High school, well adolescence really, is a super confusing time. Emotions that you don't quite understand hold you in their grasp. More often than not it can lead to some "questionable" behavior. Let's just be real.... high school is a hotbed of crazy and a social soap opera. Bad behavior can run amok. But the stories are fascinating to tell decades later.
Redditor u/humbert-ridingLolita wanted everyone to fess up and share some salacious tales about the good old days by asking.... What's your wildest high school secret?Hey Jack
Happy Hour Reaction GIF by Cheezburger
Giphy
There's still a good pint of Jack Daniels hidden inside the ceiling from 10 years ago. I checked last year day when my nephew was graduating.
A+ Sir
I was at a party in my senior year of high school. I didn't know the guy who lived there so I didn't investigate when I smelled pot coming from the back of the house. But I did notice that among the half dozen or so teenagers coming out that room later, a couple of adults were with them. One of them was my chemistry teacher who seemed rather surprised to see several of his students in the room. He quietly left the party.
Muddled
poop GIF
Giphy
I pooped myself freshman year and then fell in mud on purpose and made sure everyone saw so I could say it was all dirt.
Never waste TP!!
Our boarding school mascot was a tree (lol) that was on the campus in a prominent spot. On Mischief Night, I had study hall with two other students; we were all sociable but not close friends with one another. We decided to completely TP the school tree, and stole loads of rolls from the library bathroom. We snuck out of our dorms after midnight, absolutely covered this massive tree in toilet paper, and snuck back in.
We didn't know the next morning was when all the new incoming freshman visited, starting with a tour under the school tree. It also rained, so the tree was dropping globules of wet paper for days. The deans of the school flipped and assumed they knew who did it (notorious senior pranksters) but couldn't prove it or punish anyone.
Twelve years later, I mentioned in passing to my BFF from high school that I was the TPer, along with these two other random people. He was shocked, and had never for a second thought it would be any of us. Not the most wild crime, but it is satisfying to have gotten away with it!
The Bad Seed
A kid at my high school ended up lighting his house on fire and killing his dad, brothers and some of his sisters I think? I remember his mom and one sister were alive. His one brother who I was kind of friends with was over at his friend's house for the night.
It was completely intentional. They found him at the hospital trying to kill his mom and sister. Maybe not a secret but it was still wild.
It's a Soap Opera
The school has had 4 microwaves blown up, over the course of 4 years.
The first time I told a guy to put in a pack of raisins, explosion.
The second time, some freshman put in bag of sour patch kids, explosion.
The third time, a senior put in 8 bags of popcorn into the single microwave, explosion.
The fourth time, someone put some sort of metal thermos in it, explosion.
Also, there have been 3 sexual encounters in only one bathroom in the 4 years I've been here
Watched the school roof get set on fire
Shooter threat
Some kid got stabbed outside the school
My astronomy teacher fired for saying the N Word 13 times in one class
5 of our band directors over the schools history have gotten fired for having relationships with students.
The Heck
mood GIF
Giphy
Before school started us marching band kids would have "heck week" where we practice marching band stuff all week so we were ready for the first games of the season.
School picture day was also that week. That day I had gotten so stoned with the sousaphone player that I passed out waiting in line to have my picture taken. Someone's nurse mom rolled me out on a chair and gave me some water, and to this day everyone involved thinks I had heat exhaustion or something from marching all day.
In the Cabinets
My friend's mom was a math teacher. The summer before I was in her class I had the brilliant idea to find notes or tests or whatever to cheat with because I was terrible at math. Whenever I was at their house I'd try to stealthily look around.
After a few visits I was getting frustrated at finding nothing and expanded my search zone eventually leading to the parents' bedroom once when everyone was outside.
I didn't find any math notes, but did find a drawer with lingerie, toys, lube, etc. The horny part of my brain took over and I snatched a pair of lacy underwear, shoved them in my pocket, then went outside and made an excuse to go home.
On the first day of school I realized, obviously, she kept all her schoolwork in the locked filing cabinets in the classroom.
It's on Y'all!
high school teacher GIF
Giphy
It's sounds so stupid now, but in chemistry class we had a student teacher who was absolutely awful.
I was actually pretty good at chemistry but all my friends were struggling really bad with D's and F's and the real teacher would be gone the whole period in the gym or whatever talking to his friends so he was never around to help when student teacher wasn't making any sense. Like we wouldn't even see the real teacher for 2 weeks straight. So I made a fake email account and pretended I was an anonymous parent and emailed him threatening to report him not being in the classroom and leaving the clueless student to teach other clueless students.
He did not take it well at all and wrote back a nasty email & sat the whole class down and said we are all responsible for our grades, but he did remain in the classroom and helped for the rest of the semester. None of my friends ever told anyone (that I know of) but I can remember trying to act so calm when he was berating the classroom.
Now I can't believe I even did something so stupid like that but I wanted my friends to pass.
Down the Pipes
We went on a school trip to Germany and the hostel we stayed at had windows that could be completely taken out in fire emergencies. So me and my friends would take out the window at night and use the drain pipe to scale down the building (was only like 2 floors up) and go take in Germany's night life, nothing like coming back at 4am and drunkenly climbing the pipe.
Hidden
pregnant beyonce GIF
Giphy
I managed to hide my pregnancy. I had her 2 weeks after graduation. No one in school knew. Thank God for hoodies and being a very small woman, even when pregnant. It helped that there were 5 other pregnant girls that year for people to focus on.
Re-skinned....
In the 90's, the school districts and local liberties all used the same BBS software that was just re-skinned to their specific use. This software was also used in a lot of local boards. There was a pretty know backdoor that that allowed you to gain admin rights if you hadn't applied the appropriate patches.
They of course had not applied the appropriate patches. For a fee I would go in and change your grade for the report card print. I would change it back after they were sent. I didn't want the exploit discovered. I made a grip for about two hours work every semester.
In Colorado
I went to a small school in Colorado. In 8th grade our pottery teacher fell asleep with a lit joint or something and his house burned down. The cops found his stash. He had to give a really cringey "I have been living with my secret drug addiction" speech to all of us in class.
Thing was most the teachers in that town were doing a lot worse drugs then pot. We had math teacher come to class trippin' crazy on acid one day.
Bottoms Up
brought a 1 liter of coke to school, 50/50 mix of bacardi and coke.
put it down in the center of the lunch table and the underclassmen around me all took swigs and passed it around. i was 18 at the time and they were all minors.
vice principle even walked by us a couple of times but didn't stop to investigate.
When in Club
brad pitt GIF
Giphy
All those cuts, bruises, grass stains, cracked ribs, and broken teeth weren't from playing football. Sorry mom.
There was fight club at school with like 30 members and we did not go easy on each other. I guess it can still be a secret if it's a shared secret.
Lucky Strike It
The 'wildest' thing I did in high school was the time I snuck into the library during the afternoon pep rally. Now at the time, I was running the gaming club, so I had the then brand new nintendo switch, its dock, and a copy of breath of the wild in my bookbag. Our school also had these giant touch-screen monitors with HDMI support in every classroom, including the library's computer lab.
So I pulled up the most comfortable chair, plugged that bad boy in, and played about two hours of BOTW: Giant Screen Experience. By the time two thirty hit, I packed up my stuff and bailed before the librarians could ever figure out I was there.
Probably my favorite high school memory.
keys to the kingdom....
I went to boarding school.
Over the course of about a month, I reverse-engineered the school's master key system and cut myself a master copy. So when everyone else was locked in their dormitories sleeping I could go wherever I wanted. I explored the whole campus. The IT building, the gym, the decommissioned building that had all the asbestos in it (not the best idea, in retrospect).
There was an enormous smokestack on the far side of the athletic field and I climbed it. There was also an observatory on the roof of the science building. The telescopes were stored in a room locked by the master key. One night I got some friends together and at 2 AM we had a party in the chancellor's office.
Those were good times.
Finals
The principal likely used her connections with local and regional politicians to cover up a huge scandal involving cheating during the finals.
Some seniors managed to send one of their parents (a lawyer, no less) infos about the exam's topic and the mom put the answers on the school's bathroom windowsill.
The students went to the bathroom and got the answers, but the exam supervisor got suspicious about the unusual coming and going, checked the bathroom and found the papers.
They called the cops, the finals were suspended but eventually went on as scheduled with the kids involved getting top marks.
Later on there was a trial for fraud, but to nobody's surprise, they were all acquitted for some reason.
The kicker? They were all upper-class kids and the principal was a staunch Communist back in the good old days... But I suppose class struggle took the backseat to the school's and the principal's good name...
2 Lives
i lived a double life in high school. My home life was spent manufacturing amphetamines while i played nice at school. None of my friends knew for years that i was a cook. I gave my friends weed to keep them away from the harder drugs. Once i got older about 17-18 i realized the people who raised me were messed up and manipulated my loyalty.
For the "A"
emma stone GIF
Giphy
Senior year, i got directed by a Janitor to grab some towels from the Janitors Closet to clean up a spill in my classroom, to get to the closet I had to pass by the teachers/staff break room. I saw an open teachers edition algebra book and no one around.... Easiest year for math.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Of course, most of the time, it was “just a phase". And looking back, those phases are regrettable, to say the least. Here are some prime examples of that.
SirGergoyFriendman asked:
What was your biggest/most regrettable "It's not a phase, mom. It's my life." that, in fact, turned out to be just a phase and not your life?
The enthusiasm of a young person can lead to some unexpected changes that parents are just not ready for.
Hi, Wheeljack!
I was VERY into The Transformers when I was a wee lad in the 1980s. One day, I decided to change my name to the name of my favorite Autobot. My name was lame, and I wanted an awesome Transformer name. And I was VERY insistent that my parents only call me by my new name. Calling me by my 'old' name would cause a big fat tantrum on my part.
So for the better part of a week, my poor parents had to call me Wheeljack.
Very 2008.
Ariana Grande Shrug GIFGiphyMy cat-ear phase. I wore cat ears every single day. Everywhere. I had like 20 pairs of them. Now everyone thinks I'm a furry.
I find that very cute and wouldn't have thought you'd be furry. Even if you'd had cat mittens. I think my suspicions would have started if you moved a bit like a cat, displayed catlike grooming habits or got a cat mask.
Not gonna lie, that car sounds cool.
I went to a car show once as a teen, and the only newer car there was some chick's PT cruiser. It was hot glittery pink, and at the time I was obsessed. I insisted that one day I would have a hot pink car, with pink seats, pink dash, pink carpets, etc. I was pretty heavily goth at the time, so my parents just rolled their eyes.
These phases can often lead to some very strange fashion choices.
That’s commitment.
When I was a teenager (early 00s), I was waiting for my mother to pick me up and was wearing one of those sh!tty sports wristwatches. It was itching me so I took it off for a second, but then she arrived and because I was struggling to get it back on my wrist, I looped it around the equally sh!tty chain I had around my neck in a rush to get out the door.
My mom asked me about it in the car, and I told her this was my new style and I planned to wear it like that every day. She rolled her eyes.
I wore that watch on a chain around my neck every single day for 3 years or so. There are even professional family photos where I'm wearing it because I refused to take it off.
One day, the chain broke and I lost the watch. I was in high school at that point anyway and it was a major lady repellent, so... phase over.
Not everyone can be Eminem.
slim shady eminem GIFGiphyBaggy pants, being a rapper someday and being a professional skater.
When I was about 14 and Eminem was starting to blow up I bought myself a keyboard with a synthesizer. It cost like $200 which was all the money I had saved up. It finally came (this was way before amazon prime and such) and I tried rapping.
My sister told me "you're effing horrible" and I gave up right then and there.
This should be a sin.
I used to button the top buttons of polo shirts.
I must say, this is probably the worst one I've read.
Looking back at our regrettable choices, all we can do is cringe.
An optimistic look at bad tattoos.
check me out season 3 GIF by PortlandiaGiphyBeing a tattooer. Regrettable because of those poor people who have my awful doodles on their bodies.
Take heart! My favorite tattoo is the one I drunkenly got my buddy to do in his living room one year during March Madness! It's dumb and frankly mediocre? But such a good story and has such good associations I smile every time I see it.
RIP Fredro’s.
My friend and I decided we were going to open a bar in Jamaica with exotic snakes in glass cages in the walls at each booth. We convinced ourselves it would be amazing for at least two years in college. It was going to be called Fredro's.
My entire family made fun of me for it. Once we got out of college, we realized it was not feasible and joined the office grind. We're also two white guys with no ties to Jamaica.
Talk about cringey.
I wore a top hat with an anime pin on it for around a year. Met one of my current best friends while wearing it, idk how he could bear to speak to me after that.
My weirdest phase was probably when I insisted on wearing knee-high rainbow socks to school every day. But honestly, I don't regret it. I rocked those socks, and I wish I still have a pair.
To all the people out there cringing over their past selves, remember that you were just a kid, and to be easy on yourselves. After all, we've all been there
Yet, too often, manufacturers who oversell their products fail to deliver what is promised and are inevitably left with angry customers who want their money back.
Whether the merchandise was defective or ridiculously overpriced, strangers online shared some of their worst purchases when Redditor BooksMcGee asked:
"What is the worst product you ever paid money for?"
Short Life Span
"This NERF gun that's supposed to shoot tennis balls for your dog. I bought it cause I thought you could load 3 at a time and shoot them far, but it's just one and it's super loud and the gun broke after like 4 shots (reading reviews later, this was a common issue)."
Lame Pets
"There were these toys called squiggles when I was a kid and the commercials made it seem like the toy was alive. It looked like you would get this crazy little fuzzy worms as pets that would follow you around an so sick tricks and listen to your every command. It was really just a piece of fluffy string tied to another piece of string with googly eyes on it. People may say that it was supposed to be a magic trick but they should also explain that to a 5 year old who really wanted a pet."
Card Value
"Not their fault, but I paid $70 for a Yugioh card hours before it was limited to one copy. Probably dropped to $20 by the end of the day."
These purchases were bad for your bum.
"A bicycle that literally fell apart before I made it out of the parking lot."
Not Worth Sitting On
"Joybird brand couch. Was so terrible, we returned it. Still hard to believe, we returned a freaking couch."
Going Nowhere Fast
"A 2000 VW Beetle (used)."
"Biggest piece of sh*t that literally had to have just about everything replaced before 100k miles and would still break down every time you left the driveway to the point where the tow-truck driver knew us on a first-name basis."
Expensive Lemon
"An Oldsmobile Achieva from one of those buy here pay here places. I should have known better, but I was young and thought I was getting a good deal. I had the thing for about 5 months, I drove it for maybe 3 weeks. The rest of the time it was either in the shop, or in my driveway waiting until pay day so I could afford to fix whatever broke on it this week. Eventually told the dealer just take it, I'm not paying for it any more. He said nope, and I will make sure your credit is ruined. I said well you sold me a lemon, do you really want to go this route? He came and took it. Never reported anything to credit. I heard he got sued by several other people who sold sh**ty cars too and eventually went out of business."
"Always amazes me when I see them driving around still, I can only assume there's enthusiasts who just love repairing horribly designed cars."
– zerbey
These Redditors were not convinced what they ingested was edible.
Bad Cereal
"A box of plain Cheerios. Thought they were honey nut, poured a bowl, was very disappointed."
"If I wanted to taste cardboard, I'd just eat the box."
– gor8884
Space Pizza
"A burnt frozen pizza at the air and space museum cafe in DC. I Don't wish that experience on anyone. There are some amazing restaurants in DC, don't settle."
– Alseids
The following electronics just gave off a bad charge.
"Asus Transformer Pad TF700"
"This was one of those early 'high end' Android tablets that was grossly underpowered, and it showed. Thing was slow as sh!t in no time flat. Rookie mistake investing into shiny new tech while they were still working all the bugs out. Think I paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $350-400 for it..."
– Luke5119
Bad Apple
"macbook pro 2018 13" touchbar. 2 years old and dead (battery). they're asking $300-$400 to change the battery. malfunctioning keyboard with double presses and missing presses. that's a lot of money for bad design."
Chilly Reception
"Past winter my old room heater broke down and I had to buy a new one. Went to a store nearby and somehow got convinced to buy a very costly heating device.. It's also my fault, since there were some sligthly cheaper options around, but nope. I wanted the expensive one thinking it will make my small room a volcano with little to no effort/cost (that's also what the seller told me). Long story short the device wasn't doing ANYTHING. No significant temperature changes, too much space, a weird noise, and was doubling my previous device in utility cost. I still gloom over those 80 euros.."
Some of my disappointing purchases was clothing, but only because I purchased them online. Unless they are a brand I'm familiar with, I'm usually fine with buying new jeans off of their websites.
But when it comes to graphic tees only available on specialty shops, an M-size shirt is not necessarily the same size as those found in other reputable stores.
I bought a medium sized T-shirt from a boutique store online because I loved the look of the design. But when it arrived, the supposed medium fit me like an XL.
At least I gained a fierce cleaning rag from this impulsive purchase.