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.

Please tell me someone remembers the trend of helly Hanson coats?! I had white, one friend had pink, the other black and the other blue 😂
We thought we were that cool that we even did a dance routine in them.
Also wearing dolly shoes and the Jane norman/JD bag - wearing foundation too dark over my lips with gloss and a tiny river island bag that fit nothing in it

I often wore my rucksack with only one strap over my shoulder. I'd also just use it for my PE kit, and carry my books. Even my peers would ask why.

When I wore trainers, I would always wear them without socks (because I liked how it felt), including for PE; no trainer liners for me. Had the sliders-and-socks combo been fashionable then, I expect I'd be the only one showing my toes. I still haven't grown out of going sockless, although I do compromise and wear socks for sport.

@ShadowKitty I laughed at you going from one-armed to no-armed specs! Even now, I often live with minor inconveniences and things stuck together with Sellotape for a long time, to save the cost of repairing them.

Went to all sorts of ridiculous places with boys/young men I didn't know.

I once went in a car with three lads to graveyard at 4am after a club. They couldn't have been lovelier or more respectful but I do sometimes wonder how I'm still alive.

Drew sideburns on with Biro, age around 11, it was the early seventy's, played chicken on the railway, dismantled the newly-built school bus garage and put all the blocks back on their pallets, that caused a few quizzical looks in the morning, not me on my own but we all used to rush from one side of the school bus to the other to see if we could tip it over.

Smeared raw garlic over all the classroom door knobs, again mid seventies, it was unknown in our area, it caused chaos, weeping eyes, snotty noises all over the school including the Teachers.

Now I'm now regarded as somewhat sensible, what happened.

My mother had a big diamond and ruby ring she wore only on special occasions and i once sneaked it to school to show off, age 10. It was way too big, God knows how i didn't lose it!

Buy a new pair of skim coloured tights with my dinner money every morning so I was starving but at least didn’t have to have bare legs!
(They got holes in every day!)

Hitch hikes Everywhere and flirted with everyone- I can’t believe how risky I was and so lucky nothing awful happened to me.

Cycled on the dual carriage way from Cornwall to Hampshire with £15 and a tent on my back- what the fuck!?

*@notso@ you must be my long lost twin! Did all those things as well as:
Colouring my hair with felt tips for highlights
Ringing the Samaritans for a joke ( shame)
Taping the Top Forty
Ringing chat lines ( can you see a theme here!)

I worked in a nightclub at 17 (cloakroom) and would finish at 4am Friday/Saturday night and would walk home a 40 minute walk after my shift so I didn’t have to pay for a taxi!! 😳

Would never in a million years do that now, and luckily nothing bad happened, I just had a really naive view of the world that everyone was nice etc.

@Mammyloveswine haha yes! I had some Roxy ones! I used to wear with a denim mini skirt

Despite having a perfectly good locker at school, I preferred to carry every single book to and from school in my backpack every day while wearing 5 inch platform shoes Wonder why I have a bad back now

Also went through a phase of not eating my sandwiches and instead letting them build up in the bottom of my bag 🙈 I'd have to build up the courage every few weeks to take a mountain of mouldy sandwich packs out of my bag and dispose of them.

Spent my lunch money on Benson and Hedges every day.

I'm sure there's more too!

Walking home from nightclubs in the centre of Bristol to my home on the outskirts (about 5 miles) in the small hours by myself as my friends lived closer than I did.

@notso @Malibucyprus I did the same thing, but at the bottom of my school locker. Every day for months. I lived in fear of a locker inspection.

putthetellyon what part of the country?

We would use a compass to carve our skin then drip ink in to make tattoos. How we didn’t get septicaemia I don’t know.

We also shoplifted makeup by sliding a mascara or lipstick up our sleeves. I’m ashamed of that now.

My mate and I caught the train to a town in another county to meet some boys, hung out with them all day and missed the last train home. So we slept on a crash mat on a school playing field. We were 15 🤦🏼‍♀️ No mobiles in those days so our mums would have had no idea where we were.

We also used to get served in the local pubs at 16 and go home on our mopeds whilst pissed, or hitchhike home.

How I made it to adulthood I’ll never know.

I also used to have a very fetching t shirt that said "von bitch" instead of "von dutch"

I had a 'Kickers' T-shirt that said 'Knickers'.

I used to wear baggy bootcut jeans that were torn at the bottom and trailed on the floor. When it rained your jeans got wet to your knees.

I also got a hairbrush stuck in my hair and cut it out right near the front. I have curly hair so ended up with this awful curly side fringe. I was about 14 so it was the end of the world.

Christ I cringe now thinking of what I did as a teenager, pierced own ears then let them go crusty & oozy by not cleaning them, got into stolen cars with lads even though deep down I knew it was wrong. watched same lads break into our school and nick computers.walked streets at night with best friend pretending we were staying at each others houses.
Taking acid with same friend, getting very hungry and eating the birthday cake her mum had made for her little sister for her party the following day.
Getting pissed on diamond white and walking home alone at 2am
Going through the whole Madchester thing with flares, hoodies and walking shoes,
The computer thieves did get caught though after an "anonymous" tip off to the school the following day ( I did have a conscious!)

I used to wear my old bachelor uncle's claret-coloured velvet jacket, and use black eyeliner as lipliner with bronze lipstick. I must have looked like a mixture between Eddie Izzard and Bet Lynch with a dash of Goth styling. Mortifying.

*wallaby shoes

If she reads this it'll totally out me but my best friend and I used to steal the keys to her brother's car and sit there drinking blue WKD

I swim in rivers as an adult, inspired by Daniel Start's "Wild Swimming" book! Although I do choose my places carefully.

bezalelle you sound quite cool to be fair. I wore a lot of velvet, with cameo chokers, DMs and layered skirts like hebe out of school.

Did anyone else have a belt from Topshop with a huge silver flower buckle?

I cut up my mothers long plaid skirt to make bay city roller scarves without her knowing! Wasn't popular when she found out!

Used to use my lunch money to buy nail polish and mars bars

Used to walk home late at night on my own about mile and half country lanes

Accepted lifts from boys/men only just met

How I'm still alive I don't know! Grew up to be very sensible with a highly respected

@Casander Hair scraped back with tons of green cheap gel from the chemist.
*
Dream matte mouse the wrong shade

Foundation on lips covered in gloss

Adidas poppers

Mizz magazine

MD 20/20 and Lambrini *  -not envy

You must be exactly my age!

Me and a bunch of friends would skip the weekly assembly. We'd hide out in the showers. One day a teacher walked into the room adjoining the showers, not willing to be caught we hopped out the window. It was about a 8 foot drop with steps opposite. How none of us fell and injured ourselves I'll never know 😂
I used to bunk off lessons, tell my mum I was sent home for being sick. How she never found out about that seeing as it would happen about 3 times a month, baffles me.
Stood behind a bunch of class rooms backing onto fields, would stand there smoking. A teacher came round one day mid smoke trying to catch us. Instead of getting caught I shoved the lit fag in my bra. Still have the scar to this day from that 🤭

TONS!

Didn't we all?

Not wearing a coat on nights out because it wasn't "cool" and I begrudged the 50p for the cloakroom!

Wearing huge earrings that hurt just for fashion reasons - but then I was a teen in the 80's so we wore a LOT of stupid stuff! Eg white ankle socks worn over black tights with pointed kitten heel pumps - ridiculous! SO many shoes that hurt me worn purely for fashion, mainly 3/4 inch pointed stillettoes - sheer luck I didn't fuck up my feet which I know quite a few of my peers did. My mums are wrecked for the same reason as very similar shoes in fashion in the 60's, aunt has wrecked knees and ankles as a result of 70's platforms!

Carrying rucksack style bags to school that weighed a bloody ton on one shoulder only. At one point my timetable (I blame idiot teachers/administrators in part for this though) meant I had pe, cookery, woodwork and tech drawing all on the same day! We had no lockers so I had to carry all that shit round every fucking Tuesday for a year! I was TINY (I'm still a short arse now, was even shorter then and VERY skinny) it was a ridiculous state of affairs! It basically required 3 bags and my mum used to comment it looked like I was leaving home!

"Everyone used carrier bags and there was a strict hierarchy of carrier bags!" I definitely remember this stage - in particular it was mortifying if your mum made you use a "Tammy girl" bag cos 'Tammy means tampon' ~snigger~ wtf!