Weird stuff you did as a child

I loved cardboard boxes when I was a kid.

One time, I slid down the stairs in a cardboard box and tumbled down them like an idiot.

I think the obsession with them was triggered by Calvin And Hobbes.

When I was in elementary school, our teachers would give us a lot of busy work, and I'd have a lot of useless worksheets at the end of the year. I didn't really know what to do with them, since I had pretty much the same things written in my notebooks.

So I'd gather all the worksheets and make it rain. That is, I'd throw them up in the air and run around as they floated back down to the ground. Sometimes I'd crumple them up and make my own paper ball-pit on my bed with pillows and stuffed animals as barriers. When I was done, I'd pick them up, un-crumple them if necessary, and recycle them.

Another thing I'd do was go outside and pretend to pole-vault around the yard with broomsticks that had lost the broom part. Sometimes, I liked to pretend I was a cross between a baton girl and Gabrielle from Xena and twirl it around and pretend to fight with it.

We weren't very rich, so we kind of had to make our own fun.

edited 6th Feb '12 2:14:30 PM by BlackElephant

I would pull my mom's books off the shelves and make walls around myself. I have also been told that I stood on the green electrical box outside and sang that fish heads song. And of course I tortured my older brother with VHS tapes

You know that material that is used for jogging pants, windbreaker jackets, and coat liners? I used to rub it together between my thumb and index finger. The sound and feel of doing so always was calming, to me.

Hell, I still find myself doing that with the lining material in my coat. That material is friggin' awesome.

Meow like a cat and walk around with skirts on my head. I also used to look at the people in the booth behind me when my family went out to eat.

• 1 for the stick collection. They were for the express purpose of wooden sword fights, though. I recently picked up mu old favorite "sword" from grade school, saddened by how light it feels now that I've outgrown it.

I also pretended I was a dog or cat or something.

It's not so much weird as it is silly, but I used to drink tomato juice and pretend it was blood. I wanted to be a vampire as a child.

I used to be omnicidal.

As in, I wanted everything to be destroyed.

I still have those moments where I wouldn't be concerned if nuclear war broke out.

God I'm a lot more grim than would be ideal.

I used to get a green cloth thing and run around the living room pretending I was "Bobby the Butterfly".

I was my imaginary friend.

Holy cow you guys are/were weird.

Some in an endearing kind of way... and some others not so much...

edited 8th Feb '12 12:33:20 PM by kay4today

Like my former omnicidal-ness?

I also played video games. I blew stuff up, killed worms, slaughtered Sims by roasting them etc etc.

Man, I must seem weird compared to everyone else. I kept asking my dad about road networks and politics and demographics.

@Steven

Yep.

@whale

See? Now that's endearing. Well, at least to me.

I also had an imaginary friend. He was nice.

edited 8th Feb '12 12:41:52 PM by kay4today

Oh, I had one too!

He was called Gary, and he left to go on holiday to Mosokolovia or something like that, when I was about 10 or 11.

Oh!

I also wrapped this huge (well, it was about 80 cm by 120 cm, much taller than me when I was 9) Winnie The Pooh blanket around me, and I proclaimed myself the King of Home-y! Only to be overthrown by my mother.

edited 8th Feb '12 12:46:30 PM by Inhopelessguy

Weird question... but were you sad because of it?

I don't even know if my imaginary friend really counts, because I knew he didn't actually exist. I only pretended that he did.

When I was about... 8 or 9, I got some cucumber and wrote, in cucumber juice, "THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED" along the walls next to the stairs.

I don't really remember. I just remember waking up and deciding that Gary had gone to Mosokolovia. I think I knew he wasn't real, and I have no clue where the hell Mosokolovia came from. I think I made up an ex-Soviet country.

I remember when I'd throw temper tantrums, I'd specifically move over to a place where the floor was more comfortable first. Like if my mom told me I couldn't have something I wanted in the kitchen, I'd run over to the living room so I could lay down and bang my fists on the carpet instead of the hard linoleum floor. Practical, yes, but it sort of ruined whatever dramatic effect I was going for.

Oh, and also my younger sister and I had a major ongoing feud over ants of all things. I had a hobby of stomping on anthills, which upset her, and that just led to me stomping on ants more just to spite her. Once she had revenge though: We spent one day over the neighbors' house because my parents both had to be out, and I stomped an anthill in their yard. Later, when I wasn't in the room, one of the adults of the house asked her about dinner, and she said that we both liked meatloaf. Of course I was a Picky Eater who hated meatloaf.

edited 8th Feb '12 1:48:07 PM by MikeK

My younger cousin did the same things to spite me. I liked ants and other bugs, and he would stomp on them infront of me just so I would get angry. I used to play a lot around ant hills as a little kid, if there wasn't anyone outside to play with. I would poke the ants with sticks and give them bread crumbs to eat. I also liked snails, especially the little ones. They tickle when you put them on your finger. And the first time I found a mantis in my grandmother's yard, I was elated and immediately set out to find dead bugs, so I could feed it.

Other odd thing I did - I loved hide-and-seek. So much that once I was at home, I hid in a closet and stayed quietly inside until my parents started calling me. They didn't know I decided to play with them. I giggled as they failed to find me, their cries becoming more desperate. By the time they figured out where I was, my mother was crying, thinking I had somehow wandered outside the house without anyone seeing me. Then my dad saw some pillows I had gotten out of the closet and they finally opened it. With me laughing inside. Poor mom was a nervous wreck by that time.

edited 9th Feb '12 11:37:29 AM by whataboutme

I was kind of like this too.

I'm only like this when I wake up.

"When I open my eyes the world better be engulfed in hellfire. I'll settle for a cloudy day." -Clear Sunny Day. No clouds in the sky- "Damn it."

Coffee fixes that right up.

Wait, you mean that's not how you're supposed to play The Sims?

As for me, I once dipped potato chips in whipped cream. It was pretty good.

edited 10th Feb '12 12:21:50 AM by Malph

I also used to play this game with my brother that we called "Don't Get Netted", which consisted of throwing the granny square afghan we had over the back of the sofa at one another.

On rainy days, my sister and I used to play this racing game in the hall called Nice Ladies & Stuff.

My best friend and I made up a phony sitcom about a husband and wife and their huge brood of children called The Wrong Family. We acted it out using our Star Wars figures; Obi-Wan was the father, the sand-person was the mother and Chewbacca played the harried babysitter.

edited 10th Feb '12 12:41:05 PM by Bananaquit

...honestly, I think I've done more weird shit in my adulthood.