posted on May 5, 2001 09:51:51 PM new
I have two, to start.
1. The first, I pushed my dad's cigarette lighter in the socket. It popped out, I looked at it, thought it was broke, and put my finger on the rings.
2. We were firing off firecrackers in the school yard, by throwing them in our bicycle handle bars. One didn't go off, and I tried to look in the hole, and....
Painful lessons are the most remembered. Whether physical, or mental. Some of us are lucky we made it to the computer age.
I guess the dumbest was when I was about 6 or 7. The girl who lived next door and I would take a blanket to the bus stop a couple of doors down from where we lived. When a bus came by, we pretended we both fainted and fell lifeless on the blanket. We were hoping to shock everyone on the bus, but never knew if we did because we layed still until the bus was down the street. How dumb can you get??
OMG - I forgot to add that those are yucky experiences for a young child Mint. My goodness! Is you eye OK?
[ edited by kraftdinner on May 5, 2001 10:06 PM ]
posted on May 5, 2001 10:24:56 PM new
Mint... I hope your parents had good insurance coverage. LOL
The first dumb thing that comes to mind is that when I was in about the first grade I plugged in a bobby pin to see what it would do. What it did was to turn my entire thumb and half of my hand black.
posted on May 5, 2001 10:46:06 PM new
Hi kraftdinner!
The eye was fine, after cleaning out with some sort of solution the school nurse used. I don't remember what it was, I was only six. Couldn't see clearly for a few hours, but after that, okay. Just a black eye, real one, not gun powder. Thanks for asking.
Mybiddness
LOL! You know how parents always say "What'd you get into now!" Like most children, I had my share of mistakes. And my parents always on edge.
A few more perhaps?
3. Fell backwards into an empty swimming pool. Knocked me out, got my first ride in an ambulance.
4. Got a hunting dart all the way in up to the handle, in my calf walking behind a target board.
5. Had a 22 shell casing go into my side. I was about eight, watching a fire where another kid threw a bullet in the fire.
6. Was swinging with two other kids as high as we could go, then jumping out. Broke both legs at the same time. I was nine, I think.
Can you say NOT a good insurance risk, as a kid? I never did each incident more than once, so I guess I did learn something.
posted on May 6, 2001 03:38:56 AM new
The absolute dumbest? That would have to be jumping out of a moving car to get the gum that my brother teased me with (turned out that the wrapper was empty - he had eaten the gum but carefully put the wrapper back together, asked me if I wanted it and then threw it out the window). My grandfather was driving and my siblings were yelling at him for two or three blocks before he caught on that I was no longer in the car.
Other highlights (?)include: laying on my nap mat at pre-school, rolling a marble in and out of my mouth..and then accidentally swallowing it. Then spending the rest of the year's nap periods laying there with my mouth open waiting for the marble to come back out. Duh.
Grabbing the heating elements on an oven at age two. That one hurt and I think it's my earliest memory.
Femme: I think sticking things up noses is a pretty popular dumb thing to do....I know lots of people who did that. The funny part is all of them either used a peanut or an M&M!
posted on May 6, 2001 04:24:17 AM new
When I was 7 or so we went to a BBQ at another families house and I had never seen
charcoal briquettes. I did not watch the cooking process and after we ate I was wandering around and saw one laying on the ground where it had rolled from where they dumped the coals after cooking. I picked it up curious what it was because it was still symetric and you could tell it was made but it was not glowing - just grey.
Of course it burned the daylights out of me.
posted on May 6, 2001 05:22:13 AM new
I must have been 6 or 7. It was the middle of the winter and I found a hollow cone shaped piece of metal (looked just like an ice cream cone) and made a sno-cone out of it by putting snow in the cone. Stuck my tongue on the cone and it stuck across the whole width of my tongue. Mistake #2 was panicing and ripping the metal off my tongue taking hide and with it. That one still hurts 40 yrs later when I think about it.
posted on May 6, 2001 06:25:01 AM new
OMG gk4495, reminds me of the movie "A Christmas Story"! Ouch!!
Well, when I was 6 or 7....In the car with my mom stopped at light with cars in front of us. I asked mom if I could push "that"....she said yes LOL (She though I meant the glove box button) Yep I pushed it....sorry it was the gas pedal. At least I asked, right???? You can figure out what happened.
(BTW,mint4you, TY for not asking about the dumbest thing as an ADULT!!)
[ edited by nanastuff on May 6, 2001 06:39 AM ]
posted on May 6, 2001 07:15:35 AM new
When I was eight I put a pair of my father's handcuffs on one of my ankles. My mother didn't have the key and wasn't a good lockpicker so I had to wear them until he came home. In the meantime we had a visitor. I told the visitor all about the town we were going to move to - including the fact that beer was so much more expensive. My mother kept giving me "the look" but I blabbed on. Later she told me that he was the assistant minister at our church.
posted on May 6, 2001 07:16:41 AM new
I could write a book on this topic but it
all began when I fell out of a tree and landed on my head. That event started the ball rolling...
posted on May 6, 2001 07:31:49 AM new
I am the oldest child in my family. I never did anything dumb, I had to set an example for my younger brother and sister.
Basically I was the tattler,
"MOMMY, Mike is peeing into a coke bottle!".
"MOMMY, Sue is playing hairdresser with her dolls again!"
Now, I do the dumb things. Gotta make up for the oh-so-serious childhood I had.
[ edited by Malady on May 6, 2001 07:32 AM ]
posted on May 6, 2001 09:04:29 AM new
I wanted to be superman, and I needed my hands clear so I could "fly" with them, so I tied the drape tie-back around my neck to "fly from one twin bed to the other".
posted on May 6, 2001 09:11:12 AM new
Picture it -
Two pre-teen boys, rural Texas, 1950s, lazy summer day, discovering dads stash of home brew bottle beer, popping a couple of long necks open and feeling pretty grown-up, suddenly realizing dad will miss these two bottles, what to do! well - we 're-cycle' the beer filling the bottles to the rim and capping them with shiny new caps and carefully placing them with the others.
Fast forward two weeks to a large Fish Fry gathering with the men folk frying fish and drinking beer under the oaks. When the sound of spewing beer disrupts the gathering and a voice is heard "Damn, Billy, this beer taste like p**s"!
We got whoopins real bad for that stupid little stunt.
noteye
My thoughts on this issue have gone 'Un-Surveyed' and may not be of importance to the P.T.B.
posted on May 6, 2001 11:51:49 AM new
A friend and I were playing "Tornado" in her garage -- this was shortly after our town had experienced one. When she hit the pots to simulate an alarm, we both ran to the garage door to shut it. I stuck my hand between the two heavy metal bars that moooosh together when you close it. That smarted -- to the tune of 36 stitches.
Later, my father brought oranges from my grandfather's grove for our class to have as a snack. Eating one -- and getting the juice soaked in to the bandages surrounding my stitches -- was another dumb move. Yikes!
I also cut all my hair off and decorated my head with designer bandaids for reasons now unknown to me.
posted on May 6, 2001 12:27:42 PM new
I suppose I've done a couple of "dumb things"...But, I've learned some lessons....
A dumb "up your nose" event!...Playin' around with the little rubber "keds" label (the one that was on the outside back of the sneaker) around the area of my nose...label was rolled up UNTIL I placed it in my nose, then it UNROLLED and well, took a patient daddy & a pair of tweezers to remove!
Underestimated the distance & speed necessary to pass the moving truck and turn my stingray bike into our alley, while wearing my flip flops....Lesson learned: crashing into a picket fence, while wearing virtually nothing on your feet, makes for some reall nasty cuts, a hospital trip & a week of convalescing!
Substituting a screwdriver for a bottle opener when tryin' to open a bottle of wine you snitched from the liquor cabinet, WILL open the bottle, however, the wine will NOT be drinkable, as it will be covering the walls, floors and every person in the room and the tiny pieces of glass from the bottle are most probably NOT digestable!
posted on May 6, 2001 01:27:01 PM new
We lived in a trailer park when I was a kid. Used to have ice trucks deliver ice for our 'ice boxes', as they were called then. It was hot that summer, and we used to climb up in the back of the truck while the ice man was making a delivery. We would get the broken pieces of ice to suck on, and cool down. One day he came out before I got off the truck, and started driving off. Afraid to be taken from my home, I decided to jump off the truck while it was moving. I thought, (still remember how stupid this was to this day), that if I jumped off backwards, going the same direction as the truck, with my feet moving when I hit the ground, it would be like running behind the truck. Duh, no it wasn't. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I went end over end. Some of the worse gravel scratches I ever got.
typo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ edited by mint4you on May 6, 2001 01:28 PM ]
posted on May 6, 2001 02:04:56 PM new
I have two. Both at about age 8. Never got caught on either. Not really hurt, but that was through the grace of God.
First I hitched a ride on the back of a bread truck. Thought he would stop down the street. He turned the corner, I flew off, cracked my head on the trolley tracks. The bar on the corner emptied and all the men came rushing out to save me from the trolley which was coming down the track while I lay there stunned.
Second, I climbed an el pillar (for those of you who don't know, that is one of the pillars that hold up elevated train lines in big cities like New York. Not really unusual to do in my neighborhood- but I climbed part way up between the tracks to see if train was leaving the station yet! IT WAS ABOUT 10 feet away and picking up speed. No time to climb down so I had to bend over and just lie there. For anyone who is curious, yes there is just about enough space under an elevated train for a small child's body, if she picks the right spot. I did. Lucky, I guess
[ edited by grumteach on May 6, 2001 02:07 PM ]
posted on May 6, 2001 03:32:53 PM new
It's pretty hard to narrow down. Do you women remember getting on the high bar at school (elementary) with one leg behind the bar and one in front, get the bar up in the crook of the front leg and doing a circle around the bar? I can't remember what those are called. Anyway, the REALLY stupid thing was trying to do that on the parallel bars during gym class. Prettiest shiner I've ever had!
My best friend and I used to sit on the playground (1st grade) and bang our heads together. We thought we'd each get some of the others brains, thereby making us twice as smart. It didn't work.
posted on May 6, 2001 08:44:40 PM new
UpInTheHills
I think that was called the 'cherry-bomb' or 'cherry-drop'. My sis did it all the time. She could get 5 or 6 rotations going before her hands couldn't handle it anymore.
posted on May 7, 2001 02:24:30 PM new
Catching bees and putting them in a screw top jar - sitting down with the little jar between my knees and plunging a sharp knife down onto the lid to make breathing holes, I missed the jar and the knife went deep into my knee!!!! Still got the scar.
I can't remember too much else, seems like I do the dumbest things as I get older.
posted on May 7, 2001 02:48:02 PM newIt was a different world then (late 60s, early 70s)
I grew up much the same as you did Spaz. We'd go off down to the creek and spend the entire day. my folks knew I was down there, but we had about a six mile stretch that we'd roam.
I worry about raising my kids now. (They are young. I started late) I guess that per capita there aren't any more predators today than there were then, but it sure seems that way. I want my kids to have the freedoms that I had as a kid, but know that there is no way I'll let them go off for the day unsupervised. I don't want to be overprotective, but still want to protect them. Where is the happy medium?
Back to the topic at hand...I thought it would be funny to jump off of our homemade teeter totter while my friend was way up in the air. (A long 2"x 8" across the top of a six foot fence.) It was funny until the end I'd just jumped off of caught me under the chin. Man did I have a head ache after that. Guess I'm lucky it wasn't any worse than that. My friend was OK too.
posted on May 7, 2001 03:02:30 PM new
I'm sure I did a bunch of dumb stuff as a kid. Some things that come to mind:
- Picking up a black widow spider. My brother coaxed me into letting it go by saying, "Put the nice spider down," then he promptly stepped on it.
- Hiding peas and other unpalatable foods behind a cabinet in the basement on a regular basis. I should have known my parents would find them eventually.
- Eating wild peas (or something that looked liked tiny peas in a pod) at camp. I threw up green for two days.
And getting into the teenage years:
- Getting into my parents' liquor cabinet and drinking "a little of this and a little of that." I was just about as sick as the time I'd eaten the wild peas. My parents thought it was the dog who'd thrown up on the carpet.
