Making dumb decisions as a teenager is simply a part of life. You learn from your mistakes and move on, likely to never make the same ones again. Some may even say their mistakes are what made them who they are today! Unfortunately for some teens, their mistakes are bigger than others and come with a lot more repercussions. People dish on the incredibly stupid things they did as teenagers. This content has been edited for clarity.
High-Speed Chase
“My friend and I used to sneak out and carhop when we were thirteen. It’s extremely easy to get into cars with power locks using a coat hanger and 20 seconds of time. We wouldn’t waste time doing that if there was nothing visible to take. But if we saw a wallet, phone, or anything worth something, we were definitely getting in.
One night, we had just exited a car and were heading to another. As soon as we tried the handles, the owner jumped out of his second car right next to us. He was heading to work at three am. He was a big guy and looked like he could run so we followed his orders to sit on his porch steps. He knocked on his own door to wake his wife and have her call the police.
We sat there for five minutes while the police were on their way. As soon as the police turned onto the block, maybe six houses away, the guy ran into the road to flag them down. That was our chance. We took off through his backyard and hopped the fence. I jumped through his neighbor’s yard onto the next block, found a bush, and took a nap for two hours. When the coast was clear, I jumped through more yards to get home. When I got to my window, a police cruiser with a spotlight drove by, and nearly saw my feet hanging out of my window.
That was the last time we car hopped.”
Porta-Potty
“On Halloween in 2003, my friend and I thought it would be funny to blow up a porta-potty. It took us a while to find one not readily visible from a road. When we found one, I doused the inside with gasoline, made a long trail, and had my buddy light it. Backlit against the huge explosion was him running off into the darkness with his shoes on fire. The porta-potty blew up and half of its burning carcass landed on top of a portable classroom. It burned to ashes within a couple of hours and half the parking lot was destroyed.
The minute after the explosion, we were scared and in shock. We left and went to a friend’s apartment nearby, locked ourselves in one of the bedrooms, and began to discuss what happened and how we were going to go volunteer at homeless shelters and go to church from then on. In the same time frame as our incident, a native woman was hit by two paintball guns and was in critical condition. This happened some 400 feet from the doorstep of the apartment my friend and I went to. This separate incident was deemed a serious crime and thus the FBI got involved.
The FBI’s investigation started with canvassing the neighborhood. I am not exactly sure what the FBI did to identify us, but by the middle of the following week, both my friend and I had been followed by unmarked cars and subsequently pulled over and brought in for questioning. I was lucky and let go quickly, my friend not so much as he was 18.
On a different day, a police officer, fire chief, and another investigator showed up at my house. Essentially they said they knew we burned the building down, but they wanted us for shooting the lady. I confessed immediately and quickly explained how we had nothing to do with the woman being shot. In the end, we discovered via court that when the Sunday news came on and our story was the headlining one, all our friends at the apartment were whooping and hollering. The neighbors across the hall called in a tip thinking they were cheering for the story about the woman. The police showed up at my friend’s door, he told them we burned the building, and the neighbors got 1,000 bucks for the tip.
I was sentenced to a misdemeanor and two weeks in juvy. I was removed from school and placed in a program for expelled kids where they did school exclusively online. It was lame but easy. This was the end of November and I finished both my sophomore year and junior year before May. I finished senior year by Thanksgiving the following year and went to work. So in that respect, I basically saved a year of high school. I had five years of probation but was let off after two and had to take a couple of fire-safety classes.
All in all, I have thought over how it could have gone differently. In reality, I am glad I had to face the music for what happened. After making headlines, an FBI investigation, over six figures of damage, and an anonymous donation made in our name that more or less paid off the whole thing, I managed to avoid any real legal repercussions. I felt awful about it and was relieved to get caught and deal with it.”
Payback
“In high school, there were several guys who were just complete jerks. The main guy, Pat, was a prick to his girlfriend. She was the prettiest girl in school, she was nice, and wanted by pretty much every guy. Nevertheless, Pat cheated on her and supposedly abused her– if not physically then definitely verbally, and he was a prick to everyone else too.
Pat and his friends were all super rich, way too privileged, and needed to be taken down several pegs. Each one of them drove brand new land rovers or mustangs paid for by their parents. If they had jobs, they spent that money on drugs and alcohol. None of them were ever nice to me, my friends, or anyone else really, except each other. I had never said anything nasty to Pat or his friends because I didn’t care about anyone in high school. I just lived my life, socialized with my friends, and was nice to people who were nice to me.
One day in ceramics class, I got my period. My dad had to bring me a pair of pants to change into since I stained mine. After I finished my work, I asked the teacher if I could lie down on the carpeted bench in the room. I was having bad back pains and cramps and just wanted to close my eyes for a bit– it had been a long day already.
Pat decided it would be hilarious to throw a softball-sized, hardened ceramic ball at me. It hit me in the back and hurt horribly. Mind you, I am petite and very bony, so there was nothing to cushion the blow. I was also wearing a black zip-up which got clay dust all over it. I yelled something like, ‘WTF, are you kidding me?’ He and his friends just laughed. That is when I knew I needed to seek revenge.
A few days later, it was one of the last days of class. People no longer were carrying binders and such, they just stuffed their final papers and assignments in their backpacks. Lucky for me, Pat did the same thing. I decided to find the foulest-smelling glaze in the ceramics class, stole his backpack when he wasn’t looking, and poured it in there. It ruined all of his papers and backpack. The next class, he somehow knew it was me and called me out. I willingly handed over 40 bucks with a smile so he could replace it. Little did he know, more would come his way a few months later.
It was summertime and I was sleeping over at my best friend’s house. She lived in the same neighborhood as Pat and two of the other major pricks. She knew how horrible they were as she had gone to school with them since third grade. We decided to sneak out around three am in order to mess with them.
First, we gathered objects from the kitchen: ketchup, bologna, mustard, eggs, and anything else that might damage paint and leave a horrible stench. We used these to pelt their cars, garages, and mailboxes, and used ketchup to write profanities. We also used red paint and paintballs to do some damage. My friend had three cats so we scooped out all of their shit from the litterbox and shoved it in their mailboxes, smeared it on doorsteps, and so forth.
We didn’t stop there.
Finally, the whopper: We shat in plastic bags, inverted them to protect our hands, and smeared fresh human feces all over their belongings. Doorsteps, door knobs, inside and outside mailboxes, and all over their precious vehicles. The best part was we smeared it underneath their car door handles in hopes they would inadvertently touch our crap.
We laughed so hard the whole night and we still do to this day. The few people who have heard this story are always completely shocked because it is both horrifying and because we don’t seem like the type of ‘nice young ladies’ who would do that. The only thing I regret is not being able to see their faces when they woke the next day and not being able to say, ‘Yeah, that was me.’
It was the most glorious revenge I have ever had the pleasure of enacting. I have no regrets despite it being sick, gross, and mean. Our ten-year high school reunion is three years away and I have definitely contemplated telling them.”
Gone Fishing
“My buddies were out boating and fishing off Pawley’s Island, South Carolina. It was over 100 degrees that day so I decided to jump in the water really quickly. We were a few miles offshore so I knew there was some risk there, but I figured if I was in and out in a couple of minutes, everything would be fine.
I hopped in the water off the front end of the boat and was swimming to the back ladder when my friend started screaming on the other side of the boat. He said something huge had just swam under the boat. I thought they were messing with me so I started casually doing the backstroke. I made it to the boat ladder just fine and nothing happened.
When I got back on the boat, my friends were all insisting something huge was swimming within a few feet of where I was. I laughed it off but about ten minutes or so later, a buddy of mine landed a massive Cobia (type of fish) on his line. As he was reeling it in, a shark came out of nowhere and took the bait. Literally. We got a good look at it and it was a 12-foot Great White. Let’s just say I got really lucky that day.”
Dodgy Pete
“My pal found a car that had the keys in it. Of course, we took it for a drive one night and then put it back where we found it. A week or so later, we were out at the pub and decided to go see if the car was still unlocked with the keys. Indeed, the car was there with the keys and practically begging us to go on a joyride. So yet again, we took it for a drive and then put it back where we found it.
This went on for weeks, possibly even months. We even gave the car a name: Dodgy Pete. Every Friday night we would get steaming and take Dodgy Pete out for a drive. Every time we would get more adventurous and daring, taking it further and getting more messed up.
One night, we used Dodgy Pete to go get a gram. Afterward, the two people I was with proceeded to snort this while we were driving about smoking and drinking. We then parked the car in my pal’s parent’s driveway while he went in the house to find some tapes for the old stereo in the car.
A few weeks later, we, unfortunately, took things a little too far. We took the car up the back roads, as usual, one Friday and we were razzing the hell out of it and we burnt out the clutch. Being young and naive, we decided just to burn the car out. That was the end of Dodgy Pete. RIP old Volvo.”