Kids Gone Wild

The following is an excerpt from a book I'm working on called "Your Baby is Ugly," in which I discuss the dynamic of parenting from the perspective of a teacher...and someone who was once a child. I'd love your input, good or bad.


When I was a kid, my brothers and I used to get into a lot of trouble. We were home-schooled and, generally speaking, a regular day consisted of getting up early, flying through our schoolwork (at mach speed), and then finding things to do outside.

Occasionally, those things ended up getting us grounded.

One of the most unique episodes had to do with an elderly man who mowed the lawn on the property behind our house.

We rented our house from the next door church, and there was a very large piece of land, adjunct to our backyard. We called this property “The Farm,” and we used it every day as an outlet for what would otherwise be dangerous energy.

Let me preface this story by saying that I have nothing against elderly citizens. I think old…er…experienced people are great! I’d love to be one some day.

Back to the story.

Somewhere along the way, my brothers and I discovered “booby traps.” I don’t know if it was through a book or some silly Disney movie, but regardless of how we learned, we were infatuated with the practice.

An elderly man (we’ll call him “Mr. Martin”) was responsible for mowing the lawn on “The Farm” on a somewhat regular basis. He was a sweet old man who would never hurt a fly.

One day, we devised a scheme to dig a hole on the back property. We dug the hole about three feet deep by four or five feet wide and then covered it with branches, straw and lots of pieces of grass (thus concealing our pitfall from the rest of the unsuspecting world).

When we set this trap, we didn't have any one person in mind. Honestly, we forgot about it altogether almost as soon as we were done with it. We were kids. Not much held our attention for more than a moment.

Several days later, my brothers and I were in the backyard playing basketball. During the course of the game, we heard a loud, unmistakable groan and a yelp coming directly from "The Farm."

It had happened. Our trap had worked.

Almost instantly, we went from enjoying the victory of a successful plot, to realizing the ramifications of exactly what had just happened.

We were going to be dead.

We were dead.

We ended up having to personally apologize to Mr. Martin, re-fill the hole ourselves and had to serve out a well-deserved grounding period.

I don't think it was really funny to anyone at the time, but now, I'm able to look back and laugh. I thought I'd let you enjoy the moment with me.


What's something dumb you did, as a kid, that you're able to look back on now and laugh?