Being a jokester and having an overly jovial persona can be an asset for one's personality. It always leaves an impression, we all remember the class clowns. But how we remember them, there in lies the rub. Don't be so desperate for attention and devoid of self-restraint you end up turning laughs into tears and rage. I always wanted to ask my class clown after his release from juvie... "Was burning down the gym really that much fun?" Food for thought.
Redditor u/rodorod_ wanted everyone to rat out the prankster that left the wrong impression by asking.... [SERIOUS] When did the "Class Clown" go waaaay toooooo far?
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Flipped
He would try to jump around, parkour style, desk to desk, all class long. Sometimes would fall comically, breaking things and falling in people, trying to get a laugh. Constantly redirected for trying to do run flips on the wall, telling horrible jokes, or balance large objects on himself. He always wanted attention; we just wanted to learn beginning french.
We all, including the teacher, took to ignoring him. One day he couldn't handle people not paying attention to him, so he tried to see if he, for the first time ever, could do a backflip. Landed on his neck. Was out of class for a long while.
The Hit
He put a hit of acid into our woodshop teacher's coffee.
Fortunately, our woodshop teacher recognized the onset and immediately called into the office and said that he's leaving right now as he's feeling very unwell but will remain in class until a replacement arrives. We had a teacher fill in in about fifteen minutes and our woodshop teacher left.
At lunch, we saw that his car was still parked in the parking lot. This was well before cell phones so there's no way he called someone. Come to find out, he ran to a local park and "waited out the storm" as he realized that he was dosed with acid and that he was a teen in the 70's so, he knew.
The next day, he taught class as normal and didn't mention it.
Buffoon
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Pierced his ears in the middle of class then used a pair of earrings he was given from the bottom of some random girls purse. This all happened while the teacher was asleep.
Another one hid a bunch of dead fish in the ceiling tiles the day before summer break. The school reeked for many months.
Speechless
The kid just kinda made a joke of it, didn't apologize.
Joking around how the class was crap and he'd rather die, took off his tie and stood up in front of the class and pretended to hang himself.
Teacher just came back to work from a looong break after finding her son hanging in his room.
None of us knew thats why she was off work but I remember her face going white and just seeing her heart break all over again when he done that. Safe to say nobody even laughed.
Sorry Mrs. T
In math class, we were watching a video on some material I already forget, and the video was around 2 minutes long. Once the video ends, the "Class Clown" says "That video lasted about as long as your last marriage, Mrs. T"
Mrs. T's husband had died a few days after their 1-year anniversary.
Sing Out Louise!
This was like early-mid 90s.
This girl in 4th or 5th grade just kept pushing the teacher until she finally just told the girl something like "Fine! you want to run the class, then it's the ____ show go ahead!" So the girl went up in front of the classroom and sang and danced and yelled for 15 minutes to get everyone's attention. The teacher just went to the back of the room and wrote her up.
RIPPED!
Class clown decided he was going to rip a loud fart during the middle of a test and ended up pooping his pants on accident.
1999
This is 1999. It's been 6 months since Columbine. We're attending school about 40 miles away from Littleton. 'Lockdown Drills' just became a thing. Due to our proximity, ours involve the local police drilling alongside us, clearing rooms, etc etc. Might just be publicity, might not.
We're all lined up against a wall in our dark-as-hell room, and the class clown grabs a stapler off the desk, snaps it open (so it's fully extended but not dumping staples), then whips it against a kid's leg next to him, driving a staple into his kneecap.
Of course the kid screams bloody freaking murder. Three dudes in full tactical gear stream in, take like six seconds to grab the class clown, drag him out. Literally never saw the kid again. Don't know if he got sent to expulsion school or what, but he was like a ghost.
You bet your butt we minded our P's and Q's during every lockdown drill after that.
Slammed!
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He decided to try and fist fight the teacher and got taken down in a mortal kombat style bodyslam, by the teacher.
Held Back
He got kept back in class over break as a punishment for being too annoying, or something along the lines of that. The teacher then needed to leave the class to go and photocopy something, and he got up and started messing around at her desk. When he saw her coming back into the room, he thought it would be funny to bolt over to the door and slam it as hard as he could on her hand. She broke two fingers and had a bad panic attack. He got suspended for two days and the school tried to press charges on him.
All the Stops
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High school trip to London. Finally boarding plane after MANY security stops after a bombing scare in the city. Get to our seat at he says "Yeah! We got he bomb on board!" as a joke. Had to wait 4+ hours for team to search the plane.
Damn Derrick
In 6th grade (1991) our class clown put a tack on someone's chair. His victim screamed so loud that it startled everyone and the clowns laugh turned serious immediately.
You're evil Derrick.
Saw that happen in person once. It was not funny. The guy who sat on it was in real pain.
You're a moron Jamie.
The Whistle
Recruiting most of the class via text to download a dog whistle app, so whenever the teacher called him out and took his phone away someone else could do it and emit a high pitch sound that was hard to tell where it was coming from and his name would be cleared until he would do it again. This ending with tears on the teachers side and went on for almost a week as the teacher was too kind for discipline and eventually ended when the teacher left her job and chose a different field.
In the Ceiling
My favorite science teacher's room had a drop ceiling. Every day, after school, I'd take a yardstick and randomly select a single ceiling tile to lift up and place askew out of its frame. The science classroom was cluttered as hell so it didn't look too obvious.
After three weeks I'd moved fifteen panels out of place and the teacher hadn't noticed.
On the fourth week, she suddenly noticed, and thought her freshman homeroom class had done it all at once, that morning, as a prank while she wasn't looking. She yelled at them for fifteen minutes about disrespecting her classroom and then made them all put the ceiling tiles back in their correct positions.
I never fessed up after seeing how angry she was. I thought it was a good, harmless prank but based on her reaction I obviously didn't read the situation correctly.
Silly Billy
The time that this happened was when this kid, we'll call him Billy, came back from the bathroom. We were told that we were getting a new student, who had a little bit of autism. When Billy got word of that, he sat up and said, "Hey, Teacher, we're getting an autistic kid, right?" The teacher nodded, then Billy squatted and flailed his arms while wildly screeching. The whole class, including the teacher was mortified. I'm just glad he got in trouble and couldn't go to recess. We were in 5th grade btw.
Over Lax
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He put laxatives in the teacher's coffee and crap just went crazy. He ended up getting suspended and the teacher tried pressing criminal charges on him.
Sleeping With the Fishes
This wasn't at the school I went to (the students from my school had a city-wide reputation for being a bunch of theater kids, teacher's pets, and snobs), but a school one town over where I did a placement when I was fifteen. During those three weeks, some jokesters who were, apparently, the class clowns of their grade, decided to pour chocolate milk into the school's fish tank (which wasn't very big).
This was on a Friday afternoon, but the teachers only found out about it Monday noon. By then, all the fish had died already. I can't tell you how the students in question were punished, that was handled privately. But it was decided that for the foreseeable future, there would be no more fish.
Bad Girls
These two girls were always really mean to the German teacher and constantly pushing her buttons. One day, they broke into the German class trailer before school and covered everything with pads and tampons that had been colored to look like they were used.
She didn't come back to school after Thanksgiving break.
Blazed
He made weed brownies in culinary class that were distributed to teachers. Lots of blazed (and very confused) teachers that day. He got caught and had to pay a huge fine and serve like three weekends in jail.
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The excuses people use to dismiss behavior range from mundane and meaningless to the sort of leaps normally reserved for kangaroos and Olympians. It's sometimes amazing that these excuses work - but they do.
Some of them work so well that they're just sort of "accepted." That, obviously, kind of sucks and is something we should avoid - so let's talk about 'em.
Can't swerve around what you don't see, ya know?
Reddit user TMTtasmachine asked:
What's the biggest excuse used for a-hole behavior that shouldn't be accepted as much as it is?
... and away we go.
Jerk Privileges
" 'That's just how they are.' "
"One of the biggest enablers for tantrum throwing, bullying, etc. is that they get treated with kid gloves to avoid dealing with them." - alexrt87
"Oh my God you hit the nail on the head. Whenever someone says 'that's just the way they are' I say:"
" 'Yes, that's the point! Glad you noticed too! Now is it okey-doke for them to be jerks they have special jerk privileges? Or maybe they are just people and should treat everyone else as such?' " - notatrumpchump
"It depends on how it's said."
"People are the way that they are, and you shouldn't be surprised when they continue to be that way."
"This, obviously, doesn't excuse it - but people also shouldn't be surprised when a bad person continues to make bad decisions. Neither should we waste space in our minds being bothered by it." - unlawfulfoxy
Harassment Isn't Humor
season 2 lol GIF by ShamelessGiphy" 'It's just a joke, bro.' Harassing people isn't humor." - loading__99
"Schrödinger's Douchebag"
"A guy who says/does offensive things and decides whether he was joking based on the reaction of people around him." - Eatsleeptren
"Dude, legit had someone come up to me and start shouting in my face, calling me Madison, pretending I was cheating on him. Literally the most crowded location outside a theater, everyone staring at us, looking at me like I was some horrible cheater while I was out with my then fiancé."
"I started hyperventilating, my fiancé nearly decked the dude, and then someone shouts 'CUT' like this is some big 'YOU'RE ON CANDID CAMERA' moment and everything's supposed to be okay."
"I burst into tears."
"It was the most humiliating moment of my life, and thank god my then fiancé, now husband is not the type to overreact or jump to conclusions, or be abusive. Imagine how bad that could have been for someone with an angry or abusive partner."
"Prank videos are a plague on the internet and there is a REASON so many of them are fake, or involve actors." - Darkovika
Stay Sober, Then!
Drunk Drinking Beer GIFGiphy" 'I was drunk / high / etc.' "
"Then don't drink?! Stay sober if you can't NOT be an a**hole!" - BasedBenjamin
"Alternately, I hear a lot of 'I'm a happy drunk!' "
"Yeah, according to your drunk a$s. That doesn't mean you're not an ahole. Not remembering is not an excuse either." - PepeBabinski
"I was that guy. I swore I was a 'happy drunk' - and I was. It was everyone ELSE who was miserable while I was happy."
"I was also loud, obnoxious, and I wouldn't remember sh*t the next day."
"Quitting drinking has been one of my best choices of my life." - TTungsteNN
"Help"
new girl coach GIFGiphy" 'I'm just trying to help you' " - Miserable-Air1234
"Every time I've heard this, they're manipulating me while helping only themselves." - mykittenfarts
"My Mom to a T. Everything she does is better than anyone else's and she always gets pissed that people don't praise her for 'helping.' "
"She's now a certified (by herself) psychic and I have come to the conclusion that she's not a covert narcissist but an obvious one. I really wish I was joking." - Silent_Discussion657
Parenting Problems
Leave Me Alone Run GIF by TLC EuropeGiphy"Any variation of 'I'm a Mother/parent.' "
"Had some lady cut me in line at a coffee shop and she hit me with 'I'm a single Mom of 3!' as her excuse."
"Ok? And? I was still here first." - maid-for-hire
"I'm a single mom and I f*cking haaaate when other single moms/parents pull that sh*t to get special treatment."
"Last week, I was having a rough morning, my kid was being difficult, and I was running late. I was rude to a cashier over a minor inconvenience."
"Not only did I apologize for my shitty behavior, I wrote corporate to let them know how professional and patient she was while I acted like a f*cking toddler."
"Was being a parent part of the reason I was frustrated? Absolutely. Was it an excuse for that behavior? HELL no."
"I acted like a b*tch, and I called myself out, and I apologized. I still feel bad about that - I rarely let things get to me to the point I snap at others." - ClusterfckyShtshow
"Wow. I'm a Mom as well and tired but it doesn't give anyone a right to use it as some sort of ploy to get away with stuff."
"Like, mice become Moms about 12 times a year. You're not special 🤣" - SpoonLoops
Believing Your Boss
The Office Monday GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"I had a boss say some really racist sh*t around me one day and the next day, out of nowhere, he says:"
" 'Don't believe half the things that come out of my mouth!' "
"It was not really an excuse, more like trying to cover for himself after the fact, but still stuck with me." - sirlongbottom441
"Report them to HR. Seriously." - kokichi--ouma
"Looking past the racist stuff for a bit, that's not a very encouraging thing to hear from a boss…" - WonderfulBlackberry9
Bad Day Again
Bad Day Reaction GIF by Schitt's CreekGiphy" 'I'm having a bad day/week' "
"Okay, so you decide everybody that you interact with deserves the same fate? Get out of here, dude." - myordinaryexistence
"We all got stress, don't take it out on me. I get some people have stress bad enough for it to be passable every once and a while (family member passing, etc) but general, stress should not lead to you being a jerk to me." - willsimpforfree
"Damn, I'm definitely guilty of this. Usually I remember to apologize after but at this point I've learned to just avoid the situation in the first place by minimizing my interaction with people if I'm in a shitty mood." - nozzzrul
"Reminds me of when that White boy went on a murder rampage and killed a bunch of Asian women & that a-hole sheriff gave a press conference telling the media that the 'poor boy had a bad day.' "
"My idea of a bad day involves going home after a rough day at work and just staying in the house."
"Apparently, I should change my ethnicity from Asian to White and go on a murder rampage, see if my @ss gets a sympathetic sheriff to say on my behalf that I had 'a bad day.' " - kingkazul400
It's Not An Excuse
Season 2 Reaction GIF by FriendsGiphy"This won't go down well, but using depression as an excuse. As someone who suffers from it, it's still not ok to treat others like sh*t" - Rainbowwallstickers
"Could not agree enough. My partner has a 'friend' who treats everyone like sh*t all the time, has no consideration for others and openly mocks people in public."
"She gets so much grace from those around her under the guise of her 'mental health.' It's so infuriating watching an adult woman never have to take responsibility for her actions." - 34boor
"I get there are some things you can't control, but you are still responsible for keeping that sh*t in check and if you're aware of your mental illness, you should be aware of how you approach people and situations."
"I'll admit I used to be guilty of using my mental illness to be an @ss, but now I'm trying to better myself" - VeeSquibbles
Florida Gonna Florida
Looney Tunes Florida GIFGiphy"People are letting Florida off the hook way too damn much. And I live in Florida."
"Just because it's hilarious doesn't mean it isn't still completely f*cked up." - AlphaWhiskeyOscar
"The phrase 'Florida Man' is almost always followed some heinous way a Floridian is being an a$$hole." - PepeBabinski
"I'm also originally from Florida, and that state has serious problems. We need to pay attention to it." - [Reddit]
Moment of honesty ... as a Floridian ... yeaaaah, I'm gonna have to agree with that last one.