a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by cliffelam
cliffelam  ·  4149 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What dare or prank have you participated in that wasn't a good idea?

I handed a friend a green pepper (think pencil shaped/sized) on a stick in a nice middle class Indian cafe and said "eat this." We were the only two white guys in there and before any of the more sensible people with pepper reference could stop him - chomp, chomp, swallow.

Four of five mano lassies later he could talk. He said bad words.

Two years later at my going away party in a different place, with 100 of our team there, he handed me a similar pepper and everyone chorused "eat this." It was horrible.

_XC





thenewgreen  ·  4149 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Do you know what "whippersnappers" are? The little white calls of paper filled with a bit of gun-powder, shaped like a mini-tadpole that explode when you throw them at the ground. Some people call them "bang snaps". Here's a photo:

Anyways, I was telling jonaswildman that I had bought some to show to my daughter and he mentioned that when he was a kid he and his brother used to put them under the toilet seat as a prank to his mom and dad. The things are pretty loud and if you sat on a toilet seat and one went off, you would definitely be freaked out.

I put one under our toilet seat in our bathroom the other day and chickened out before my wife ever sat on it. It just seemed too mean.

cliffelam  ·  4149 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Oh, yeah, and from wikidedia:

Bang snaps consist of a small amount of gravel or coarse sand impregnated with a minute quantity (~.08 milligrams) of silver fulminate high explosive and twisted in a cigarette paper to produce a shape resembling a teardrop with a tail. When stepped on, ignited, or thrown on a hard surface, the friction-sensitive silver fulminate detonates, producing a sharp salute similar to that of a cap gun. Despite producing a legitimate (albeit tiny) high-explosive detonation, the extremely high mass ratio of gravel to explosive acts as a buffer to ensure that the devices produce only the audible "crack" of the supersonic shockwave; they are incapable of producing physical damage, even if discharged directly against skin, and the detonation frequently fails to even break the thin paper holding the ingredients.[2] The explosion is also too weak to propel the gravel any distance, which usually falls to the ground. This makes them safe for use as a children's toy, for which purpose they have been widely sold across the world since the 1950s. They are also a common part of Chinese New Year celebrations."

cliffelam  ·  4149 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You are darn lucky you got rid of that before the wife found it.

Yikes, dude, you must be nuts.

-XC

thenewgreen  ·  4149 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Forgot to ask, did you eat the pepper at the going away party?

cliffelam  ·  4148 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yep. Ouch.