Have to say, as stupid as most of these are, they're also pretty fucking metal lol. Glad you're still with us!
I started smoking, thinking that it would help me lose weight. I wasn't able to quit until I was in my 40s.
Not a teen, but when I would have been 10 or so we lived out in the country, with a big eucalyptus tree in the back yard. I used to climb it a lot, and was real into building things like platforms and little (shoddy) tree houses. We also had a great trampoline, which I often used to get down out of the tree.
You might be able to see where this is going.
One day, I was up in the tree building a little ladder with the trampoline below me. I went to get down, dropped my hammer to the trampoline, and immediately followed it.
Time slowed, i witnessed it all happening in slow motion as I was thought "oh fuck, that was dumb" as the hammer hit the trampoline, i landed, and the hammer flew in a perfect arc and hit me in the forehead with the head of the hammer.
I stood there, stunned still for a second, and then immediately went "oh god, that could have been so much worse". Thankfully I was completely fine!
The most stupid thing as a teenager, was never doing anything stupid as a teenager, lol!
I was one of those sickeningly responsible kids and the peacemaker in my family, so I was constantly stressing myself out over this or that and doing the dreaded "right thing" all the time. It was incredibly stupid because I didn't allow myself to just be a kid -- I did that when I was around 30 actually... and man! I made up for it with bells on, trust me! 😂
Wasn't quite a teenager, maybe around 10 or 11. I wanted to make a "weed killer" concoction with my sister one day when we were home alone. So we hoarded together every cleaning solution we could find in the house and poured it into a bucket. I have no idea how we didn't end up in a hospital.
The test patch of grass we used it on never grew grass ever again.
I drove in reverse around a university satellite campus at night with my friends on the roof of the car. Definitely would not do it again.
I did a lot of dumb things with those friends that were much less dangerous, would do most of that again.
Just got to get to a blind curve or hill and hope there's a turn off, not that I've ever done this of course, but it works
I was 11, and handled the 'samples' at a BNFL booth (at an airshow) where a geiger counter was set up, it wasn't til the demonstration guy returned and demonstrated to someone else how the coin-sized samples set off the counter that I realised it wasn't a 'self service' type demonstration. The samples were labelled with their atomic symbol, and the most reactive samples were labelled as uranium (about 20mm diameter) and plutonium (about 5mm diameter). At the time I told myself they were likely fake, since leaving a plutonium sample lying around wouldn't be very likely.
I've not died of radiation poisoning or cancer yet, but it's only been 41 years.
Recently a video tape surfaced of my friends and I tazing each other for fun.
Yes, I lived in bumfuck Florida at the time.
Edit: typo
I've met some men from Florida before, but this is the first time I'm getting to meet the esteemed "Florida Man"
It's truly an honor.
(My apologies if I've incorrectly assumed your gender, but I have a hunch about this one.)
Ah shit. No I can't go by that moniker. It was the weirdest there. Now I'm crying alligator tears. I escaped to the west coast for a reason.
So many, many choices.
I think my all-time dumbest came when I was about 22, so it doesn't fit here. In my teens...probably driving drunk at speeds up to 100mph on the mountain roads up above Pasadena with the headlights off at night.
We’d pour out a few bottles of rubbing alcohol somewhere with a “streak” back to where we were standing and then light it on fire. Basically catches ablaze for 5-10 seconds and then it’s gone, with minimal to no burning to stuff underneath. So obviously it’s not safe exactly. But we’d pull pranks with it. “Bro your bike is on fire, look!!”
You can't ask this and not give us yours.
But, I rode with drivers who had been smoking pot. Never did it myself, though.
A few years ago I was playing a gig in an adjoining town and after, everyone (we'd all had more than a few) piled into a car to drive back home. I just assumed the driver was all good - it wasn't until a few hours later I realised he was pissed out of his mind and had a moment of "oh thank god we made it home"
You can’t ask this and not give us yours.
unfortunately i literally don't have an interesting story like this (for a variety of reasons); the dumbest thing i probably ever did was technically trespass on an abandoned property in my neighborhood... but all the kids in the neighborhood did it without fanfare and eventually it got demolished and replaced by new development. not that interesting tbh
when I was 14 I spent the night at my bff's house and snuck out with her. took a taxi to the next town over to this guy's house (he was probably in his 20s) to smoke weed. this was back before it was legal and he answered the door with a gun. neither of us knew him at all but despite all this we went in and partied with him without incident. dude was paranoid as hell tho