R / March 5, 2008 12:24 AM

I ate dirt from the flower box in front of my house. I also refused to look at a stitched-up cut on my stomach for several years because I worried that I looked like a monster. That means I didn't look at a part of my body for several years.

charlie / March 5, 2008 8:59 AM

Everything went up the nose.......

Poppy / March 5, 2008 9:14 AM

I ate chalk. *shudder*

printdude / March 5, 2008 9:22 AM

Sleptwalk like a mo'fo'. Rode my big wheel down the steps in my sleep, which was all part of ending up in the 'mergency room every two weeks (or less).

And damn, I sure loved listening to Charlie's dad talk about him in the doctor's offce. or was i listening to Cheech & Chong?...Hmmm.

Pete / March 5, 2008 9:22 AM

I staged one-player baseball games, with a miniature bat and Nerf ball, in my bedroom. Complete with play-by-play commentary. I always hit the game-winning home run.

Grover / March 5, 2008 9:29 AM

Very shy. Once bumped into a dresser and said "Excuse me".

Pathetic.

corinna / March 5, 2008 9:41 AM

Developed a complex clothes-changing process because I was too modest to be naked in front of my stuffed animals.

annie / March 5, 2008 10:04 AM

I ate shaving cream and lipstick and drank pepto, often. I would pick my nose and touch myself at the same time, usually while hiding in the bushes. (some things never change). I had an imaginary friend who could be either 6 feet tall or two inches tall, her name was Angie. I loved going to restaurants because I would hang out in the bathroom and talk to all the strangers and make up crazy stories about myself and most of the time people believed me. I could go on and on. I was a very strange child.

annie / March 5, 2008 10:04 AM

I ate shaving cream and lipstick and drank pepto, often. I would pick my nose and touch myself at the same time, usually while hiding in the bushes. (some things never change). I had an imaginary friend who could be either 6 feet tall or two inches tall, her name was Angie. I loved going to restaurants because I would hang out in the bathroom and talk to all the strangers and make up crazy stories about myself and most of the time people believed me. I could go on and on. I was a very strange child.

i.t. / March 5, 2008 10:16 AM

After learning about Helen Keller in school I was convinced that I could wake up one morning and, for no real reason, be blind. To prepare, I used a dish towel as a blindfold and I memorized the entire layout of my house just to be one the safe side.

Mikey / March 5, 2008 10:25 AM

My twin sister and I shared an imaginary friend we called 'Pinko' whom we would often shift the blame upon getting into trouble...

As a toddler, I just didn't have an appetite on some days and would announce as much to my mother on those mornings, "Today is not an 'eating' day."

I used to love playing with bugs and worms of all kind. One day after a rain, I was overturning rocks in the backyard and collecting earthworms when my mother called me in for lunch. Not wanting them to escape, I slung them over the small twig of our cherry tree. By the time I finished with lunch, the summer sun was shining brightly and had turned my poor worms into jerky...

The illuminated shapes that the streetlamps cast on the bedroom walls scared the hell out of me for years...

spence / March 5, 2008 10:35 AM

some weird stuff I did:

-Bury matchbox cars in the garden to send them to heaven.

-Pulled off the limbs/appendages of my he-man men (not dolls!) and mixed and matched them on to other bodies.

-My brother and I would sit in the bed of my Dad's pick-up and pretend to shoot and throw gernades at cars passing by.

Surprisingly, I've turned out to be a reasonably well-adjusted adult.

spence / March 5, 2008 10:38 AM

....one last one:

I use to pee outside at any and every opportunity. I grew up on a farm, so there wasn't much risk though.

flick / March 5, 2008 10:40 AM

:obsessively watch the weather channel. one summer, probably around 1988, i decided i was going to follow/chart all the hurricanes/tropical depressions/storms and their paths and i made a box with note cards and all their data. i think i still have the cards and box somewhere. i did not end up to be a meteorologist.

what the.... / March 5, 2008 11:04 AM

..I used to play tricks on my younger sister...a lot..
she was the "smart" kid and I was the quiet but sneaky one..
-would make her laugh when we were supposed to be asleep and then when Dad came in I would "fake" sleep and she'd get in trouble.
SSSHHHH..
..one time I got her to eat a scab...told her it was a raisin...eeeeewwww.
..other than things like that I was a pretty adorable kid..???
..don't feel too sorry for "sis"
..she's repayed me ten-fold since then..

CC / March 5, 2008 11:06 AM

I loved tart things so much as a kid that when my mom would let me get a treat at the grocery store, I would choose the plastic squeezy lemon and squirt lemon juice directly into my mouth all afternoon. My mom made me stop when I confessed that my teeth felt rough after I would do this, and she realized that the citric acid was temporarily stripping the enamel off my teeth.

katie / March 5, 2008 11:09 AM

The weirdest, most bizarre thing I did involved our cat and Vaseline. When I was quite small I liked to get into the medicine cabinet where we kept the jar of Vaseline. I loved to dip my hand into it. I'm not quite sure how the following events proceeded or what I was thinking, but I'm guessing I needed to clean my hands and our cat walked by around the same time. So in my 4 year old mind, wiping my hands on the cat seems like a good idea. I did this several times and the cat's fur started to clump weirdly. My parents were concerned and were going to take it to the vet, until they caught me doing it one day. I have never lived that down.

In college, I told my roommates this story and they thought it was hilarious. For Halloween we decided to be a conceptual punk rock girl band called Vaselining the Cat. We made t-shirts. Best Halloween costume ever.

Oh and I used to pretend the cat was a horse and tried to ride it. Man, she must have HATED me!

rachael / March 5, 2008 11:11 AM

the kid next door told me that if I put pinecones in an empty coffee tin, filled it with water & stirred I would have kittens. I wanted a kitten sooo badly and I just sobbed when, a week later, all I had were extremely soggy pinecones.

Janaynay / March 5, 2008 11:17 AM

I used to hide from teachers and camp counselors until the entire camp/class was looking for me.

I used to eat glue.

I used to draw the missing anatomy parts on Barbie and Ken.

I used to scratch the inside of my nose so I could say I had a nosebleed.

Carrie / March 5, 2008 11:39 AM

I also had an imaginary friend named Mary. I used to get mad at her and rip her apart, build a new one, shake hands and tell her she was going to be a better friend. Her name was always Mary.

I also used to fold my underwear and put them back in the drawer after wearing them because I thought folding equaled clean. When my mom saw me doing that, she explained that that wasn't the case.

snoopy / March 5, 2008 11:48 AM

When I was very young I thought clothes actually shrunk over time.

I remember having the revelation that I was getting bigger and the clothes were staying the same, and being frustrated with my mom for not understanding my epiphany.

david / March 5, 2008 12:28 PM

When I was a kid, I somehow came to think that when a dishwasher was running, it was filled with water, and thus shouldn't ever be opened.

I was only disabused of that idea about six months ago, when I caught my wife putting a plate into our already-running dishwasher. Sigh.

On a similar note, I once almost got into a fight with a friend who was CONVINCED that the phrase was not "for all intents and purposes," but rather "for all intensive purposes."

JasonB / March 5, 2008 12:31 PM

Tried to convince everyone I was a Ninja, up until 3rd/4th grade.

I'd also stick the erasers of erasable pens in my nose, for lack of a better thing to do in class.

One day it all caught up to me when I got one stuck in there and couldn't get it out until 2 wks later after it had made it's rounds through my nasal cavity, eventually finding it's way out through my mouth.

karen / March 5, 2008 12:49 PM

I thought feminine napkins were just fancy napkins ladies used at the dinner table.

I also thought the book
war & peace was someones name...

Warren Peace...forever.

JasonB / March 5, 2008 1:04 PM

When I was a kid, I somehow came to think that when a dishwasher was running, it was filled with water, and thus shouldn't ever be opened.

I was only disabused of that idea about six months ago, when I caught my wife putting a plate into our already-running dishwasher. Sigh

You're not alone. This totally blew my mind.

K. / March 5, 2008 1:49 PM

I used to play Narc Cop and hide little baggies of baking soda around the house, pretending it was cocaine, and then bust my teddy bears for it.

I also used to play TV programming executive and plan the entire TV season for a network, usually ABC.

Dubi / March 5, 2008 2:12 PM

response for flick:

flick, watching the weather channel obsessively and charting the data is not that weird. My best friend as kid did the same and now he is a successful stock trader.

Dubi / March 5, 2008 2:12 PM

responding to flick:

flick, watching the weather channel obsessively and charting the data is not that weird. My best friend as kid did the same and now he is a successful stock trader.

Andrew / March 5, 2008 3:23 PM

Probably the weirdest thing I did was eat dandelions after someone told me they were edible. I definitely ate the entire flower, not just the greens. I did this constantly, even to the point of not paying attention to the game while playing right field in Little League.

Also, I'm totally with CC for drinking those squeezable lemon and lime juice containers. I actually brought mine to school, for some reason I relished being weird at times.

karen / March 5, 2008 3:29 PM

i was an only child, so i would always play board games/card games by myself. how sad.

my grandma had a 'frogger' board game, and i thought it was the greatest thing ever.

the good thing about playing against yourself is, you never lose.

A / March 5, 2008 3:36 PM

This is not about me, although I was involved. My best friend (who was also our preacher's daughter) told me that she was the reincarnation of the last unicorn (from the cartoon movie). She told me that her childhood boyfriend was the evil bull and all girls with green or hazel eyes were the other unicorns. She then showed me a ripped off tip of a My Little Pony unicorn horn and told me it was the tip of her horn. I still laugh when I think about all of that. She was always a little nuts, so to this day I wonder if she was "playing" or just interested to see what level of insane lies she could get people to believe. As for me, I was skeptical, but waaaay too accomodating as a child to question it.

jennifer / March 5, 2008 3:59 PM

when my sisters and I were in the backseat of the car, we would duck down to the floor and get ready to attack the car behind us. we'd pop up and brandish our finger machine guns and fire away. considering that we were in rural iowa, I don't know where we got this from.

also, I made my sisters be in a lot of plays and dance routines, scripted and directed by me (of course). our rehearsals would often end when one (or more) of them were fed up with my feedback. she/they would stomp off, I'd yell about how they couldn't commit. my bossy director side was so fierce that when my sister jumped out of the tree (in her role as the fairy in 'little bunny foo foo') and sprained her ankle during the performance for our mother and grandmother, I was angry when she didn't get up and deliver her line.

ah...some things don't change. (er, well, at least some of that lingers.)

Jill / March 5, 2008 4:10 PM

Karen, I too played board games by myself, but I would usually play against invisible people. Thus, a "six-person" game of Trivial Pursuit would keep me occupied all night.

My best friend and I would come up with weird stuff. We created a Star Wars Obstacle Course in her backyard. In 3rd grade we shared a locker that we called the Hefty locker--we filled it with every hat, scarf, and mitten we owned to see if it was "tough enough to overstuff."

leah / March 5, 2008 4:26 PM

The only items I carried in my green grownup lady purse when I was 3 were loose crackers. I still remember the feeling of the crumbs at the bottom.

And when I'd run away from home as a 7-year-old, the only thing I'd pack in my Barbie suitcase would be underwear. Aaaaall underwear.

Shylo / March 5, 2008 4:28 PM

I told people that my grandfather was a hitman for the irish mafia.

I used to blink at the nadir of the bows between telephone poles.

We'd take nibbles out of the sandwich of our youngest brother and then tell him that mice got to it and we didn't bother shooing the mice away because he was a bad kid!

I also thought that parking lots early in the morning were where you went to kill yourself. In fact, I was pretty convinced of this up until a few years ago when I passed a forest preserve at dawn and watched someone park their car and get out. It was a jogger!

Eric / March 5, 2008 4:32 PM

I don't think this is weird, but it's possible you might. I had a microscope that I'd gotten as a gift. One time, I masturbated to fruition and placed a drop of semen on a slide, put on a coverslip, and checked it out under the 'scope. And there it was: one lone sperm with a broken tail and three heads.

Just kidding. That slide was teeming with life, their flagella flagellating vigorously.

F-Tang / March 5, 2008 4:33 PM

For some odd reason, I lied to my friends that I owned one of those German WWI-type army helmets with the spike on top. For no reason! Why did I lie about this? No one even cared...

And I once was going to run away from home but I didn't own a suitcase, so I just took my dresser drawer and walked down the street with it. My mother pretended to cry until I caved in and came back after reaching the end of the block.

Cheryl / March 5, 2008 4:45 PM

I thought the Queen lived in Buckingham Fountain.

p / March 5, 2008 4:50 PM

tried to move things with my mind alot. just really stare and concentrate and believe i could do it.

garbage pickin'

"Experiments" like when i wanted to find out if wrapping my fingers in scotch tape would protect me if i put my hand in a candle's flames. turns out no.

leave my bike right by the entrance to the park then sit at the other end watching it, hoping somebody would take it so i could chase them down and give them the Business.

make homemade fireworks (tennis balls dipped in gasoline, etc.)

make out practice with my pillow.

Eamon / March 5, 2008 5:59 PM

Lots of standing under gutters during rainstorms for extended periods of time.

Also, sneaking out of the house to sleep in the yard: no blanket, no pillow, no nothing.

Mindy / March 5, 2008 6:28 PM

i would eat butter.

when i was 7ish i would take my 2 year old brother by the hands and spin him around till he got really dizzy, then i'd set him down and watch him stumble and fall all over the place.

and for who knows what reason, i thought everyone in every house everywhere was doing the same thing i was doing, all the time. i think i realized this was not true when our babysitter came over one day and i had the thought that 'if she is here, at my house, she can't be at her house, doing what i'm doing.' quite a complicated thought for a youngster.

also, reading through these answers has made me laugh out loud several times. thanks for sharing, guys.

Mikey / March 5, 2008 7:36 PM

...make homemade fireworks (tennis balls dipped in gasoline, etc.)

Right there with you. We would bring the gasoline-soaked tennis ball to a field by my house, light it and play "soccer." In all actuality, we were just trying to kick the fireball at each other...

flannery / March 5, 2008 7:42 PM

I always had a hamburger, small fries and a small drink from McDonald's. I ate the items in the following rotation: one bite of hamburger, one french fry, one sip of drink. Inevitably, the hamburger ran out, then the drink, then the fries, but I would not change my pattern.

I was also so paranoid about fires that I used to sleep with my bag around me whenever I stayed the night at friends whose parents smoked and so paranoid about kidnapping that I pretended I lived at whatever house I was passing whenever a car passed (thanks to the tv movie, Adam)

Matt / March 5, 2008 8:29 PM

I used to flip the top and bottom halves of my McDonald's hamburger bun upside down. I have no idea why...

Val / March 5, 2008 10:44 PM

I wore aprons. Not to cook, but out and about with mom. Hm.

Oh, and always put chocolate chips on my pancakes, but I still do that :).

@Flannery: I also experienced those types of 'fears.' I would hear a weird noise at night and crawl under my bed and fall asleep.

Andrew / March 5, 2008 11:07 PM

(The dandelion-eating Andrew up there isn't me.)

I took my GI Joes apart and recombined the parts to create my own characters.

mish.f / March 5, 2008 11:33 PM

My best friend and I came up with what we thought was a genius commercial for Bud Light. There would be a preacher at the pulpit saying "And God said, "Let there be Light," and there was...BUD LIGHT!" and he would whip out a frosty bottle of beer. I told my mom about it, expecting praise for our amazing idea, and she looked at me like I was nuts. It really hurt my feelings at the time, but now I realize she was just horrified that her 4th grader liked to brainstorm ad campaigns for alcoholic beverages...

Ames / March 6, 2008 9:36 AM

My parents wouldn't let me take a bath for some reason and would only let me take a shower. I packed a washcloth and a towel and ran away, but only got about 10 feet.
I also used to eat popcorn by actually biting each little piece of the kernal so I could make it last longer.
This has been hysterical by the way.

alison / March 6, 2008 10:16 AM

I loved to set on a big cedar trunk underneath the window in my mom's room and pretend I worked at a McDonald's drive through...ahh, lofty career aspirations.

I also used to press my fingers into my closed eyes until I saw stars. It's surprising that I'm not blind now.

I also went through a phase where I would sleep on top of my bed, sheets and blankets below me because I was afraid a snake or spider was hiding at the bottom of my bed, waiting to bite my toes.

joker / March 6, 2008 10:16 AM

I thought that if I hid my mother under the bed she would never get old because, I guess, "Old" wouldn't be able to find her. I was never able to figure out a good way to approach her with this novel idea.

"Well, yeah, mom, it would have to be forever, but think of the upside..."

Alison / March 6, 2008 10:17 AM

ahem, *SIT*, not set.

dan r / March 6, 2008 10:43 AM

I played with a purple jump-rope a LOT.

My mom tried to throw it out once and I dug it out of the trash.

sky / March 6, 2008 11:22 AM

I used to pick up gum off the street and chew it.

I was beyond scared of the dark and waking up in the middle of the night. If I had to pee, I would find a container in my room and pee in it, to avoid going across that hallway and into the bathroom.

My sister and I pooed in front of a full length mirror onto toilet paper to see what it looked like.

And I loved adding things up on a calculator that printed out your totals. Anytime my parents went shopping...I would collect their bags of stuff, sit on the floor and add them up on the calculator pretending to be a cashier. I thought it was the coolest thing and the sounds it made were fantastic.

Oh, and buring toilet paper in the toilet.

annie / March 6, 2008 11:32 AM

Sky, I pooped infront of a mirror once too. scary stuff. And Flannery, I agree about "Adam" that movie scared the shit out of me. I would also experiment with a quick get away when approaching my driveway, any car that was coming by was about to kidnap me so I would run as fast as I could while getting the house key out of my book bag and into the door as fast as I could and then locking the door. I saw this on Seinfeld, only they were joking and I was very serious about it.

Eric / March 6, 2008 11:50 AM

I used to slink about the house as silently as possible, avoiding every creaky spot, and bounding up and down steps with soft footfalls. You know, like a ninja. It came in handy when I'd sneak into my parent's room to watch Knight Rider while I was supposed to be doing homework.

Oh, I'd scare the sh1t out of my mom by lurking behind corners leaping and growling at her as she passed by. She'd get so freakin' mad at me!

Spook / March 6, 2008 12:02 PM

I was INSANE about animals! Insane!

I think it had alot to do with the fact that "Green space" in my nieghborhood was the lot were it took them two years to build a 7/11.

So I read every thing I could get my hands on about reptiles a and amphibians.

Seriously I use to give the local ghetto pet store a very hard time about their lack of variety. They would see me coming -with what ever reptile book I had at the moment- and put the "Closed" sign on the door and turn off the lights. Two years later we found out that it was a drug front.

I use to look at picture in books and magazines and fantasize about having lots of snakes, tortoises and Lizards and a few frogs.

One summer, I over heard a regular at Hajies Barber shop, named “Smokey”, who worked on the rail road, talk about being bitten in the boot by a five foot green snake along the rail road tracks! I asked questions to learn the location. It was like EUREKA! Only three miles away both garter and green snakes could be found under logs and long metal plates along the rail road tracks!
I ran back to recruit my boys for this summer adventure. They told me that the heat had made me crazy to even think about crossing into the territory of two rival gangs! I didn’t even consider not going!

For two whole summers I made the trek! I was the original Indiana Jones at 12 years old! Once when confronted by some Black Disciples, I simply showed them the garter snakes I collected and they let me go, sans the snakes. The other time they stole my gym shoes, and my snakes. But I was not to be deterred! On the ride home the cops warned me about being too young to walk that far from home. But as soon as they delivered me to my Grand Mother’s door (they warned her too), your boy Spook was right back at those rail road tracks!

I also designed and made a snake harness from an extension cord and broom handle, which didn’t work, because it would have killed the snakes instead of catching them. So I just relied on putting my foot on them very gentle and securing them by the head. This is not nearly as easy as I make it sound. It took great skill and practice and most snakes got away, remember how fast they move and the bit! And you also had to over turn wood and metal to find them.

And I also caught and studied every insect that could be found. I had the most pathetic back yard Zoo one summer. I requested a mandatory dime donation. All the bigger boys demanded their money back at the end, and I accepted food stamps.

Once I tried to build my own bee hive that earned me a trip to the hospital.

My neighborhood name “Nature Boy” or “Tarzan”

p / March 6, 2008 1:35 PM

mikey that is Awesome. all these activities are motherloving hilarious. i'm going to hide under the bed now so "hungover" doesn't find me.

Spook / March 6, 2008 2:30 PM

Great comments and

oh and "P"

I wish I could have “appointed” Michael “Bow” Collins and his three brothers to positions of Cultural Ambassadors to your park. I would have gotten the Noble Peace Prize and you would have gotten
to play with the Collins brothers, admiring and loving sons of Mr. Collins aka “Dolla Bill”. It would have been a win for them too, because I think in their black heat of hearts they felt "put upon" having to invent their own game of "kick the kid off his bike and steal it. And hear you come with a new game!

CDM / March 6, 2008 2:34 PM

-I loved french toast. A lot. At some point, though, my mom decided that it was not good for me to eat it all the time so I would take white bread put a few chunks of butter on it and drown it in maple syrup.
It never occured to me to maybe put the bread in the toaster.

-There was a garage off the alley behind my parents house and there was a tree that hung over it. I used to climb up there and hang out on the corner of the garage that was shaded by the tree.
One day I was up there and made a noise just as someone was passing by and the person jumped three feet in the air and made a noise. This, to me, was hilarious and started me on an odd path.
I walked all over the neighborhood and would climb up trees and wait for people to pass and yell out.
(Anyone who lived in Rogers Park in the 70s, that was me.)

-Every summer there would be a MAJOR fight between my parents and I because I did not want to go to Greece to stay with relatives and swim in the Meditteranean Sea. No, I wanted to go to the Wisconsin Dells again. That one seems weird to me now.

steven / March 6, 2008 2:48 PM

When I couldn't find anyone to playwith, I'd grab the frisbee and play by myself. Throwing it high in the air at a steep angle, and trying to catch it as it torpedoed its way back down. Looking back, I could've used more friends.

My brother and I also used to play the "Green Moon" game with a younger cousin. He was from Wisconsin and we didn't care much for him. So we'd get a big cardboard box (my grandparents had them laying around often) and tell him to get it. We'd close it up and then proceed to shake it violently, making all sorts of scary noises. After about a minute of this, we'd say "Ok you're here, come on out." He'd pop out and be completely amazed, saying "It looks just like home!" We'd come up with all sorts of explanations on how it happened. When he was ready to "go home", he'd pop back in and we'd repeat the process. He'd pop out again and have the biggest smile on his face. He'd thank us every time.
Green Moon!

steven / March 6, 2008 2:50 PM

Green Moon, pt II
Haha, I just remembered that sometimes we'd hide the box and tell him he couldn't get back home. He cried and cried. Before he got really upset, it would miraculously turn up. Good times.

Mikey / March 6, 2008 3:04 PM

How could I have forgotten?

Fishing. For bees...

My sister, neighbor and I fashioned crude fishing poles out of sticks, thread and doubled over pieces of Scotch tape for the hooks--we thought we were so clever. We "fished" off our back porch that overlooked another neighbor's flowering hedges. Never did "stick" any bees, but managed to piss a fair number of them off...

Batgirl / March 6, 2008 3:29 PM

After a rainstorm, I would go around the block and sit in the puddles.

Pedro / March 6, 2008 3:54 PM

I was in a big-wheel gang in my neighborhood.
I frequently got naked with my best friend's sister and ran around my basement.

I don't run in gangs anymore and she's not a stripper, so how do you like that.

Spook / March 6, 2008 5:28 PM

any one? Club houses made out of refregorator boxes? You connected two boxes together and you had a chamber for President Spook and a common area for soldiers, and of course "now girls allowed"!

Of course then the rain would come and ruin what you worked so hard for!

Cinnamon / March 6, 2008 5:51 PM

I had a ton of Barbies but thought they were boring so I wrote elaborate stories about how they would die.

I used to tell kids that my grandfather was Johnny Cash. He had the same hat.

And I was a very mean older sister. I'm sure many of my brother's lingering issues, are all my fault.

Lumper / March 6, 2008 6:06 PM

Once my dad caught me throwing pea gravel mindlessly at our car. Just standing there with a blank stare hurling handfuls of rocks at the new 1990 Toyota Corolla.

And once I had a runny nose and it was bothering my sleep. So my mom had me roll up two pieces of toilet paper and put one in each nostril. Of course, when I got to school the next day I did the same thing, and fielded questions from my 2nd grade classmates all day as if paper products protruding from my nose was the picture of social normalcy -- even recommended that they do the same in the case of nasal congestion. I guess the teachers left me alone when I told them that my mom advised me to do so. I can still remember my grandma's reaction when I ran to her car after school... with toilet paper proudly waving from my nose. I dunno, in retrospect, I chock that one up to bad parental advice.

Leelah / March 6, 2008 9:04 PM

I love these!
My sister and I would get in fights and sent to our rooms. Upon banishment, however, we were desperate to communicate, so we drilled a hole through the wall in my closet into her bedroom (with a coat hanger).

We were never allowed to have pets, so I would catch all of the crickets that got into the house in dixie cups and release them into the back yard. I would also catch silverfish and keep them in the play sink (we had one of those kiddie kitchen things) as pets. (Spook and I would have been great friends!)

mike D. / March 6, 2008 10:09 PM

i used to try and be closer to my dog, i wanted him to like me so much, so i would lie down next to him and eat dog food with him. i swear.

i grew up in the Chicago burbs and on channel 5 they had this sports anchor named Mark Giangreco. in the beginning of the broadcast they'd introduce everyone and say, "and with sports, Mark Giangreco." i though it was 2 people, Mark G, and Greco. so when it came time for the sports and it was only one dude, i'd be like, "is this guy Mark G, or is this Greco?" no one ever told me the truth. he's still on the air now, different station. everytime i see him i wonder where his buddy is.

R / March 7, 2008 2:09 AM

My brothers and their friends used to play "President Reagan's Assassination" when they were kids. They'd take turns being Reagan, Hinckley, and the Secret Service.

Spook / March 7, 2008 9:11 AM

Leelah!

We would have been great friends and preteen colleagues in animal research!

I also couldn’t have pets in my building and “Exotic” Pets, located on 79th street sold 25 crickets for a dollar. They always had this “sale” even though they only had anoles lizards which feed off them about once every two months. So I would buy the crickets to build cricket communities, which most of its members either promptly ate themselves (yes that are cannibals) or escape to annoy tenants in every apartment

And yes yes yes! I remember those silverfish too! Only we had them in the bathroom! Had we been friends, we would have researched them because to this day, I’m not sure what the heck those silver fish ate or how they lived!

Sol / March 7, 2008 9:28 AM

I gave the numbers 0-9 personalities, to make math more interesting. 4 was really popular, 8 had a crush on 4 and either hated 3 or 5, because one of them was going out with 4, and...I think 9 was a bit of a stoner. I think 5 was popular too, in that cheerleader sort of way, whereas 4 was popular in a Dylan McKay kind of way. Because 4 was a guy. I still kind of look down on 8 for being such a jealous bitch.

My brother and I used to have races to see who could put on their clothes the fastest. I don't know how my parents got that one started, and it might have seemed a good idea at the time, but more often than not it ended in tears because of cheating.

I also used to think that one threw cosh into the wind.

Sol / March 7, 2008 9:30 AM

I was also afraid of accidentally selling my soul to the devil, because he lived in my closet and kept asking for it.

Spook / March 7, 2008 11:17 AM

any body ever tried to reach china( China sand) and The Devil by digging a hole? Did I mentioned I was kina dirty as a child?

Mo / March 7, 2008 11:17 AM

When I was a kid, once I wandered into my parents' room when they were sleeping and saw that both of them had their hands tucked underneath their pillows. In my head, the only logical conclusion was that if you slept with your hands exposed, vampires would bite them off. So I always made sure my hands were hidden when I fell asleep.

I also had (have) OCD and the tiniest touch of Tourette's, so I made a lot of weird sounds, like squeals, and made weird faces. I've mostly outgrown those.

Thanks guys, this has been a great thread! And look how well we all turned out!

Sol / March 7, 2008 11:26 AM

You're assuming no one's posting from prison.

p / March 7, 2008 11:40 AM

Also assuming i won't eat your hands if you continue to expose them while you sleep.

yes i felt like saying something creeeeep-ey.

Mo / March 7, 2008 12:04 PM

yes, you're right...prison...hand-eater...

ok, amended statement: look how well *I* turned out!

suzi / March 7, 2008 1:41 PM

I used to run the hot water tap in the bathroom sink until I was sure the water was as hot as it could be. Then I'd fill a tall plastic cup with hot water, take it to the basement where my 1960s hand-me-down wooden play kitchen was waiting, throw in some dried spaghetti (a box of which I had stolen from the pantry and hidden in it), stir it up, and wait for it to "cook." At best, it got a little slimy, but I still tried my damnest to eat that hot-water sketti. I wanted to cook so bad.

My friend, her little sister and I would play "drug counseling center" in her basement where we would lead inspirational seminars for an audience of imaginary drug addicts in which we would give them tips on how to straighten out their lives. This was during the Nancy Reagan "just say no" years and well before I understood the merits of recreational drug use.

Bob R. / March 7, 2008 3:11 PM

I was convinced that I was an alien and would lie in bed, mentally trying to escape my human form.

graumach / March 7, 2008 3:25 PM

Yeah, spook. Hole to China? Check. Fort out of refrigerator boxes? Yeah -- once every kid in like a 5 block area joined in with pooled resources and we made a long-ass maze of boxes in someone's yard. Also, mock sword-fighting with discarded florescent lighting tubes!

My childhood seems to be abnormally free of the oral/ingesting activity that's the recurring theme here, however. Ate glue once, and -- no, sir! -- didn't care for it.

Weirdness? Dunno. I'm sure there was a bunch, but "weird" is a pretty subjective, stigmatzing tag when you're a shorty. Tho' I felt weird for a long time because it seemed I never went through the "I hate girls" phase ( the Freudian "latency" period, is it?) that all my other male peers seemed to go through in early grade school. I played along -- giving lip service to all that "girls stink" biz, all the while trying to find a moment when no one was looking so I could meet my "girlfriend" behind a playground tree for a quick, stealthy kiss. Natch, someone always saw, and the teasing that followed was unrelenting. And I always wondered if all that "icky girls" stuff was for real or just a bunch of shit-talk fronting on the part of all the other guys.

~ / March 7, 2008 3:35 PM

My best friend and I were major geeks when it came to our playing-outdoor itinerary 'round the age of 8 or so. One of the sowethought super-duperest games we created was when one of us would be on bike, the other standing in my driveway. the biker would race around the entire block, and upon arrival to the driveway-stander, would exclaim "i lost my breath, can you go catch it?". then the roles would reverse while the other would race off to punnily 'catch' the other's breath. we would even go the extra step and at one point en route make the physical motion of grabbing at the air, and ride back holding the 'treasure' with one hand. this would keep us entertained for an embarassingly long while.

graumach / March 7, 2008 3:35 PM

And what the above means is that, all thru grade school, I effectively had cooties like a muhfuh'r.

B. Rockford / March 7, 2008 3:45 PM

When I went for car rides, I would play a game where I would bob my head along with the pattern of the repeating white median stripes in between lanes, so that I would be "jumping" when the white line ended and "landing" as the white line returned. And in my head there would be a dinging noise as I would rack up points. It was my own video game, and I played it like a champion. It was an adventure into the wilds of the jungle, and across frozen tundras. Through murky swamps and along the crests of impossible mountain ranges. I was a warrior and a trekker, unstoppable yet always humble.
But sometimes I would miss (mostly because my mom had suddenly changed speeds) and would fall through the gap into the pit of eternal damnation. Childhood was a very heavy time for some of us.

~ / March 7, 2008 3:52 PM

oh, and along with the standard childhood fear of 'step on a crack, break yo' momma's back' , at a very early age a friend once told me that if you step on the cement company mark thingy at the top/edge of the sidewalk squares, you would smell like fish. since i cared about my personal hygiene as well as my mother's spinal region, i spent a ridiculously abundant amount of time/care in watching where i stepped. i still find myself testing the damn 'fish' theory every so often.

this is the greatest topic in the history of topics.

grimornage / March 7, 2008 3:55 PM

I used to think that all things had a soul. This caused me to NEVER throw anything away and also name scraps of paper and random junk and give them back stories. This caused my mother no amount of grief. But it was ESPECIALLY AWESOME when she threw things away that I found and rescued, because it was like RESCUE STORY! and the broken paper clip or whatever became an even bigger player in my junk pile social heirarchy.

I also used to race my feet by inching my toes across the bathtub. Righty usually won. But I pulled like hell for Lefty, and sometimes it worked. We all cheered, even Righty, who was also more beautiful and smarter and not disfigured by a little freckle like Lefty was.

em tee / March 7, 2008 4:20 PM

I would pull every individual piece of fur out of my favorite stuffed animals. I wouldn't want to make a mess with the fur so I would clump it up into fur balls and keep it tucked in the corner of the stuffed animal's mouth. I picked my teddy bear Theo and my Elmo doll completely bald.

When other children saw them, they were very frightened.

David / March 7, 2008 4:39 PM

Okay, here goes.

I had a wonderful blue blanket as a kid, my "blue bunny." After some time, blue bunny got pretty frayed around the edges. Which is why I decided to give him haircuts...

Many years later, when I was cleaning out my room to go off to college, I found blue bunny, who was by then much smaller than a washcloth.

Man, I could go on with these forever.

I also had a cousin who I never hugged for about fifteen years. No reason. Just didn't. Go figure.

Christopher / March 7, 2008 6:26 PM

I used to pick my scabs and eat them. I still do that. However I don't skin my knees as often

Leelah / March 7, 2008 6:28 PM

Along with my partner in research, Spook, I would have rocked out with B. Rockford. I did that same bobbing thing to the lines in the road! My friends!

lolo / March 7, 2008 8:25 PM

Lolo did not have time to do weird things as a kid. Lolo was too busy feeding and grooming the llamas on his daddy's farm.

Dork / March 7, 2008 10:17 PM

Drank holy water one time and got the runs. For some reason we had this little plastic holy water holder in our apartment stuck on the wall (my mom was sorta into the Catholic church stuff then). I was goofing around wtih my sister late one night while everyone was asleep, got thirsty and drank the water. Don't know if holy water had some special stuff in it (oils?) or if it was just stagnant from sitting there, but it went through me like... well the goose reference would be redundant.

Martini / March 8, 2008 8:02 AM

Made fake nails by laying 1/4 inch lines of Elmer's glue in the teeny trough in the middle of my plastic school ruler.

Loitered with friends near the houses of neighborhood kids who had swimming pools, coincidentally wearing our suits and with towels wrapped around our waists, looking on the verge of heatstroke, on the offchance that they might deign to let us get in the pool.

Once in the pool, squirted water out of my mouth at people and then said "I'm Mark Spitz!".

Set up a Weebles bowling alley with scrunched tinfoil balls in my school desk.

Created a proper lending library with friend Colleen in my basement, and when we didn't get enough (non-stuffed animal) customers, took our books out in a wagon for the neighborhood.

Went to the drugstore and sneakily read Richie Rich comics for as I could stand the guilt.

And my favorite, how could I have forgotten THIS ONE memory -- had not one but two Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy fundraising carnivals in Eileen Walsh's backyard, where we set up games and also danced and re-enacted late 70s Saturday Night Live skits.

Martini / March 8, 2008 8:02 AM

Made fake nails by laying 1/4 inch lines of Elmer's glue in the teeny trough in the middle of my plastic school ruler.

Loitered with friends near the houses of neighborhood kids who had swimming pools, coincidentally wearing our suits and with towels wrapped around our waists, looking on the verge of heatstroke, on the offchance that they might deign to let us get in the pool.

Once in the pool, squirted water out of my mouth at people and then said "I'm Mark Spitz!".

Set up a Weebles bowling alley with scrunched tinfoil balls in my school desk.

Created a proper lending library with friend Colleen in my basement, and when we didn't get enough (non-stuffed animal) customers, took our books out in a wagon for the neighborhood.

Went to the drugstore and sneakily read Richie Rich comics for as I could stand the guilt.

And my favorite, how could I have forgotten THIS ONE memory -- had not one but two Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy fundraising carnivals in Eileen Walsh's backyard, where we set up games and also danced and re-enacted late 70s Saturday Night Live skits.

Corinne / March 9, 2008 6:03 PM

oh, yeah, glue nails!

we all did the forts out of blankets and clothespins on the front porch, yes?

Eileen / March 12, 2008 10:23 AM

I was emotionally attached to our Volkswagen Beetle. When my parents sold it, they lied to me & said it was in Germany being repaired.

Shea / March 12, 2008 2:35 PM

My grandparents would send us boxes and boxes of pecans every year and instead of my parents telling them we did not eat them, they would just store the boxes in the pantry. My brother and sister and I made up a game called "The Pecan Game" and you tossed around a pecan. If you were the person holding the pecan, you couldn't touch the floor with your feet so you had to jump around from furniture piece to furniture piece until you reliquished the pecan.

Another time, my brother and I were acting up and my mom sent us to our rooms. I was playing with my robot toy and I took the batteries out. One of them rolled under the door and my mom had told us to stay in our rooms. So, rather than opening the door and getting my battery, I stuck my arm under the door to get it and got stuck. I was stuck there for hours.