Today was the 3rd day of what is looking like it will be a 4 day weekend, thanks to MLK Day and the ice storms, tornadoes, plagues of locust and rivers of blood that have been besieging our fair city recently. What to do when the family is cooped up indoors all day? We made card houses, raced Hot Wheels, played computer games, looked all the way through a big book of exotic trains, and still had half the day ahead of us. The surefire cure for boredom? Ordnance.

I had a 6′ length of aluminum tubing leftover from my adventures a year or two back trying to make wind chimes. The 1/4″ inner diameter made me think that it might make a spiff-dandy blowgun. For ammunition, I tried rolling paper into small cylinders at first, but they showed a frustrating tendency to get stuck in the pipe. Next I unearthed a small eye shadow applicator from one of the drawers in the kitchen. This worked pretty well for a time, but eventually began to break apart. Finally, we hit upon the perfect ammunition: a Q-Tip cut in half. The cotton on one end worked nicely as wadding to trap the air and force the shaft of the swab out of the barrel at high speed. (My inner crossing guard was also pleased that they were of very small weight, thus minimizing the damage that we could cause with them.)

After a bit of practice, Liam and I both got quite good with the things. We were able to hit a piece of paper from across the room (and put a hole in it). We also shot some of the plants outside, leaving them peppered with tiny cotton-tipped darts, and launched Q-Tips to the other side of the street from our front porch. We also shot up a Fresca can, leaving it dented and bruised:

Remember kids, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Then it’s still fun and games; you just can’t see it.