To ask what weird/stupid stuff you did as a kid

[Bantameggs]

I think I was a bit of a strange child although maybe I’m not the only one.

One of my favourite things to do aged about 5/6 was to steal a bar of soap and some scissors, find a corner to hide in and shave wafer thin slices of soap off until there was nothing but a big pile of soap flakes. I got into trouble every time but it didn’t stop me.

Our family car had two rear facing seats at the back and if I was sitting there I used sit dead still and make blank-faced unblinking eye contact with the people behind for as long as possible. I think I managed it for about an hour once.

Once aged about 10 I set out to drink as much water as possible just to see how much I could drink. I managed a few litres (I’m aware now that I could have killed myself)

I brought a large dehydrated dead fish I’d found on the beach to show and tell at school when I was 7. Unfortunately it was the last day before the summer holidays and I accidentally left it behind. I think they had to get someone to come in in the end to deal with the terrible smell.

When I was 12 I coloured my entire face in with bright pink lipstick. It took about two days to get rid of completely.

Was anyone else a little weirdo? I think I’m pretty normal now btw!

put mums bamboo canes across buckets and play horse of the year jumping over them
just by my bed id lie in bed at night and pick the wallpaper off
sometimes i would pull the candlewick out of the bedspread
id pretend small twigs were cigs
using mums old typewriter id type up all sorts of rubbish pretend i was an award winning author
played crossroads i was meg showing people to their chalets
posted bits of paper through the door pretending i was a postman
used grans loo paper izal for tracing paper and got a telling off for wasting it

When our goldfish Mork died we buried him with a full ceremony in a piece of foil. Periodically we would dig him up and see how he was decomposing. Until one day just an imprint of an eye was on the foil.

rip Mork just an imprint of an eye oh!

I did loud puppet shows out of my bedroom window, for the benefit of passers-by.

In the garden at night, I'd shine a torch at windows of other houses.

Also, when I had my eyes covered (see earlier post), sometimes I'd ask whoever did it to shine a torch through my blindfold, so I could be really certain I couldn't see a thing. Only one scarf in my possession was opaque enough to pass this test!

I was a weirdo too. I used to beg my mum to buy me the baby octopus from the fresh fish stand at Tesco to eat, but then once I realised how cute they were so I filled the bathroom sink to put them in so I could bring them back to life.
Also used to think I could hatch a chicken from an egg so I took one and kept it wrapped in a little blanket for weeks and weeks, then forgot until one day my mum was tidying my room and trod on it. The smell was horrific
Once I wanted to be a tight rope walker, tied a skipping rope from the Hoover to the wardrobe door, that didn't end well!!

I once found a soft-shell duck egg, which I befriended and took everywhere in the bag on the back of my bike. I built it a home out of ice cream cartons and put it "to bed" in the bottom of my bedside cabinet. My mum found it while I was at school, and (understandably) threw it away. I was devastated!

I left a hanky on holiday in Greece and cried for it nightly for weeks. I still think about it now and feel guilty!

My first "boyfriend" was a tree. It had low hanging branches which I would hold, like hands, and dance with "him".

I used to take the moss out from between pavement slabs, using an ice cream stick. Would be at it for hours. Even now I find it incredibly satisfying!

I used to sweep up the whole street with a brush. Street was about 150 metres long. I’d just sweep up all the street’s rubbish to my drive and bin it!

I’d sing really loud from our bathroom window. Always “gin gangooly gooly gooly gooly goo” on loop, until I got bored. I stopped after one of our good neighbours walked past and shouted “shut that racket up” . he had no idea it was me

I used to come home for school lunch. I’d return 10 mins before the bell went so that I could play, but as in already felt like an outsider being the only kid who went home for lunch, I didn’t want to do the whole awkward thing of coming onto the school field like Billy no mates and looking for my friends. So I’d always run in frantically to the field and keep looking behind me, pretending I was playing tic a nic with somebody else, and then casually join my friends while pretending to be excited/out of breath that I was playing tic or nic with somebody else

If I ever got sent upstairs for being naughty, I’d continuously roll off the bed deliberately to land on the floor with a thud so that my parents would hear it through the ceiling and rush upstairs in guilt . They never did!

I kept a ladybird in an empty margarine tub as a pet, and put a lettuce leaf in there

My dad used to make wine and I was interested in it. When I was about 8/9 I mixed tangerine juice , sugar and water with some bread yeast (inside a money box shaped like a plastic toad stool..) to see what happened..prison hooch happened! My room smelled yeasty and vaguely alcoholic. I wasn't brave enough to try any, which with hindsight was probably a good thing and had to sneakily dispose of it in the garden.

I’ve spent my whole adult life thinking I was a really weird child, seems we all were!

Another one who poured fairy liquid on the Lino and thought I was Jayne Torvill. Made concoctions from shampoo, brown sauce etc etc Had a wee (age 5ish) behind the sofa so I didn’t have to go upstairs and miss the cartoons on tv 😲 I vaguely remember being caught out for this and I never did it again!

And the weirdest was picking the brightly coloured fluff from my blanket and putting it in my lower eyelids - I believed it would magically change the colour of my eyes (WTH?!) ended up with my dad taking me to the opticians to have it all removed 😬

In bed at night I used to pretend my bedroom was a watertight box and was sitting on the seabed. I used to scare myself silly doing this thinking how I would ever get out but did it anyway.

During my "shoes on bare feet" phase, I was very scientific about it: I'd try wearing every pair I had without socks for half a day, and rate how comfortable they were, from 0 to 10. My trainers were 10; slippers 9; ankle boots 6; sandals only 3 (I didn't like sandals), wellies 1, which gave me blisters. If I'd had Ugg boots then, I would have rated them 11 out of 10. When I wore the ankle boots at primary school, I'd ask other children to guess what colour socks I was wearing; none of them had guessed right when I eventually took one off to show I wasn't wearing any! When going shoe shopping, I always wanted to try shoes on without socks, but my mum wouldn't let me. I think she thought I'd learn the hard way about being sockless - I didn't, and still do it regularly now.

I once wrote a story at primary school about being captured by skeletons, where I described in a lot of detail being tied up and imprisoned. My teacher wrote on it "this is very scary (and interesting)". Nowadays it would have been flagged as a "safeguarding matter"!

I had a whole zoo of imaginary pets that lived in the garden. They were so real to me I could practically actually SEE them and I played with them for years. Mum sat me down aged 10 and we had a conversation about how they weren’t real and never had been. I cried.
I can still remember all their names and could describe their colours and personalities to you even now.

I've remembered another "not knowing" game I liked: near the start of the day, I'd ask my mum to blindfold me, and paint my toenails with an unknown colour: I remember the cold sensation as the paint was applied, and the smell! I would not be able to see until my nails were dry, and I had put on shoes and/or socks. I would then spend the day wondering what colour my toenails were, as I couldn't see them! It was a moment of excitement to bare my toes and reveal the answer to myself, I think I saw it as an exercise in delayed gratification.

I liked it best if I was wearing closed sandals, because then I could see most of my feet, except the vital part! My brother would warn me not to sneakily take them off. I would have liked to do this with my hands too, but I didn't like the idea of having to keep gloves on.

From ages 10-12, I wanted to be a ballerina. So I’d get the bus into town to the theatre district, and walk around alone for hours waiting to be discovered.

I had this special walk where my heels were together but my toes were pointed outwards and whenever I took a step I would put my toe down first, as this was how I thought ballerinas walked. I expected a theatre director to see me and my walk and instantly offer me the job of prima ballerina.

Unfortunately, I was never offered such a role. Probably because I was fat, had never had a ballet lesson in my life and wandering around the theatre district doing a silly walk was probably not the way to go about it.

I used to do a few things people have mentioned above!

I also used walk around with a mirror pretending I was on the ceiling and pretend to be dead in the car.

I carved my name in the stair bannisters with a screwdriver. With my name.

About 10 year old and me and my younger sister used to sit in the bedroom windowsill with our legs dangling and wave to the people going past on the double decker buses, if they didn't wave back we would pretend to fall off the windowsill

@Smotheroffive That made me laugh, children trying to lift a chair they were sitting on! My grandad challenged us children to lift one of his legs while he stood. We wondered "what would happen if one of us lifted up one leg, and the other lifted up the other leg..."

@doingasurvey oh god you've just reminded me, when I was younger I used to sing in the bathroom for ages, mostly doing weird attempts at opera. One day when I was about 9 or 10 I did a long, high pitched operatic note with the window open and heard "what the fuck was that?!" From outside. Don't think I ever did it again

I used to stab myself in the hand with a painters pallet knife

Even before I read the post I came on here to say I used to lick soap. Then dig my nails into it to make little shavings!

I was completely disturbed. Never would admit this in RL but-

Ate dog food

We had an outdoor loo but I was afraid of the creepy crawlies so once I peed on the living room floor and blamed the dog.

(Poor starving, innocent dog)

Looking back I really do think my behaviour was perhaps a result of my complex early childhood. I did other disturbing, worse things that I'm even too embarrassed to mention here.

I used to eat dog biscuits, take a bath with oxo cubes in it! I was also obsessed with my grandmothers button tin she had every kind of button you could get, I loved collecting shells and decorating them with paint and glitter.i loved going in to my grandmothers bathroom and switching bottles like adding foot cream to her face moisturiser etc, oh yes I also was obsessed with collecting snails and spiders, I'd name the spiders and talk to them, I'd go daily behind the garages and come home with a shopping bag full of snails! My mum loved me

If I hurt myself like had a cut or a scab I was obsessed with filling it with anything I could get like shampoo or toothpaste moisturizer etc , what a weirdo I was

tic or nic

Ooh I've never heard it called that. What area is that (roughly I mean)?

I'm remembering now how fussy I was, I hated eating most foods and we had a dining room with a window facing the garden so my dad wouldn't let me leave until I ate my tea so I'd chuck it out the window knowing that ddog would find it, my dad twigged I was doing that so locked the window so I used to flush food down the loo, my packed lunch sandwich was two slices of dry bread because that's all I would wat no butter or filling, no yoghurt, I'd scrape topping off pizza and eat the dough