I was just in another thread in which someone had made a mistake and was ready to give up modeling. Luckily the problem was easily correctable but I got to thinking about all the ways over the years that I have managed to destroy a model. Not just screwing up a part, but doing such a number on it that it (A) can't be completed or (B) can't be displayed. Just stripped of usable parts for the spares box and the rest consigned to File 13.
In my 50 years of modeling, I've found several imaginative (read stupid) ways to make a model unpresentible and unrepairable. They include:
1. Sitting on them - Once placed a Comet balsa model Avenger which was ready to be covered on a chair and left. Came back a few hours later, not paying attention and sat down.
2. Knocked more than one bottle of liquid glue over on kit.
3. Left door to modeling room open and unattended - 4 year old son wandered in (2 models gone), 2 kittens got in and played for at least 2 hrs (5 models gone).
4. Put up additional shelves in model room, knocked hammer off shelf. Just completed B-29 located at ground zero.
5. Was keeping youngest son's Black Lab pup while he was in college. Left brand new kit on kitchen table and left. Lab pups like to chew on things. (and I didn't learn - she chewed up a second new kit before son rescued her).
Thats just a few of the ways I've discovered that you can destroy a perfectly good kit or completed model. I know you guys have even more imagionative ways of doing it.