Things I still wonder why the hell I did that as a kid...

[TonytheFish]

20 years later, this still makes me wonder why I was such an odd child!

I was a bit shy granted, but still...

In 2nd year seniors, start of the new school year, new art class and teacher, everyone gets in and sits down at new desks, I was the last one in...and my spot at the table had no chair!

So, did I mention to the teacher that there was no chair! nope.

What I did, was sort of crouch down, into some fake sitting position and stay there for the entire double period! Pretending to sit! As if no one would notice...!

It is this sort of thing, that means I will never ever attend a school reunion!

Me and my friends used to spray impulse on our school jumpers and sniff it and think we were high

I tried to shave my eyebrows once and shaved off half of one, didn't live that one down for a while!

Crying at this thread, it should go to classics if it hasn't already!

I used to get glue and pour it all over my hands, let it dry and then peel it all off. Over time I moved on to Superglue. Many a time I pulled skin & all off. I went into the local shop once and the lady behind the till cried "Oh my god, you poor thing, what happened your hands?" My honest response was that I'd put glue all over my hands and had left it to "settle" so I could get a really good pick going when I got home, and it had already started to peel, but nope, I told her I'd been in a fire??!!

Also something really stupid I used to do was if I fancied someone, I'd try to BE them. I had a crush on a teacher on a course once when I was about 17 and I found out he liked Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, and Man United through "ice-breaking" exercises we did in the class. I bought a new Man U jersey the day it came out - he said "nice jersey, I haven't gotten mine yet, you're quick off the mark!" and I thought that was code for "I love you, have my babies". I also developed an obsession with David Bowie just so I could bring him up in conversation, I used to sit in my room reading books about him and watching Ziggy Stardust over and over. And I hummed "Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies" within earshot of him. Absolute mortification.

For years, I told people I was allergic to coconuts, even announcing it in Home Ec class when they used coconut milk in a recipe and I couldn't have any. If any of my friends had a Bounty bar I'd act like it was anthrax and make a very big deal about nobody touching me as I'd go into anaphylactic shock. Even now any time I see coconut as an ingredient I think twice about it.

I'm not allergic to coconuts.......

I've just remembered something. We spent a lot of time at the house of friends who lived in a pub. If our parents were downstairs boozing (ahh, the early 90s) we used to play Murder In The Dark and turn off all the lights, pull all the curtains, and us 4 girls would all run around from whoever got the "Murderer" on their bit of paper. One night I was the murderer, and I couldn't find any of the girls, so I burst into their older brother's bedroom at around 1am, whacked the light switch and leapt on his bed screaming "I got you!" - I'll never forget the look on his face as long as I live, he nearly shat himself.

He's married with kids now and I still blush whenever I bump into him!!

Sorry for spamming but I just remembered one more.

I was madly in love with Paul Nicholls when he was on Eastenders and I read in Smash Hits that he had a girlfriend called Elizabeth, I wrote him a beautifully illustrated fan letter declaring my undying love for him, and finished it off with a picture of a knife saying

"P.S: If you don't dump Elizabeth, I'LL KILL HER"

Thank god I never sent it!!

Oh, gosh. I think I spent my whole childhood in a state of bewilderment/daftness. bits, we did the same with birds' eggs. I think we'd assumed birds always sat on them so if the bird wasn't there, it was abandoned.

Aged 4, my favourite thing to do was get on my trike at the top of the hill where our house was and put my feet on the handlebars so they didn't get in the way of the peddles whirring round, then let my brother let go so that I sailed down the hill and, at the bottom curve, swept off the pavement into the road.

I used to play with penknives (which we were not allowed), and if I got cut, I poured hot liquid wax from a candle (also not allowed) onto the cut in the belief it'd stop the bleeding. Not just once; this was a regular thing.

My teacher set us a project to write about the work of a living artist we'd met. I'd never met an artist. Instead of, you know, saying so or asking my parents, I made up a completely fictional woman with a completely fictional career and style. Which was extremely obviously fake, now I look back.

Oh, and I went to choir for four whole years, despite the fact I a) can't sing very well and b) was so angonizingly conscious of this fact I couldn't bring myself to do anything other than mouth the words. Because I had a crush on the lass in the year above.

Miss Weaver, if you are out there, with your strange capacity to sing the baritone line, I have now realized that you knew and that this is why you got a strange look in your eye every time you caught sight of me. I'm sorry. It was very silly of me. But I did enjoy the carols.

Sunshine that reminds me of when me and a few mates decided you had to shave the back of your head, so anywhere from the ears down had to come off. I hated it! As did the rest of my mates needless to say we all grew our hair back in

madmammy this will out me if they're here, but my two BFs (and still are, they were my bridesmaids last year) wrote to Paul Nicholls explaining at great lengths why they were not like the other crazy fans, but were in fact 'DOF girls' - different, original and friendly I think the idea was that he would think they were very nice and down to earth and didn't just want him to love them, so a deep and meaningful friendship would form...

Oh god Heir I did that too - "I really admire you for your acting, I'm not just writing to you because you're good looking, I think you're very talented at your job"

DOF girls, bloody brilliant!!

I've just googled and 0800 282930 is still the sex line for under 18s

When I was 7 my parents told me I was changing schools and that my new school was a Church of England school.
On the last day of term we had a full school assembly and the teachers called me and a few other kids who were leaving up to the front. They asked each of us to tell everyone where we were going and when they got to me my answer was "The School of England". When a teacher asked if I was sure I started questioning myself out loud. I must of spent a few minutes up there saying "is it the school of England? Yes it is the school of England. Wow it must be such a good school." Etc. Etc. Etc.
Good job I was leaving.

I used to text the local pirate radio station and get them to give a shout out to me and a list of teenagers, so that people would think I was having around with these cool kids

I also had a huge crush on a boy (about 15) and was convinced I was in love , we had a song and everything, I wrote in my diary that I had slept with him, mum read my diary and went ballistic, I then had to spend weeks trying to convince her that I hadn't and I had made it all up, I don't think she ever did believe me

Judge the magic nostril !!

I will explain later.

sunshine I did similar!!!
I made a list of all the lads I knew and rated them out of five ON LOOKS ! My nan found it and thought I was the town hussy I don't think she believed me either

I once spent an entire day, aged 12, pretending my knee had "locked" in place! Why? I've no idea, but made for some difficulty getting up the stairs to the top deck of the school bus!

Im still crying at that OP

This is a bad thread - I keep remembering shameful things!

I fancied a 6th form boy when I was in 4th Year, and actually worked out his entire timetable, wrote it out, and coloured it in very carefully.

My friend and I then worked out exactly where we had to sit in each class so that we could see him through the windows. We used to make sure we walked past him between lessons.

Never actually spoke to him, mind you. I don't think he knew I existed.

Then turned out that another boy in his year was effectively stalking me throughout the same year. We ended up going out for 6 months when I was in 6th form, and he could recite my entire timetable for my 4th yeat classes.

Amazed any of us actually got an O Level.

We used to borrow my friend's granddad's wheelbarrow. One of us had to get in and was covered up with a blanket. Then we wheeled them up and down the road. When we stopped the 'passenger' had to guess what house number we were outside of. Then we would change places.

I mean wtaf! We played that for an entire summer!

Snapping off rose thorns and sticking them onto our noses with spit and pretending to be a rhino. That killed an hour or two.

Knocking on neighbours doors and asking if we could please clean their houses! The term black affronted comes to mind.

Oh the shame!

Me and my cousin were trying to chat up this boy on holiday and pretended we were Australian. Spoke in (terrible) faux Aussie accents as well. Cringe

Oh and the prank calls. My best friend once rang childline and said she had a tampax stuck up her bum.

She also used to ring random numbers, speak in a "foreign" accent and tell them she was having an affair with their husband.

At 14 I concocted an elaborate lie that I was romantically involved with a boy and had picture evidence in my wallet. I had cut out a picture of a guy from a magazine and glued it on to photographic paper. I finished the whole thing off with transparent book covering film to make it look even more authentic . One of my friends wanted to examine the picture and promptly peeled of the photo paper backing, exposing the magazine writing in the middle. I grabbed the photo and convinced myself she hadn't noticed. Luckily my friends were nice about it. They could have totally taken the piss..

At 13 years old I skipped school sports day by visiting the sexual health clinic, because my slightly off-the-rails friend told me that you could get a doctor's appointment slip, excusing my non-attendance, for that. I lied that I had had sex abroad without a condom. They gave me a whole arsenal of tests while I pretended to be sad and worried. When I phoned them for my results a week later, I pretended to be happy I was disease free. In fact nobody ever asked for the slip, so I could have just not bothered. Also, it was another 9 years until I actually had sex (abroad - yes, with a condom - yes)..

The same slightly off-the-rails friend and me formed a "secret society" when we were around 11 or 12 years old (before she went off-the-rails, I should say). We did things like write notes telling naughty boys (who we actually fancied, of course) to back off from "harassing" girls (because it wasn't us, I guess ). We burned the edges of the notes, so that they would look more "menacing" and then pinned them on a notice board in the hallway when nobody was looking. I think everyone knew it was us, though..

This friend was also a great accomplice when trying to skive in P.E. In our school we did a lot of orienteering in the close by forest. I hated it, so tried to cut the corners as much as I could. The deal was that as soon as you had visited all the control points and had evidence of having done so (a smudge of the crayon attached or a number/letter), you could go home (P.E was always the last lesson of the day). Me and my friend would ask others for the numbers/letters, so we didn't have to go around looking for them. If crayons were involved, that was harder - we were very resourceful though: used mushrooms for yellow, leaves for green, berries/flowers for red or blue. God I hated orienteering.

Uhh.. maybe it's name change time soon!

Oh, some more innocent childhood things: I used to be quite ocd about stuff and make up rules that I had to adhere to. Say, in the beginning of a road I would say to myself, if there are not (e.g.) 7 red cars parked along this street I will have to loudly sing Frere Jaques (or something similar). Often I would then have to sing, but I would sort of mutter instead..

I was obsessed with horses between the ages of 9 and 11(ish), and used to draw lots of pictures and layouts of stables and write endless lists of what the horses' names at the stable were (complete with a charts of parents and ancestors)..

I have the story of 'The Day I Nearly Killed My Father'

When I was about eight it was my job to clean and polish my Dad's motorbike. Every Sunday I did it diligently and with great gravity. It was my job. Never occurred to me I could have asked him for a couple of quid for doing it. I had my own cleaning kit and polished between the spokes with a duster and used leather polish on the seat. I was a motorcycle valeter extraordinaire.

So you understand that I got a little bit testy on wet days when his bike would get dirty.

He used to park his motorbike in a little alley behind the kitchen. I would wait to hear the sound of his bike at 5.40pm, open the gate, climb on the back and he would ride us round a sharp corner and into the alley.

One day it was raining and I had a great idea. I got some planks of wood and some plastic sheeting and made a 'motorbike port' so his bike would stay clean and shiny. It was a crap lean too basically. At the height I could reach...................

Dad turned up at 5.40pm and I waited excitedly at the gate but declined to get on the back as I was so excited to see his face when he saw my work! I ran beside him and he rode round the corner and went face first (open faced helmet) into a plank of wood.

I just remember seeing the bike on it's side, wheel still spinning, Dad wiping blood from his face and staggering sideways.

I ran and hid for a long time behind the hedge.

Sorry Dad.

I had no sense of my own mortality. Aged about 8 I was at the swimming pool and thought I would 'walk on water' by putting arm bands on my ankles. Do not ever try this. I thought I was going to bloody drown as my feet floated at the top as my body sunk. I was near the edge so clawed my way up! No one tried to save me
I also spent so much of my childhood wishing to be an animal, either a fox or a cat - ? I would crawl everywhere and one day tried to jump off a reasonably high wall as a cat would, i.e. arms first. It hurt an awful lot.

I even wrote to the RSPCA once as a child. I stuck a couple of 2p pieces in the letter. It got posted but I can't remember if they replied or if I was just writing to let them know I was pleased with their work...

As a tragically awkward and self-conscious teen I wrote to Robin Williams (having just seen Dead Poet's Society) to tell him he understood me! Criiiiinge. God knows where I found an address to send it to and I expect it never got anywhere near him.

I have some very well repressed memories of crushes on teachers at school. Mild stalking, looking them up in the phone book, finding their address, cycling past their house repeatedly hoping that we'd bump into each other and I'd get invited in. Such shame.