Pet Rocks & Sea Monkeys etal

[El Presidente]

Growing up....what did you get suckered into...or more likely..what did you get your parents to get suckered into

I conned my parents into having a couple of mice in their own habitat enclosure. 2 x 2 meters it was a metropolis and a precursor to today's 24 hour gyms with wheels/ramps/ropes etc.

2 mice became 20 within a few months and after I lost interest the whole thing turned into the book "lord of the flies" as pandemonium ruled and cannibalism appeared to be better than pellets. I assume they were ahead of their time and into the Paleo diet.

My mother wasn't impressed by the rather "pungent barnyard aroma" of the "community" and so I released them one day outside. To her horror they ran back into the house.

My request for Sea Monkeys was denied.

[tmac77]

My parents were not susceptible to us whinging for this and that. If we wanted something that they felt was either not needed or frivolous we were told to earn the money ourselves to buy it. So it was paper routes, cutting grass, shoveling snow, working at local farms etc to buy anything that was on our list.

[Scroats]

I gave my go some sea monkeys for Christmas this past holiday. They never took off.

[wea1959]

If these had only worked the way I had hoped.

http://www.tomheroes.com/Comic%20Ads/classic%20ads/x-ray_glasses.htm

[FLB03TT]

Should of stuck to a Chia Pet! Immobile and no barnyard stench.

[earthson]

Mad magazine. And like scores of them.

[FLB03TT]

Had an ant farm, about 50 years ago. Looking back, it sort of reminds me of NYC.

[polarbear]

Tazos

Those plastic discs you used to get in chip packets

The reason I'm about 20kg over weight can be placed at the feet of my quest for Tazos in my youth

I still have most of them somewhere

[DoubleDD]

Two red belly piranhas. Woke up one morning and had one. He was a mean SOB. Any time we went to clean the aquarium he'd bite the sponge and skimmer.

[Paul3]

I remember a small pond full of frogs near my hourse when I was a growing up and being too young to grasp the "birds and bees" I was stunned to find the pond loaded with tadpoles one day, what cool little creatures. I could have a pond of frogs of my own if only I had a pond to put them in. That's where my parents pool came into the story. I remember clearly the look on my dads face when he found several dozen tadpoles swimming in our pool. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, the tadpoles didn't survive long in that chlorinated pool water making them much easier to scoop out.

[Nedule]

Growing up my dad let us do it all. Dog, turtles that only lived 6 months, lizards that lasted no longer than the turtles, hermit crabs that we brought home from Florida into Canada ... on the plane smuggled in our carry on luggage. The stewardess even gave us food to feed them, try & do that on a plane today, probably end up in jail. We also had a moluccan cockatoo. Bought him from the breeders as a baby fully realizing they live for 60 years ... what were we thinking. If you ever consider buying a large parrot any time soon, don't do it. It's like having your first child, you have no idea what you're getting into until it's too late, although you can sell a bird, kids are a little more tricky. Just kidding, I love my kids, but we did sell the bird, they are so demanding & will literally chew your house into pieces. The longest lasting crazy pets growing up is the large koi collection my dad has, & still has. Indoor & outdoor ponds, trips to Japan to buy fish from the breeder. My dad was a koi pioneer in our area so my summer job was selling koi & helping people build backyard ponds & even being a fish medic. I'm not sure how my dad got a hold of the meds but the two of us would sedate & inject koi with antibiotics when they were in bad shape.

What have I let my boys buy, nothing. They want lizards, spiders, snakes, birds, but I've been down that road, so it's a no ... for now.

[free85]

My mother wasn't impressed by the rather "pungent barnyard aroma" of the "community" and so I released them one day outside. To her horror they ran back into the house.

And to think... we all lust after this aroma now. Maybe that's where it started for you, Pres!

[ImTripN2]

When we were kids it was fireworks smuggled home from Mexico. Not a good idea to tape about a dozen bottle rockets together and light 'em up, or squeeze the big fountains with a c clamp... they just might blow up and break windows.

[canadianbeaver]

I convinced my husband that we should buy thousands of dollars worth of Cuban cigars... My family and friends think he is a total sucker and I am a money wasting lunatic.

[Habana Mike]

If these had only worked the way I had hoped.

http://www.tomheroes.com/Comic%20Ads/classic%20ads/x-ray_glasses.htm

True that.

Thought I'd see through clothing but it went straight to bone.......

[Borgy]

My obsession with coins that where in comic books, send away for those worthless coins and bank notes I still have them and still collect them not so worthless these days. I guess hobbies start somewhere.

[JohnS]

I convinced my husband that we should buy thousands of dollars worth of Cuban cigars... My family and friends think he is a total sucker and I am a money wasting lunatic.

We all wish we had you for a wife! Let your husband know to count his blessings!

As for growing up, nah my parents were not into pets. I was thankful to have a bmx bike...that was my most valuable posession.

[Ken Gargett]

amongst the great many different animals i kept, i did finally manage to be allowed to keep a snake. after many promises and much pleading. i had numerous lizards and birds and so on.

of course, guess which animal escaped. and yes, "i know i promised i would not keep it in the house but...."

and yes, i know i said "it was not poisonous" but if i had said it was then you would never have let me keep it.

the menagerie was much reduced after that. and it seems the snake found its own way out of the house.

[JoeyGunz]

Wanted a bearded dragon ended up with a couple of fire bellied toads.

[Ken Gargett]

Wanted a bearded dragon ended up with a couple of fire bellied toads.

had a bearded dragon for quite a while but they don't particularly like captivity. had pink tongues for a while. they were terrific.

[leftimatic]

Anything and everything, one of my favourites was a big white leghorn rooster I named Fonzie, yes it was named after The Fonz. Used to attack my brother all the time. I guess the family had a raccoon before I was born kind of wish that would happen again. Anything non animal was a Christmas time only gift and quite sparingly at that. But animals were open game. Mom and Dad loved animals. And with seven kids there was always someone to look after things.

As the kids got older dad would buy old cars and let us tear through the fields with them. Only got to drive a couple times I was only about 8 or 9 at the time. But did a lot of riding. Shortly after we moved to the city and that kind of stuff came to an end.

My wife is a veterinarian and we live in the country and there is a race track down the road that starts racing lessons at 10 yrs old. So we have tonnes of animals and you know what my boys are getting for their tenth birthday. Yeehaw!!

[CanuckSARTech]

My parents were not susceptible to us whinging for this and that. If we wanted something that they felt was either not needed or frivolous we were told to earn the money ourselves to buy it. So it was paper routes, cutting grass, shoveling snow, working at local farms etc to buy anything that was on our list.

Somewhat this for me.

But then I earned enough money for what I wanted.

Model rockets.

The drawback is I lived in farmland. Wide open cornfields. Bordered by bush lots and little forests. And then with railroad tracks about 300 meters away.

So, one magical day when I was about 12 or 14 or so, I figured out that I could make my own rockets with spare parts. Plastic nose cone, plastic tailfin assembly, all superglued onto spare 12-18" long chunks of 1" diameter or so aluminum piping. And I further learned that I could take apart the solid fuel booster rockets and cut out the "explosive" charge at the top of it that is used to pop out the nose cone and parachute, and I could use these to fill up the aluminum piping packed tight, superglue on the nose cone, use a spark-throwing booster-stage engine insert in it, and VOILA - a flying pipe bomb.

And...(yes, I was a minor then, and it's been a lot of years now)...me and the neighbour kids proceeded to fire these, at an angle, at the forest across the corn field, and then, when we got bored of watching the trees explode, at the boxcars of the passing trains.

No. Not smart at all.

And I got the beating of my life when we ended up actually starting the train tracks on fire, and leading to a massive ditch fire that various area farmers had to come and help put out.

[OZCUBAN]

Once whilst my parents were on holiday I had a marine aquarium installed complete with living reef coral etc and halogen lights needless to say it didn't go down to well

[milo]

Baseball, football and hockey trading cards. Spent a small fortune (meaning a few hundred dollars as a kid--but still). Kept them all; I figure I can break even on my investment in about 120 years.