this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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Mine was our CRT TV. I would rapidly push the power button on and off because I thought the picture coming and going looked cool but eventually it fell inside of the TV. I think I later stuck a magnet on the TV.


Not looking for Reddit answers like "My parent's marriage"

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[–] ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

I suspect i might be the winner here. My friend had an alley behind his house along with a nice strip of open land near a busy road. Eventually a strip mall was built and then another large commercial building started to go up. Being basically behind my friends house we walked over to this new building on weekend to check out the construction site.

The building was being built with cement block and had lots of scaffolding and yet-unused block scattered around. I found a pipe-bender - a very heavy tool made out of high quality steel - and found you could just tap on of these cement blocks and it would shatter to pieces. I was fascinated, as were my friends. I have no idea how many cement blocks we destroyed over the next couple of days, but it was a huge number. Then we decided to see if we could go through a wall with the pipe bender... we could indeed, making a hole in the side of the building we could walk through. Looking around we eventually realized what we'd done was awful.... we had decimated this construction site. We finally slinked away and come Monday when the crew returned, police were called and neighbors interrogated but thankfully with privacy fences all around, none of the neighbors saw anything. 11 and 12 yr olds are stupid.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I grew up in a very unorganized town that wasn't really regulated with traffic laws. I learned to drive a truck at about 12.

When I was 14 I was driving my dad's truck around town. I suddenly had the urge to see how well the brakes worked. I drove fast down a gravel road than slammed on the brakes as hard as I could. Within seconds it blew both front brake lines.

Later that same year in the winter I got the truck stuck on some ice. It wasn't bad, I just happened to stop on a very slippery patch of ice and couldn't move forward. I got the idea that as the tires spun, they were getting hot which meant it was melting the ice. If I did it long enough I would eventually get down to the gravel. I got impatient and spun the wheels faster smoking them like crazy while the engine roared. In the middle of the noise and smoke, a tire exploded and the truck jumped and deflated. I had blown out a tire.

Dad wasn't happy with me for a long while because the truck went to the shop and we had to pay a lot of money to get them fixed.

At the very least, I never made these mistakes again.

[–] HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I really, really liked disassembling stuff, and then not knowing how to reassemble. The most regrettable thing I disassembled was probably the Wii U. It would be nice to still have one, but I also really don't feel like buying one, so, yeah.

[–] acetanilide@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

😬 i did this, but with my brand new telescope

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[–] iliketurtles@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My dumbass was shooting marbles out of my paintball gun. Worked great, but I nailed a few windows on our neighbor's car!

[–] WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

I bet those hurt!

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 1 points 5 months ago

I also put our phone in a bucket of water. My dad asked me to hold it but I was already carrying a bucket of water so I just put it in the bucket.

[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago (4 children)

A brand new multi thousand dollar video camera that my pops had saved up for. I disassembled it entirely, just trying to figure out how it worked. He wasn’t even mad at me. I grew up and now can fix just about any electronic down to the component level. I like to think he saw the curiosity in me and was more proud than anything.

[–] weeeeum@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Huge respect for pops for not disassembling you.

[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago

For real. He could have very reasonably been very angry at me, and it might have defeated my curiosity before it really got a chance to get going, but by doing what he did, he associated it with good feelings that continued through until now.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago

or he's doing the long con, and waiting till you buy something expensive so that he can disassemble it "out of curiosity" to test your reaction

[–] flubba86@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Was it long enough ago that he could simply take it back to the store and have them reassemble it for him? Or did he reassemble it himself? Or did you try to reassemble it? You've left me hanging on the edge of my seat!

[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago

It was done for, he got another one but it wasn’t nearly as expensive. It wouldn’t be for quite a few more years before I learned how to non-destructively disassemble things, and I didn’t have access to many tools. I can barely remember now but I’m pretty sure I used a butter knife to get out screws and pry stuff open. I just didn’t understand how a little box could record videos and I had to try to figure it out. I was probably 7 or 8, based on where I lived when it happened.

[–] flubba86@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

When I was around 14, my parents got my sister and I a 2nd hand Xbox (the OG big square Xbox), but we were too poor to buy any games for it. I used to rent the games from blockbuster for three days at a time.

I was fascinated with electronics, I'd build little radio kits and LED chasers, I was okay with a soldering iron. I was researching mod chips online, to play burned games. The guides on installation emphasised how small all the solder points are, and how fine the wires are, that it's not a job for a beginner. But I thought it would be fine.

I tried to order a modchip online, but the site didn't deliver to Australia. I remember seeing people advertising in the news paper classifieds section modchipping services, so they must be available somehow. I called one of the guys, but he said he only sold them as part of installation, couldn't sell me just the modchip. I called a couple others, but none wanted to talk to a 14yo kid.

My parents caught wind of what I was trying to do, and they offered to pay to send it to the guy to get it done. So we just went with that. I was disappointed I didn't get to do the installation myself.

The next week, we got our Xbox back, turned it on, and played a couple of burned games, it worked great. But I was curious. Did the guy do a good installation job? What gauge wires did he use? Which brand and model modchip did he use? I was full of questions. So while my parents were out I opened the Xbox up, disassembled it right down to the motherboard. I found the modchip, I was fascinated by how small it was, how fine the wires were, and how tiny the solder points were. It all looked so fragile. It looked like the guy had done a pretty good job.

I put the Xbox back together, went to play it, but it wouldn't read any discs, not even genuine discs. Weird, did I forget to plug something back in on reassembly? I opened it up and found the disc drive cable was slightly unplugged. Plugged it in, reassembled, and tried it again. This time it read genuine discs, but it wouldn't play any burned discs. I tried for a while, and it was like the modchip wasn't working. That was when my parents got home. I was so angry and frustrated with myself, my mum asked what the matter was, and I started sobbing and crying furiously, I said "why can't I leave things alone?" and "Why do I always have to take things apart?" and "Why didn't I just enjoy the games?".

A couple days later I had calmed down enough, I opened the Xbox up again, and had another look. I saw the problem immediately. One of the tiny hair-like wires on the modchip had popped off. Maybe because of my previous poking around in there, or maybe it just came off by itself, idk. Luckily it was on the modchip side, not on the motherboard side, so there was a relatively large pad to solder it back onto. Still smaller than anything I'd soldered before, but I gave it a go. It took about an hour, with my oversized non-temperature-controlled soldering iron, but I got it soldered back in place. While was there I resoldered a couple wires alongside it, so they were more secure too. I was shaking with anticipation when I put it all back together yet again, and fired it up. It worked! Played burned games again! I was so happy I was crying. The awful low from days before transformed into an amazing high of achievement, and gratification.

My parents told me the lesson was to never take things apart, leave well enough alone. But they were wrong.the lesson was far greater. It gave me the self confidence to know I can fix things. Yes I can and will break things, but I can fix them. I somehow absorbed that into my identity. From then on I was always trying to fix things. Phone line died, I repaired it. Computer got a virus, I formatted and reinstalled the OS. Lawn mower wouldn't start, I cleaned and rebuilt the carburettor, didn't know what I was doing, but I just did it, because I had the confidence. Then at age 24 I got a job as an electronics repair technician, so it worked out for me.

[–] bysmuth@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I set the majority of my mother's finest dresses on fire. I was very young. We had a powercut one night so we were using candles. It came back soon after, but i was still a curious boy with a candle in my hand. I wanted to go somewhere dark again so i went inside my closet and closed the door. My mom ran out of space in her room for her dresses so she put them on my closet. Only the stuff she didn't use often so it had the worst and the best. They were wrapped plastic and i was fascinated by how the plastic shrunk when the flame got close. But eventually I got too close and actually set it on fire. How did i react? Got out, shut the closet doors and went to watch tv. It's a miracle i didn't torch my whole house

[–] OxidantZero@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

That's such a great reaction to starting a fire in a closet full of priceless and flammable stuff! "Oops! I think I'll just close the door on that problem and hope no one notices."

I'm tempted to call it such a child's reaction to a problem they don't know how to solve. But I know I'm guilty of doing the same thing as an adult, just not with a potentially fatal raging closet fire fueled by a plastic coated wedding dress.

The more I think about it, the more in awe I become of what you managed to achieve.

[–] dingus@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

Lol yeah as an adult I feel like I've done similar things. Not with a house fire or immediately life threatening scenario. But definitely like "well I don't really want to deal with that problem...I'm just going to walk away and hope it goes away" lol!!

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago

How did i react? Got out, shut the closet doors and went to watch tv. It’s a miracle i didn’t torch my whole house

Lmao - reminds me of when I was in my early twenties and couldn't handle my beer. We had a few people around, and the toilet was occupied, so I threw up in a bucket and hid it in a closet and went back to the party. Cue to next morning, "Lads... why is there a bucket of-"

[–] robber@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My sister and I figured out that we could draw. On the windshield of our neighbours car. Using stones.

...

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I definitely have seen artistic careers with better beginnings.

[–] robber@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Believe it or not, she's now running a graphics design studio.

[–] 0_0j@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

I believe you

Jesus maybe? At church during the Christmas service. Accidentally dropped it. No clue how much it was worth, but I don't remember breaking particularly expensive things.

[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

As a 10 year old I drove our car into a tree. It didn't quite break though

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My ex's brother released the hand break when he was a kid left alone in the car for 5 minutes. Rolled into the wall of store his parents were buying groceries

[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

I just turned on the car while it was in gear. No clutch or anything. It more or less jumped into the tree and died. I thought i had killed it!

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 months ago

You guys could've fixed that! You'd just have to open it up to reset or replace the button and hit the Degauss in the settings (assuming it had the option)!

[–] WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

ITT: kids with wayyyy too much time on their hands

  • Latchkey kid
[–] FireWire400@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

As a kid, I kinda had anger issues and would get frustrated easily. I broke the screen of my GBA SP by throwing it against a wall after not being able to solve a room in Mario vs. Donkey Kong. Similarly, I threw my iPod Touch on the floor after losing in a game called Bad Apples which broke the glass but the iPod itself still worked afterwards.

I really wish I still had that SP, as replacing the screen isn't that hard. It even was a limited edition one as well...

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

I once broke my neighbor's sliding glass doors with rocks.

A neighbor kid and I were really stupid when we were 9-10 years old, and my next door neighbor's house had been empty for a while because they rented it out. So we thought it would be a good of fun idea to go through the broken fence between our yards, and chuck the decorative rocks (pretty big ones, not pebbles) at the glass and make it shatter. We broke one open, and then another, then went inside to check out the empty place. We started to go at the third one when my brother came outside and heard the loud smashing.

Cops were called, in the end both of us were very apologetic and told them everything.

[–] Skunk@jlai.lu 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

An arcade center VR headset.

This was in the 90s or early 2000 when VR was non existent to consumers. During holidays visiting the US we ended up in this arcade center, probably in LA, where they had circled booths with an old FPS VR game that you play standing up. The headset looked like a helmet and was plugged from the top.

During my game, I turned on myself (360 no scope style) so much and always in the same direction that the cables got tangled and finally broke, probably with a little spark and some electrical sound. Game over.

As a French preteen, my English was bad and all I remember is the "shiiiiiiit" the worker said when he looked at the headset and cables.

Sorry buddy πŸ€·πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ

[–] MoonMelon@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Was it this thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuality_(product)

I paid $5 USD as a kid to play this thing at the mall, which was a fortune to me, but I loved stuff like this so much I thought it was worth it. The game was so shitty I couldn't even tell wtf was going on or what I was supposed to do. Just randomly floating through a sea of polygons until the guy said time was up.

[–] Skunk@jlai.lu 1 points 5 months ago

Yeah it looked a lot like the first picture in the Wikipedia article.

I don't remember the game but I couldn't understand shit as well nor the graphic style.

[–] johnhamelink@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I pushed the largest TV off a window ledge at an electricals store because I wanted to watch the TV, so I put myself between the TV and the window. Obviously I’d never lifted a TV before and had no idea about their centre of balance. Because it wasn’t tied down properly the store was reprimanded and my poor mother didn’t have to fork out. I think I was around 4 or 5

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