In a recent trend on TikTok, people have been sharing the most "messed up" things they did as kids that they still feel guilty about — and the stories are, quite frankly, shocking.
In the comments of our post about the trend, many of you from the BuzzFeed Community also shared messed up things you did as a kid — and the stories are equally wild. Here are some of the best ones:
1. This sticky escalator:
"When I was 7 or 8, my grandmother took me shopping at May D&F (defunct department store). We were there FOREVER, and I was super bored. So I decided to take the wad of gum that I had in my mouth and stick it onto the hand rail of the escalator. I swear, I thought it would just flatten out the gum into a little disc. Wrong! It caused the escalator to jerk to a complete stop, causing people to stumble forward and fall.
I was hiding behind a clothes rack watching, and I was so scared, thinking the police would come arrest me. Didn't get caught though. 😄"
2. This hooky day gone very wrong:
"I cut school for three days in the fourth grade [with] two friends. We broke into the neighbor's house, stole his cigarettes, smoked them all in the woods, and started a fire. Not a bad one, but big enough [that] the neighbors ran to put it out, and we were caught. I was in so much trouble."
3. This young hustler:
"In fifth grade, Pokémon cards were a popular thing in my grade/class. I [often went] to the grocery with my mom once a week and always [visited] the magazine section. Well, I noticed one magazine had a free Pokémon card that came with it — and apparently it was a really popular one that I knew [people] in my grade were into. So I stole all of the cards from all the magazines on the rack and sold them at school for like $5–10 each. I feel bad for stealing. I haven’t stolen anything since then.
[Later] in high school, I would make fake sick notes. I had a copier, scanner, and printer. I would take a real [sick note], scan it, white-out the name and date, and then print it onto pink or blue paper I bought. I had notes for the orthodontist, dentist, ER, urgent care, etc. I sold them for $10. I never got caught. At the end of senior year, I had like 43 excused absences."
4. This shady candy business:
"When I was 8 or 9, my mom was a broker for Nestlé. We had boxes of candy bars sitting at the house, and I wanted to buy a jersey (I don’t know how I would actually purchase it). So I dressed up in my Boy Scouts uniform and walked around the neighborhood, selling candy for a 'fundraiser.' I didn’t realize I went to the house of a child from another group. I made enough money and got the jersey, but they kicked me out of the Scouts."
5. This eighth-grade celebration:
"After our eighth-grade graduation, we decided it would be sooo funny and cool to grab a few bags of crickets from the local pet store and release them into the school since we had early release that day.
A few years later I realized [how messed up] that was because it was the custodian who probably had to trap the crickets, and that’s just a horrible thing to do to such a hardworking and underappreciated person. I still feel horrible about this."
6. This unforgettable show-and-tell:
"I was a kid who loved being the center of attention, so show-and-tell was my very favorite primary grade activity. I forgot to bring something for show-and-tell one day but couldn't miss my moment in the spotlight, so I got up in front of the class and told everyone someone tried to kidnap me on the way to school.
The police were called, and I was called down to the principal's office to tell them what happened. I was too freaked out to admit that I had lied, so I described my uncle and his car because he was the only man I could think of besides my dad. It all came out eventually, but it took weeks for my parents to get me to crack and fess up."
7. These ~screwed up~ seats:
"When I was around 6 or 7, my parents left me and a friend in the car while they picked up pizza. When they were inside, we thought it would be fun to stab holes into the upholstery of the car using a screwdriver — and the inside of the car was honestly covered by the time they came back. After that day, my dad swore he would never buy me pizza again."
8. This sneaky grader:
"When I was in [fourth grade], I was bullied by a group of popular girls. The ring leader sat behind me in class and would constantly poke me with pencils, write mean notes, and spit on me, etc.
Every so often, when we had a test, the teacher would ask us pass it to the person in front of us for peer grading. Each time, I’d ever-so-sneakily erase her answers and write in wrong ones. I was pretty good at emulating her penmanship, and somehow I never got caught.
Cue our end-of-year report cards, and I heard she had received mostly D’s and was almost held back. Don’t feel that bad about it, tbh. 😅"
9. This impulsive friend:
"When I was in kindergarten, my friend was swinging on the monkey bars, and I just had this impulse to like...pull her off of them? So I ran up behind her and pulled her down, and she fell and started crying, and I panicked.
I ran and hid in the bushes for the rest of recess while she told a teacher, but I was never caught... I’m not even sure my friend knew it was me who did it. It was really weird."
10. This laundry incident:
"I pushed my older sister in the dryer when I was 3 and she was 4. Luckily, I only turned it on fluff, so there was no heat, but she still has bumps on her head 30 years later."
11. These sly tears:
"Any time I did something wrong and got caught by a teacher or someone told a teacher on me, I’d twist the story and burst into tears, yelling that someone else did it. I NEVER got into trouble. Being able to cry on cue really helped me for a while, and the wild stories I’d make up... I threw so many people under the bus.
To this day, I have no idea how I got away with it all. Even my friends, too. I hate getting yelled at, so to avoid it, I would backstab my friends. I was a terrible 6-year-old. But it’s funny now."
12. This friend switch:
"In sixth grade, I had two friends. On the regular, I would hang out with one and completely ignore the other one. Then I would switch. That was pretty mean of me. I’m surprised they didn’t ditch me for each other."
13. These trashed locks:
"We had locks on our gym lockers in middle school. If I noticed people left their locks undone at the end of class, I would throw the locks away. No idea why my 11-year-old brain thought this was a good idea instead of just leaving the locks alone."
14. This homework helper:
"I used to go to an after-school daycare program when I was in elementary school. One of the employees was a high schooler, and one day, she was [doing] homework and complaining about how her teacher was super strict about the paper being clean and neat. I asked her what she would do if I put a little rip in her paper, and she said she’d have to redo the whole thing. I proceeded to reach over and rip her paper. She had to redo it.
My eventual karma? I got the same teacher when I [entered] high school and got marked down on a homework assignment for not capitalizing the name of the assignment. I still feel awful that I ripped her homework, and I wish I could say sorry."
15. This 12-year-old catfish:
"When I was 12, I catfished a bunch of men [from] an online game I played by pretending to be a 18-year-old model. I literally just googled 'blonde with gun' and used those pictures. ☠️"
16. This disappearing picture:
"In third grade, this girl I didn’t like asked me to sign her yearbook so I signed it — perfectly fine. But then, I flipped to her picture, took my pencil eraser, and erased her face off the page. It smeared the ink and erased it, and unbeknownst to her, I handed her yearbook back. Forever her third-grade yearbook will not have her face. Oops."
17. This gassy accusation:
"When I was in fourth grade, we went to an assembly in the multipurpose room. I had to fart, and I thought it would be silent. It was not. It reverberated off the hard floor, and literally every kid there turned and looked at me. So I turned to the boy next to me and yelled, 'EEEWWWW, Jake!' Everyone thought he did it.
About a week later, he tripped me in front of the whole class, and I cracked a tooth, but I said nothing because I 100% deserved that."
18. This soapy prank:
"When I was younger I would tell my sister to come outside, and I would give her water. One day, I thought it would be funny to put soap in it. It’s been like 11 years, and she still hasn’t forgotten. 😂"
19. Lastly, this actually bloody haircut:
"When I was in daycare, I was best friends with this girl. I think we were like 4 or 5. I was a really quiet girl but talkative once I got comfortable, and she was very loud and fun. Anyway, she started hanging out with other girls, and they started ignoring me and making fun of everything I did.
I never told the teacher, so since she and I had been so close before, the teacher paired us together for arts and crafts. She started making fun of my marker box because it wasn’t all glittery like the other girls', and I got fed up. I grabbed the scissors to cut her pigtail and *SNIP* — cut the top of her ear off.
Everyone freaked out, and there was blood everywhere. I think they were able to sew it back on; I don’t really know. She was pulled from that daycare. The other kids told the teacher and parents that they were picking on me, so I didn’t get into HUGE trouble, but I was still punished.
I reached out to her in high school, and we laughed about it, but GAH, I felt horrible."
WHEW. Which story shocked you the most? Let me know in the comments below!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.