# Dumb thing you did as a kid?



## Furryanimal (Oct 5, 2019)

What was *the* dumb thing you did as a kid?


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## Gary O' (Oct 5, 2019)

Riding my bike up a 2x4 laid over a 55 gal drum, on a dare

Lucky to still fertilize spawn after that


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## jujube (Oct 5, 2019)

Play on the railroad tracks.  Forbidden, but we did it anyway.


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## win231 (Oct 5, 2019)

I'm LOL'ing at this topic.
There were a few dumb things.  Does any kid do just ONE dumb thing?  Well, in case anyone missed it previously:

My parents liked to take trips to Las Vegas.  My mom liked Joshua Trees & we always stopped in the desert so she could take photos next to them.  When I was around 5 years old, we drove a mile or so into the desert & my dad started taking photos.  I had a habit of wandering & petting every animal I found outside.  My dad knew that & it was really stupid of him to not keep an eye on me.  I saw a large snake next to a bush & picked it up.  I remember thinking: He comes with his own built-in toy - how cute his tail was - with those rattles on it...yeah, Rattlesnakes have those.  I was handling him for at least 5 minutes when I heard my dad yell, "Hey...put that down...he can kill ya!"  I said, "But he likes me."  My dad didn't want to come near me while I was holding him.  I gently put him down.  To this day, I don't know why he didn't bite me or even rattle.

 When I was 7, my dad had some kind of door-to-door sales job.  He'd take me with him & I'd wait in the car while he knocked on doors.  Again, he wasn't smart to leave me alone in that De Soto when he knew I liked to play with every button & switch in the car.  Well, he parked on a hill & said, "Don't touch anything," then he started canvassing the block.  Of course, when he was out of sight, the first thing I did was press the starter button.  I loved the way it made the whole car shake.  Well, everything was OK until I played with that pull-out parking brake lever, then the car started rolling down the hill, going faster & faster.  I jumped into the back seat.  The car went over a curb & slammed into a tree (luckily).  It could have hit a pedestrian or another car.  He never yelled at me for that; maybe he realized how stupid HE was.

_(Don't continue reading if you're squeamish).  _When I was 10, my brother & I were playing handball against the side of the house.  I was barefoot.  As I ran up to hit the ball, I heard a scraping sound.  I looked down at my foot & saw that a nail went through the side of my big toe & out the other side.  I started to pull it out but it was so rusted, it broke off.  When I pulled on the other side, it also broke off, leaving a piece stuck inside the toe.  Well, I went into the garage & found a brand new nail & used it to push out the broken piece.  I poured peroxide into the hole & put a Band-Aid over each hole.  It healed perfectly.  "Tetanus?"  What's that?

 No more serious incidents....until I was 16.  I'm swimming at the beach, maybe 50 yards from shore when I felt a tug on my foot - like someone grabbed it as a joke.  I reached down & felt something thrashing.  I didn't know what it was until it swam away & I saw the fin sticking out of the water - a small shark, (luckily) maybe 3-4 feet.  The water was cold & I didn't feel any pain, so I thought it was minor, but when I got to shore, people started gasping & pointing at my foot.  There was an open triangle-shaped flap & every time I took a step, it gushed; that's what was freaking people out.  I wrapped it in a towel & drove home with my other foot.  When I got home, I couldn't find bandages that were big enough, so I stuck the flap back on & covered it with masking tape.  It healed fine - maybe the salt water prevented infection.  Or, maybe the Shark just brushed & gargled with Listerine.


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## RadishRose (Oct 5, 2019)

I got my head caught between the bars of an old brass bed while playing in the basement at a friend's house. Her father bent the bars and got me out.

Or maybe it was the time I somehow got a comb tangled in the hair on the crown of my head, so I cut it off!

My mother had a fit and yelled that I looked like a Mohawk as it grew out and stuck up in the air.


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## Gary O' (Oct 5, 2019)

win231 said:


> I poured peroxide into the hole & put a Band-Aid over each hole. It healed perfectly. "Tetanus?" What's that?






win231 said:


> When I got home, I couldn't find bandages that were big enough, so I stuck the flap back on & covered it with masking tape. It healed fine




Yup


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## Wren (Oct 5, 2019)

Not sure which was the dumbest, the time I went  to sleep with a mouthful of bubblegum, which (surprise) !  came out during the night and got stuck in my hair

Or when I converted our bath into  an ‘ice rink’ by rubbing soap  all over the base, and attempted to skate up and down landing  flat on my face, breaking a  tooth, and ending up with the fattest lip you ever saw


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## hollydolly (Oct 6, 2019)

Yes like Jujube, we played on the railway tracks....


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## Furryanimal (Oct 6, 2019)

Wren said:


> Not sure which was the dumbest, the time I went  to sleep with a mouthful of bubblegum, which (surprise) !  came out during the night and got stuck in my hair
> 
> Or when I converted our bath into  an ‘ice rink’ by rubbing soap  all over the base, and attempted to skate up and down landing  flat on my face, breaking a  tooth, and ending up with the fattest lip you ever saw


Going to grease the bath now..if you never hear from me again


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## toffee (Oct 6, 2019)

I was a tomboy with my brother ' must have been  about 5 years old' was away on camping hols with aunt uncle mum dad sisters -
we found a old open well -u can walk around the edge of it 'he jumped up I followed him and then I slipped I fell about 15 foot 
it had no water in it thank god ' they got me out with a right rollicking brother got a smack round the head for going near it hahaha
I suppose a lucky day …………..


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## oldman (Oct 6, 2019)

I was a very bad boy in my early teens and did some really dumb things, which I still regret to this day. Too embarrassing to discuss. My dad sent me to military school for two years, which really did improve my behavior. I should have stayed there, but wanted to come home and graduate with the few friends that I had left from my years of being stupid. I am so fortunate to have been able to turn my life around.


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## Judycat (Oct 6, 2019)

My friends and I dragged a car hood up to the top of a huge refuse pile coal mines used to make back in the day.. It wasn't totally snow covered but it was steep. I don't know why we thought it was a good idea. When we took off we picked up way more speed than we imagined and crashed into this overturned junk car someone had left in the field at the bottom. That was our first and last ride. One friend hurt her leg but the rest of us were ok. We definitely could have died. Guess it wasn't our time.


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## RadishRose (Oct 6, 2019)

Judycat said:


> My friends and I dragged a car hood up to the top of a huge refuse pile coal mines used to make back in the day.. It wasn't totally snow covered but it was steep. I don't know why we thought it was a good idea. When we took off we picked up way more speed than we imagined and crashed into this overturned junk car someone had left in the field at the bottom. That was our first and last ride. One friend hurt her leg but the rest of us were ok. We definitely could have died. Guess it wasn't our time.


OMG! You poor kids.


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## Olivia (Oct 6, 2019)

Getting on a roof to pick mangos with a net.  Speeding down a steep hill on a Bicycle.


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## RadishRose (Oct 6, 2019)

Olivia said:


> Getting on a roof to pick mangos with a net.  Speeding down a steep hill on a Bicycle.


Anything having to do with roofs, count me out!


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## jerry old (Oct 6, 2019)

These post are scary, scary! How dumb we wee...

I was dumb enough to tell my older brother about my 'adventures.'
He snitched me off to parents, earned me  many  butt beating.  I didn't learn to keep my mouth shut until age ten, or so.

The adventures (they were adventures at the time, though it was phrased as 'a neat thing to do) of our invulnerability
lead to the conclusion-someone was watching over us.


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## jerry old (Oct 6, 2019)

Hitchock's "Birds" will never happen, not as long as their are boys and BB guns.
As murderous as  any serial killer


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## Pecos (Oct 6, 2019)

Maybe we need to narrow this timeframe down a bit.
Something like between 10 and 10 1/2 is manageable, otherwise it becomes overwhelming.


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## johndoe (Oct 6, 2019)

Ate two ants while really young till my mother screamed at me to stop. Came flying down a hill on my bike no hands when the front wheel oscillated back and forth till it locked and I flew forward landing on my face. My teen years bordered on criminal so I'll stop.


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## Trade (Oct 6, 2019)

When I was about 8 years old I decided I wanted to be fat, so I deliberately ate myself into obesity.

The second dumbest was using an air mattress as a sort of saw horse when trying to saw a board. I was 11 at the time. Saw slipped and cut a big gash into the air mattress. That was the end of that air mattress. It was a nice one too. Cost my mom $8 bucks, which was a lot of money back in 1958. About $70 in today's money.

I also tried to defrost a refrigerator with a screw driver. Stabbed it right through the wall of the freezer into a gas line. But I wasn't a kid then. I think I was about 32 at the time.


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## Lc jones (Oct 6, 2019)

I had a brand new bike I was very small it was very large started peddling couldn’t stop ran into a giant brick wall flipped over the handlebars and landed on my back not  so good.


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## Patio Life (Oct 6, 2019)

My list would be far too long. And I have not stopped adding to it.


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## win231 (Oct 6, 2019)

When I was 22, I bought a new Toyota Corolla.  So, I'm cruisin' along.  I stopped at a light & the car starts to shake & idle rough.  I knew nothing about cars, but I opened the hood anyway.  The engine was shaking real bad.  Back then, I didn't know what "Spark Plug Wires were, but I saw that three of them were connected & one wasn't.  I figured that was the problem.  I grabbed the wire & snapped it down over the spark plug.  As soon as it snapped on, I felt a jolt up my arm & found myself sitting on the pavement.  I don't remember falling.  After a few minutes, I was able to get up & saw that the engine was idling perfectly.
A couple of people told me they were surprised I wasn't hurt or killed.


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## chic (Oct 6, 2019)

When I was a kid I wanted to pluck my eyebrows like the big girls did but mom wouldn't let me, so I decided to trim them with a manicure scissors and ended up with a bald patch in one eyebrow. I was so humiliated.


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## Ruth n Jersey (Oct 6, 2019)

I tried to ride down our front steps on my bicycle and went right over the handle bars, another time the lake near our home was frozen over and I tried to ride on the ice. I never hit harder or faster than I did that day.


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## applecruncher (Oct 6, 2019)

Someone upthread mentioned gum getting stuck in hair. I was about 6 and had a huge stash of bubble gum hidden under my bed. Next morning when I tried to lift my head the pillow came with it. My poor mom was scurrying trying to get all of us fed, dressed, etc. 
OMG, then she discovered my mess. I pretended I was sick, didn't work. Somehow we made it to the bus stop.

When I was about 10, I coordinated the decorating of our living room walls with dozens (hundreds?) of old Christmas cards held up with flour & water paste. Dad was not pleased.  My younger brothers and I had to undo that mess.


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## AZ Jim (Oct 6, 2019)

Grew up!!


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## Judycat (Oct 7, 2019)

This is how we learn.


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## JustBonee (Oct 7, 2019)

I would often go  into the large woods nearby for the day,   all by myself and look for anything interesting to bring back home.   Sometimes I had one of the dogs for company.  But never worried about being alone,  and back then didn't think it was dumb..  
Oh, the good ole days....


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## Pappy (Oct 17, 2019)

Smoking corn silk in the hay barn wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done.


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## Llynn (Oct 17, 2019)

Racing the neighbors Jersey bull across his pasture to the best fishing hole on the local creek. It was a matter of calculating the respective starting positions of the race participants while estimating our initial acceleration, expected average speed over the ground, trajectory angles and intercepts and variables such as mandated cow pie avoidance

Over my boyhood, this race was held many times (always after enough time had passed since our last meeting to allow me to stop shaking and stop uttering little squeaks of terror at unopportune moments}. I genuinely believe the bull enjoyed the encounters because of the spirited way in which he participated. While I, on the other hand, was content to end up laying in one piece on the grass as a panting quivering lump of boy, with the barb wire safely between myself and Mr. Bull.

Was it worth the risk? Sure, after all, the fishing was fantastic at that hole, and the return trip was always easier because that old bull never could see well in the dark which made it much harder for him to properly lead his target.


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