What really bad thing did you do as a young kid?

At that age, SOMEONE had to be worse than me.

Your a ''badddd boy'' Buzz.

Yup, I did something really bad, more then once. This incident resulted in a ''car that wasn't ours'', a telephone pole, garage, house and a tribal cop. I actually wrote a story on it one time. I'll see if I can find it.

I did something horrible when I was young. Not as young as you. But it still haunts me to this day. I think about it constantly. It eats me alive. And I'm too ashamed to actually confess what it was. THAT'S how awful my actions were.

Here is my adventure Buzz.

thenewstalkers

the first Christmas present I ever remember getting was a Lone Ranger out fit ( who would have ever thought that) complete with hat guns boots and spurs. I could never get the spurs to stay on the boots so when they came off thats where they stayed. My father getting tired of picking them up decided to teach me a lesson and he threw them in the trash.

I found them (wish to this day I hadn't) and retieved them, of course they came off my boots and there they were in the middle of the hall way. As it happened My dad was in bed and in the middle of the night nature called and he came running down the hall way on his way to the bathroom when his bare feet found those tiny spurs. Mom said all of Queens could hear him yell and had it not been for her laughing life could have very well ended for me that night,....Hi Ho Silver....

My father was in the army, stationed in Arkansas, and we were living in KY. We moved down to Ft. Smith to join him, and one fine day, he took me with him "to see the base". He took me to meet his new girl friend.

I was six, and truly didn't understand what that meant. I thought that Daddy had a new friend that just happened to be a girl. Then, when I went home, I told Mama that I had met Daddy's girl friend.

Ugh, the Hell that ensued was a sight to behold. My mother never forgave me. Ever. My father finally did, but it took about 10 years. He matured enough to see that I really didn't understand all the implications, and that he, himself, had been stupid. The very next year, I got rheumatic fever, and my mother told me that the cardiologist wanted to adopt me, and that she was really thinking about it. I lived in fear and dread for months, terrified that they would take me to the doctor, only to leave me there. Later, my mother told me that the only reason she didn't, was because my grandparents had such a fit.

Funny, the things you remember. I wasn't a perfect child, by ANY means. But, I tiptoed through life, so as not to disturb the delicate balance of it all, and stuck to my grandparents like glue. In my mind, the two events are related... Perhaps in reality, they weren't. Kids have a tendency to blame themselves when things go wrong, I think.

Well, if you discount minor things like torturing little brothers then I was the perfect child.

Stripping a brother naked and tossing him out the front door into snow or laying him flat on his stomach at the top of the stairs, sitting on his back and riding him down to the bottom, like taking a sled down a hill, is the kind of stuff that happens in all families, right?

"I" might have been a wonderful child but there was that time my two younger brothers, around ages 6 & 8, broke into a vacant house on our block and started playing with matches. Police, fire department & the court system all got involved with that little misadventure.

Both those little rascals grew up to be rocket scientist while I became a recluse. Go figure. lol

I can't understand why your MOTHER would be angry at you for telling her daddy's little secret. She should have rewarded you, and your FATHER should have killed you.

I don't know why, but your story made ME laugh.

Come on YaddaYadda, you're incognito anyway.

Kavika, you're a master of understatement:

"I sat there knowing that we were in deep trouble,"

Why do I empathize? Did you ever read my story about parking my father's 1951 Hudson Hornet in the garage? But it wasn't "BAD", it was "STUPID".

Oh yeah, ArkansasHermit, I know almost what that's like. Playing with matches with my friend in a big dry field circled by houses and garages brought the fire department after we failed at stomping it out - but at least we escaped in time, although the fire did a good job on the backs of the garages. I learned very young what "panic" meant.

I haven't read the Hudson Hornet story...Post it again Buzz.

This of course broke the sewer line and the shitflew.

I bet it flew in more ways than one. I laughed so hard, I had to go to the john on that one. At 10, the only thing I could drive was a mule and it got the best of me a couple of times. At 13, I tore the tranny out of a truck that belonged to the man we were helping with tobacco.

Dowser, I can understand how you felt. That had to have been VERY hard on you. I went through many years of harsh treatment, and it certainly is no fun.

ArkansasHermit, I think I am becoming that waymyself. More and more I love the idea of being alone. I can do what I please and don't have to answer to anyone but myself.

Daddy knew he had been stupid... Not long after that, he went off on me, over being 15 minutes late. He didn't realize I hadn't learned to tell time, yet... Why Mama blamed me, well, she was pretty immature, too. What is, is...

I spoke with some of my mother's friends at her funeral, and they were all like, so what? It was sort of amazing how this HUGE event in my life was so much nothing to them.

I know you do. You and my grandparents are the only ones that seem to really understand!

It certainly has its advantages!

I started my own little business when I was 12 or 13. I went around the neighborhood in the spring starting the neighbor's swamp coolers for the summer. In the fall, I would put the swamp cooler to bed for the winter. I only charged 5 bucks in the spring and another 5 bucks in the fall. The customer bought necessary parts. But the lady who lived next door always told me she would pay me later. Now the bill for her had got up to 25 or 30 bucks (I don't remember, exactly). The professional swamp cooler guys charged $25 a pop to start up a swamp cooler, so I was pretty cheap.

So the neighbor lady comes over in the spring. She says, grump, please get my swamp cooler started up.

No, I says, you haven't paid me. You owe me 25 bucks.

Oh, please, she pleads.

No. Not until you pay me for the work I have already done. (At 5 bucks a pop, we're talking maybe 2 1/2 to 3 years that she hasn't paid the kid.)

She goes to my mom and complains. My mom, being a kind and generous woman, tells me to get up there and get her swamp cooler running. Mom is just sure the neighbor lady will pay me later. The neighbor lady owned a fancy women's clothing store here in town, drove a new Caddy and I knew she had the money. If she had been poor I would have done it for free and we did have a couple neighbors who got their swamp cooler started up for free, anyway.

I know better, I ain't a dummy. So I go up on her roof and start up her swamp cooler. But, mom had been to the grocery and had bought a pound of liver for supper. Oh, boy!!! Mom's liver and onions for supper.

I put that pound of liver in the water basin of the swamp cooler.

A couple days later stingy neighbor lady comes over and says she can smell something awful when she turns on the cooler and would I go up and look at it.

Well, no. You haven't paid me yet. You said you were going to pay me and you haven't.

Again she makes promises to pay me, but I don't see any money. A couple more days later she comes over again. As you can imagine, by now the liver is rotting and putrid and most awful. It's sitting up there on the roof in a pan of water getting nastier and nastier by the day. Can you please come over and check the cooler?

No. You haven't paid me yet. And besides, I will need another 5 bucks to go up there again.

I'm just a kid, mind you. I was feeling kinda guilty by now, but golly, Wally.

Finally, after about a week of really hot weather, she comes over with what she owes me plus the $5 for my current trip up to the roof. Oh, wow. I got my money. But, oh @!$%#, I have to go clean out the putrid liver on top of a hot roof.

So I go on the roof, fish the liver out with a stick, gag, drain the pan, gag, wash it out, gag gag gag, put bleach through it, gag, wash the bleach out, and gag a few more times.

There, that should do it, I tell her.

What was that horrible smell, she asks?

It was a dead bird. A bird crawled in there and died, I tell her. (Of course a bird can't get in there and die, but she didn't know that.)

Mom looked everywhere for that liver for supper and just couldn't find it. She was puzzled.

A couple weeks later, I just couldn't stand it any longer and my guilt overcame me. I told mom and dad what I had done at the supper table. I had some great parents. Mom was shocked but laughed her ass off and my dad was proud of me. He laughed at me because I made a horrid mess that I had to clean up - served me right, he says.

After that, I always made that neighbor pay me before I went on the roof.

Heheehhehehe, I remember that story Grump, and I love it.

Yeah, it's a story I did long ago. I can still smell that putrid rotting liver - it's seared into my brain.

Now me!! I was a perfect child and never did anything bad. (fingers crossed) snort...

And I believe you.

Great story, Grumpy. I know what a dead maggoty fish smells like so I can guess what that woman had to bear.

What a hoot, Grump! FUNNY!!!

Well, there was this thing that my younger and I used to do to my younger sister when she got on our nerves or just for laughs. When my father and stepmother would go to the store and leave us at home, my brother and I would take a rope and tie it around her bedroom door knob and tie the other end to the door knob across from her room. She would be "locked" in her room.My sister would be in tears and pounding on the door. My brother and I would be ROFL !! Sometimes my father and stepmother would be gone for about 2 hours!! My brother would get in trouble for it, but I didn't. Does that mean I didn't do anything bad?? lol...

I remember that story Grump.

Going back some years, my dad bought a 1951 Hudson Hornet. It was known as a "step down" design vehicle because it was so low to the ground. As I was just learning to drive he asked me to put it in the garage. I had been learning to drive at a driving school, and their cars were gearshift so I was learning that to stop, hit the brake and then the clutch. The Hudson was an automatic and this was the first time I drove one. I got in the car and thought I had closed the door properly but it didnt catch, which I didnt notice. Now the garage was just a little out of line with the driveway so I was really carful to maneuver the car but didnt get it quite straight in the garage, so I did what I was taught in order to back up looked over my right shoulder through the back window and backed up. Then I heard a bang and the car shook, so I slammed my foot on the brake and then on the clutch. But there WAS no clutch so instead I hit the accelerator then the brake too late for the brake. The car flew backwards and because the open drivers door swung further open while backing it got caught by the side of the garage door. The car door spun around and folded against the front fender, jamming the car in the garage door. After the sound of the crash, what I heard joining into the sound of the last tinkle of some broken piece of metal hitting the ground was my father's scream. That wreck was then traded in on a 1952 Hudson Hornet.

Then YOU were considered the "perfect child" who could do no wrong. LOL

lol...Of course, that's because I am an Italian Princess!!!

(they can do no wrong)...

Grump ,

I admire your persistence in that billables incident . If only you had known how to dun her with outrageous interest charges ...

Suffering makes one a better person. I'm not sure it worked, however.

Only six months???... pfft

YUMMY!! lol...

Yadda yadda... come on confess. It's good for the soul.

Hey Marsha... not your fault. Really bad parenting. You were just the kid.

You're gonna have to come up with a real story where you were really bad. LOL!

Dang. I was such a mischief, that I am having a problem picking a story to go with. So I will go with the least gross one.

Back in the days when it was OK to be a latch key kid, I had to let myself into my house, since my parents both worked. My mom had put a key on a string that I wore around my neck. I used to go home for lunch in the afternoons, eat and watch a bit of TV before going back to school. One day, I lost track of the time, so I was running late to get back to class from lunch, so I cut through my neighbors yard, which meant going through a batch of thick bushes. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had pulled the key off my neck in the bushes.

At the end of the school day, I happily returned home and realized that I had lost the key. Now this wasn't the first time I had lost my key, and I knew my parents were going to be really angry with me. Also, having no key meant that I wouldn't get into the house for another 4 hours and it was late autumn and it was quite chilly outside. I went into the garage to get a bit warm when I suddenly remembered that there in the garage was pull down stairs to the attic that lead to a trapdoor that lead to my bedroom closet. So I pulled down the stairs and climbed up. It was quite dark but I could see a few planks that were the only walk way that lead to my bedroom closet. I got up on the planks, but not having a good sense of balance, I fell off the planks and right through the rafters straight through the ceiling and onto the living room floor. My rear end was killing me from the floor and I needed a bit of recovery from the shock of it all and then I looked up and saw a huge hole in the ceiling where I fell through. I realized I was dead meat now. So I decided to try and hide the damage. I ran back into the garage and gathered, duck tape, glue, nails, hammer, spackle and spray paint. Working as quickly as I could, I duct taped from the back all the pieces of sheetrock together, using glue in between the brakes. I let it dry a bit. Then I ran back to the garage and got a ladder. At this point, my sister had come home and so I asked her to help me. She looked at what I did, and said that she would, but if I got caught, she had nothing to do with this. You see, she had been down this path before with me, and she was hedging her bets. We got the glued and duck taped piece of sheetrock in position and I carefully nailed it to the only beam I could find. I then duck taped the seams of the broken piece to the ceiling. I went into the kitchen and got a kitchen utensil that is used to scrape up dough and used it as a putty knife, and spackled over the duct tape, as I had seen my dad do. As soon as it was dry, I hit it with high gloss white spray paint. I got off the ladder and looked at my handy work. Not bad, I thought. I doubt they will notice. I cleaned up all the evidence and went on to do my homework.

Now for some reason, my dad came home from work early that day. He had the graveyard shift at Grumman and usually wasn't home till midnight, but that night he even beat mom home from her shop. He no sooner slammed the front door closed, which lead right into our living room that the door closing shook loose part of the ceiling and it fell to the ground. I was in the dining room, which was right next to the living room when this all happened and my dad's eyes shot straight from the mess on the floor, to the very obvious fix on the ceiling and straight to me.

"NO! DO NOT SAY A WORD!" he bellowed with his baritone voice. "LET ME GUESS". I began to shrink into my seat. Well, don't ask me how, but he figured the thing out from start to finish. I guess he knew his customer pretty well.

But my dad was a benevolent dictator, and instead of a royal spanking, like a lot of my friends would have gotten, I had to work in my parents store for 8 weekends in row for nada, to pay for the repair to the ceiling.

And from that point on, when ever I did something cockamanie, my dad would call me "Ceiling Perrie".... even till today.

What a great story, Perrie. You were really resourceful, but unfortunately all for naught.

Buahahaha. That's a great story, Perrie. Gravity can get any of us at any time.

God in Heaven, I was terrified to be really bad-- If they were ready to give me away when I did something stupid, if I did anything really bad, what would they have done?

HA!

Gravity has gotten me, I can clue you!

Perrie, that's hysterical!!!

I never realized that this article, provoking some of the confessions that are listed, could actually be psychologically healing. I wonder if once any of you have provided these, which may have been previously kept secret, have felt a kind of release, a feeling of relief. If so, then this has been somewhat unexpected but exceptionally welcomed.

Tis true!

LOL! Tzia!

Funny the type of mischief that boys get into and how different it is for girls.

Good storyArkansasHermit!

Ingenious Grump! I give you credit for teaching that woman a lesson.. without being rude or nasty.. well a little nasty... but then you had to clean up your nasty, LOL!

but golly, Wally

Wally says he has nothing to do with this... but he does like liver.

Leotie, like Dowser notes, my kind of life has its advantages but it's not for everyone.

Not to pull Buzz's article too far off topic but here's a thumbnail of how I got here.

Wife died in 96, our youngest moved out on her own in 2002. By 2003 I had moved out of the big city and took a job in Northwest Arkansas, bought a shack way out in the boonies and started living alone in the woods. When I retired in 2007 I went full hermit, going for months at a time without speaking a word out loud or seeing another living human.

I consider it heaven but my kids can't visit for more than a few days without going stir crazy.

Other than my two kids no one else has been here since 2003 and, over the years, they've only made the trip about 4 times now.

Love it!

Thanks, Perrie. Nice kitty.

I love liver and onions the way my mom made it. I still can't get it right and no one can make liver and onions quite like she did.

It was good that you chose to sacrifice the current pleasure of a favored meal for the payback to a wealthy non-paying "client" . That took real principle ...

Cleaning up the nasty mess and gagging took more principle, I think.

Speaking of principles how are you on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle ?
thenewstalkers

Some people gag in reaction to that as well ...

Oh, Buzz, that was priceless!

I find your ingenuity in trying to fix the ceiling to be amazing, Perrie, for a young person. ..LOL

I was a pretty dull child, but when I was 16 I found out my mother's boyfriend had slapped my sister for talking on the phone too much.

Knowing the local bar he frequented, I put our German Shepherd, Wolf, in my Dad's Chevy that night and waited in the parking lot for him to exit. Just as he was opening the door to his vehicle I set Wolf on him. He was screaming and quite bloody by the time he managed to get inside the car and shut the door, and I whistled for Wolf to come back.

My Dad had never laid a hand on me and I never heard him raise his voice in all my life... but he could rival the thunder of the Heavens by the volume of his displeasure I could read in his eyes. By the time he finished explaining to me that Wolf's attack on someone when it wasn't in defense of my sister or me could result in the dog's death, I was sobbing my heart out. (I didn't tell him why I had initiated the attack because I knew if he was aware of Oscar hitting my sister, he would quite literally kill him; he thought I had done this terrible thing just because I didn't like the man.)

The good news is my mother found a better boyfriend.

I don't think you went way off topic, AH. There are different ways of interpreting what "home" is. You ran away from what most others, including yourself, would consider "home" - until the death of your wife and your kids' leaving where you were WAS your home. Just because a person runs away from what had been their home doesn't mean that they can't then settle somewhere that BECOMES their home.

In a way I did exactly what you did save for the fact that I didn't run for the boonies, I ran to the other side of the world, and this is now my "home".

Is that an areal photo showing your home near the bottom right corner?

I hope Oscar never brought any legal proceedings against you, or was he unaware that you were involved?

Is that an areal photo showing your home near the bottom right corner?

Yes it is Buzz. Stole it from Google maps with a screen grab. Not that my place is on Google maps, (by address anyway), but by knowing where to start looking I was able to drag the map around until I spotted my place.

I guess you're right, I should have put my little "running away from Dallas" story on your other article.

It sure as hell looks remote to me.

It sure as hell looks remote to me.

Lol, well it kind of is.

My backyard is about 260 acres of mostly woods but about a third of that acreage has been cleared for pasture. Lat time I looked there were 6 little homesteads scattered along the dirt road that circles all that land and all of them are on the other side of the circle from me.

The day I moved in this is what the place looked like as I turned off the dirt road and down my driveway.

There was a time I wanted to do the same thing. Do you grow your own vegetables? Before I got married the first time I used to hang out with some hippies and draft dodgers in central Ontario in a very remote area. There was a farm there that wasn't close at all to anyone else. 300 acres, including a 35 acre spring-fed wholly contained lake, 65 acres cleared and the rest woods. The little bungalow was in very good condition, indoor plumbing using a drilled well and septic system. At the gravel road where I took this picture from, beside me was a vacant brick one-room schoolhouse (included) that could easily have been made into a small home. At the time, which was more than 40 years ago I could have bought it for....damn! - I'm not sure now if it was $15,000 or $30,000 but even at the higher number it was a bargain.