You sent a private text message meant for one friend to a group chat.
You left the water running and the bathtub overflowed.
You kicked a goal into your own team’s net, giving the opposing team the win.
Big or small, what’s one of your more memorable “oops” or “wow, I messed up” moments? Were you able to fix your blunder? Or was it a lesson, learned the hard way?
In “A Kentucky Boy Mistakenly Orders Almost 70,000 Lollipops,” Christine Hauser writes about an 8-year-old’s gigantic candy purchase:
On Sunday morning, as Holly LaFavers was preparing to go to church, a delivery worker dropped off a 25-pound box of lollipops in front of her apartment building in Lexington, Ky.
And another. And then another. Soon, 22 boxes of 50,600 lollipops were stacked five boxes high in two walls of Dum-Dums. That was when Ms. LaFavers heard what no parent wants to hear: Her child had unwittingly placed a massive online order.
“Mom, my suckers are here!” said her son, Liam, who had gone outside to ride his scooter.
“I panicked,” Ms. LaFavers, 46, said. “I was hysterical.”
Ms. LaFavers said in an interview that Liam, 8, became familiar with Amazon and other shopping sites during the pandemic, when she regularly ordered supplies. Since then, she has occasionally let him browse the site if he keeps the items in the cart.
But over the weekend, Liam had a lollipop lapse. He told his mother he wanted to organize a carnival for his friends, and mistakenly, he said, he placed an order for almost 70,000 pieces of the candy instead of reserving it.
The article continues:
Ms. LaFavers said that she discovered something was amiss after a shopping trip early on Sunday, when she checked her bank balance online. “It was in the red,” she said.
The offending item was a $4,200 charge from Amazon for 30 boxes of Dum-Dums. Frantic and upset, she called Amazon, which advised her to reject the shipments. Ms. LaFavers was able to turn away eight of the boxes, totaling 18,400 lollipops, but the 22 boxes containing 50,600 lollipops had already landed.
“My Alexa didn’t even ding to tell me they had been delivered,” she said.
Ms. LaFavers said that she was then told by Amazon that it could not take the candy back for a refund because it was food. So she tried to send back to the virtual shopping world what it had unloaded on her in the first place.
“Hi Everyone! Liam ordered 30 cases of Dum-Dums and Amazon will not let me return them. Sale: $130 box. Still sealed,” she wrote on Facebook on May 4.
The post attracted the attention of local news stations and national media outlets, highlighting the financial treachery of online activity.
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made? Describe what happened and why, with vivid, and perhaps embarrassing, detail. How did you try to fix it?
What were your feelings after it happened? Do you still cringe about your blunder or can you laugh about it now? What, if anything, did you learn from the experience?
What is your reaction to the story of Liam’s accidental $4,200 purchase of nearly 70,000 lollipops? How would you have reacted if you were the 8-year-old? How about if you were his mother?
Following the incident, Liam’s online browsing privileges are now on pause. Did your memorable mistake lead to any consequences? If so, what happened?
What advice can you give to others so that they can avoid making the same mistake you made?
Do you think making mistakes is a necessary part of growing up? Why or why not? Can they ever be a good thing?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
