was coming down. They tied off supports and rafters, and used trucks and tractors to rip the whole thing down. > > When the dust settled, the fun began as the entire ground started moving. It would seem that the space under the old barn was home to thousands upon thousands of garter snakes, and they were all high-tailing it out of there. Nice, high-octane nightmare fuel for anyone phobic of snakes. Everyone at the reunion had come out to see the barn come down, so there were plenty of people around for a good, old-fashioned mass panic – dozens of people running this way and that, screaming their heads off. > > And there was six-year-old me, running through the fields, laughing and scooping up armloads of snakes. I crammed them all into an old habitrail that my great-aunt had lying around the house. I probably fit a good 200 of them in there, and then in brilliant six-year-old logic, I realized my destiny: I was to become a great snake entrepreneur! I’d take this mother lode back to New Jersey where I’d sell them to the neighborhood kids for a dollar per snake, and become rich beyond my wildest dreams. I took that snake-packed habitrail and secreted it in our camper (after all, I couldn’t let mom and dad know about this…they had a stunning lack of vision, and were always shooting down my best ideas). > > By the way – did you know that habitrails have a small gap in their construction near the bottom? I didn’t. It’s fine for containing hamsters and gerbils, which are too big to fit through. Snakes, not so much. > > It took about two days of hunting before my family was reasonably sure that there were no snakes left in the camper. My folks were decidedly not at all pleased with me. Without having read another post, I nominate this for the most awesome story ever! How freaking Hilarious! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-great-oops-moments-from-childhood/492644.md?page=5)