We all do bad things sometimes – hopefully on accident, or at least not on purpose – and when you’re a kid, you might not realize all of the consequences of your actions until much later.
These 13 people are looking back over their childhoods and cringing at the havoc they (mostly) unintentionally wreaked on others, just by virtue of being clueless kiddos.
13. Whoa, mom.
When I was about 6 or 7, we went to Palm Springs on some vacation. This was ’98/99, when Pokemon was HUGE. Mom wanted to do some ~American Shopping~ and took me to a mall. One of the stores we went to was a book store.
Well I was in luck: in this store they were selling The Pokemon Handbook that /included/ Mew and Togepi, which the original handbook didn’t have. I showed it to my mom and begged her to buy it. However, considering I already had the original book she said no. I was sad, but continued to look through it.
Then we left the store and began doing window shopping on our way back to the rental car. The parking lot was all the way on the other side of the mall. When we finally got there I tried to open the car door but noticed I couldn’t: there was a book in my hand. I turned to my mom and showed her my accidental thievery. She looked at the book, then looked across the parking lot at the mall.
Mom decided it was too far to walk. I got my stupid Pokemon book, and became the first successful theif in my family.
12. A cautionary tale.
I was at a birthday party, age 7, and there was this orange air freshener that smelled sooo so good, so I sprayed it all over myself, and then I smelled really good, so all the kids started spraying it on themselves.
Not 20 minutes later, all of us are crying and screaming because our skin is burning and turning red. There was something very irritating in the air freshener.
11. A real head-scratcher.
One time I put a penny in my parent’s car’s cigarette lighter socket. It was the 80’s so lighter sockets were all over the car, including the doors in the backseat.
It completely drained the battery within a few hours, and it took the guy at the garage a few days to figure out what was wrong with the electrical system.
10. I definitely blame dad.
The first day I moved into my new house at 6 years old I was meeting the new neighbor boy who was a couple years older than me. We were out in his driveway talking about some stuff when his Mom walked out and, for whatever reason, I instinctively smacked her a$$ as she walked by.
My parents still bring up how embarrassing that was for her to come over and tell them what happened.
9. Parents are saints, I swear.
When I was about 4 or 5, my parents used to keep a bowl full of lose change in a bowl in the kitchen island. I used to take that change and put it down the back of our TV (The old CRT ones) and one day – Poof – it just stopped working.
When my dad went to take it out of the wall unit, all the change fell out. Boy did I get an ear full.
8. Oh my god.
When we were both 8, I gave my cousin a corn cob pipe I found in a drawer in the garage, and he put lawn clippings in it and smoked it, and had to be rushed to the hospital.
Apparently my aunt and uncle had just chemically treated the lawn and he smoked a whole bunch of nasty pesticides and herbicides.
7. This makes me laugh.
As a young little s*%thead my favorite prank was to lock bathroom stall doors and then crawl underneath them and exit the scene. One time, my parents dragged me to Costco with them. I went to the biggest stall in the back of the bathroom, locked it and scampered away with a grin.
I ended up going back to the same Costco the next day because my parents had to return something. I went to the same stall and it was still locked, this time I actually had to take a shit. I crawled under the door only come face to face with an old guy looking at me like I was from another planet.
I recoiled away so hard that I smacked my head on the bottom of the door and ran from that bathroom like I’d never run in my life. I crack myself up whenever I try to imagine what that guy was thinking when a 9 year old tried to hijack his toilet.
6. Possibly.
I tripped a waitress carrying dishes by leaving a crayon on the ground, but my dad may have been lying to teach me a lesson about not leaving crayons on the ground in a restaurant.
5. CPS was involved.
Backstory:
I got a really bad burn on my arm while my dad was taking tea out of the microwave. I thought it would be really funny to slam the door on him while he was grabbing it. The result was a huge, and bad burn on my arm.
Cut to a while later, my arm was almost healed. But you could still see the burn in spots. I hit my head on a table and cut it open. My mom brings me to the hospital to get stitches. Right when they are done stitching my head, I say have this conversation with the doctor.
Me: Oh! My other owie is almost gone!
Doctor: What other owie?
Me: From when my daddy poured hot tea on me.
That resulted in a very awkward conversation between my mother and the doctor. And the doctor almost calling CPS.
4. It’s just so tempting.
jumped into soft, pink fiberglass insulation
3. It’s not working.
I was only 7 at the time, but my mom was talking with one of her friends about weight watchers. When her friend left I asked my mom why weight watchers wasn’t working…
I meant to ask how it was going but apparently I didn’t have the vocabulary for it quite yet.
2. Quite the impulse.
Once when I was about 4, I sprayed a man driving by my house on his motorcycle with a water hose.
I have no idea why I did it, I just remember that I was playing with the hose and he kept riding by over and over and I just had an impulse and went with it.
He didn’t come by again after that, obviously.
1. Magnets are fun.
I messed up two computer monitors back in after school daycare in kindergarten. There were these magnet toys that were laying around and for some reason I had put it up to the monitor and thought it was so cool how they made rainbow colors on the monitor.
Me and a friend continued to do it until we both got yelled at and that’s all I can remember. I don’t remember what happened after that but I’m pretty sure they stopped putting out the magnets
I’m dying, y’all. I’m not sure I want to remember everything about my past, to be honest.
What story would you tell in response to this question? Drop it in the comments!