"She Handed Me A Computer Drenched In Cat Pee": People Who've Worked With Kids Are Sharing Their Wildest WTF Moments, And God Bless Their Patience
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who've ever worked with kids to tell us their wildest story from the job. Here are some of their chaotic responses:
1."I’m a kindergarten teacher. One day, for show-and-tell, one of my students brought in a butt plug. She thought it was a dog toy. Luckily, so did the rest of the kids. I started checking the show-and-tell items after that. Not as wild, but another weird one that stands out in my mind was when a student brought her dad’s beard hair in a bag. She had gathered it from the trash can. Her parents had no idea."
—Anonymous
2."I worked as IT support in a posh private school (think: $50,000-per-year tuition). We had a program where kids who broke their computers could get a loaner while theirs was being replaced or repaired. One day, a student came into my office to return her loaner. She pulled it out of her backpack and handed it to me. It was soaking wet. Then the smell hit me. I sniffed my hands and realized she'd handed me a computer drenched in cat pee. It was the foulest thing I’ve ever experienced, and IT professionals see some stuff."
—Anonymous
3."Not me, but a coworker. She was sitting there, working one-on-one with a kid, and suddenly he dove over her shoulder, yelling, 'I'm a dolphin!' as she desperately tried to catch him."
—Anonymous
4."I teach music at an elementary school. A while back, I was in the midst of teaching the kids how to play the recorder, and during small group practice, one of my kids came up to me and said, 'Mrs. X, I think my A hole is clogged' (meaning the hole on the recorder that plays the pitch A). It took everything I had to keep a straight face and answer their question without laughing!"
—Anonymous
5."During COVID, I was teaching my fifth-graders on Zoom. One of my students interrupted my math lesson to tell me her bird had died. She then proceeded to pick it up out of the cage and put it on the paper plate to show the whole class. She and three other students all started crying. I asked her if a parent was home to help her, and she said her dad was sleeping. He worked third-shift hours, so she was only allowed to wake him up for an emergency. I told her that this probably counted and also gave her permission to leave the Zoom class for the rest of the day. Her parents got her a puppy a few days later."
—Anonymous
6."I used to nanny two elementary school–age boys. One of them didn’t want to use the unisex bathroom in a restaurant because 'that’s where unicorns have sex.'"
7."I used to babysit these two kids who were so entitled. One time, I brought them out to eat with some money from their parents, and one kid wanted to order a $30 meal that cost three times what her brother and I had ordered. When I tried to tell her that she should order something else, she started to scream and say that I had kidnapped her. I had to have her mom come with her birth certificate to prove that she was actually her parent."
8."I teach kindergarten, and one day I was working on rhyming words with my students. We had been practicing rhyming words before the kids went out to recess. They came back in and said, 'Guess what game we were playing! The kitty-titty game!' I could not hold my reaction in and started laughing so hard! They obviously had no clue why this was so funny, and they explained the game they 'invented,' which was essentially tag (while pretending you’re all kittens). They were proud that they'd made up a game that rhymed. Well, they really loved this game and thought it was funny that I was laughing. So they kept singing out, 'Kitty-titty game! Let’s play the kitty-titty game' over and over again for about two weeks before I finally told them that they should pick a new name for their game."
—Anonymous
9."I taught first grade for several years. The kids kept all of their outerwear in a cubby room separate from the classroom, so sometimes I didn’t always catch the shenanigans. One day, three kids frantically ran out of the cubby room and wrapped their arms around my waist. 'Ms. Tompkins! Jake is making us sit on the floor, and then he farts in our face!' I calmed them down and called Jake over. I asked him what was going on. 'I wasn’t really farting. I was just pretending,' he said. I told him that even if he was pretending, the other kids would still be upset. Later that day at recess, the students who had been fake farted upon made Jake sit down in the sandbox, and they really farted in his face."
—Anonymous
10."I was about 13 and had just begun babysitting for a family with two small kids (it was the '90s). One night, around 10 or 11, I went upstairs to check on the 1-year-old. She sat upright in her crib and began to cry. When I picked her up, she said, clear as day, 'Check the back door.' I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I called my mom while I went downstairs to check said back door. Nothing was out of place, but I sat on their couch on high alert until the parents came home a short while later. Still gives me goosebumps to this day, 30 years later."
—Anonymous
11."I teach kindergarten and had a really spunky little girl in my class one year. During playtime one day, I overheard one of her friends ask her if she wanted to play hide-and-seek. The little girl joined in and then proudly shared that she always plays hide-and-seek because her mom had a 'friend' who would come over and play hide-and-seek in her mom’s bedroom. She even added that one day, her dad came home, and her mom told her friend that he had to hide for a really long time; then she said that he must have come out of hiding when they went for ice cream because he was gone when they came back home. 'He is such a good hider! My dad did not find him at all!'"
12."I was teaching eighth grade. A student I'll call Mark called across the room, 'Mrs. X, may I say something profane?' I assumed that he wanted to use a swear word in a creative fashion, and I said no. He either didn't hear or ignored my answer, and while looking at a science-themed book, he called out, 'This shark brain looks like a vagina and uterus.' Stalling for time and giving myself a moment to pull myself together, I slowly strode over to Mark and looked at the picture. I replied, 'Well, no, it actually looks like a uterus and ovaries. And using natural words is not profane. Slang is.' I. About. Died."
—Anonymous
13."A friend was working as a kindergarten teacher. The class was covered in little signs with the names of objects and the kids' names to help them learn to connect words with the act of reading. One day, a student came to the teacher and tugged on their shirt. He said, 'Teacher, God didn't get his snack today.' Turns out that one of the students was named Jesus. We all cracked up imagining the kindergarten student going home and telling his parents about his day: 'I played with Sarah, Hymie, Yesica, and God today.'
—Anonymous
14."An 8-year-old student of mine had a habit of repeating things that she had heard on TV (catchphrases, songs, jokes, etc.). One day, she asked to use the iPad. I told her it was almost lunch and she had to wait. Then, in the most Red Forman voice I’ve ever heard, she called me a dumbass and walked away. Turns out, her dad had watched That '70s Show the night before!"
—Anonymous
15."When I was in high school, I was a camp counselor. This one camper claimed she was part wolf and she could smell me, and kept trying to bite me because she 'was a wolf.'"
16."I’m a teacher at a performing arts studio. I work with kids of all ages, but during the summer, I tend to work a lot with elementary school–age kids. Last summer, I was teaching an acting camp where the kids would perform a scene based on ideas they’d come up with in class throughout the week. During the performance, in front of everyone’s parents and the staff, one of my kids peed themself onstage. They told NO ONE. I had reminded them before the performance to go to the bathroom. Nothing. I didn’t even hear it! I was in the front row, feet away from the stage, and didn’t see or hear a THING until the kids cleared off the stage and there was a puddle. I had several parents come up to me and inform me, 'By the way, there’s pee on the stage,' as if I wasn’t staring directly at it. It was mortifying. I wasn’t able to check on the kid after, but no one was crying, and the culprit didn’t mention anything to me, so I guess they were okay."
—Anonymous
17."A student brought a dead bunny to school. She thought it died because it was too cold, and believed that by keeping it warm in her pocket, she could bring it back to life. She took it out in the bathroom during recess, where she was discovered by other students, who hysterically came to the office to report it. Earlier that morning, a student had told the teacher that this other student had a bunny in her pocket. The teacher, believing it was a stuffy or other type of toy, told her to put it in her backpack. She placed it in her backpack for safe keeping until she could retrieve it during recess and attempt the resurrection."
—Anonymous
18."I'm a daycare teacher. One of my least favorite sentences is, 'So-and-so took off their diaper and pooped on the floor,' yet it happens twice a week."
—Anonymous
19."I used to be a children’s librarian. At storytime one day, I asked the kids if there was any song they’d like to sing. A preschooler raised his hand and asked for 'Funky Cold Medina.'"
20."I work with toddlers and babies. A 2½-year-old looked at me and said, 'You have pimples!'"
—Anonymous
21."Preschool teacher here. I had an intense helicopter mom (still do, but she's lightened up a bit) who was constantly checking in throughout the day. When her child started with us, we did not allow parents to stay longer than five minutes at drop-off because of COVID. This was my second year with this child, so they knew the school well, but they had gone on vacation for two weeks. Since I already knew that the mom would be constantly trying to call, I got ahead of the game and sent her emails with pictures to let her know the child was having a great day. She still called the school four times, and fully came inside and tried sneaking in a second time to check on the child...all before noon. The child was totally fine, but the mom made the day very distracting, stressful, and annoying."
—Anonymous
22."The oddest one must be the time a boy in my class urinated in a water pistol and went around shooting people with it during recess."
—Anonymous
23."Years ago, I worked at a childcare center during the summer. It was about an hour and a half before the end of the day. We put on Aladdin for the children to watch. During the scene with the dancing veiled girls with Aladdin in the bazaar, a little girl stood up and pointed at the screen. She said, all excited, 'That's how my mommy dances for my daddy.' As you can imagine, the other staff member and I were in shock. I managed to tell her that was nice, and she sat down. Her mother was so conservative in dress and demure, so as you can imagine, after that, whenever I saw her, I couldn't get the image out of my mind and had to hold back my laughter. Parents would truly be mortified if they knew the things their children told us."
—Anonymous
24.Finally: "I worked at the YMCA in their childcare center. Most days, the adults would just deal with the babies and toddlers and make sure the older kids were fine. One day, we only had a few younger kids whose parents worked there. I was talking to a coworker, and I turned my head just in time to see two little girls playing doctor. One was lying on the floor with a baby doll under her shirt. The other was sitting by her legs telling her to push. We were trying so hard not to laugh as we told them they had to play something else. When we told their moms, they both shook their heads and laughed."
—Anonymous
Do you have any wild stories from your time working with kids? Share in the comments!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
