Stupid things we did as kids

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I wasn't a kid, but I was soldering in my office and the power went out. My foot flung the cord onto the floor and I picked the soldering iron up from the "wrong end". Oops! No ill effects.

Positive effects: I watch how cords are routed. My bench has plugs on the outer edge front surface as well as plugs behind some of the instruments. I kinda wished I would have a couple of hanging cords from overhead and one cord on a reel. The bench is somewhat dysfunctional now anyway.

One of the more stupid things recently was I was working on a lawn mower either the elctronic ignition I just installed or the throttle cable wasn't actually connected right. I had just checked the oil and didn't put the filler plug back on. I started the engine and the shorting bar somehow wasn't connected right.So, I got splattered and had to pull the spark plug cable.

 

[ronv]

Used to fill small oxygen bottles with gun powder to make rockets. Most left the fins behind. The last on landed in a lady's back yard while she was out hanging clothes on the line. When I had kids I made sure to buy and build Estes rockets with them so they wouldn't need that temptation.

 

[Ian Rogers]

I think the stupidest thing I've done is.... We found quite a big bullet ( looked big when I was a kid ) we thought it would be funny to try it out.... I held the rim in my dads vice in the garage... placed a phillips head screwdriver on the hammer end... picked up a hammer..... well.... a huge BANG the bullet shot out of its holder.... through the garage door...through my dads car.... I'm just lucky it went that way..... I think I've till got the empty casing somewhere as a momento....

 

[Mickster]

My Mother & Father split when I was around the toddling age.

Prior to the split, I'd apparently watched Dad paper over my Trumpton Town wall-paper with something else. I knew where all of the fire engines were and the next time my room got visited, the new paper was peeled back to reveal all of them!

Growing up presented opportunities to progress from eating boogers, plants & soil, to exploring the home surroundings.

That is when I found the shed in the back yard. And the tins of paint stored safely within. I still don't know how I managed to get them opened, but I did and the contents were strewn everywhere.... walls, yard, my wheel-barrow and my clothes... recently bought clothes.

Some time later, in the same shed, at the back, I came across a large sack of curious items.

Small cylindrical metallic shapes with a plastic ring around the outside. And a hammer.

The plastic rings were different colours and some of the 'cylinders' gave off a bigger bang when hit with the hammer, but I can't truly recall which gave the best bang... maybe it was the green ones??

It was only later in life that I discovered what they were likely to have been. My Dad had done some construction work and I suspect that they were probably Hilti cartridges.

The pock-marks are still there in the concrete of my Mum's yard.

Regards.