Stupidest thing you did as a kid...

[Chris Keen]

Ya didn't really need a whole lot of knowledge (nor wisdom apparently) to know that gasoline, gunpowder, firecrackers, and toilet paper would burn with little to no effort on your part. Matches seemed to be easily available, as were BB Guns!

Good cheap fun! (until you got caught that is)

[GrumpyOne]

Did you know that 1 lb of FFF Black Powder...

Thanks. I needed that. I don't feel so stupid anymore. Now if you would just tell me, were you intentionally trying to kill yourself or just launch the piston into orbit?

Well, when you are 8 years old, killing yourself never crosses your mind....I thibk I was just trying to launch the piston into orbit. In actuality, I did not know the properties of black powder as they pertained to explosive power at that point in time, only that they would propel an object down a tube....Gave me a healthy dose of ballistic and propulsion theory to think about for the next few years.....

[GrumpyOne]

I forgot about this....never EVER take a shotgun shell apart, burn the powder, feed the buckshot to frogs (different story!), and cut the plastic from the shell, lay the brass part down on a work bench primer up, the center a 16 gauge round head nail on the primer and strike the nail with a hammer. This will cause the primer and brass cap to slide up the nail, pinching your fingers, quite painfully between the nail head and the brass cap, sometimes, and most likely causing blood blisters on your index finger and thumb.

I must add....Either I was an idiot or single minded to find out how things worked.

[JimmyZip]

My father was EOD in the Army back in the late 60s. The things I gleaned from him made for interesting Summers. When we moved out of our house after I got back from the military, the bomb squad was called to get rid of all the homemade ordnance that I had stashed along with some things sent to me from friends.( and forgot about) Det cord, caps, etc etc.

I remember the night we had all the cops in town scurrying all over, us listening to the scanner, as we drove around the nice part of town throwing grenade simulators out of the moon roof as we drove around. Or when I gave a close knit group of friends the foo gas demonstration in a small canyon one night. Oooh! Wow! Run!!!

But my favorite was napalm. We would make it and just throw it burning on all sorts of things. I taught this to my little brother, and boy did he ever burn things down. Peoples back yard, fences, man was he a fire bug.

We would make cannons for tennis balls from the old metal cans they came in. We used a rifle stock for the stock, and a flint igniter to set off the propellent. I shot the mean old odg at the end of the street that used to try and bite us. He gave all of us a wide berth for quite a while after that. Squirt bottle flame throwers, yep. Fire with anything from magnifying glasses to towing a burning tonka truck behind your bike on a hot summer night as it lights tumble weeds beside the road.

I sure miss those days. Glad we survived them.

JZ

[Larry White]

I grew up, biggest mistake possible. But I'm trying my damnest to get back.------------Larry

[Pezco]

Having a great time with friends shooting bottle rockets from a pvc tube (improved accuracy) while driving around town and I launched a rocket into a car where the guy got pissed (imagine that) and chased us with gun for about an hour till we lost him.

[NovaShooter]

My friend and I doing time trial in his dads Porsche and me wrecking his mom's Mercedes 3 months later!!!

Oh yeh this was when I was 17 years old (1989). We took his dads turbo Porsche out to a subdivision that was being developed. The roadway was paved and it consisted of a 1 mile loop. After about 4 or 5 runs my friend decides to really get on it. We had the best time going at that point until he lost control and we went off of the road. Can you say total devastation??? The car totaled and fortunately we lived. After looking at the car we both realized how lucky we were to be alive.

The walk to the 7-11 to call his dad was not a good one. I think we tried the old, "we were driving along and a deer walked into the roadway". That story didn't work.

Fast forward about 3 months later. The same friend and his family are leaving on Saturday morning for Disney World in his mom's Mercedes. I talk him into going to a high school party Friday night with a bunch of other friends. He is driving his moms Mercedes and I was driving my mom's Oldsmobile following him. We come up to a road where we are going to make a right turn. He stops, I stop, he goes, I am looking left and then i stomp on the gas, failing to look ahead of me. You guessed it....WHAM!!!! I damn near put the trunk into the rear seat. It was still drivable so we headed back to his house. His mother walked outside and fell to her knees. They had to rent a car for the Disney trip. We are still best friends to this day.

Good times.

[Graham Smith]

Either I was an idiot or single minded to find out how things worked.

Kind of makes you wonder how many times Wilbur and Orville nearly killed themselves as kids - look how crazy they were as adults!

[JeffWard]

I have more than a few with black powder... My dad was big into black powder shooting. But the worst 5 seconds of my life:

Jumping from an 80ft railroad trestle, into about 20ft of water...

Do you know what water feels like from 80ft up (even WITH shoes on)?

Do you know how quickly you can go down to 20ft deep from 80ft up (to a rocky bottom)?

Do you know what your ears feel like going from the surface, to 20ft deep in about 2/10 of a second?

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Jeff

[GrumpyOne]

I have more than a few with black powder... My dad was big into black powder shooting. But the worst 5 seconds of my life:

Jumping from an 80ft railroad trestle, into about 20ft of water...

Do you know what water feels like from 80ft up (even WITH shoes on)? YES, I do (Oklawaha bridge on highway 40 going from Ocala, Fl to Daytona, jumped off into the river...1 time!)

Do you know how quickly you can go down to 20ft deep from 80ft up (to a rocky bottom)? YES

Do you know what your ears feel like going from the surface, to 20ft deep in about 2/10 of a second? YES

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Jeff

[JimmyZip]

I have more than a few with black powder... My dad was big into black powder shooting. But the worst 5 seconds of my life:

Jumping from an 80ft railroad trestle, into about 20ft of water...

Do you know what water feels like from 80ft up (even WITH shoes on)?

Do you know how quickly you can go down to 20ft deep from 80ft up (to a rocky bottom)?

Do you know what your ears feel like going from the surface, to 20ft deep in about 2/10 of a second?

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Jeff

Now that is crazy! And yes that does really hurt. I made the mistake doing something similar and bending my legs. The back of my legs were red/ and bruised in a strage fashion. Seems the impact broke lots of the tiny blood vesesls on the surface of the skin. It did however keep me for going too deep. Keep those legs straight, and wear shoes.

JZ

[fiddler]

I have more than a few with black powder... My dad was big into black powder shooting. But the worst 5 seconds of my life:

Jumping from an 80ft railroad trestle, into about 20ft of water...

Do you know what water feels like from 80ft up (even WITH shoes on)?

Do you know how quickly you can go down to 20ft deep from 80ft up (to a rocky bottom)?

Do you know what your ears feel like going from the surface, to 20ft deep in about 2/10 of a second?

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Jeff

Ladies and Gents, I believe we have a winner.....

[scap99]

I know how hot N350 gets when it burns out in the open.

I know that they call it propellant because of the amount of gas it produces.

I know that the fire ball will ignite the rest of the grains of powder falling from the container in my hand and completely envelope me in fire (half of me) faster than I can run.

I now know that a tank top, beer, flip flops and propellant don't mix.

My wife and brother in law know what I smell like "medium rare". Lightly seared on the outside, that is.

Embarrassingly, I will admit I was 24 when this happened.

My wife says I was trying to recreate the scene where Moses talks to the burning bush.

As a kid, I decided to cut in half, with a pair of Mom's best scissors, a roll of the paper caps for my cap gun. Don't know how I am not blind, and no it will not double the amount of caps you have to work with. Go figure.

Same pair of scissors....did you know the ink cartridge on the old "erasable" ink pens is pressurized!

Speaking of blind...Energizer batteries will spew acid paste in your face if you pull them apart an inch from your nose.

Hmm, batteries...they don't taste good either, a mouthful of AA batteries is not pleasant.

In the doesn't taste good catagory, just because Dad's Old Spice bottle has a ship on it doesn't mean that the clear fluid inside is water.

If I can hold it; chances are I will stumble, fall, and I will land on it with either one or both of my eyes. I had a perpetual black eye as a kid.

Baseballs will chip teeth.

Bicycles aren't meant to go airborne with me on them.

My hand is not stronger than a solid wood door, lucky for the kid I was swinging at.

My head is softer than the corner of a metal Pac-Man Lunch Box, but I still won that fight....

In high school, I almost got to see a suburban roll off the alignment rack from 6 feet up. Luckily Hunter was looking out for me and had some safety stops built in...whew.

Do you know how much caulk is in a standard tube? I can show you, in my parents garage, where I went crazy with one on the wall. I still have physical and mental scars from that beating....

Laser cut Stainless Steel is so sharp you don't know you're cut until you feel the blood all over your hand.

Don't wear baseball caps around low I-beams, that decorative button will make a dent in the top of your head when you walk into the beam. Hurt so bad, my knees went weak.

Gloves won't prevent you from smashing the #$%#$ out of your finger. My finger nail didn't last an hour after that one.

A frayed cotton shirt will catch fire while you are welding.

Cable TV outlets on the wall don't feel good when they touch the back of your triceps. I don't know how much voltage that is present, but it smarts!

High velocity fluid moving from a container into a vessel will develop a huge static charge on the metal container sitting on a rubber mat and hooked up to the vessel with rubber hoses. I measured something like 150v DC on that one, it hurt too.

Carburetor's will belch fire sometimes.

I'll find a snake and/or snake skin only after I have my head inside the frame and scalp myself trying to get out.

Most of this has been realized by my mid 20's. Since then, I am much safer and bleed less.

Hopefully, you have been able to laugh at my mishaps the way I laughed at some of yours. I had tears running down my face last night, my wife couldn't figure out why I was laughing so hard, but then I read the story about Curt smelling like a turd and the bees attacking.

[JeffWard]

I have more than a few with black powder... My dad was big into black powder shooting. But the worst 5 seconds of my life:

Jumping from an 80ft railroad trestle, into about 20ft of water...

Do you know what water feels like from 80ft up (even WITH shoes on)?

Do you know how quickly you can go down to 20ft deep from 80ft up (to a rocky bottom)?

Do you know what your ears feel like going from the surface, to 20ft deep in about 2/10 of a second?

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Jeff

Ladies and Gents, I believe we have a winner.....

LOL...

Bottoms of forearms, black and blue

Bottoms of feet, black and blue

Minor spinal compression issues for a month

Don't think I ruptured an eardrum... but I had some hearing issues for a little while

And the wedgie???? Epic.

I don't think the girls were that impressed either.

PS... if you wanna try it... don't hold your breath until you're half way down. It takes a LONG time to actually hit the water, and when you do, there won't be any air in your lungs anyway. I didn't think I'd find the surface before my head popped...

Jeff

Edited April 26, 2010 by JeffWard

[Aglifter]

There's a reason for the old adage to "check an unknown portion of a trail on foot." Cattle, apparently, stepped over a lip, turned right immediately, and walked along a small ledge, the Willys, OTH, went over the edge, and did the "teeter, teeter" bit over a 100+' cliff...

That old Willys is an amazing vehicle - the same jeep will also go on two wheels if it hits a large enough rock at 60, can be "bounced" over a small ledge by backing up, and hitting it harder, and can go down a draw too tight to fit, by running it at a tilt, w. the passenger putting out his right leg to push back in the event it goes over too far...

Omitting the normal black powder/fire experiences...

[Viggen]

Stupidest thing ever - growing up.

[Jake Di Vita]

I laughed pretty hard reading this thread.

[lneel]

While at my Aunt and Uncles in east Texas I took my Honda Trail 70 out on the back country roads. Man, I was free and flying.

I bet I was doing 45-50 when I realized the road I was on ended, right onto a Highway. I also at the same time learned that from 45-50 mph the brakes on a Honda Trail 70 will stop you about right in the middle of the highway.

As I stood up looking left I felt very fortunate not to be hit.

I then just started to break my head to look right and vroooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........a truck missed me by about 0.0000000000000000000000000001245" and went off the road into a ditch.

He must have been a helluva driver as he saved it and kept right on going.

I think he knew he scared the sh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!t out of me so bad that I would never ride that damn thing on the road again.

I never told anyone about that until last weekend. I saved that one for 29 years.....I was a lucky stupid little 12 year old .

Lee

[ken hebert]

reloading a Ruger Blackhawk .357 and let the hammer slip out from under my thumb and the round passed through a crease in my dads (about 40 yds away) shirt sleeve...

playing with my first lighter and set about 25 bales of hay on fire in the barn...

trying like hell to unscrew a broadhead from one of my arrows so i could do something dumber with it, and damn near loping off 3 fingers as i slipped...

backed a Honda 250 Big Red out of a driveway, with my best bud riding behind me, flipped off the culvert and landed upside down in about 2 feet of water with it on top of us. have no idea how i got out from under it, pulled him out, and us turning it back over and riding it home.

Theres more, but i'm tired now..

[kcult]

Stupidest thing as a kid:

I was about 12 and my Mom was about to sit down on a bentwood rocker to feed my infant sister. Just as she was past the point of no return, I pulled the rocking chair out from under her. She obviously couldn't drop the baby, so she landed flat on her rear. One bounce and she put my sis down and commenced to chasing me out of the house.

Studpidest thing as a young adult:

My girlfriend and I were arguing and this fellow decides to come to my girl's defense. He kept telling me how he would mess me up, but he had just come out of basic training and was in total control of his temper. He learned discipline in just a few short weeks. I told him I could make him hit me. He guaranteed me he was in control. Well, I kissed him Bugs Bunny style and he totally lost it. He would have probably killed me if I hadn't had my guard up.

Stupidest thing as a grown up:

I had a 24 y/o Mexican girl in my house while my wife was in Florida during Thanksgiving. It almost cost me a total of one marriage.

[Jman]

You should have stopped right after "kid".

[JimmyZip]

Stupidest thing as a kid:

I was about 12 and my Mom was about to sit down on a bentwood rocker to feed my infant sister. Just as she was past the point of no return, I pulled the rocking chair out from under her. She obviously couldn't drop the baby, so she landed flat on her rear. One bounce and she put my sis down and commenced to chasing me out of the house.

Studpidest thing as a young adult:

My girlfriend and I were arguing and this fellow decides to come to my girl's defense. He kept telling me how he would mess me up, but he had just come out of basic training and was in total control of his temper. He learned discipline in just a few short weeks. I told him I could make him hit me. He guaranteed me he was in control. Well, I kissed him Bugs Bunny style and he totally lost it. He would have probably killed me if I hadn't had my guard up.

Stupidest thing as a grown up:

I had a 24 y/o Mexican girl in my house while my wife was in Florida during Thanksgiving. It almost cost me a total of one marriage.

A definite history of self destructive behavior!

[GrumpyOne]

Stupidest thing as a kid:

I was about 12 and my Mom was about to sit down on a bentwood rocker to feed my infant sister. Just as she was past the point of no return, I pulled the rocking chair out from under her. She obviously couldn't drop the baby, so she landed flat on her rear. One bounce and she put my sis down and commenced to chasing me out of the house.

Studpidest thing as a young adult:

My girlfriend and I were arguing and this fellow decides to come to my girl's defense. He kept telling me how he would mess me up, but he had just come out of basic training and was in total control of his temper. He learned discipline in just a few short weeks. I told him I could make him hit me. He guaranteed me he was in control. Well, I kissed him Bugs Bunny style and he totally lost it. He would have probably killed me if I hadn't had my guard up.

Stupidest thing as a grown up:

I had a 24 y/o Mexican girl in my house while my wife was in Florida during Thanksgiving. It almost cost me a total of one marriage.

All pretty stupid things, for sure....But, I would love to hear more about this Mexican girl!

[Merlin Orr]

I grew up, biggest mistake possible. But I'm trying my damnest to get back.------------Larry

I am still resisting but it is getting harder with the bald spot and gray hair.

I am not to keen about going back to diapers though.

[SiG Lady]

I'm just stunned that we're all here, alive and kicking, to tell about this stuff. God.