Pandas, What Was The Worst Thing You Accidentally Did As A Kid?

When I was around 10, I loved playing in a “cave“ between a wall and a row of conifers in a neighbors' garden.
One day I got the amazing idea that I could take a candle with me, because candlelight is so cozy and it was getting dark. It fell over on a pile of dry needles, and woosh... a little dry fir burst in flames and only seconds later three conifers were burning. I ran away completely in shock, and the fire fighters had to prevent the fire from spreading through the garden in the densely built-up area...

I was not so young, maybe about twelve years, I was alone in the afternoon, in my country it's quite usual, I do not know why I lit a candle in my room, and I went to do things, after a while I go back, I open the door and I had a giant flame, the candle had fallen and the wooden floor was burning in one place, quickly spilling water, and managed to extinguish the fire. I spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning the soot of all the things in the room, and I covered the burned by changing the furniture of the place, nobody at home knew it.

I was about 9 or 10 years old and went "back to school shopping" with my mom at Walmart. By the time we got to the cash register, the shopping cart was so full it was almost overflowing. When it was time to pay, mom handed her credit card. I took a look at it and asked her "Mom? You never told me you changed your name to Celine Barette?" Of course, my mom almost died right there from embarassement, as the cashier and clients all looked at her in disbelief. She somehow was able to convince the cashier that it was just a bad joke and that I would get grounded for it. But that's not all... Finding myself pretty funny, I then put my hand in my jacket's pocket and mimicking a gun, I looked at the cashier and said "Lady, put all your cash in a bag and hand it over. Don't make a scene or I'll shoot". What I did not expect was that the cashier stopped moving and started crying. Suddenly feeling bad, I said "Hey! It was just a joke!" She then told us that her husband, who was a Brink's employee, had been shot and killed in a holdup a few months prior. Finally, mom never had to ground me for all of this. The lesson had been taught and stays with me to this day...

When I was a kid me and my mom had made my Dad a two layer orange creamsicle flavor birthday cake. I was so proud of it that I didn't want my Dad to see I until it was time to eat it. The thought to hide it did not occur to me till he was walking in the door from work, so I grabbed it off the counter and ran away to hide it somewhere. It was under one of those round plastic domes shaped like a cylinder. Well...that cake started to slowly spill out of the cylinder as my eight year old self toted it around the house. I only realized it when I was halfway to the TV room and saw cake on my shirt. My poor brokenhearted self took it to the bathroom (on the other side of the house)...where I tried to fix it. Meanwhile, my Dad was following a giant trail of cake crumbs in a circle laughing hysterically. He found me in the bathroom crying hysterically. My grandparents (his parents) and my Mom were very.upset but he picked me up and gave me a big kiss and said he loved it anyway and we ate the destroyed cake together. We still talk about it from time to time.

When I was about 8y/o, it was a very hot North Texas summer. I was playing outside as we did in those days without the distractions of tv, etc. I was naturally hot, so I wrapped by self with a soaker hose, with the holes towards me to cool off. I turned the water on and the hose became a virtual boa constrictor. As it was squeezing the life out of me, I cried out with what could have been my last breath. Luckily my father heard me, and I was rescued.

So this happened when I was about 2-3 years old. We lived on a small touristy type island. My mom was at work and my grandmother was babysitting me and my older sister. Everyone always kept their doors open since the weather was good year round. Anyway I had apparently decided to pay my mom a visit at her job without telling my grandma. A couple of tourist ended up spotting a two year old (me) walking by herself all the way down to the pier where my mom worked (about half a mile from our home). They didn't want to scare me so they just followed me to make sure I wouldn't get ran over by the golf carts. I ended up walking into my mom’s job like a boss! The tourist saw that I walked straight up to my mom and my mom picked me up all confused as to where my grandmother was. They carefully explained that they had followed me all the way here because I was all alone. They got a good laugh out of it, my mom had a mini heart attack and my poor grandma had a panic attack after she found out I was missing! (P.S my grandma was not a bad sitter I was just a very curious child)

When I was 6 I went to a birthday party with a clown. The clown told us a “secret”, he said that he still wore nappies and that he trusts us and so we mustn’t tell anyone. When I got home I told my Mum I had a secret the clown told me and I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. I really believed him when he said he wore nappies and was embarrassed and didn’t want to betray his trust so I refused to tell her...until she started crying and begging me to tell her. I didn’t understand why she reacted like that until I was a little bit older and the relief on her face finally made sense!

When my cousin and I were 5-6, we got hooked on this amazing hot chocolate at this hotel. The hotel had a bar in the middle of the pool, so you can drink it while you’re sitting in the water, which made it even cooler. Our parents told us we couldn’t have more, so we went to a random couple and asked them to buy us the hot chocolate.

They did. And they babysat us until our parents found us, a few hours later. We didn’t say anything about the hot chocolate since we didn’t want to get in trouble, so the couple never got paid back.

Looking back, I think they were probably some honeymooning couple and we forced them to babysit a two bratty kids.

Up until I was around 6 or 7, whenever my family and I were heading out of a restaurant, and I noticed that my parents were forgetting cash on the table, I would always make sure to grab it and slip it back into my mom's purse. I didn't know tipping was a thing, and it's not until I made a comment about how they were always leaving money lying around at restaurants, and how I always had to be the one to keep an eye out for it and make sure they didn't forget it, that they realized what was going on, and I learned. I cost a lot of waiters their tips.

When I was in kindergarten, I wanted to see how a staple curled when hitting paper. Except I used the side of my finger. Obviously, it didn't curl.

So, I was around 6 and having a lovely dream with me, swinging in a hammock in a breezy summer afternoon. Suddenly, I gave the tree a very strong push and I fell from the hammock with a yell. I woke up at the end of my bed and screamed, feeling I was about to fall. I did. With a tremendous crash I hit the floor. My mom nearly broke her toe at the edge of her bed, for she attempted a wild run to rescue me from whatever I was yelling for. She herself yelled a lot after that.

Put a worm in the freezer thinking I could freeze it and bring it back to life later. Unfortunately before the theory could be tested, my mother found it and I learnt a different lesson that day..

I was probably 12 or 13 and I was mad at my dad for something. I was talking to my best friend about it and I told her that I wished I only had to see him every other weekend like she did with her dad. My grandmother overheard me and told my parents and my mother told me how much I hurt my dad's feelings. At that time it didn't matter that much; after all, he had hurt my feelings as well.

Luckily, after that, I had many great years with my dad before he passed away 4 days before my 42nd birthday. Even so, I still feel guilty about saying that and wish I could take it back and tell him I didn't mean it.

When I was 6, my parents took me along to visit some people I didn't know well. I went to the bathroom and discovered there was no toilet paper. I even checked the cabinets, but found none. In desperation, I took the hand towel down and wiped myself. My parents taught me to always put things back where I found them, so, when I was finished, I neatly hung the hand towel back up where I found it. It didn't occur to me at the time to tell anybody anything about it. To this day, I am too paranoid to use a hand towel in anybody else's house.

...Tore off the side mirror of our neighbor's car. I was fascinated with the mirror and how you can rotate it. I tried to place it in a weird angle and tore off the entire thing.

I was 5-years-old and we lived in a triple decker that had 6 apartments; three on each side. We were poor as dirt, welfare kids with a single mom and a father who was best left roaming the bars.

The man on the third floor directly above our home had purchased a brand new Lincoln Continental, high gloss paint, bowling ball black.

5-year-old me was often left to my own devices outside playing and watching over my younger brother. All of us kids played like that back in the day.

The point? Whelp, I had taught myself to write my full name and address. I got a lot of praise for that from my mom, which wasn't usual. I took a rock and carved my name and address into the man upstair's brand new car. Oh yes I did.

LORD HAVE MERCY - he came out to see my handiwork just as my mother was coming out to call me inside. The neighbors knew we had it rough, they could see the bruises on me; back then it was a family matter and no one really called authorities. I was up the street and my mother was screaming my name. I came home and could tell by the look on her face I was in major trouble. I had no idea why. She asked me if I had wrote my name on the neighbor's car, I bold-faced said, "No, I didn't do it." The gentleman couldn't help but laugh in spite of the damage because it was OBVIOUS I had done it. I mean, my full name and complete address was carved into his new car's gleaming paint. My mom ripped me by the hair of my head and started beating my ass right there and telling me I was really going to get it once she called my father. I must have looked terrified, and as I said, the neighbors knew what went on in our apartment. The poor guy told her that wasn't necessary, he wasn't mad and that I was just a little girl. Insurance would cover it.

Ohhh man, when my father got home? Let's just say I no longer wrote my name and address on anything but a piece of paper after that.

When I was young I loved to collect snails after a rain. They would cover our front porch and get in front of the doorway. Sometimes they would accidentally get stepped on and that made me sad. So I would "save" them. I'd put them all in a bug bucket with a lid and set it beside a tree so they couldn't get squished. Young me didn't think about what would happen if the sun came out and beamed down on that bucket for an extended period of time. I earned the nickname "The Snail Killer" from my parents.

Once when me and my sister (who is a 15 months older than me) were at least 4, we took pink crayon and drew all over my dads Desert Storm helmet from when he was in the war. My mom found it and she had to take green crayon and cover it. My dad never found out until two years later.

In Chinese, the phrase we use for "picking strawberries" sounds similar to the phrase for "stepping on strawberries". We headed to strawberry fields and my mom told us we were going to start picking them... I grabbed a handful of berries and began smashing them under my feet. Needless to say, parents were shocked.

this one is from my Fiance. She was hungry, (about 4) wanted Mc donalds. her parents gave her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sat her down in front of the TV. she didnt want the sandwich, so she put it into the VCR on top of the TV. She then went to tell them she ate it all and was still hungry and wanted mc donalds. well they went to get her mc donalds and cue a few days later to find a old peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the VCR.