What's the most expensive thing you broke as a kid and what's the story behind it?
Mine was our CRT TV. I would rapidly push the power button on and off because I thought the picture coming and going looked cool but eventually it fell inside of the TV. I think I later stuck a magnet on the TV.
Not looking for Reddit answers like “My parent’s marriage”
This actually got a good laugh out of me. I have a toddler, and I can see what you did totally made sense in your mind, and that it was dad’s fault for not being specific enough with the instructions.
I broke the screen on my laptop, but that was only after having it for like five or six years. And even after that, I still used it as a closet web server for years after that with SSH.
Was going through some semi-justified teenage angst stuff back in the day and my laptop was having some small issue, so I smashed my laptop.
I’m not normally prone to anger - then or now, so that was particularly out of character for me. I also wasn’t able to replace it for a long while, since I wasn’t like, rich or anything like that.
Honestly though, I’ve never regretted it. Given the circumstances (tl;dr: poor upbringing, loneliness), I can totally see why someone would lash out like that eventually.
Xmas ornament my parents got of QVC or something. I fell into(onto?) the mantelpiece because I’m clumsy and I was much younger at the time and I knocked it off. It was actually my favourite ornament too.
In grade 2 I burnt down a shed causing $2000 damage in the 1970’s. (Around $10,000 in todays money)
I was playing in the shed and decided I wanted to build a fireplace… out of wood. (In my defense it was a type of laminate, so I didn’t know it was wood at the time.)
My dad’s truck, I thought it would be a great Idea to clean his motor. Got into the electrical system. He never told me how much it was, but, as an adult I could only imagine.
Crashed the family car on my first day driving. Into our house. Our driveway is a mini hill with a turn to get in and then loop to the side with the corner of the house being at the corner. Accelerating up the little hill meant the house jumped in front of the car! As it was my first time driving, the blame was placed. Firmly on dad, as teacher.
Luckily the damage wasn’t too bad to repair, but still the two most expensive things were broken on one day.
VHS player when I was a toddler. Was in the daycare and saw a cord, so naturally I pulled it. It was on top of the TV, which was bolted to the wall high up. Shattered on impact. Nearly fell on my head too.
I was probably 9 or 10 at the time, visiting at a (wealthy) friends house, and my friend was showing me a bunch of his dads cool stuff, among which was a legitimate whip, like straight up indiana jones style. Naturally, I had to try it out…indoors…underneath the crystal chandelier hanging in their entryway…I wasn’t allowed over anymore after that.
When I was 6 I microwaved a metal measuring cup full of water, which ended up arcing and burning out the transformer. Apparently it fucked up my parents’ finances for a while at the time
Early 2000s. My dad is a farmer and it was a rough year for the harvest. It didn’t help that my parents were pretty poor for a long time, and didn’t seem to recover until after their divorce during the 2008-9 financial crises
Eventually. My dad saw an improvement with corn and soybean yields for multiple years in a row in a very strong market, as well as getting his crane operator license so he could move grain bins and paying off several debts. My mom moved to the same town as her job, got some promotions, picked up a couple weekend gigs bartending at the local bar, and heavily subsidized groceries by going to meat raffles.
I have a similar story, when I was young I had this weekly science magazine that would come in the mail.
The one page showed a match lit in a microwave with a glass measuring cup to catch the hot plasma. I obviously tried it because it looked cool. When my mother heard the microwave making all kinds of noises she opened it up and pulled out the measuring cup not realising that its really hot, she dropped it and it shattered all over.
I’m not sure how much my brother costs, but the three of us brothers were running across the top of monkey bars and jump kicking each other. I kicked my youngest brother off and he busted his head on the ground. It’s ~40 years later and he still has the scar on the back of his head.
I grew up in a very unorganized town that wasn’t really regulated with traffic laws. I learned to drive a truck at about 12.
When I was 14 I was driving my dad’s truck around town. I suddenly had the urge to see how well the brakes worked. I drove fast down a gravel road than slammed on the brakes as hard as I could. Within seconds it blew both front brake lines.
Later that same year in the winter I got the truck stuck on some ice. It wasn’t bad, I just happened to stop on a very slippery patch of ice and couldn’t move forward. I got the idea that as the tires spun, they were getting hot which meant it was melting the ice. If I did it long enough I would eventually get down to the gravel. I got impatient and spun the wheels faster smoking them like crazy while the engine roared. In the middle of the noise and smoke, a tire exploded and the truck jumped and deflated. I had blown out a tire.
Dad wasn’t happy with me for a long while because the truck went to the shop and we had to pay a lot of money to get them fixed.
At the very least, I never made these mistakes again.
Jesus maybe? At church during the Christmas service. Accidentally dropped it. No clue how much it was worth, but I don’t remember breaking particularly expensive things.
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