Tony Woodlief | Author

Marshmallow war

In these troubled economic times, good wholesome family entertainment can be a difficult expense to bear. That’s why I’m especially pleased that we’ve discovered a way to have big family fun for under ten dollars. Yesterday we had friends over, and in advance I bought about eight dollars worth of half-inch PVC pipe and 90-degree elbows. I used them to make marshmallow guns. A ten-inch barrel, a two-inch tube going 90 degrees down, and then a four-inch tube jutting out 90 degrees from the second piece. You use the little marshmallows, the kind that go in hot chocolate.

We had the battle in our driveway. Six adults zinging each other with marshmallows, and a whole passel of youngsters running around us, aiming crotch-level marshmallow shots. Big fun was had by all. When I was done, my blue t-shirt had dozens of little white puff marks.

Yes, you can probably put an eye out, and there is the danger of sucking a marshmallow down your windpipe, but let’s face it — if either of those happen to you, your luck is so bad that it was probably just a matter of time before something else did you in.

Once your marshmallow guns are made, you can decorate them with paint or stickers, as Wife points out (the whole thing was her idea, by the way). And then you’re only out the cost of marshmallows the next time you want to have a battle. You can also innovate — I used a two-foot barrel on mine, for example, yielding much greater accuracy. Bigger tubes allow for a shotgun effect. The possibilities are legion. Just watch out for the babies, because they’ll follow you around and eat the spent ammo.

Let the battles begin. To be clear, I have received no endorsement monies from the marshmallow industry. I am entirely open to that possibility, however.

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