Toys and Reality

Johnny Seven? I could have gotten that when it came out but thought it wasn't realistic. Mad magazine did a parody of it that depicted it as far more lethal. Like the "Six Finger" toy, it also cost too much at the time.
 
My Dad agreed and bought me the battery operated Browning BAR by Marx instead. It as a lot cheaper of course but did the business for a couple of years till it broke in half!
 
My toys were hand me downs from cousins, I have a shed load of cousins. I had a memorable action man with one arm and half a leg, a rifle with no barrel and a Jeep with one wheel. In a very early experiment with behaviour modification and after planning with my two best friends I had a plan. One day while mother was doing washing etc, I paraded Action man around the house wearing some of my sisters dolls cloths. Three sisters meant there was a lot to chose from. Annoyingly, it took TWO BLEEPING WEEKS for mother to open her eyes and actually notice what was going on. Mothers, what can you do? Anyway, a few days later and I was suddenly inundated with Action man kit. I had only planned it to take a couple of hours.
 
I found a CPS 2000 Mk 1 Super Soaker squirt cannon in a trash pile when I was 13. Normally when you fire this thing, it empties its three liter magazine in a vicious three second heavy-calibre stream of water and recoil. Then you spend the next several minutes frantically refilling the magazine and pumping it some sixty times to recharge while hoping you don't get dunked on by three opfor with XP 75 squirt rifles. However, tapping the trigger gets you about eight or ten 'bolts' of water out of the weapon before you need to reload, each one hitting with the force of a water balloon grenade. Very situational, but very fun weapon!

Anywhos, some time after I found the squirt cannon I used it to shoot a wasp nest off my house. One quick trigger pull released a bolt of water that cut that nest right in half. Unfortunately one of the wasps got its revenge right in the back of my neck because my hair was in that silly 90s undercut hairstyle in a ponytail. I immediately dropped the squirt cannon and ran back into the house! I couldn't turn my head for a week. Dear ol' Dad came back the next day with wasp spray...

Needless to say the Mk 2 version of the weapon got a huge nerf because lawyers and some kid who Red Rydered himself in the eye with a Mk 1.
 
dannydale said:
I found a CPS 2000 Mk 1 Super Soaker squirt cannon in a trash pile when I was 13. Normally when you fire this thing, it empties its three liter magazine in a vicious three second heavy-calibre stream of water and recoil. Then you spend the next several minutes frantically refilling the magazine and pumping it some sixty times to recharge while hoping you don't get dunked on by three opfor with XP 75 squirt rifles. However, tapping the trigger gets you about eight or ten 'bolts' of water out of the weapon before you need to reload, each one hitting with the force of a water balloon grenade. Very situational, but very fun weapon!

Anywhos, some time after I found the squirt cannon I used it to shoot a wasp nest off my house. One quick trigger pull released a bolt of water that cut that nest right in half. Unfortunately one of the wasps got its revenge right in the back of my neck because my hair was in that silly 90s undercut hairstyle in a ponytail. I immediately dropped the squirt cannon and ran back into the house! I couldn't turn my head for a week. Dear ol' Dad came back the next day with wasp spray...

Needless to say the Mk 2 version of the weapon got a huge nerf because lawyers and some kid who Red Rydered himself in the eye with a Mk 1.
Click to expand...
Any recommendations on current high powered squirt guns? We have a psycho squirrel trolling or back yard wall and taunting our cats.
 
Anywhos, some time after I found the squirt cannon I used it to shoot a wasp nest off my house. One quick trigger pull released a bolt of water that cut that nest right in half. Unfortunately one of the wasps got its revenge right in the back of my neck because my hair was in that silly 90s undercut hairstyle in a ponytail. I immediately dropped the squirt cannon and ran back into the house! I couldn't turn my head for a week. Dear ol' Dad came back the next day with wasp spray...
Click to expand...

You did it the wrong way. My parents faced a similar situation 30 years ago.
After we five (two parents, two sister and myself) returned from holidays,
they found a hornet nest in an old dead tree trunk.
Instead of calling firemen (who needs those pussies, really ?) they did just like you - they attacked it, headon with a fire hose, full pressure.
As you found the hard way, water isn't enough.
All right then, Phase II. Firemen ? what are you talking about ? Would be too easy.
They instead took some gasoline out of the lawn mower tank and poured it into the dead trunk. And then they lit the bonfire, and WOOOF - trunk, nest and hornets burned to cinder and ash.

Job done.

Fast forward 30 years, to the late 2010's.

My mom (75 years and counting) had noted wasps entering and exiting a little hole in the ground.
We all told my four years old kid "don't go there. It's dangerous". He didn't listened.
I then heard scream and saw my kid running like freakkin' Usain Bolt, chased by very angered wasps. He slammed the kitchen door and hurried inside. He was lucky to only have two bites.
For the next six months, any flying insect was seen as threat.
(and, can you believe that ? he was barely forgetting the incident when some weeks later we travelled 10 000 km to Réunion Island only to find, what ? another wasp nest right under my stepfather kitchen room... and the poor kid was attacked a second time. I mean, really !)

Meanwhile my mom just shrugged her shoulders, took some gasoline out of the lawn mower tank and... you can see where this is going... poured it into the hole, lit the fire, and fried the wasp nest.

job done !
 
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martinbayer said:
dannydale said:
I found a CPS 2000 Mk 1 Super Soaker squirt cannon in a trash pile when I was 13. Normally when you fire this thing, it empties its three liter magazine in a vicious three second heavy-calibre stream of water and recoil. Then you spend the next several minutes frantically refilling the magazine and pumping it some sixty times to recharge while hoping you don't get dunked on by three opfor with XP 75 squirt rifles. However, tapping the trigger gets you about eight or ten 'bolts' of water out of the weapon before you need to reload, each one hitting with the force of a water balloon grenade. Very situational, but very fun weapon!

Anywhos, some time after I found the squirt cannon I used it to shoot a wasp nest off my house. One quick trigger pull released a bolt of water that cut that nest right in half. Unfortunately one of the wasps got its revenge right in the back of my neck because my hair was in that silly 90s undercut hairstyle in a ponytail. I immediately dropped the squirt cannon and ran back into the house! I couldn't turn my head for a week. Dear ol' Dad came back the next day with wasp spray...

Needless to say the Mk 2 version of the weapon got a huge nerf because lawyers and some kid who Red Rydered himself in the eye with a Mk 1.
Click to expand...
Any recommendations on current high powered squirt guns? We have a psycho squirrel trolling or back yard wall and taunting our cats.
Click to expand...

Spray the squirrel with catnip...
 
Foo Fighter said:
My toys were hand me downs from cousins, I have a shed load of cousins. I had a memorable action man with one arm and half a leg, a rifle with no barrel and a Jeep with one wheel. In a very early experiment with behaviour modification and after planning with my two best friends I had a plan. One day while mother was doing washing etc, I paraded Action man around the house wearing some of my sisters dolls cloths. Three sisters meant there was a lot to chose from. Annoyingly, it took TWO BLEEPING WEEKS for mother to open her eyes and actually notice what was going on. Mothers, what can you do? Anyway, a few days later and I was suddenly inundated with Action man kit. I had only planned it to take a couple of hours.
Click to expand...
My action man frequently went AWOL, I always found him NAKED in a double bed (with working side lights) with Sindy!!!!

What drugs were they on, in the 70's, that a double bed was ok for sindy....
 
Archibald said:
Meanwhile my mom just shrugged her shoulders, took some gasoline out of the lawn mower tank and... you can see where this is going... poured it into the hole, lit the fire, and fried the wasp nest.
Click to expand...
9984e215e188ff9a291a7cdcef5febf5ed0478406b1eb66cbb7628207e842462.jpg
 
Squirt guns? Pfft. Even as a kid, I needed something... uh... something... uh more effective. A machine-gun on a tripod for example.
 
Fluff said:
Foo Fighter said:
My toys were hand me downs from cousins, I have a shed load of cousins. I had a memorable action man with one arm and half a leg, a rifle with no barrel and a Jeep with one wheel. In a very early experiment with behaviour modification and after planning with my two best friends I had a plan. One day while mother was doing washing etc, I paraded Action man around the house wearing some of my sisters dolls cloths. Three sisters meant there was a lot to chose from. Annoyingly, it took TWO BLEEPING WEEKS for mother to open her eyes and actually notice what was going on. Mothers, what can you do? Anyway, a few days later and I was suddenly inundated with Action man kit. I had only planned it to take a couple of hours.
Click to expand...
My action man frequently went AWOL, I always found him NAKED in a double bed (with working side lights) with Sindy!!!!

What drugs were they on, in the 70's, that a double bed was ok for sindy....
Click to expand...
They were probably sold carpet fluff from the vacuum cleaner and told it was 'sheesh or summat. Smoking that would leave anyone in lala land.
 
A weeny repainted pulse rifle? I'd rather get the 1:1 replica (not shown).
 
Toys are important…unlike video games the utility belt toys encouraged kids to go outside and use their imagination.

The model tricorder I had even without a bit of electronics had much more vivid images in my mind than in any smartphone.
 

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