stupid fucking things you did as a teenager...

[Hairglitter]

Not as in sex/drugs/alcohol or whatever but just general ridiculousness. I used to:

• leave my straighteners ON every morning so they'd be on ALL DAY just so when I came in from school they would be hot enough to re-straighten my hair immediately. God forbid I go twenty seconds with unstraightened hair. When I think of the fire risk!!!!

• Refuse to wear my coat even in 3 degree weather because it wasn't cool to wear your coat

• Carry my PE kit to school in a JD sports bag because that was the done thing, despite having a perfectly good rucksack

• At one point, teeny tiny little Nike "just do it" backpacks were in but they weren't big enough to fit any of your stuff in. So I used to carry on e about (which just held my pencil case and my keys) and carry all my books seperately in my arms

I can't wait til my son is that age and starts doing equally daft things.

The most stupid thing I did in my teens, however, was ... I can hardly bear to say it.

I once wore a pair of tights that were ...American Tan.

Going into school for our registration "mark" walking right back out of the main entrance and catching the first bus to wherever it took us. Travelled on buses until the end of the school day and casually strolled into the house at home time. Did this for two whole years undetected during what should have been the most important time (O'levels) but this was during Thatcher's years and if a teacher was off sick or on mat leave etc no replacements were ever sent and no one ever seemed to care. Before this, we hid from lessons in the toilet block. When we got braver we would hang out in the friends houses that had both parents out at work all day. Never got caught. My own dc only had to be 10 minutes late and I would receive an email, a text AND a phone call! No chance of "sagging" school these days and I'd have punished my own dc if they had.

Omg same:
Pod shoes
Body tops that fastened at the crouch- almost impossible to do after drinking:
-Merrydown cider
-20 20
-whitelightening
-hooch
Wearing Naf Naf jackets
Wearing my mums real fur jacket (ew?!)
Hairspray fringe
Putting the ear phones down my blazer sleeve and having NKOTB playing on a Walkman in my blazer pocket
Sitting on a bus the full route (basically going in a big circle)
Too many more! 🤪

Ah this brings back memories!
I used to have flares so huge that they would soak up the rainwater right up to my knees.
I also used to carry my rucksack on one shoulder. It was social death to carry it on both shoulders.
Also had my lip pierced twice with a ring on each side.
Also remember the hierarchy of carrier bags!

@Graphista, @MrsGrindah and @notso
I think we must be related! We used to ring the operator and tell her to get off the line cos there was a train coming! Numptys! A club round our way used to admit us at about 14, but on the understanding if they got raided we hid in the boxes that were under the seats!! And taping the top 40, hilarious.

NME, or better still , “The Face” magazine, dying my hair white, then a colour, called “Foxfire”, because I missed my own red hair. Going to The BatCave with fishnet tights on our arms, , in vintage winkle pickers from Kensington Market, a size too small......bunking off 6th form, to go down South Molton Street, & seeing David Bowie there, & getting his autograph on my rough book.......making myself look like Clara Bow with makeup, and kiss curls for school, because I thought she was so cool....when I was 17, working for my friends “old” cousin (who was 35), and played Dire Straits in his car- he owned a company selling home burglar alarms, and made us go round the newly built houses in Beckton, canvassing people at night (in our school uniform), to see if they wanted to buy said burglar alarm. Using sun-in (enough said), buying St Moritz to smoke , because they were expensive, and thus posh, and slightly eccentric.

My teenagers do all the things mentioned.

I mostly just got drunk in fields with my friends and was an annoying eco warrior.... nearly got arrested once for setting off animal traps on a farmers land.

Good times.

I remember Sun In, it didn't work instantly like I thought so I put loads on and slowly went orangey ginger over the next 24 hrs. I used to like to wear my hair pineapple style with two face framing fronds.

We used to hang around the park and town centre basically waiting for excitement. I remember we used to flirt with the men in the kebab shop for free food. We used to decline the offers of going round the back of the shop to meet their uncle and it wasn't until I watched Three Girls recently that I realised how stupid this was and where it was probably all headed.

We were allowed in the local pub when we were 16 (wtf) and the older blokes used to buy us drinks and we just thought they were being nice.

Rode around in cars to house parties with drunk drivers, literally thinking that we were going to die but everyone being too scared to ask them to stop the car and get out.

Going to all night raves off our head on amphetamines with no idea how we would get home.

The highlight of being 14/15 was my friends parents going on holiday and leaving her home alone house sitting. We called everyone we knew, the house got trashed. Managed to clean up and get the house straight for their return. I wouldn't dream of leaving a 14/15 yr old home alone for a week.

When I first got my hands on the internet we would all go on the msn chat rooms with ridiculous saucy usernames as no one would chat to you if your name was boring. I remember talking to one boy, all was going well until I added him to msn messenger where he sent me a load of dick picks which my Dad found a few weeks later when tidying up his files

Ah, mizz magazine. I used to love the Halloween edition.

Yes yes to sun in = green frizzy hair

And burning my top lip the day before going on holiday with my Bestie and her parents by using Nair hair removal for legs and uunderarms on it. It went red and swelled up 😬

Going back to some random lads flat 😬 when I was about 13 because he said I could be a model 🙄

Shag bands!
Omg yes!

Have a brand new pair of trainers and dirty them up so they wouldn't look brand new.

Writing myself a note & wear trainers to school so I'd look cool.

I remember Britney Spears on the Oops I did it again video and she had a Long ponytail. Begged my mother for one: she said she'd get one. Told everyone in my Year I was going to have extensions for the school disco. She bought me like a fringe stuck on a comb. Still wore it though, on top of my Scraped back Bun

Wearing my mums thong on a Friday night, found a bottle of vodka; drink the whole thing, told everyone I was wearing my mothers thong, ended up unconscious in a Puddle, had hyperthermia & was sent to hospital, luckily didn't need to have stomach pumped, but the hospital couldn't get through to the house to tell my parents as we had Dial up broadband and they were online!

Piercing holes in straws so when we drunk it would get us drunk quicker. Also spinning whilst drinking to do this too.

Nagged my mum to buy me Hollister and Jack Wills even though I wasn't that keen on it just to fit in with the popular girls at school and so a boy would like me back.
I know it's small but I really hurt my mum... She bought us lovely Boden clothes and I refused to wear them.

Saved my lunch money to buy junk food after school.

Refused to study for my GCSEs

Decided to leave home at 17 and put my family through hell :(

I really was a silly bugger

I would roll my school skirt up at the waistband, then roll it back down for assembly. It was ridiculously, shamefully short.

Which is odd, because I'm pear shaped and have very thick thighs which aren't my best asset. I stick to knee length now

I once went to school with a small tv remote control in my top blazer pocket so the tip of it poked out so I could pretend to my friends I had a Nokia 3310 but obviously didn't wanna take it out in case it confiscated. I haven't thought about that in years haha! My mum couldn't afford to buy me a mobile at the time, they were just becoming a thing for teenagers around that time.

Good thread, thanks for the laugh op!

5 tonnes of books in a rucksack on one shoulder.

Possibly wearing a winter coat, but never ever doing it up.

Swimming pool parties at a friend's house, with lots of booze.

Used to cut my own hair it looked awful,
By year 9 I had a handbag instead of a rucksack and also I had the dryest skin and still used the palest face powder. God I do appreciate my liquid foundation these days.

Massive oversized school jumpers and a teeny tiny rolled up skirt.

Buying those band T-shirts out of select magazine then cutting the neck and arms out (Neds Atomic Dustbin)?

Tie bleaching brand new jeans.

the episode of Inbetweeners where Will tries to buy drink saying “I am an adult” always makes me die because I used to do v similar.

I looked the oldest and was always given a pile of change to go into the offy to buy merrydown, White lighting and 20/20. I would wear one of my mum’s work suits, way too big, and use the only one of our group who had one’s phone that was like a brick. I would walk round the shop in a size 12 skirt suit ‘on the phone’, saying “oh yes dear I’m getting a few drinks now, I’ve been to work haven’t I, all day, yes I’ll be home to our house soon darling”. I was about 13-14 and had never even had a boyfriend. I would do my acting for a bit, then plonk all the bottle of cheap drink on the side and pay with a mountain of 50p and 20ps.

After that, straight into the Oilily bag for my cool Ton Sur Ton or Naf Naf outfit, and would literally change round he bins behind the shop. How my mum never noticed her suits had been worn I’ll never know, much less the fact she never had a clue where I was or what I was doing!

Well mines kind o alcohol related, we used to sneak into the local park. Climb on top of the bowls club roof, drink shitloads and then have to try get down and climb a gate. I also used to take my little miniature into school for plays, liquid courage, then fill them up with water (it was archers) so Mum wouldn’t know.

Ironed my top while I was wearing it - I had a triangular burn from the tip of the iron for ages afterwards,

Trimmed my fringe until it was so short it stuck out at a right angle - I told people I had singed it on the oven,

Wore my coat all one summer because I thought my bum was big (I was seven and a half stone),

Mixed green eye shadow into my foundation as colour correction (people often remarked on it though not in a good way),

Wore massive platforms shoes I could hardly walk in and when I wasn't wearing shoes I would walk on my toes..

Plucked my eyebrows until they were non existant and then drew them back in higher,

And of course loads and loads of Sun In.

@matchsetpoint

Skip lessons in school by hiding in the toilet confused because spending an hour in a toilet cubicle with four others was far more fun.....
I did that too, or went to the nurses office and pretended to be asleep.
I really hated school :(

I went through a mosh/goth phase- big black baggy trousers with those long bits of fabric and buckles, tight neon vest, lots of rubbery bracelets and purple lipstick. Awful!!@

No matter whether the styles suited me or not, I'd copy the latest hair cuts. Suffice to say, a Purdy (aka a pudding basin cut); then a v short hair cut but with a big (long) sideswept "fringe"; one of those highly "stepped" bobs where you have your hair shaved at the back to well above the halfway bit of your skull. It was the fact the stylist had continually shaved it upwards, so my hair then grew back in a loop effect instead of just downwards. I had to grow it by keep having it cut (if you see what I mean!!) so it meant I then had a style of a full fringe but the rest short and tucked behind my ears pending the loops growing out, Just to keep in fashion! That was almost another Purdy!!!

This thread is great. Absolute gold.

It’s so reassuring I wasn’t the only one going out looking like a complete twat and acting like one.