Peeved Parents Divulge The Most Valuable Thing Their Kids Have Broken
Kids break stuff. It happens. Sometimes, though, children just make really poor choices, like growing pot in an attack, causing the house to burn down. Or losing a piece of jewelry. Or punching a TV while playing video games. The list goes on, but hey, they're kids.
MrsLadyMadonna asked, What's the most valuable thing your kids broke?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
Ouch, talk about a once in a lifetime picture...
My mother had exactly one picture taken in front of the Berlin Wall a week before it was torn down. I brought it to show and tell when I was 10....and lost it. 21 years later I still hear about it.
Valuable to dad, and completely irreplaceable.
Not sure if this would have been valuable at all, but back in like.. 2005 or so, my younger sister (about 10 at the time) decided to open up an old case of Coca-Cola she had found in my dad's office. The coke was from 1993 and she was curious about what it would taste like. So she opens the first one, takes a sip, decides she doesn't like it and dumps it down the drain. She repeats this process for 3 more cans. Eventually, she decides that the entire case is no good and proceeds to dump out every can, crushed them, then ripped up the box and threw it in the recycling.
Unfortunately, it was a special 1993 Blue Jays World Series Championship edition of coke or whatever and my dad had gotten some members of the team to sign the box and some of the cans. He was not pleased.
Sometimes kids just do things... but so do adults tbh.
When my son was about 8 years old he was waiting for me in the car. He pried a small chunk of dried mud from the sole of his shoe and inserted it into the ignition of my car because...well, nobody knows why not even he knows why. After an hour of the car not starting, I happened to glance at him and I saw that look on his face, the look that says, "I am guilty AF." I don't remember what it cost to have the ignition dismantled and cleaned, but I do remember the lesson I learned that day.
When you ask your kid why the hell they did something stupid, and your kid says, "I don't know," sometimes they really don't know.
Sometimes electronics get hungry.
My kid stuck a block of cheddar cheese in the VCR once and a slice of lunch meat in the DVD player.
A rectangle is a rectangle, right?
My parents told me that when I was 3 there was this one time when I wanted to help my dad wash our car, but I couldn't find a sponge, so I picked up a brick by the street and "washed" the car with it instead.
Dad's one suit down, thanks to shrinkage.
My father's nicest suit was a little bit muddy, so I put it in the wash with the rest of my laundry.
My mother said she didn't even get mad at me, because I was trying to help. She just laughed.
This is why you never drive through standing water (even though splashing the sidewalk is fun).
My son stranded himself and 2 buddies when he drove my car through an approximately 5-foot deep "puddle" and stalled it in the middle.
Ah the joys of other people's kids...
Not my kids, but my nephew and niece broke both an elliptical machine and the footrest on my recliner during one visit. That was 10 years ago and I still get annoyed as I sit cross-legged on my chair.
How very American of them.
My dad's friend once gave my brother over a hundred dollars in foreign currency, with my brother immediately responding by feeding it all to the dog.
Little brother was born to torture mom, clearly.
My mom had several disposable cameras' worth of newborn baby through toddler photos of my youngest sister. My younger brother pulled the film out of all of them one day while he was playing. Mom still talks about it with a sorrowful tone now, twenty years later.
She also had a jewelry box which belonged to my deceased grandma. There were some necklaces that looked like old coins encased in some gold trim. He peeled off all the gold thinking they were those chocolate coins that come in foil.
Lastly, we were fairly poor. She never had nice things for herself, but one year she splurged and got herself a stereo which she loved. Well, my brother cut off the electric plug with a pair of scissors and she never got another one.
He grew up to be a chill adult, though.
Nothing to see here, just shoveling some snow...
Don't know if this counts as broke, but my brother set my sister's room on fire.
He was about 5 or 6 and had found a bottle of hairspray and matches in my sister's room. One thing leads to another, and when things got out of hand he quietly shut the door and went outside to shovel snow because he was trying to act casual I guess.
My Mom smelled smoke and when she went over to my sister's room and opened the door, she was treated to a raging inferno before slamming the door shut and calling the fire department.
Cut to my sister coming home and she thought she was in trouble because she had no idea why all of her stuff was on the front lawn and burnt to a crisp.
We ended up having to stay in an apartment for a few months while my sister's room was rebuilt, and my brother was court ordered to be enrolled in fire safety classes.
I did this off a roller coaster once... the people below were not happy.
I did this once after spitting off a sky ride on a field trip in 3rd grade. I got home from the field trip and went straight to folding towels. It didn't keep me from being grounded for weeks and getting spanked within an inch of my life ????
Do warranties cover reckless children?
This morning my 4-year-old got mad and threw a hot wheels car and shattered the TV screen. I was excited because we bought the extended warranty and were finally going to use it. Extended warranty expired 2 months ago.???????
Maybe it's time the kid spends some time outside.
My son punched our 60 inch 4k tv playing Fortnite about 2 weeks ago. He is still grounded.
Oh sure, blame it on the dog.
My mom had a very sentimental lamp from her mother or grandmother and would constantly yell "my lamp!", "Watch the lamp!" Constant source of anxiety.
It survived mine and my brother's childhoods. After we'd both moved out, the dog broke it.
Uh... ouch. Eye stuff is so cringe-worthy.
Something that I broke when I was little. I was about three my mum was playing this "where are my..." game with me (you know, where is my nose? And I'd point to her nose). She said where are my eyes.
I poked her in the eye.
My little toddler razor fingernail scratched the lens of her eyeball.
It caused permanent damage and she still wears glasses to this day because of it. So that.
I lost my grandmother's diamond ring at a restaurant. Never heard the end of it.
I broke a vase my mom inherited after her grandma's death.
I didn't know at the time, but I felt horrible when after. (Fun fact, I'm named after her)
At least the kid's heart was in the right place.
One of my well-intentioned children overheard me say my PC case was dusty inside so I need to clean it out.
When I was out they used our vacuum and cleaned every last bit of dust out of the case, even the fans and power supply. I thanked them for doing such a great job and didn't have the heart to tell them that they fried my motherboard and ram.
600 bucks later I was back up and running, and yes I did sit them down and show them how to properly clean a computer so it never happened again.
"You break it you buy it." Nah, I'll just fix it.
Not me but my little brother. When we were kids, he was maybe 5 or 6, our mother took us into a store that sold outdoor accessories. My brother was exploring the store and being a bit unruly, and he knocked over a 3' statue of a fox dressed as an English huntsman. The impact broke off the fox's ear. This stupid thing cost in the neighborhood of $300. In today's dollars, it would have been more than $500.
My mother somehow persuaded the store to let her repair it instead of paying for it outright. She took that thing home, glued the fox's ear back on, and returned it to the store. Can't remember if she paid them anything in the end, but the fox looked like its old pretentious self when she was finished with it.