Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Kids Do The Dumbest Things

When I was a kid I did some really stupid stuff. Really dumb. Put my life in danger types of things. Now that I think back I am amazed that I survived some of the stuff that I did.
We used to go to this abandoned mill that was a few miles from where I lived because there was a pseudo dam that had about a 20-30 foot cement slide down to a shallow pool of water. It was covered in slimy algae to aid with the speed factor.
We would slide down this slime encrusted thing down to the shallow pool that was full of sharp rocks and I am certain some other things that I don't want to think about. I was never hurt but some people got some decent cuts if they fell wrong.
By the end of the day our butts were stained green and we would have holes in our shorts and swimsuits. I don't know if my mom ever figured out what we were doing.
The main living area of our house was on the second story. We lived in an area with a high water table so the basement and garage were above ground and our living area was above that. We had a porch (probably about 12x20) that was on the front of our house with the steps going down the side rather than down the front. We would pile blankets and inner tubes on the front lawn and jump from the second story porch onto a big pile of fluffy stuff. We did this quite a bit until I severely sprained my ankle.
Near the school that I attended was a huge hill with lots of trees. During recess we were allowed to go on one portion of the hill and it was really steep. We could get about 40 feet up before it got too steep. There wasn't much undergrowth because the trees were so dense so we got dirty a lot. We would take cardboard boxes and slide down the hill like we were sledding, narrowly avoiding trees on the way down.
There was an easier way to get up another side of this hill that we could take our bikes up. We would push them up the hill and then do these mini BMX bike races around pools full of tadpoles and small but steep hills. I went down one of those hills one time and hit the bottom wrong. I went in somersaults on my bike for about 15 feet until I blacked out and came to a few seconds later. One ear rang for a bit and I had dirt caked inside the other ear.

I think that the absolute stupidest thing that I did was the Choking Game. If you haven't ever heard of it, the premise is simple. One person cuts of your airway in your neck (usually by pushing in gently right above your breast bone) until you can't breathe and pass out. Then they let go while you slide down. You are out for about 5-10 seconds and then wake up and your fine. It was a natural high. I never did it alone. My brother would always be the one to cut off my airway.
I haven't thought about the Choking Game for years until I saw a new show talking about it. I guess that kids are still doing it but now they are doing it alone usually with some kind of rope or device that they can lean against to get the same sensation. With no one there to make sure that they didn't pass out into the thing that was choking them.
I think about my son and I pray that he is smarter than I was.
What stupid things did you do as a kid?

13 comments:

Sizzle said...

my sister and i used to lock each other in the trunk of our family car for kicks. no wonder i am clausterphobic now! i never did that choking game (sounds scary!) but when i worked at baskin robbins as a teen we'd suck the nitrous out of the whipped cream cans and oftentimes, pass out. good times.

yeah, not really.

dmarks said...

Yeah, we did the "20-30 foot cement slide" thing in elementary school, around 3rd or 4th grade. It only lasted a day. The slide was between the school and the playground, and it was dry. No nice green slime. It was fun, but it really did a number on the seat of our pants. Some of us went home early that day in shame.

There are probably a lot of these kind of things that I could make a longer-than-usual blog entry about, but no choking game.

I think I already mentioned in one of those blogs the thing about crashing huge icicles (as big around as dryer vents) off of 2nd story eaves and running back as they fell.

Sizzle: Car trunks? Did you grow up in a Mafia family?

Jaybird said...

Oh, where to start! Let's see, there were the bee-bee gun wars, playing football in the street, playing with fire, playing with my Dad's guns unsupervised, unofficial knife-throwing contests with friends, and various minor neighborhood vandalism offenses. Quite frankly, I'm surprised I am still alive!

Churlita said...

We did the choking thing in jr high too. We would wait until it was time to line up and go in. I have no idea how our teachers didn't catch us.

egan said...

Wow, the choking game freaks me out. I put plastic bags over my face. I think the stupidest thing I did was throw rocks at an abandoned church.

Anonymous said...

Rach, I tried that choking game once although what we did is bent over with our arms crossed, then straighted up quickly and had a friend push us against a wall. I guess I blacked out and started convulsing when I fell to the floor. My friends thought I was having a siezure... really dumb!

Also, when I was in 7th grade we were having a reunion for a camping trip with other students, a few teachers, and our families. The house we were at had a 15 ft pole barn out back with a huge stack of bales of hay, and corn stalks lining the cement ground. I was the third person to jump from the hay "wall" into the corn stalks. Well, my foot found a hole to the ground and while the rest of my body fell over, my foot stayed in one place breaking my ankle bones in 4 places. For those of you who don't know, there are only two bones in there you can really break... I didn't need surgery, but it was very close! I still have horrible problems with that ankle.

FW said...

I very often think of stuff done or experienced as a kid that make me shudder if my own kids got up to the same. Knife throws at feet, running out infront of cars and stuff - not choking though!

Unknown said...

That is so scary!!! The choking game I mean...

We had a huge oak tree in the back yard & would climb into it from these big wood fence like thingys. One time I fell about 20 ft out of the tree flat on my back. It knocked me out and I had a slight concussion. If I had fallen a foot to the right, I would have probably been impaled.

Anonymous said...

Let's see....climbing trees REALLY high, wooden sword fights, playing in the just-dug dirt basement of a house. Not the most dangerous things in the world, but things I would probably worry about if MY (hypothetical) kids did that stuff.

Mrs. Hairy Woman said...

That is some crazy a@# stuff you did.. Glad you never got badly hurt.. That would've sucked...

Rachel said...

Wow. I never did that. We had a Chevy Citation and it was a hatchback.
Isn't that called Huffing now? The whipped cream thing?

dmarks ~ The icicles would scare the crap out of me. D is fascinated with them too.

snackiepoo ~ Was your sister seriously hurt? That is scary.

jaybird ~ It sounds like you and my brother would have gotten along famously. He did some crazy stuff too. One of which caused him to have surgery on his hand because he sliced it open with a machete.

Churlita ~ You guys did this at school? Man you are brave.

Egan ~ Why did you put plastic bags over your face?

Poppy ~ I had no idea that you had broken your ankle. I wondered why your foot was facing the wrong way...lol...just kidding.
I never saw someone have convulsions from that. It would have scared the crap out of me too.

Furtive ~ What is it about throwing knives and boys?

Aria ~ I fell out of my Nana's tree once and fell onto my back. I didn't have a concussion but MAN did I feel like crap for an hour or so. I couldn't catch my breath and my back hurt so bad. It was only about 8 feet so I can't even imagine how bad it was for you.

Playtah ~ What - no 10 foot deep hole at the lake? lol

Babybull40 ~ I did some crazy stuff and know what? Both times I had to get stitches I wasn't doing anything wrong. I have only broken one bone (4th left toe) and that was at a water park.

Tara said...

At the top of the stairs in my childhood home, the side wall opened up and you could look out into the livingroom downstairs. I used to leap from there and down to the couch. My mom would've had a heart attack if she ever saw me do that.

Then there was the tree climbing incident where the rope slid off the tree stump and I landed back first on the rocks below, knocking the wind outta me.

Eric said...

It sounds like you grew up in little kid heaven with all the things you had to jump off of and slide down. I'm pretty jealous. I never did to many stupid things as a kid as far danger was concerned. There was a few months where me and my friends got a big kick out of vandalizing things. Which looking back on I feel pretty bad about.