I did several regrettable things as a child. However, since none of these things actually ended up killing me or had serious repercussions I think they’re probably acceptable, although I am still wondering if they are normal. I think a lot of people wonder if they were more stupid as children than everyone else, so it’s probably safe to say we all were and it’s okay because we turned out okay for the most part.
Exhibit A: Mass Aquatic Murder
When I was five, my brother who was 10 at the time had a massive tropical aquarium that was the envy of all that had the good fortune to be invited over to play at our house. It was a wondrous thing- brown gravel, plastic seaweed, and driftwood made up the environment claimed by several colorful fish, snails, a crab, and a frog.
That aquarium provided a good chunk of my five year old entertainment - it was always the place to be when I wasn’t belting Chicken Soup with Rice (a kindergarten favorite about the months of the year) or playing with my plastic doll family (of whose formerly blond heads were colored over with black Sharpie by my mother and were now “a Japanese American family”, so as to provide me with more culturally-relevant playthings). The aquarium was exhilarating - from releasing the frog on the carpet and trying to catch it to witnessing the miracle of our crab’s shell-shedding, I loved every new experience the tank brought.
So I’m not really sure why I destroyed it all.
One day at a family gathering, my cousin (also five at the time) and I were crouched in front of the tank, trying to catch an unaware fish with my brother’s net as we usually did. But, while this was pleasant enough, we for some reason were not content. We wanted to do something exciting, something extreme.
And so we made the fateful decision to dump an entire can of fish flakes into the water. This, of course, immediately made the water un-breathable, effectively killing every living thing in there, fish, frogs and all.
To this day, I’m not sure what motivated us to commit that mass murder. I think at the back of our minds we knew what was going to happen, but the satisfaction of seeing thousands of flakes fill the water like some glorious brown and orange confetti show at the time won out over our concern for aquatic welfare. To our defense, they hadn’t taught us about “priorities” yet in kindergarten. I just remember barricading the door to my brother’s room with furniture and books to protect us from the furious storm that was sure to come from our relatives, and we hid there until I had to pee so badly that we were forced to surrender.
My brother still hasn’t forgiven me, but I hope that one day, he will be able to find solace for his loss. And that we’ll get a dog, because that would be effing AWESOME.
Exhibit B: Eating a Glow Stick
That’s right. A few years after the fishtank incident, I was stupid enough to EAT a GLOW STICK.
I was sitting on the floor of our pantry, hoping to find a stray Fruit-by-the-Foot, when I thought it would be a good idea to crack one of the glow sticks we had to see if it tasted good. I guess I was reasoning that it would be kind of like a liquid Pixie stick or one of those gross liquid candy squeeze tubes. Well, it was the shock of the century when I quickly discovered toxic chemicals actually taste like toxic chemicals and not Pixie sticks, and upon this realization tears filled my eyes and I sobbed hysterically with a fluorescent mouth in that pantry for a good half hour, sure of the inevitability of my imminent death and already in mourning for my unlived life.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t die, but this was probably just a small form of revenge enacted by the ghosts of fishies past!
Exhibit C: FUCK YOU Loreal Kids
Who doesn’t remember this commercial for kids’ shampoo? It would annoyingly make its smug ass appearance about ten times throughout the course of my Sailor Moon episodes.
You probably know where I’m going with this- seeing the “tear free!” part of the commercial I got really excited about the potential of this wondrous super shampoo and decided to pour the bottle’s contents directly into my eyes. Needless to say I did not end up wiping the soap from my face and smiling like a champ like the kid in the video, but experienced a remarkable amount of stinging, searing, blinding pain that was definitely more traumatizing than the glow stick was.
After reading through the comments on this youtube video, though, it seems like this happened to several thousand other kids around the world. Now I’m coming to the conclusion that this wasn’t really my fault after all- several thousand damaged eight year old eyes weren’t a result of our stupidity, they were a result of LOREAL KIDS’ STUPID ASS AD. What were you expecting, Loreal? For us NOT to test your dubious claim? So were the laughing children in your video really there to mock all of us, knowing perfectly well what the terrible consequences of “Tear Free” would be? Or maybe “Tear Free” had another meaning:
coolguy0291: “they said it was TEAR free because when it got in your eyes in soaked up all the moisture and stung like hell so you couldn’t cry”
Anyway I’m going off on a tangent from my original post but I don’t care because we, the thousands of victims of the 1998 misleading shampoo commercials are going to rise up and start a campaign to GET OUR DUE JUSTICE from the satanic Loreal Kids. Those of you applying to jobs be on the lookout because I’ll be posting a field organizer position up soon.
