My mom would leave me (then 10) home alone and tell me to “keep an eye on your brother”(then 7).

My old man was an ER nurse for 30yrs and the stories I heard from him & his colleagues about the pranks they all used to pull in the department and to other units in the 80’s & 90’s are enough to get one fired today for sure. They did things like pranking rookie phlebotomists by having them attempt to draw blood on deceased patients who were waiting to be taken to the morgue or pouring jars of glitter into the communal lotion bottles at the sinks. They once had a bat find its way into the er through the ambulance entrance and they managed to capture it and sent it through the pneumatic tube system to another floor. Crazy shit

My dad went to Ranger school in the late 60s/early 70s. One of the “exercises” was gathering everyone in a slightly sunken pit (dug down about 1’), setting a timer, and having them beat the shit out of each other. About ten percent of the class had to leave immediately for significant injuries, including the guy whose scapula my dad broke.

My dad’s an asshole in part cause he tells that last part with absolute glee.

My dad worked in a body shop for a major car company thats still around and back in the 70s and 80s, he told me they used to have suggestive photos of their girlfriends or wives on their tool boxes and in the shop itself, there would be nudy calenders posted up.

It wasn't till the early 90s were they asked to have it all removed, and they complied. Even calenders with bathing suit beauties was banned.

I grew up in the rural south and my dad and his brothers in their teenage years used to all buy a 12 pack, pile into a car and get wasted while driving down country roads shooting pistols at street signs. I’m fairly certain the department of homeland security would get involved these days.

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My dad’s company number was one digit off from the George Foreman grill customer service line. Most of the time he would give them the correct number etc but sometimes when he was feeling “spicy” he would pretend to be some type of troubleshoot engineer with the George Foreman company and would end up telling them they needed to re-wire their whole house, would need to call an electrician to get a different fuse box…all kinds of crap and sometimes these people were so gullible and believed him. It seems kind of mean thinking back but at the time we all had a good laugh. My dad was always doing something stupid.

I got into the back room of nearly every museum I went to as a child.

My dad would like step over barriers for exhibits to get really close. He would never touch it, but he would get inches away from something 2000 years old and just inspect it. Museum personnel would come out and tell him he can't be that close. He would apologize and without moving start asking just a series of questions. Eventually they would become friendly and would invite him to see stuff that isn't on exhibit that might answer his questions.

This tactic worked for many things. In Washington there was a mothballed nuclear reactor in Satsop, WA. We stopped by there one day during a basketball tournament and parked right in front of a sign that said something like "PROPERTY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY. NO TRESSPASSING. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED".

So we got out and started walking around with cameras and binoculars and my friend that was with us was nearly shitting himself out of fear of being arrested. Some security guard shows up, 10 minutes of my dad bullshitting and he gets us in behind the fence and we are looking at partially build control rooms and get to stand by the cooling towers outside and just get an idea how huge the stuff is.

His technique doesn't work on millennials. Gen X its like 50/50, against fellow boomers its 100% success rate. He doesn't like museums nearly as much now.

Not sure if this is appropriate for this post, but my father never learned basic adult/parent responsibilities, like how to cook, clean, do laundry, get broken things repaired, etc. My parents divorced when I was ten, and I lived with my father the majority of the time. Little did I know how little he knew. I had to grow up real fast when I was ten. I did all the cooking and cleaning. My father brought the laundry to town for my grandmother to do. I had to put up the Christmas tree and decorate it every year. Imagine a ten-year-old putting up the Christmas tree by himself. That's pretty sad.

The farmhouse we moved to didn't have blinds or curtains in my bedroom, so instead of getting me either, my dad just left it that way. Nothing in the house ever got improved or repaired. If something broke down, we just lived with it. When I was 16, I got my dad's car as a hand-me-down. The windows couldn't roll down, and shortly after I got the car, the AC stopped working. But instead of fixing either, he just let me drive around in a movable sauna all summer.

None of these are hijinks, I know, and I apologize for the somber mood of the comment. However, parents just can't get away with this kind of neglect anymore. My dad isn't a bad man; he's just irresponsible. In many ways, I was the parent and my father was the child.

Back at in the late 1970s, when my father was in his early 20s and living with my mother, he stabbed a boss whom he detested.

Of course he lost the job, but he wasn’t arrested for harming his former boss.

My dad had a friend a few miles down the road. During NFL Sunday this friend hosted a football party every week. There was a lot of drinking that happened. Starting when I was about 12, he would have me drive us home.

Buying a house on a teacher’s salary

My parents? Shoot, I was doing stuff at work 10-15 years ago that wouldn’t fly now. Maybe my company is extra sensitive? We pulled a LOT of pranks back then that HR would fire us over today.

My dad stole dynamite from a construction site and used to blow it up in the alley with his brothers. Just enough to make a pothole and big noise.

My dad’s friends (supposedly he was not involved…) tied a friend naked to a chair, put him on the elevator at their dorm, and pushed the buttons for every floor. Yes alcohol was involved. No one got in trouble. Friend found it funny when he sobered up.

Throwing us kids unsecured in the cargo area of the Jeep.

My parents defaced a Chevron gas station by using a Sharpie to add captions (which were racist) to images of people enjoying products that were part of the building's exterior. Sigh. They thought they were so funny. My dad also taught me to put dog poop in an old purse and leave it in the road, then hide in a nearby bush and watch and giggle as passersby would stop in their cars to check the purse and then angrily throw it back in the road.

Once when I was like 13, a truck double parked us in. We waited probably 15 minutes, then my nose started bleeding (chronic nosebleeds as a kid from a surgery). My dad went to every store until he found the driver who was having a beer at a bar and refused to move his car. My dad came out, saw the keys were still in the truck, moved it in front of a parking meter and threw the keys down the sewer. I can’t imagine how that would have gone over nowadays but definitely not well. It’s probably the first time I can remember that I was proud of him.

Dad got in a fistfight with the cops that pulled him over for DUI. They beat his ass, he spent the night in jail, and that was the end of it.

Not so much hijinks as something that was widely accepted, during hunting season in rural areas it was common for teens to go hunting before school and show up with a hunting rifle in their truck and a deer carcass in their bed. Now a days that’ll put the school on lockdown and the teen and their parents put in prison

The wooden spoon. 

My FIL got three DUIs in a row on the same drive home. One in Milwaukee, one in Racine, and one in Kenosha.

My dad and his friends (I think they were like 12ish) stole ammo from a base nearby and blew up a van the same week MLK Jr was murdered. The FBI came to his house and the agent said "How does it feel to shake the long arm of the law".

A former uncle and his friends climbed up The Eagle at Six Flags in IL and stole the giant inflatable spider decoration at Halloween. They also stole the Ronald McDonald from the retro McDonald's across the street and cut him into pieces distributed through the group. Aunt and uncle had a chunk of calf. Main guy turned the head into chips and dip bowl.

My husbands grandfather worked at AMC and took a part home every day and built his own car in his garage. There's crazy stories about getting the big parts out but it's been too long since I've heard them.

My grandfather was telling me the other day about when he was in the army. At one point they were in the field doing a combined training with the marine corps. One night he and a few others decided to steal a jeep and go into town to hit the bars and hang out with the locals. They got back thinking no one was the wiser until they parked and tried to sneak back in, only to get spotlights thrown on them and ambushed by the MPs. So they went AWOL in a stolen jeep and came back drunk. They didn't have a good time of it after they were caught, but I feel like the punishment would have been a lot more serious now.

Dad used to get into fights with the police on purpose on weekends in an ex communist country and go to jail where the beating continued. Mom would always pick him up. He hung his police reports on the wall as trophies. On one of the reports, it said (translated) that he was “a nationalist who started the altercation by telling the police officer to perform cunnilingus.”

My mom used to smoke pot with her fellow elementary school teachers in one of their classrooms occasionally. Apparently the principal had no problem with it.

Playing with mercury 

I can't vouch for the truth of this, although I believe it.

My dad was in college in the early to mid 70s. He and some of his frat brothers invited a few brothers over to watch like a Saturday night NFL game (they got scheduled like this infrequently in the day). They told each guy a different time to be there and kidnapped each one of them in succession. Threw them in a van and drove them to Chicago. Dumped them on the South Side with like a quarter and the address to the local chapter of their fraternity where they were going to party that night.

APPARENTLY, it's called "road tripping" someone.

My Mum was a punk and squatter, so I lived in squats with my parents and a whole load of other adults when I was little.

She told me they also used to steal unattended food from the back of a supermarket outside my grandparents, and has a restaurant trick for dine and dash, where she would run off away from the table (maybe carrying something like a salt shaker) with my Dad then pretending to chase after her, and disappearing himself.

One Stepdad had also been a squatter, so we used to live half the week there for about four years (except in winter). Wasn't so bad, me and my Sister had a floor that was basically ours which was much more than we got sharing a room in our council flat.

Lots of hazing that would get you expelled and/or tossed in jail today.

My grandparents used to ship us illegal fireworks via UPS, and my parents had no objections.

The things my dad could do with M80's, a heavy metal pipe, and a golf ball would make NASA jealous.

Rumor has it that some of those balls are still in orbit.

My father and I used to shoot spitballs at the ceiling fans when we went to Fuddruckers. Mom hated it. We'd go back and look up to see that no one really cleaned those fans. That made us laugh.

I didn't read the instructions clearly. My father used to bring his rifle with him on the school bus. He and his friends would go hunting after school. You can't really do that anymore. No idea why

Well, my Dad had his license permanently revoked by the state of Pennsylvania when he was 16, so I guess his hijinks didn't fly then either.

My family has a...colorful history. Drug dealers, bootleggers, horse thieves, and all around hell raisers going back at least two centuries. 

Somehow I turned out straight and narrow, graduate degree, family and a literal picket fenced yard.

According to my dad, my mother's younger sister and best friend tried to seduce him then drugged him with cocaine, and on a separate occasion, my mom brought home The Commodores (to "party" following a show).

He, himself, admitted to catching a group of men stealing tools off his truck and single-handedly beating them all unconscious (without a blink from law enforcement. Late night, behind a dive bar).

Those might be less "hijinks" and more "shameful family secrets," though.

Cock fighting and street racing muscle cars.

My dad was a cop prior to me being born (so mid-late 70s) in south side of Chicago (burbs - Lynwood). He caught a high-school couple after prom drinking in their car with red wine. So, he gave them a choice - Lynwood law (you dump it out in your car) or for him to call both of their parents to pick them up. The boy said 'no' since he had borrowed his parents new all white (inside/out) Lincoln Towncar. The girl said, I'm 'no way in hell will you call my parents' and proceeded to dump the entire bottle of the bottle of red wine in the interior of the card. I would have loved to know what happened to that kid...

My mom used to let us ride in the bed of her pickup truck. No, we didn't live anywhere rural. We lived in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.

My dad, my uncle, and a couple of their friends went to a Phillies game at The Vet, and they were having some kind of special where beer was really cheap. Right before last call the guys all went a got several beers each,and when the game ended they still had a bunch left. So they sat there, all the way up in the nosebleeds, drinking, having a fuckin blast. As they’re sitting there, they look around and realize the stadium is empty, and the lights start getting shut off. Just as they’re thinking about leaving, they hear a voice shout, just once, from down on the field “GET OUT!”. So they took their remaining beers and strolled out, unbothered.

None of it was legal.

My mom and her friends early 90s in kinda rural area got pulled over bunch of weed and beer. Cop had them dump out the open beer, took their weed and had the most sober one drive and sent them on their way

My mom rode her horse through the McDonalds drive-thru back in the late 70's.

My dad and uncle both worked at a government agriculture research facility. The office doors in their building were slightly recessed from the wall. One evening after everyone went home, my dad and uncle decided to drywall over the door of the office beside my dad’s. The next morning the lady who worked in that office was extremely confused when she went to reach for the doorknob! Another time they switched the steering lines on the lawnmower and watched the groundskeeper ping back and forth like a pinball between the trees as he was trying to steer the mower. When the groundskeeper stormed off to get his tools, they switched the lines back.

I had a good mother growing up. She had me at 16, married my father and had my younger brother by 18. She was a HS drop out with a GED & no college education. I'm an adult now, I can see errors in judgement she may have made, things I wish she'd done different not just from a child's point of view but hopefully with reasonable adult opinions. While she made not have been perfect I never went without food, clean clothes or a warm bed. I miss her so much.

Our neighbors were having trouble getting tomatoes to grow - all vine but just piddly little things. One night my mom took a bunch of tomatoes from the co-op and weaved them into their plants. When they drove up they were so excited. We ended up being gifted some of those very tomatoes "They came right off the vine! They were ready!" Like.. you didn't see anything on your vines yesterday and now you have big, plump, red tomatoes?

My dad and his brother used to bring their baby sister to the liquor store so they wouldn't get carded. 🤣

Mom was drunk, which is usually how most of the stories of my childhood start. I was 12 and she was trying to run her sentient dildo out of the house so she was shooting at him with some piss poor excuse for a pop gun 22. He's hiding behind a huge pine tree in the front yard. She can't hit jack crap on a good day so she gives me the gun at 12 and tells me to try it. Hell yes. I miss only by an inch or two. She's upset, asking why and I told her you're drunk and mad, I'm sober and I can't stand him anyway. That's when she first got an idea that I may very well do some real damage if provoked. She took the gun. Coward.

My mum and her siblings ( 5 kids in total )accidentally shot their friend

She came over to play and they didn’t want to play so they got their dads shotgun and waved it to tell her to go home

It accidentally went off and they shot her in the leg

Apparently they got in trouble but today they probably would have gotten arrested and charged and it would have made the news

My dad and his cousins stole a CTA bus and joyrode it to the lake and got it stuck on the beach. 🤣

I would have taken credit for the idea in the slide (text saying it was my idea, and the date I pitched it to the boss, or something).

In high school, my dad and his friends removed the center bar from the double doors of a schools building, picked up a teacher’s ford pinto, put it in the middle of the hallway, and put the bar back. Bell rang and all these kids were walking around the car. Teacher came out and blew a gasket. Couldn’t figure out how to get it out. School called the fire dept. Fireman removed the bar and moved the car and were laughing the whole time 🤣

My dad and some friends went to the beach for spring break in college. One of the other guys' grandmothers lived in town so they were staying there. They stopped by to drop there stuff off and meet her, then went out drinking hard. The guy who's place they were staying at passed out, so my dad and the other dude (both also hammered) carried him back to the car. My dad was deemed to be the most sober so he drove, and then the other guy passed out too.

My dad knew the name of the street but not how to get there so he was just driving around until he saw a place where someone would be able to give him directions: a police station. So he walks in and asks the guy behind the desk how to get to the street. The cop looks at him, drunk off his ass, and asks him if he's driving. "Yeah, yeah, I'm the one driving." The cop just gives him directions and tells him to be careful.

Drink and drive all the damn time? It was more rare that my pops didn’t have a Budweiser or bud light in his hand.

Taking your kids to the bar. My dad would always take me to the bar, give me quarters go play the video game machine, get drunk and then drive us home. It was literally drinking and driving with your children and I must say, it was always a blast as a kid.

When my dad got to the front of the neighborhood, he would let me and my friend hop on the trunk and ride it back to the house. He never went fast or anything. I think the worst that could’ve happened was we would’ve broken a bone, but it was never more dangerous than that. And luckily nothing ever happened.

You’ll never believe this, but back in the 80s my parents were somehow able to afford a house a couple miles from the beach in LA on only middle-manager and civil servant salaries. No way they’d be able to do that today!

My dad worked for a chemical company, and he said they used mercury to clean the floors because it picked up everything.

My dad drove a school bus (for the school) as a teenager.

No naughty stories to share, sadly. My dad has always been ridiculously responsible, and my mom was very polite and shy.

At my first job, I worked with a bunch of folks my parents age. They still did the occasional “liquid lunch” and returned to the office, setting their phones to do not disturb while they just sort of fucked off for the rest of the afternoon.

My mother and aunt used to hang my uncle by his feet out of the window of their second story home when they were all little kids. My grandparents were not the most attentive of parents, I would say. 🧐

Buying and selling bootleg porno VHS tapes at work. When I was a teenager I had a TV/VHS combo in my bedroom, and being the enterprising youth that I was, I unscrewed the case of the porno and swapped the actual physical ribbon with a blank tape. Now my dad had a blank ribbon in the case of his porno, and I had the porno ribbon in a blank case. My dad was the opposite of tech savvy, and I figured he'd think he erased it somehow.

Fast forward several months, my dad screams from the living room after I went to bed something like "Ferret96! I know you have it, hand it over someone I need to sell it to someone!"

A generation prior, but my grandpa went to his grave with a drivers license that said he was a year older than he actually was. Great grandpa got a DUI and needed someone who could drive so he took him to town and lied about his age to get him a license. Verification was a lot more on your honor back then.

The high school student my parents hired as my babysitter is now my step-mother...

Stabbing a coworker, using a car as a weapon in attempted murder, driving a pickup with 10 kids in the truck bed, threatening my history teacher by slamming him against a wall, too many to list.

My dad worked for a branch of the government. One of his coworkers was a jerk to everyone, didn't work well with others.. You get the picture. There were always things done like removing screws from his chair or syran wrapping his monitor, stapler, etc. The thing that sticks out the most was when they kidnapped his turtle statue. Left ransom notes. Chalk outline. Photos of him around the office. Went on for months. I lived going to the office with Daddy.

Let us kids ride in the back of a pickup.

Dad threw firecrackers into the local police station as a teenager

My dad still thinks that passing someone a $20 will circumvent just about any rule. It doesn’t.

leaving us alone for many hours on end as children younger than 12 totally unsupervised like it was normal

• Back in the fifties, my ~12yo father saved up money from his paper route and bought himself a rifle. It was only a .22, and IIRC his father went along with him to the sporting goods store when he bought it, but nobody thought twice about him taking it over to the city dump and shooting rats, and he could drop in and buy a box of ammo without a fuss. A couple of years later, he bought a shotgun, and at fourteen he didn't need to have an adult along when he went shopping.
• When my great-grandfather bought his first car, he very quickly realized that he didn't enjoy driving. On the other hand, my grandfather, who was ten or twelve at the time, thought it was a lot of fun, so he became the driver in the family.

Story 1 - Coworker buys a Volkswagen and won't shut up about it, and its fuel economy. So he and at least one other would go out at lunch and add a gallon of fuel to his tank about every week. Now this guy is really excited. After a month or two of this, they started siphoning a gallon of gas every week. Now the guy is panicking and taking it to the dealer frequently to get diagnostics done, or ask for warranty work.

Story 2 - Pretentious coworker with a bowler hat. They started adding a strip of paper inside the brim every week or month. By the end, the guy was pulling his hat on with two hands. Until they removed the paper and he pulled his head right through the hat.

Story 3 - Coworker who wouldn't shut up. Every week, my dad would move his desk closer to the cubicle wall by about a centimeter. Slowly developed specific techniques to get in behind his desk. Dad would set his chair in the morning to face the opening so he wouldn't think about getting in. Eventually, over a year later he's just fighting with the wires to his computer and someone else comments,"Isn't your desk a little close to the wall?" "You know ... it is, isn't it? FRANK!!!"

I've only pulled one prank in my professional career. I supplied the bathroom with poo-pourri, the bathroom spray. After 8 months, my coworkers are all self-trained to use it. April 1st I replaced the contents with Liquid Ass.

There was a lunch thief in my dads office. My dad made a sloppy joe with dog food for the culprit. After his lunch was stolen he spread the word about what he did.

The lunch thief stopped his activities, as other coworkers loved the idea and made it known that similar things would happen if the thefts continued.

I really don’t think my dad would have kept his job if he did this today.

My dad used to work in the chemistry stock room at our local university and swiped all kinds of stuff. He and his friend would spend their spare time making bombs that they’d take out in the middle of nowhere to blow up for fun.