Bart’s King-Sized Book of Fun

by Bart King

  Although the title of this competition is unfortunate, it is like any relay race. Of course, you need people. And naturally, they come equipped with buttocks. But in this case, these should also be people who don’t mind getting wet!

  Oh, and you also need some water balloons.

  Fill up half-again as many water balloons as you have people. In other words, if you have twenty people, you’ll want to fill twenty balloons. Then take half of twenty (which is ten!) and fill up that many MORE balloons. These last ten are spares, and they’re always good to have.

  Once you’re done with that, the tricky part of this race is that once you get a lot of water balloons around a bunch of kids, it’s hard to resist the temptation to start throwing them at each other! To solve this problem, fill the water balloons and put them in a cooler or two. Place the coolers at the front of the relay racers’ lines, along with a responsible person (preferably an adult).

  As the front person in the line comes forward, the adult will hand him a water balloon. The front person has to run with the balloon to some marker (say, twenty yards away) and then sit on the water balloon to get it to pop! If the person makes a good effort and just can’t get his butt to pop the balloon, he can try other means, like stomping on the balloon or verbally attacking it.

  If the balloon pops while the runner is yet to get to the marker, he has to come back and get another one.

  Note: Want to make it tougher to pop those balloons? Don’t fill them so full!

  Have Snowballs? Commence Throwing!

  There is a group known as the International Federation of Snowball Throwing (IFST). Its goal is to make snowball throwing an Olympic sport, and to keep things organized, its members have created “rules.” Here are a few of them!

  All snowballs must be hand-packed after the start of competition. Stockpiling snowballs in advance is a method used only by guerrilla-style snowball gangs.

  There is not a regulated playing field for snowball throwing. Snow knows no boundaries, and neither do snowball throwers.

  Teams do not have to have equal numbers of players. There is not a minimum number of players for each team. If you are overly confident in your snowball-throwing abilities, you could agree to take on an entire neighborhood. That’s cool with us.

  Competition ends when an individual or entire team runs out of snowballs, declares defeat, or runs home to their mommies, whichever happens first.

  No throwing ice or yellow snow.

  If a judge spots a player crying, that player is automatically disqualified. There is no crying in snowball throwing.

  Got Mud?

  The people of Germany have some cool games, like the World Beard Championships and Plastic Duck Racing. But let’s concentrate on my favorite, the Mud Olympics! These Olympic games involve regular sports like soccer, volleyball, relay races, and even Ping-Pong. The only catch is that they take place in the mud!

  How do you play? You’ll need some mud. If you’re playing Ping-Pong, it can just be enough mud to set up a table in. Volleyball will take a little more room, and so forth. But whatever game you’re playing, the goal is less to win and more to get totally covered in mucky muddy muddiness. If your soccer game or relay race is taking place in some good, deep mud, here’s a bit of advice: Don’t wear rubber boots! They’ll just get stuck in the mud. The best choice is old tennis shoes wrapped with duct tape. Trust me! (And if you’re going to play volleyball, use water balloons instead of balls. Hey, if the balloon pops, it will clean you off a little.)

  No Harm, No Foul Weather!

  One fun game challenge is to agree to play certain outdoor games no matter the weather. For example, writer Ben Golliver said:

  As a kid, my brother, neighbors and I would play basketball come rain or shine. Intense heat and snow were our two biggest problems. But during summers, when temperatures started really rising, we’d rig up a hose so that it would spray up into the air directly above the basketball hoop, causing a rain/mist effect over the court, allowing us to play for hours at a time without dying of heat stroke.

  We termed this practice “Oregonian Basketball” because we were so used to playing in the rain. This was the pinnacle of fun!

  But we never solved snow.

  Tabletop Hockey!

  If mud is too...muddy for you, bring your sporting side back indoors. It’s time to experience the majesty of tabletop hockey! Unlike real hockey, this game doesn’t require much equipment. But you do need a table, a button (or other puck-like item) and two goals. One way to make two goals is to cut a plastic berry box in half. Flip the two halves upside down, and bingo! You’re ready to hit the ice. (If you decide on making a penalty box, you’re going to need a much bigger plastic berry box.)

  Sporting Fun!

  Go to a sports event you wouldn’t normally attend and have wholesome fan fun. Little League baseball, senior-citizen chess tournaments, and toddler marathons might be examples of sports where you can cheerlead like crazy and no one (usually!) minds. Just be positive! (For example, “Come on, number 32, you can do it!” “Checkmate him! You’re the best!” and “I think I spilled my Coke. Yeah!”)

  The Jar Game

  This Israeli game has sort of a boring name, so maybe I should call it by its original Hebrew title: ! (Does that help?) Anyway, you can play this game indoors or outdoors. To start, you need a big, wide-mouthed jar or container. Traditionally, each player also has a bag full of apricot pits. You may not want to eat dozens of apricots to get their pits, so get a bunch of small items that are like apricot pits. These could be unshelled walnuts, poker chips, peach pits—you name it.

  Let’s say the players are using walnuts. Each player puts three walnuts in the jar. Then each player stands at a distance of three to six feet from the jar. Decide on a distance and then don’t let anyone’s hand go over that line. (Some people may try to stretch toward the jar.)

  The idea is that each player takes a turn trying to throw a walnut into the jar. If a player gets one in, she goes to the jar and takes two walnuts out! The game is over when the last walnut is taken. The players add up their walnuts and whoever has the most, wins.

  The winner then gestures to the sky and cries out, “!”

  Just Get These Away from Me!

  A few years ago, Nike shot a “Just Do It” commercial in the African country of Kenya. The commercial featured members of the Samburu tribe. These folks wore Nike shoes and said things in their native tongue. Of course, no one from Nike spoke this language. And so it wasn’t until after the ads went on the air that some people in the know heard a tribesman say, “I don’t want these! I want big shoes!”

  Stickball!

  The beauty of stickball is that it’s a game you can play in the street. Empty parking lots and schoolyards also work. That means the playing field changes from street to street! To get started, you just need...wait for it...a stick and a ball. The stick could be a broom or mop handle, but anything similar can work. (A baseball bat will do, but it’s too wide for most players.) To give your stick extra flair, spiral some duct tape around one half of it.

  As for the ball, any small rubber ball works. Got a tennis ball? Great.

  So, how do you play? It’s sort of like baseball. You can have one to eight players to a team. And nobody uses mitts! You’re going to need bases and a home plate, but since you might be in a street, these could be fire hydrants, steps, or manhole covers. (Note: Open manholes are not good choices.)

  There are versions of stickball where a pitcher throws the ball to the batter. After one bounce, the batter takes a swing. If he misses, he usually only gets two strikes before he’s out. Another fun version of stickball is Fungo. This is when the batter holds the ball with one hand and tosses it up in the air. Then he gets ready to hit it after it bounces once...or twice...or even three times!

  How do you get an out? In addition to the usual ways (tagging the runner or throwing to a base on a forced out), players are out if the ball lands (and stays) on a porch, ca
r, or the roof of anything. Oh, and if the ball breaks something? That’s an out. And if that happens, you should either fix the broken thing or quietly quit playing. (Getting yelled at is definitely NOT fun.)

  A Portrait in Fun!

  Be brave! The time will come when, even with a book like this, fun will be in short supply. That’s when it will be important to have a model of inspiration, a figure who can breathe life back into us and make us see the world for what it is: a very goofy place!

  Mark Titus is just such a person. As a student at Ohio State University, he was the manager for the men’s basketball team. His work wasn’t very glamorous, as it involved doing things like filling water bottles for the players. But when the team lost some players, Titus was asked to join the roster. Awesome!

  In his new role as benchwarmer, Titus was always the last player to be put into a game. But as a fun-loving person, that didn’t matter! For instance, while he was waiting for a rare chance to be substituted into a game, there was a time-out on the floor. Titus ran back to the bench (without having played yet) and screamed, “Water! Water! I need water!”

  Titus joked around all season, and in doing so, he showed that it’s good to have a teammate around to loosen up everyone else. But did people outside of the Ohio State basketball team appreciate Titus’s humor? Well, his blog got almost two million hits while he was sitting on the bench, so the answer seems to be “yes.”

  The Instigator

  The problem with stickball is that it does require some skill. So for little kids and uncoordinated adults, the Instigator is a good game that nine or more players can play. But you should have an odd number; if you don’t, just have a player sit out and help referee.

  The only equipment you need is an object. It can be a ball, a stuffed animal, or anything else that can be easily lifted.

  Pick one player to stand aside. She will be the Instigator, and she should have a quarter, fifty-cent piece, or dollar coin. Everyone else is divided into two teams. These two teams each form a line. Each player on each team should face off with a player from the opposing team.

  Now have everyone sit down. You now have two seated rows with the players facing each other!

  The Instigator places the object (let’s say it’s a ball) at the end of the two rows. Then she goes to the other end. She sits at the opposite end of the object and gives the command: “Commence stare-down!”

  From now on, the rest of the game should be completely quiet, except for quiet giggling. At this moment, all the players except for the two closest to the Instigator start staring each other down. At the same time, all the players hold hands with the players on their left and right. (The first and last players can only hold hands with one person, of course.)

  While the players do this, the Instigator keeps the coin concealed in her fist. Then she uncovers the coin so that only the two closest players can see it. (Nobody else is supposed to look! That’s why all the other players are staring each other down.)

  If the coin is heads, each person at the front of their row sees it and squeezes the hand of the person next in line. That person feels the squeeze and passes the squeeze along to the next person in line! Of course, the same thing is happening in the other line, so it’s a relay race of reaction times! When the last person in either row feels his hand get squeezed, he jumps up, grabs the object, and runs to the Instigator. (At this point, people may be laughing, cheering, or booing, but that’s fine.) Then everyone in that row moves down one spot and the Instigator gets in the front of the row. The kid with the ball is the new Instigator!

  Note: You can also play this game with points and/or rewards. The most common problem is a false start when the coin is revealed and it’s tails, but the first person squeezes someone’s hand anyway. Then it’s a do-over! If the false start goes all the way down the row and someone grabs the ball when they shouldn’t, that team loses one point.

  Boerengolf = Excitement!

  In Holland, people play a golf game called Boerengolf (“farmers’ golf”). It works like this: The golfer swings a club that is actually a stick with a wooden shoe attached to it. (Really.) The holes that you try to aim the ball into are actually milk buckets. (Really.) And the ball itself is the size of a miniature soccer ball. (I love this game!)

  Best of all, you have to play farmers’ golf on a farm. No golf carts. You either walk or fire up a tractor! And no wussy obstacles like cute little ponds and sand traps. Instead, golfers have to look out for electric barbed-wire fences, enraged cows, and enraged cow poop!

  Now THAT’S a fun sport.

  Playing With Someone’s Mind

  If playing with someone’s mind is a game, it’s probably not a very healthy one! But even so, it is worth talking about. For instance, imagine this. A friend of yours has a new skateboard. And you say, “Hey, can I look at it for a second?”

  Naturally, your friend says no. (Who wouldn’t?) But you wheedle and whine, and he finally gives in and rolls the skateboard over to you. You get next to the skateboard and stand on it for one second. Then you get off and give him his skateboard back.

  You just blew your friend’s mind!

  There are lots of other ways to play with someone’s mind. When one of your friends comes over to your house, tell him about how you sometimes have conversations with him when he’s not actually there. Recount some of the good talks the two of you have had, like this:

  “It was really hilarious when you said . . .”

  “You won’t remember this because you weren’t there, but then you answered . . .”

  At the end of your little speech, be sure to mention how your friend’s imaginary self is way more clever than the real person who’s there right now! Then casually move on to another topic while your friend stares at you in astonishment.

  You can also have fun with the mind of a sleeping person. First, make a “thought” balloon out of a piece of paper. Just take some scissors and cut the edges of the paper so that it looks like the thought balloons you see in comics! Then write something amusing on the thought balloon. Possibilities include:

  Girls are purty!

  You mess with one bean, you’re messing with the whole burrito.

  Why do they mock my argyle socks? Why?

  User Error: Reboot

  While we’re on this topic, my brother used to play with my mind all the time. It went a little something like this:

  “Bart,” he’d say. “Run! The Martians are taking me over with thought-control. They want me to hit you with this big foam noodle!” My brother would then act like he was trying to fight off Martian mind-control even as he went and picked up a big foam noodle.

  At this point, I could run or stay put, but it didn’t matter. Either way, my brother would start hitting me with a big foam noodle. But the whole time, he’d be saying, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It’s the Martians! Try to escape!”

  I rarely escaped. For revenge, I would sometimes pretend my brother was invisible. If he said something to me, I would look around as if he weren’t there, and then I’d say, “How did you throw your voice like that?” He would insist that he knew I could see him, but I would continue looking around as if there were a hidden loudspeaker broadcasting my brother’s words.

  “Why can’t I see you?” I’d say. “Can you see me?”

  At this point, I always saw the same thing: a big foam noodle coming down on me. (Repeatedly!)

  Fork Fun!

  If you’re playing with people’s minds, how about this! When you’re at a restaurant and finishing up a meal, take two forks and one or two of those little swizzle straws. (You may be able to use a regular straw or even a match for this instead.)

  Hold the two forks as shown and wedge the straw between the fork tines. Once you get the straw stuck in there nice and tight, you will then be able to balance this unwieldy looking thing on your finger! (When you leave, set the forks on the edge of a glass to impress the busboy.)

  If you do the trick at home and you’re
using a match, try setting the forks on the edge of the glass and then setting the end of the matchstick on fire. As the fire burns toward the forks, everyone will be on pins and needles waiting for the forks to fall. But they won’t, because the fire will go out when it reaches the edge of the glass. (Usually.)

  My, How They’ll Laugh!

  Go to a racewalking competition. As the contestants go by, point to the leader and shout, “She’s walking away with this one!”

  * * *

  [27] If you thought “dung” was the punch line, please. That’s the answer to the question, “What’s brown and sounds like a bell?”

  [28] Swallow the leader.

  [29] Hey, if you’re good at badminton, are you bad at goodminton?