Kids do the darndest things!

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

The Post by Trigger Mike got me thinking about some of the stupid things I did as a child growing up.

Don't get me wrong, they seem stupid now that we're adults; however, they actually could be considered learning by experience lessons.

Mike's Thread revolved around electricity, but this one is open to any event that you can recall where you learned a valuable lesson.

I'm sure there are many and not just one, so to start:

 

When I was 13 years old, I wanted to fix breakfast for myself. 

Pancakes were the order of the day.

I need syrup and as we did not yet own a microwave, everything got heated on the stove or oven.

I took the glass syrup container out of the refrigerator and placed it on the back eye of the electric stove and turn it on.

Continuing with the other breakfast preparations, I soon heard a distinctive "pop".

I tried to figure out what made the noise, and nothing on the stove initially appeared to be wrong so I finished my plate of food.

Reaching for the container of syrup, I grabbed the handle and lo and behold, only the top part of the container came up releasing itself from the cylindrical circle of cracked glass that previously went unnoticed, and a load of syrup started oozing down the eye of the stove like lava from an erupting volcano and into the drip pan, eventually making its way into the oven.

Needless to say I got in real trouble when my mom had to clean the dry, sticky mess from the oven.

 

Lesson: Cold glass will crack when placed on a hot stove.

[Ramblin Gambler]

I once burnt a pot of water. Set it on the stove to make some Ramen noodle, then forgot about it. I remember it was a yellow pot. I still have that old gray pot today. Mom gave it to me when I moved out. 

[Utah Bob #35998]

I have a friend who was on a first name basis with the emergency room staff at the local hospital when he was a kid. 
And once, he talked his brother into shooting a power pole transformer with a speargun. Blacked out the whole neighborhood. 
His brother’s a lawyer now. And a a Democrat. 

[Trigger Mike]

I bought my other son a canon kit and since I didn't get him a fuse for it his brother of electric mishap fame suggested he dump gun powder on the fuse hole or maybe a fuse from a bottle rocket.  My 10 year old was game for it until the electrical mishap.  Whew.

[Pulp, SASS#28319]

Once upon a time in Ann Arbor, MI my brother Sawyer and I had a small glass candy jar full of homemade BP.  We were in the basement, he would fill the female end of a gun cleaning rod with the BP and light it.  Mind you, this wasn't Swiss grade BP.  It burned rather slowly, but made a nice miniature Roman Candle kind of effect.  You've probably already guessed this, but somehow a spark drifted over to the candy jar and ignited it.  No miniature Roman Candle effect there, more like a Saturn 5 rocket.  How stuff stored in rafter racks avoided catching fire is beyond me.  Mom was a work, Dad was upstairs, asleep in the bedroom.  We quietly shut his door, then opened all the windows in the house to air things out.  Remember Ann Arbor, MI?  Did I mention it was in the winter?  House got quite cold, but the smoke did gradually clear.  

 

To my knowledge neither Mom or Dad ever heard the story.  We sure didn't tell them.

[Sixgun Sheridan]

One night when I was about 4 or 5 yo I got the sudden urge to cut my own hair. I found my mom's scissors, and went over to my dad who was sitting in a chair deeply engrossed in the daily newspaper, informing him that I was going to go cut my hair. He mumbled "Hrmphh.... okay..." without even looking up. Not long afterwards my mom finally showed up, and discovered me standing there sporting what amounted to a reverse Mohawk. When she yelled at me I immediately said "Dad said it was okay!" to which she marched into the kitchen and royally chewed him out. I still feel a bit guilty that he ended up getting in worse trouble than I did.

[Chas B. Wolfson, SASS #11104]

Here goes one of mine.  I have always been a car guy.  In fact the first word I said was not mommy or daddy but CAR.  Well, mom, dad and I would usually go over to my paternal grandparents for Sunday dinner.  Maude as I grew up knowing her by, real name was Florence, made a wonderful baked chicken in a porcelin roaster in the coal fired kitchen stove.  Anyways, one fateful Sunday, fateful for me, I made my way into the garage.  Now the garage had sliding barn style doors that were not open, yet.  My grandfather's car was a 1956 Plymouth Belveder four door, two tone gray.  For those that remember this far back, automobiles of this vintage had the dash mounted ignition switch that had not only the off position but also a locked position.  Unfortunately for me, it was in the off postion which meant you could turn to on and start without the key.  Also, a poor design by Chrysler at the time in regards to me was that the transmission had in the upper left corner of the dashboard a cluster of pushbuttons that were the shifting mechanism.  Well, I opened that big gray door and just had to climb up onto the bench seat, never closing the driver's door.  As I sat in wonderment gazing upon all the gauges, buttons and switches, you guessed it.  The one that reaaly caught my eye was that one not placed in the locked position.   Curiosity finally got the better of me and yes, my little fingers grabbed hold of that shiney, chrome knob and turned.   The biggest V8 available in 1956 came to life.  Being very proud of myself and enamoured with the sound of the engine, I started to explore the other enticing buttons and switches shining ever so welcoming in front of me.  It was a short, few minutes before my other little hand began exploring that group of buttons at the top left of the dash.  The letter R stands for run so I pushed that sucker in.  Those sliding, barn style garage doors made only token resistance as the Plymouth exited the garage.  The plymouth was finally stopped  when the back bumper connected with an apple tree.  The Plymouth was virtually unscathed except for the red racing stripes on the trunk and roof left by the red painted trim on the now, very free swinging sliding barn doors.  My posterior matched the racing stripe color tone very closely for several days.

I was just the ripe old age of four at the time.  But as you can tell, the incident is still vivid in my 63 year old mind.

Chas 

P.S.  Sometime I will relate my experience with the Ford pavillion at the 1964 World's Fair.  Some with little humor in their soul would say it makes the tale above pale by comparison.