Annihilated my dad's brand new hifi system at age 3 by using the turntable as a merry go round for toy dinosaurs, because that's what I thought it was; he was alerted to the scene by the gruesome scratch as I swung the stylus arm to knock off 'naughty' dinosaurs.
Begged my aunt to build a bridge across the ceiling with wooden blocks. Became increasingly distraught at her protests that it was impossible, and every time she asked how it was meant to be achieved, I flailed my arms and hissed 'you just do it like this' with weary resignation.
Came in to the living room at age 4 to find my dad watching the football:
ME: Daddy, what are those men trying to do?
DAD: They're trying to get the ball into the net
<five minutes of solemn contemplation>
ME: (worried) But however shall they get it out again?
ME: Daddy, what are those men trying to do?
DAD: They're trying to get the ball into the net
<five minutes of solemn contemplation>
ME: (worried) But however shall they get it out again?
Got busted at primary school for running a mine. At its peak, I had about a half dozen kids working with me in a hidden corner of the playground, digging with twigs between a tree's roots and building a weird edifice out of the mud. We were obsessed with the hole for weeks.
Told this one on here before, but when I was about 6 I drastically misunderstood natural selection, and tried to force a squadron of woodlice to evolve into trilobites by immersing them in water for a day. Ended up crying lamarckian tears over a row of brave, dead woodlice.
One summer I insisted on spending 2 weeks living under a tarp in the garden, cataloguing every bug I found in a big heap of soil & trying to engineer an ant war. Had a pet stag beetle called Napoleon who lived in a coke bottle; when he died I preserved him in BBQ lighter fluid
Found a massive dead cod on a walk while on holiday; refused to give it up and dragged its reeking carcass a full mile down the beach before finally admitting I hated it and had no plan for it
One of my favourite games as a kid was to balance loads of different sized containers on the stairs and then tip a whole bucket of marbles from the top step and watch the chaos. Nothing pleased me more; I would roar incoherently with the excitement of it all.
While I'm reminiscing: once, I was a bit bored & asked my dad for a lego project. He said "what if the people who made the death star felt bad, gave up, and made something nice instead?", so I spent half the school holidays making a massive Help Engine out of all my Lego.
When I was 11 I got an old scalextric set at a boot fair and managed to convert it into a jury-rigged railgun for cars. That lasted until I managed to fire Nigel Mansell out of my bedroom window & send him slamming through the open window of the shed at the bottom of the garden.
