Hi Folks,
I’ve been following the OOW thread and I thought I’d post a thread in the direction of katharsis.
Some of us have made really big mistakes in the past, especially when we were kids. We learned, and never made the mistake again.
My mistake:
When I was 9 years old, I copied a novel. Yep, the whole 250 pages onto the newsprint paper with the big blue dotted lines for handwriting practice. It took reams of paper and about two months of hiding under a blanket with a flashlight. Then I tried to take credit for it. It was called “Aquaboy” or something like that,
My folks heard from my teacher, and of course, were livid. I got in the biggest trouble I’ve ever been in to this day, I believe. I thought I’d ruined my life at the time.
The lessons I learned: Always give lots of credit and take very little. Seems to make everyone happier. Conversely, take as much responsibility for mistakes as one can assume!
We had a kid claim to have written Murphy’s Laws in high school. Amazingly not a single one of our teacher’s caught it, they were published under his name in our science rag, and it was only after the fact that some other weasel student turned him in. He was a smart kid otherwise but graduated stripped of all his honors. I think he became a doctor.
When I was 44 years old I was touching up where I had just spackled where some curtain rods had just come down. I had the brilliant idea of touching up elsewhere around the house and merrily went about painting little sections of the wall holding a quart of paint in the palm of my hand. While I was touching up a bit of wall next to my wife’s favorite comfy chair I all of a sudden discovered that the paint can had slipped out of my hand and most of it was covering her chair and the matching footstool.
My daughter and I went furiously about the business of trying to clean up the mess, but it was to no avail. The chair was ruined. When my wife came home I apologized and confessed my own stupidity. I told her we’d go the next day and find a replacement to match the furniture on the other side of the room.
To my amazement she wasn’t all that upset. She suggested instead that we get a La-Z-Boy and even added that she’d take the chair that I normally sit in and that the La-Z-Boy could go where I sit and that it would effectively be mine.
The lesson I learned: Ruin my wife’s stuff if I want to get better stuff for myself.
Man, I have done so many stupid things as a kid, this forum couldn’t handle the storage. Two things keep me from posting most of them… Ideas for younger kids here on the forum, and not sure the statute of limitations.
I was 16 and had a red Volkswagon with a dead battery. I couldn’t push it fast enough to start it by myself, so I used my Dad’s pickup to push it up a hill. I didn’t have anyone to help me. So I sort of angled the steering in the VW before I started, got in the pickup, and started pushing. It went up the hill by itself ok. But, instead of stopping and setting the parking brake in the VW when I got to the top of the hill, I just sort of rolled back down in the pickup. The VW came chasing back down after. It turned out badly.
I was 6. I got a brand new bike(those are always trouble) that I paid half of with pennies, nickles and dimes. I rpde it all around, for about 2 days, when I left it behind the truck. My dad went to work in the morning, and CRUNCH no more brand new shiny red bicycle.
Several years later, I gave up bikes almost completly.
Bugman, I might have to PM you for some ideas. LAst semester we launched water balloons off a parking garage with a launcher. We almost hit a police car, five more came up later, grumble, unmarked cars, grumble
I drove my parents car when I was about 4. Drove it (well rolled it) right down the hill into another driveway at the end of the cul de sac. I hit something, but I can’t remember what.
I didn’t learn anything from that. I’m pretty sure my parents learned something from that though.
haven’t broken a single bone
(touch wood)
have cracked a clavicle playing field hockey in high school
broke a tooth riding a b*ke
i rode along a footpath between the school’s sport-grounds and the school and a bunch of kids came walking down the path
they parted slightly to allow me thru
except for one wise guy who put a hand out and caught one side of the handlebars
they turned beyond square and i flew over the front and broke my left-front tooth level with the gum
fast forward two years and i’m in matric and quite keen on getting into competitive cycling
i’d bought the best i could afford and started training like a madman
one saturday i took up a challenge from a friend of mine to ride a 180km out and back route that would take us over the Helshoogte Pass (Hell’s Heights)
it was a twisty twirly pass that was built by italian prisoners of war in the second world war
on the way back, we crossed the pass with about 10k left in the ride and knowing that the last one back to the steps of the town hall wouldn’t hear the end of it untill the next time
it was ‘race on’
he was a stronger climber than me and i barely hung onto the back of him up a couple of the longer climbs
there was a fairly long bit of downhill before the final climb and i figured that i had to get some daylight between me and him if i wanted to have any chance
so with reckless abondon, i set about flying down the downhill section, leaning into sweeping turns and generally scaring the crap out of myself
a post office minivan chose this time to pass me
also in a bit of a hurry, he cut the corner rather severely when a car came from the front
with it being a narrow two-laner, i can vaguely recall a moments panic as the van started moving back to his own lane
the one i was occupying at 45degs at the time
i dutifully moved to the side, only to have my severely leaning wheels move off the tarred surface and onto the thinnest of gravel shoulders
this meant i was now travelling at plenty kph, sideways
call me curious…
i looked to the side and really shouldn’t have
my wheels smacked into the bottom of the vertical cliff-face the pass was perilously clinging to and flipped me, face first, into aforementioned vertical cliff-face
the (relatively) recently restored front tooth was one of the first things to go
not really a mistake, but since forrest brought up teeth…
one mistake i did make as a kid, and this is the one great regret in my life, was as a youngster (4-5 years old), i had a tricycle
mine was white with yellow and red trim
my brother had a bigger one in blue
i loved my tricycle
i loved riding it as fast as i could
i really wanted a b*ke (even then i had ‘one less wheel’ ambitions) so i learnt to ride my brother’s tricycle on two wheels, trying to guilt-trip my dad into buying me one
back to riding the tricycle
really fast
and then stopping really fast by riding smack into the wall at the end of the porch
one fatefull day, we were going to ride with my mom as she walked a neighbour back to her house
as i rode down the driveway and onto the tar road, the frame had had enough and snapped right where the pipe holding the rear-wheels joined the frontwheel’s part of the frame
a two piece tricycle
the regret?
that i didn’t get up on the handlebars of the frontwheel bit and start teaching myself to ride the uni
My pops encouraged me to drive from a young age, letting me steer the last mile or two home while he worked the pedals and transmission. I developed a love for that truck, whiling away my afternoons pretending to drive, shifting the shifter, turning the wheel, etc. And then came the day I got the tranny stuck in 1st gear. Pop had a slow drive to work that day.
So I stopped using the stickshift. But I didn’t stop playing in the truck. Some weeks later I released the parking brake and rolled it into the garage door. Just a few feet ahead, no damage done, but I was scared sh*tless. I hid under my pop’s bed for hours while he drove around the neighborhood looking for me. His compassionate response to my subsequent appearance and explanation taught me the value of being honest and forthright about one’s mistakes. Thanks, Pop!
My parents are both teachers, and it was parent teacher night fro both of them, and my father believed that my sister was almost old enough to babysit. Instead of letting us stay home alone (thank god) they decided to set us up in a spare classroom with a TV for the night so that they were close if we needed them. So, I was happily watching the movie Hook with my sister, when she told me that everyone can fly just like peter pan. That if I thought really really happy thoughts I could fly too. So, Obviously I thought about ice cream (at 6 you dont get much happier than that) and stood on my chair and lept into the air. Only to land a few feet ahead with my face lodged in the windowsill, and a missing tooth, and a hole below my bottom lip where the tooth had exiited. Moral of this story, people cant fly.
Similarly to John Childs, I also drove my parents car. I was under 5 (I dont know how old…but not in school yet) and my mom parked the car infront of my aunts house, and went in to drop something off quickly. I got into the drivers seat and pretended to drive. Unfortunatly I moved the car from park to drive. And the car drove into a tree. I didnt really learn a lesson from this, but like John said, Im sure my mom did. Never leave a kid alone in a car.
On the car topic, when I was 16 and had my beginners licence (not allowed to drive without an adult) me and my friend decided to go for a drive in my parents car while my parents were out of province and left us alone in the house. It ended up with me very gently backing into another car in a parking lot… and I drove away. I feel horriable about driving away now. My moms car had only a scratch on it, but still a scratch. Which she definatly noticed, and I denied it but everytime they went away leaving a car home since then (even after I had my full icence) they would only let me drive my fathers car, and would write down the miles on my mothers car, cause I was banned from driving it. It was the nicer one. That same weekend with no parents I stupidly had a party. Everyone knows those end up badly. I had to find out the hard way. We all got drunk and partied… and our hardwood floor had many alcohol stainsd the next morning. Stupid stupid… So, my parents didnt trust me for quite a while. And they still bring it up now that I dont even live with them anymore…
You just reminded me of an incident that nearly qualified me for a Darwin award. I was watching Superman and thinking the same thing to myself. But I figured I needed something mechanical to assist me in flight, as I didn’t believe in “thought power”… so I looked to the rope swing my dad installed in the middle of the living room.
I wanted hands-free flight, so what could I hitch the rope on to? My neck! I made a noose, got on a chair, put it around my neck and jumped. You can guess what happened next. My mom came running out of the kitchen when she heard me gagging, and freed me from my “BIG mistake.” Good thing she was always just a few steps away… I trained her early on with my tendency to stick shiny objects in light sockets
I think you can guess the stupidest thing I’ve ever done (OOW hint hint)… Well, I’ve asked Gilby to delete all of my previous posts and to also change my name to just “UniTyler” so then my info will stay private! Another stupid thing I’ve done is buying a giraffe unicycle because I never use it. Ya think I should sell it on ebay?
Why don’t you donate it to a club where there are kids that have the skills but not the money to buy a giraffe. That way it will be appreciated and see some use!
One newyears eave when I was 8 or 9 years old, me and some friends went around the neighbourhood keeping the tradition of newyears pranks alive. We had the most fun with one of our neghbours who fell for all the tricks everyone else had known forever. He was an immigrant so he might not heard about newyears pranks before.
We soon found out that he thought our practical jokes where aimed at him personally and probably had racist motives.
Our neighbour never saw any of us kids, but he did see his trash can get knocked over by some random drunk guys a little later.
Luckily noone was seriously hurt in the fight.
We all knew we had schrewed up big time, but none of us had the guts tell anyone.
i was driving my grandfathers boat and i was going to park it at his dock but i came in a little too fast. and as i was about 15 feet from the dock a strong side wind/current picks up. and sends me hurtling into the end of the peir. i crashed the front corner of the pontoon boat into the dock. and i came to a sudden stop. . no dmage was done to the dock. but now the boat cover doesn’t quite fit.
I had very carefully rebuilt the engine of a VW squareback. The last operation involved installing the distributor and there is a thrust washer that is dropped into place that can fall into the block. Mine fell in. I had to take the block apart again. I was very annoyed. I think I hit things and said bad words.
and as i was about 15 feet from the dock a strong side wind/current picks up. and sends me hurtling into the end of the peir. i crashed the front corner of the pontoon boat into the dock. and i came to a sudden stop. 
. no dmage was done to the dock. but now the boat cover doesn’t quite fit.