Everyone has that unfortunate day when they break something important by chance, be it their own cell phone or a part of someone else’s antique collection. But Things break okay, no one does it on intention.
When I was about 11 I was insistent that I wanted to learn the cello. I begged and begged and begged until finally my parents caved and we found a rental cello at a music shop. The rental price was expensive but just about acceptable, as the price of cellos themselves is huge and there was no way we could afford to buy one.
On my way to my first ever lesson I dropped the case containing the cello down a flight of stone steps, completely shattering it.
I skipped the lesson, took the thing home, and told my parents I didn’t like it and we should take it back to the music shop. They were angry and exasperated. I didn’t tell them about the accident until the shop clerk unzipped the case to check on its condition, spilling fragments of wood all over the counter and onto the floor.
ergotpoisoning
In high school some classrooms were upgraded to have smart boards and that was a big deal. This was when they first started coming out so I’m guessing they were easily a few thousand dollars.
I was play fighting with my buddy and tackled him right into one of those smart boards and left a gigantic crack in it. We ran away of course cause we were scared.
We didn’t realize the entire thing was broken and unusable now. The school made a big deal about it, and promised not to pursue financial retaliation if the students did not turn themselves in. So we did and both got loads of detention and all kinds of warnings and probations.
joel7890
My dad bought a nice big tv for his house which he had to work long and hard for. Days later my little brother had a friend over and the kid whipped a fireball (the candy) at the screen and smashed it!
Dad had to settle for a much smaller and crappy tv. I couldn’t imagine the rage but he seemed to contain it well.
HansWermhat23
I bumped into an elderly client’s $12k dollar vase and knocked it off a shelf.
When I went to tell the client he fakes being distraught, “Did you at least sweep up the ashes??”
I go white as a ghost and blank as a sheet.
He laughs and says he’s joking and to not worry about it. I periodically go by his place to fix stuff, I am a contractor and my company did his house, and he’ll bring it up every single time because he thinks it’s hilarious.
FilthySeaDog
My then seven-year-old son was battling cancer back in the late 90s, before sites like gofundme, etc., existed.
My son had a horrible cancer with a dismal prognosis, and we had the crazy idea to build a website to sell his childhood artwork to raise money for the medical bills. A local art gallery caught wind of it and invited him to display his art, they held a special event just for him. We showed up as honored guests of the event, and in the first five minutes he accidentally broke a glass sculpture valued in the tens of thousands of dollars!
We were not asked to pay for the damage, but it made the entire remainder of the event rather awkward.
Kamots66
One day, I was at a play date at a friends house. I broke his limited edition medieval figurine and moments later I broke his bedroom curtains when we were playing hide and seek.
The figurine wasn’t the worst tho, a few hours later another friend of ours broke his father’s antique handgun.
To this day I feel so sorry about the entire afternoon.
Solidhuggle
I smashed a $40k hydraulic ram off of an excavator, the one used for mining, but I didn’t really get in much trouble. Another guy was refuelling a mining dump truck, the biggest in the world, cat 797, and it caught fire. He wasn’t paying attention so by the time he saw it, the fire was too big for the on board fire suppression to handle. $6 million dollar truck burnt to the ground!
stupidperson810
I knocked over an expensive painting in a US Embassy once.
I didn’t stick around to ask its value, just walked away.
Pretty sure I am on some list now.
dasoberirishman
My new iPhone six slipped out of my hand and hit the screen of my MacBook Pro, smashing both – the screen of my MacBook and the screen of my phone.
A certain beautiful irony I thought.
ciaranciaranciaran
I totaled my friend’s Audi TT in a single car accident when I tried to turn while going on 50, lost control, hit a curb and landed in the parking lot of an auto body shop.
I was racing a co-worker to our 7:30 am sales meeting.
As soon as I “parked” the car I grabbed my stuff and ran to my co-workers car.
farbroski
When I was a child, my parents and I were watching antiques roadshow (British version). During the show they valued a particular glass vase that at 100. In the 1990s a 100 was a lot of money, and my family were in dire need of it.
My mother recognized the vase to be the same as the one that we had in the kitchen and asked me go fetch it. She confirmed that it was the exact same and then told me to “put it back carefully”.
I proceeded, only to fall down the stairs, shattering the vase. I was grounded for a month.
Eupatridae
In my 20s, I worked at a head shop. We kept all the really nice handblown glass “water pipes” behind the counter. I mean, these things were at a minimum $200, with some pieces worth $2000.
One day I came in with my backpack on, went behind the counter, and turned a bit too fast. My backpack swung out from my back and hit one pipe, which hit another, and another … like the dominoes. We lost almost $30,000 in inventory from that little accident.
My boss was cool though and didn’t make me repay.
automator3000
Know those videos of people accidentally throwing Wii remotes through TV screens?
I didn’t do that.
I did, however, get a little too enthusiastic with Wii Sports bowling in a room with a lowish ceiling and a big expensive chandelier hanging even lower.
seeyoshirun
A broke a door in a train.
It was super crowded and I got stuck in the door opening. I moved in and when the conductor tried to close the door again, using his buttons or whatever, my backpack got stuck.
Suddenly, the door just stopped trying to close and died. The conductor yelled at my through the speaker system and came stomping through the train: “WHO THE *beep* BROKE THE DOOR?!”
He came over to me, pulled the door close with all his might and told me to get out if I didn’t know how to ride a train properly. Then he stomped back towards hell or wherever he came from. I could hear people talk about it. Then I heard the conductor say “Some *beep* broke the door”
Apparently, a train wouldn’t go anywhere even of just one door isn’t closed properly, because it kind of “blocks” the engine.
[deleted]
When I was a teenager, I dropped a nickel onto the escalator at the mall. It had landed perfectly into the groove, and was rolling in place as the stairs folded into the bottom. I stood there watching it for a minute, until it got caught under the lip of one of the folding steps, forcing it down with it.
There was a loud noise, the escalator stopped moving, and the green light underneath shut off.
A few days later, they still had the thing shut off, and two Otis guys were on the scene to fix it. I have no idea if the coin caused a real damage, or if they were just having trouble diagnosing the problem, but I’m sure that nickel costed them probably higher than anything I’ve owned.
CactusRape
If you’ve ever been to Disneyland, you’ve likely been on (or at least walked past) the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. While I don’t know for sure if it’s still around, there used to be a pirate-themed gift shop near the ride’s exit, and it was there that I burned the entirety of my souvenir budget.
I was about eight years old at the time but I really should have known better than to try what I did. I’d been milling around in the shop, frantically deliberating about what I wanted to buy. The toy swords certainly looked nice – and I did have a soft spot for swords – but the antique flintlocks were also appealing, as were the bags of plastic gems and the “authentic” tricorn hats and… well, clearly, coming to a decision wasn’t easy.
As I was contemplating the purchase of a bag of gold coins (and secretly hoping that someone had put real gold coins into it “by accident”), another group of shoppers entered the store, presumably on a similar quest. Within moments, the eldest of the children – a girl of about eleven years – noticed some life-size rubber skulls that were for sale. These were flimsy, hollow, and malleable things, but they sure looked like the genuine article, and the girl decided to use that to her advantage.
“Dad, look!” she said, grabbing a skull and running over to her father. “They have real skulls here!”
“Uh-huh,” her father replied. The girl scooted closer. “No, look, it’s… oh no!”
With her final words, the girl pretended to drop the object. Her father – suddenly very attentive – let loose a barely censored exclamation of alarm, only to adopt an attitude of relieved confusion when the skull bounced harmlessly on the floor.
The girl burst out laughing, her father gave her a hug, and everybody had a great time.
In fact, it was such a great time that I decided to have one too. After waiting for the other shoppers to leave the store, I grabbed a skull of my own and approached my father.”Dad, look!” I said, echoing what I had heard from the girl. “They have real skulls here!”
As if on cue, my father replied: “Uh-huh.” I could barely contain my excitement as I inched forward. “No, look, it’s… oh, no!” We both watched the skull fall to the floor… where it promptly exploded into a million shattered pieces.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, I hadn’t actually grabbed one of the rubber skulls, but rather one of the porcelain pieces that had been set up on an adjacent display. It had seemed heavier than I’d expected, but… well, the damage was (literally) done. The mistake wound up making my purchasing decision for me, too, since my father insisted that I pay for the destroyed merchandise.
I left the shop feeling deflated and despondent, and I vowed to be much more careful about such things in the future. Fortunately, my father then told me that breaking the skull had been a very “piratey” thing to do, and he bought me a few souvenirs – a hat, a sword, and a flintlock – to make up for my loss. The only stipulation was that I had to promise I would only ever act like a pirate in the back yard at home. Small price to pay, really.
RamsesThePigeon
One day my boss let me drive his BMW to do some errands when I was a teen. Surprisingly trusting, this guy.
I didn’t crash the car, but was real confused at how everyone lauded how well BMWs drove. It seemed to not move that well, I had a hard time steering and accelerating from a complete stop, just like my dad’s years old Ford Taurus.
I didn’t get it until the end of the day, after having driven about 25+ miles that day, when I noticed the parking brake had been on the whole time!
A week later, I overheard my boss complaining that he had to replace the brake pads because those “stupid Germans don’t know traffic works in other countries.”
Oops.
ceedubs2
Back in the 80’s when video cameras were not part of phones, and were much more expensive, I for some reason decided to flush my dad’s camera in the toilet.
I did this to two cameras he says.
I was 4 at that time.
[deleted]
I broke a bank’s vault door.
Carelessly I slammed the vault door too hard after the closing time. It wouldn’t open the following day. A crew had to break down a reinforced concrete wall to access the back of the vault door.
It was opened two days later with the help of some specialists.
Misterxalan
When I was a teenager, I accidentally drove a riding mower too close to the edge of the small cliff near my house and couldn’t stop it.
I jumped off, and it dropped over, flipped over mid air and crashed down into the ravine at the bottom.
FalstaffsMind
I bought a bow and arrow and was very excited. I had always thought I was natural at this.
So I set up some homemade targets and begin.
I miss my first shot and hit my farm’s huge rainwater tank, causing a massive hole to rip open the side. Then I collapsed on the ground crying.
I was 22 years old.
TheAngeI
When I was 13, I accidentally left the freezer door open overnight. Everything in it was wasted.
I remember how furious my dad was. He was in the basement, where the freezer was, and I was in my room, 2 stories above, with my door closed and I could clearly hear him screaming at my mom about it.
iAmMitten1
I broke a condom… it cost me 240k and big time depression.
Never happening again.
[deleted]
Note: The comments have been modified for clarity.