What is the worst decision you made as a teenager?

I rode in the bed of a truck. We'd gotten out of school and my friend and I were talking about our cars we'd parked at a friend's house a couple of streets from the school.

A buddy of ours pulled up and asked if we wanted a ride. And I said no, because normally I would never ride in the back of a truck, but my friend

climbed in, so I did too. We made it to the end of the street and started to make a turn onto the

highway, no more than 30 seconds after getting in, when we were T-boned. The truck did a 180, and I flew

out and landed on my head on asphalt, broke my C C5 vertebrae, had to wear a neck brace for

seven months, and had my neck fused a year later, and did tons of physical therapy, all because

I rode in the back of a truck for half a minute. Not wearing deodorant because I read

somewhere that your body odor can turn girls on.

Sitting around, thinking about all the fun my friends were having, without me, rather than actually

doing anything myself. I latched onto and obsessed about one girl for far too long, when it was

really clear she wasn't into me. I may have passed up other opportunities while

having my blinders on too. We were both in the same physical education class, and every Friday

we would run the mile and trek our times, and the second half of the year I was the fastest

runner in our class, which apparently impressed some classmates, unbeknownst to me. All the guys

would run at the same time, then all the girls would run at the same time, then all the girls

would run at the same time, so half the class was in the bleachers watching the other half run at all

times. At the end of the year, this girl wrote in my yearbook,

Did you know that some of the girls sit around in the bleachers and talk about your miles

times? Whatever. I didn't get into enough trouble as a teenager. I feel like

I missed out on a lot of fun by generally being a timid, perfect kid. I joined the debate team

and started to regularly wear a fedora. The narrator has to wonder whether you exhibited

...