I was one of those 80s latchkey kids with very little supervision growing up. I stole a lot of stuff, from stores, from my friends, from school. I stole change from my parents to buy candy. I would lead my friends on wild goose chases through abandoned buildings and vacant construction sites. We shattered windows and set fires. I would go through my parent’s belongings and find presents they’d hidden for Christmas, carefully open them, play with them, then put them back as I found them.

I was never caught doing any of it. I was a little shit, and it’s one of the many reasons I’ll never have my own kids, because I worry they’ll be just like me or worse.

In high school, I was oblivious that one of my coworkers had a crush on me. They went to a different high school and invited me to their prom. I was surprised and said yes without thinking, then proceeded to ghost them until they gave up.

A long time ago, I worked in a computer repair shop. An old lady brought in her desktop for malware removal. It was a nicely spec’d machine, and included an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700.

At the time, I had a Core 2 Duo E6600, I was on a tight budget, and was big into gaming.

“She’ll be fine.” “She doesn’t even know what’s in there now.” “She’s not using it to its full potential…”

I convinced myself it was a victimless crime.

I swapped the processors. :(

According to my camp counselor, going all in during a game of poker where I knew everyone else at the table were dumbasses who were going to all take the bait for the lulz

It was because it was supposed to be a group bonding activity and my play ended the game when there was still a half hour in the schedule XD

Playing in the yard when I was little, I had sharpened a stick to a point. I saw my little brother running across the yard. In my head, I imagined throwing the “spear” through his legs and tripping him. That would have been enough of a dick move. Instead, I skewered him directly in the ankle. He had to get stitches.

Literally just kicked out a friend who’s been staying at my house for months. I don’t like it, but he has his own house with a housing voucher and will try to bullshit his way through anything. The dude’s been camping my house smoking weed all day every day enjoying my house more than I get to and keeping the kitchen trashed.

I don’t think it’s my responsibility to save him from the hole he’s dug one shovel full per day while expecting us to deal with it.

I had really bad panic attacks at some point and I decided the best way to deal with it was to ditch everything in my life and move back in with my parents. It was really shitty for my partner who kept living over while I was basically broken for half a year.

Admittedly though, I was really freaked out because I didn’t know what panic attacks were.

Clicking “I have read the terms and conditions” when I didn’t.

When I was in middle school, like a lot of us I was an idiot who had no social skills and no skill in emotional self-regulation.

One day, between classes as I walked from one classroom building to the next, I had a sucker in my hand. I don’t remember what kind (this was in the early 90s) but it was big, sweet, and on a stick.

A classmate (black) came up behind me (white), smacked the sucker out of my hand onto the ground, and laughed as he jogged onto the next building. I shouted “you fucking n-word!” at him except I used the actual hard r slur and not the circumlocution.

Neither of us got in any trouble that I can remember. No teachers, staff, or snitches were nearby.

Middle aged me has a much larger and more creative vocabulary and would have never needed to stoop so low as to use racial slurs. Also, middle aged me wouldn’t eat suckers any more because of health concerns. I’m assuming the classmate involved has similarly grown and matured and no longer smacks candy out of peoples hands for fun.

One of my bullies in middle school was playing Pokémon Ruby on the way home from a field trip. I asked if I could try it before we got back to school, and oddly enough he let me. I loosened the cartridge and slid it out as i handed it back to him, put it in my sock, and hurried home. Erased his data, beat the game with my own team then gave it back in the middle of class. He grabbed my shirt and put me against a wall, but ended up getting suspended because a teacher saw it.

I carried a bag of scum down my driveway.

Convinced my grade 1 friend that the Elbow River in Calgary was named because it was so corrosive, a boys’ elbow dissolved when he tripped and fell in. “It’s also known as ‘The Dissolving River’”

One of my best friends moved across the country to chase after a girl and came home with her. She was never working and I worked over nights. Everyone always came over to my house to hang out, meet up and party. We hooked up. I still hate that I did it. But he and are still friends and talk regularly. He has a new wife and awesome life.

I made fake adoption papers on my parent’s Apple IIc, printed them, then “weathered” the paper by burning the edges and yellowing them with a Pepsi bath.

I then tried to convince my little sister that we were not related. She was 6, believed that’s what 6 year old papers looked like, and cried a lot.

I was a shitty kid.

I have a million of these because for most of my young life I was a real piece of garbo. I’ve already talked on here once about my ghostbusters thing so I won’t go into that again because it’s in my post history but here are a few choice examples:

Had my lab partner completely convinced marshmallows were a special kind of sap harvested from exotic trees.

Many grievances against my sisters including: Convincing them that milk containers at dairy processing plants contained cows stacked vertically (complete with sound effects while we drove past) for many years, ghost living in the attic (me), and that my father had another family

Developed software for the express purpose of cheating in Runescape and then sold both the software and the rewards won by the software. Not my best moment but not quite as bad as

Bought herbal smoke alternatives off the internet and fumed them with liquor and wormwood and sold it to my high school aged peers as weed.