Kids do the darndest things! From ridiculous pranks to innocent mistakes, these people reveal how they absolutely humiliated their parents while growing up. Content has been edited for clarity.
Table of contents
1. “I Don’t Think I Ever Laughed Harder In My Life”
“When I was around 12 years old, my mom called home one evening and told me she was bringing home Chinese food for dinner. Being I hadn’t eaten all day, I was beyond ready for food.
By the time my mom came home, my level of hunger had become outrageously intense. I opened up one carton of vegetables and started inhaling the longest string beans I had ever seen in my life. I was barely chewing anything. From carrots, corn, water chestnuts, cauliflower, broccoli, and string beans, I hardly tasted anything.
I was nearing the end of the vegetable platter and daydreaming about what I was going to eat next when suddenly, I started choking. I could feel a string bean in the back of my throat, stretched down to my esophagus. Desperate to make it stop, I reached into the back of my throat to pull out the string bean. As I was doing so, I hit my gag reflex. I threw up the entire meal back into the carton it came out of. Everything still appeared to be perfectly intact.
Despite the meal’s well-preserved aesthetics, I no longer desired to eat anything more, so I returned to the kitchen to dispose of the carton.
Suddenly, my bladder went into overdrive. Without a moment to lose, I placed the carton on the kitchen counter and sprinted to the bathroom. I exited the bathroom, one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I forgot about my carton of puke on the counter.
A few hours later, my mom came into my bedroom and said, ‘You know the vegetables I got you? The ones you didn’t eat back in the kitchen? I mean, they were alright. The sauce on the sure was bland, though.’
I don’t think I had ever laughed harder in my life.
It took me over an hour to convince her that she had eaten an entire container of my barf.”
2. A Christmas Nightmare
“When I was in eighth grade I was staying the night at my friend’s house, and it so happened that one of my favorite movies, ‘A Christmas Story’, would be playing on TBS. My family didn’t have cable and I knew everyone would enjoy watching it on Christmas at my house, so I asked my buddy if we could record it onto VHS so I could take it home. He grabbed a blank tape from his dad’s office, popped it in the VCR, and we recorded Ralphie and his Christmas shenanigans. The following day, I went home and told my parents and siblings I had a movie copy. They were ecstatic and we all agreed to watch it the following week on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve rolled around, and my parents, brothers (about 5 and 8 years old), sister (7 years old), and I gathered around the TV to watch the movie. I rewound the tape to the beginning and pressed play. For the next three seconds (although it felt like an hour) my entire family and I watched porn play on the television. We had obviously accidentally taped over one of my friend’s dad’s tapes.
Nobody flinched. I looked at my parents, who had these bizarrely frozen smiles as if nothing happened and everything was right with the world. My brothers and sister continued watching the TV but had looks of bewilderment on their faces as they tried to process what they had just seen while simultaneously trying to enjoy the beginning of ‘A Christmas Story.’
Nobody in my family has ever mentioned this event since, and ‘A Christmas Story’ was taken out of our family traditions.”
3. “They Were Both In Tears”
“When I was in kindergarten, I made a new friend while at school.
We hit it off, and my friend told me, ‘I have a big bag of Halloween candy at home. Do you want to share?’
So, I walked home with my friend to her house after school. Her house was only a short little walk away. The only problem? I never told my parents where I was going.
I completely lost track of time eating candy and playing video games at my friend’s house. Her family must have thought my parents knew where I was. We played board games and ate dinner, and I didn’t go home until after nine in the evening.
I remembered getting home, walking through the front door, and being greeted by the sight of my parents. They were both in tears and on the phone with the police. I immediately realized what I did wrong, and I thought I was going to be grounded forever. To my surprise, my parents weren’t mad. They were overjoyed that I was okay.
Many bear hugs and tear-filled expressions later, I felt terrible. They must have thought I was in serious trouble, as I was missing for over six hours. Every single one of their friends was out looking for me.
I was such a bad kid.”
4. “My Parent’s Faces Were Horrified”
“This incident happened when I was ten years old.
I was in the bathroom preparing to take a bath. For some reason, our cat was in the bathroom with me. She was sitting on the side of the tub while I was brushing my teeth. When I finished brushing and flossing, our cat hadn’t moved. When I turned on the faucet to draw the bath water, it freaked her out. The sudden burst of water from the faucet caused our cat to leap straight into the air, kicking and clawing. Somehow, her back paw clawed into my lower lip while doing these weird kitty acrobatics.
I didn’t remember feeling any pain, but when I looked in the mirror, I discovered my lip was profusely bleeding. The blood was dark, thick, and seemed neverending.
At this moment, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
With blood pouring out of my mouth, down my chin, and onto my chest, I ran out of the bathroom and into the living room where my parents were watching the evening news.
Clutching my abdomen and falling to my knees, I screamed, ‘My stomach! My stomach! What is going on?’
Oh, the horror! My parent’s faces were horrified. When I told them what happened a minute or so later, they were livid.
I thought it was a great prank myself.”
5. Science Project Showdown
“When I was seven or eight years old, I did a science project on the antibacterial efficacy of various hand soaps. The experiment involved keeping my hands dirty for an entire day, pressing grubby thumbs into a Petri dish, then washing my hands and repeating the process.
I took tracings of the cultures after the experiments were over. Bigger bacteria colonies were bad, and smaller ones were good. My project ended up winning the county science fair for my grade in a large metropolitan area, which was nice.
But before this, after I had finished the experiments and before I had discarded the Petri dishes, I had gotten into a dispute with my parents. I thought to myself, ‘I’ll show them,’ and took the nastiest bacteria from the Petri dishes and swabbed it onto their bedroom doorknob.
Both of my parents got sick as dogs, and I had to help take care of them for a few days. It served me right. I couldn’t believe I successfully waged bacteriological warfare against my parents using my science fair project.
I told them about what I did a long time ago, and they thought it was hilarious.”
6. “My Parents Weren’t Impressed”
“When I was 9 years old, my family lived in an old high-rise apartment building. One day, I decided I wanted to pull a fast one on my parents.
I went into my bedroom, closed the door, and opened the window. Then, I removed the screen, stuck my head out of the window, and screamed as loud as I could. I tried to make it sound like I was falling out of the window.
Afterward, I quickly hid under my bed and waited for the drama to ensue. My parents frantically came running into my room shortly after, but I was nowhere in sight. It worked! They thought I fell out of my window!
Eventually, I started giggling and was busted. My parents weren’t impressed, to say the least.”
