The Big Book of Boy Stuff

by Bart King

  1. To prepare your worms, just put them into a colander and rinse them off. Make sure that you get all the gunk off of them; you just want to eat the worm, right?

  2. Lay the worms out on some paper towels (to dry them out) or wax paper. They may be squirming a bit, so shove them into the fridge to chill them out.

  3. While the worms are chilling, pour enough olive oil into the frying pan to cover the bottom.

  4. Break up a couple of pieces of bread into breadcrumbs and you’re almost ready. Get the frying pan hot and get the worms out of the fridge. They should be “knocked out” enough at this point that they won’t feel you roll them in the bread crumbs and then put them into the frying pan.

  5. You want to stir-fry the worms in the oil until they are crispy, then get them out of the pan, let them cool, and enjoy! Like I said, worms are good, if you’re man enough to try them!

  Special Feature: Brain Freeze

  Bam! You’ve just been hit between the eyes! There is a blinding pain in your head, and as you moan, it turns into a severe throbbing. What happened? Were you hit in the head by a baseball? Nope, it’s just brain freeze. During a good brain freeze, your forehead temperature can fall by two degrees.

  Brain freeze (or “ice cream headaches”) are probably caused by a sharp drop in temperature at the roof of your mouth. This drop is caused by you shoving too much ice cream (or frozen yogurt, or anything frosty) into your mouth all at once. Some people think that if they swallow the cold item, it will make the headache worse, so they hold it in their mouth. That’s what makes the headache worse!

  Another problem with brain freeze is that it takes a while for the cold to really affect your brain. The headache may not come for a full minute after you’ve eaten the cold item. The brain freeze will pass in a few moments if you’re lucky, though.

  Luckily, with hard work, scientists have discovered an amazing cure for ice cream headaches. Eat slower!

  Practical Jokes!

  Practical jokes are a lot of fun, but you must use good judgment when playing them on someone. It is important to play practical jokes only on people who are your friends or family. If you play a joke on someone you do not know well, it is not a joke at all. Stepping into an elevator full of strangers and saying, “ P.U.! ” or putting sugar in the saltshaker is not a nice trick to pull on someone you don’t know. Therefore, play these tricks on friends and relatives as often as possible.

  The best way to test a practical joke to see if it is appropriate is to imagine that the practical joke was played on you. Would you think it was funny? If the answer to that question is “No,” then do not play the joke on someone else. The best joke is the one where everyone laughs, especially the person upon whom the joke is played.

  There are a few jokes you can play on strangers. For example, a boy once went to a tanning salon and poured a little pile of ashes on one of the tanning beds. He then put an extra set of clothes next to the tanning bed and left. That’s a good one!

  When done properly, practical jokes can show affection for the person the joke is played upon. The joke says, “ Look, I cared about you enough to play this joke on you. I thought so highly of you, I thought you would like it! ”

  When you play the joke, make sure that the joke is not on you. For example, my brother Erik once put lotion on a doorknob so that it would be too slippery to open. This is a good trick. Unfortunately for Erik, the door was shut at the time, and he couldn’t get out of the room! (Erik was stranded for days.) Here is another example. You might tell a friend that school has been canceled for the day. After your friend then takes a day off at home, you can rush to his house after school and shout, “ Guess what? We had school after all! ” In this case, your “tricked” friend might just smile mysteriously and say, “Darn.”

  The following idea may be the best joke of all time. Rent a parrot from a pet shop. Teach the parrot to say, “ I will destroy you ” and then return it to the store ...the people at the pet shop will be so amused! (Wait; can you rent a parrot?) Just don’t call the zoo and ask to speak to Guy Rilla, Mr. Lyon, or Al E. Gator. Trust me, they’ve heard those jokes a thousand times before.

  April Fool’s is a great time to play a practical joke. Try to find someone young or foolish (or both) and get him to run an errand for you. Important jobs include getting a tube of elbow grease, finding a left-handed screwdriver, or catching a wild snipe. Just remember that for a practical joke to work, you have to keep a straight face. That means you do not start smiling or laughing until after the practical joke is over. The good practical joker needs to be a little bit of an actor and storyteller. You have to be able to play along!

  Some of the following practical jokes are old classics, some are ones that I have played in my time, and some are courtesy of professional pranksters like Penn & Teller. They are all funny!

  Practical Jokes Can Pay! In the late 1990s, two high school students from Virginia wanted to play a practical joke on their teacher. They experimented with a slime that accidentally turned out to be an edible plastic. The two students ended up with $100,000 from a medical technology company that makes melt-in-the-mouth capsules.

  *President George Bush Sr. loved to use joy buzzers to break the ice at get-togethers with other bigwigs.

  Oldies But Goodies

  If you want some basic gags, make a trip to your local novelty shop or magic store. Joy buzzers, stink bombs, dribble glasses, and whoopee cushions are all pure gold. They may be corny, but they still get a laugh. In case you haven’t already heard of or tried the following practical jokes, these are ones that you should have memorized back in first grade.

  Take a small Post-it note or piece of paper and stick it under someone’s computer mouse. The paper should cover the light or rolling ball on the bottom of the mouse. When they go to use the mouse, it won’t do anything! Extra credit for writing a message on the note like “Got you!” or “I win. You lose.”

  Food coloring is in all grocery stores. It’s cheap and nontoxic, and it doesn’t change the flavor of the food it’s in. Buy any bright color of food coloring and add it to the milk carton. (This only works if it is in a cardboard container so nobody can see inside before they pour.) Be there when someone pours out the bright green milk onto their cereal. Their screams will make you laugh!

  Float a suspiciously dark candy bar in a pool. Then scream and try to get away from it! Then run home and short sheet somebody’s bed. (If you don’t know how to do this, you want to tuck the sheet of the bed in so far, it only extends a couple of feet from the end of the bed. Put the blanket over it normally.)

  If you have one of those sink hoses with a hand nozzle on it in your kitchen, wrap a rubber band around the nozzle’s handle so it is “on.” When someone turns on the water, they get a nice shower.

  If you are a good athlete, wait for your team’s most important game of the season. Then show up on crutches! Everyone will completely freak out, which will really help their concentration when it’s game time.

  Folding Fool

  This is an excellent challenge for someone who thinks they can do it all!

  You Need:

  a piece of paper

  Find a cocky victim, er, volunteer for this simple trick. Tell them it is a test of the person’s ability to meet a challenge.

  Hand them a piece of paper and challenge them to fold it exactly and perfectly in half. Once they have done it, have them take the paper and fold it exactly and perfectly in half again.

  Then have them do it again and again. They may be puzzled, and they will certainly get more challenged as you go. If the person can make it to the 7th fold of the paper, congratulate them on a job well done. (Many people give up before this!)

  But to pass the test, they must fold the paper in half 8 times. What the person doesn’t know is that it is impossible to fold any piece of paper 8 times...it doesn’t matter how big or small or thick or thin the paper is. It can’t be done!

  Watching them wrestle around with th
e little chunk of folded paper should be good for a laugh!

  Beware: The little piece of paper your friend is wrestling with turns into an excellent device to throw at someone after about 6 folds!

  The Headless Punk

  You’re going to lose your head doing this trick. (That is a stupid joke.)

  You Need:

  a button-down shirt

  people who can play along

  This trick works at the dinner table at home or in a restaurant. To do it, you need to wear a button-down shirt with no shirt on under it. (This trick also works best with short people. Yeah, I’m talking to you, squirt.)

  You’re at the table with your family. One of them gets up to go to the restroom. (Let’s say it’s your mom.) You quickly unbutton your shirt down about 4 buttons and move your collar behind your neck. You then re-button the collar so that it is buttoned behind your head.

  Now put your head under the table. (Don’t bang it on the edge!) Reach your hands up and grab your fork, like you’re waiting for your food. Have your dinner companions fix your collar so that it is nice and round, as if your head and neck were still sticking through it.

  Now, tell the group at the table to start chatting and acting perfectly normal. When your mom comes back, she’ll have quite a surprise!

  Dad’s Gorilla Arms

  A good joke to play on any hairy adult who you can trust not to attack you afterwards!

  You Need:

  a rubber band

  running shoes

  If you know of someone who is hairy, this may be a good joke to try. Take your rubber band and hold one end of it. Turn the other end over and over, until the rubber band is completely twisted around many times.

  Approach the hairy victim. (They need to have some body hair exposed. The forearms are a likely spot, but legs can work too.) Ask the person an innocent question, like “Do you like to unravel problems?”

  Whatever their answer is, then set the rubber band firmly onto their arm, with enough force to keep it in place, but not so much that it doesn’t unravel. (You should practice a couple of times before trying the “real” thing.)

  The rubber band should partly unravel in their hair, creating a mildly painful problem for them to remove! (If you are really successful, they may need to cut it off with scissors.) The laughter will be deafening!

  Fast Money

  A good trick to play on anyone who thinks they have fast reflexes.

  You Need:

  a crisp, new bill of any amount of money

  This is a very easy trick. Just challenge someone to catch a dollar bill that you will release. Most people think they can catch the bill...and most people are wrong!

  Make sure that your dollar bill is fresh, and then fold it lightly lengthwise. Drop it a couple of times and tell your victim that they can have the bill if they catch it properly. (If they can’t, maybe they should pay you!)

  Have the person make a fist and hold it in front of them. He then needs to stick out his thumb and index finger. (The index finger is the finger closest to the thumb.) He must catch the bill as it falls by pinching it between these two fingers.

  Make sure your fingers are dry and hold the bill halfway between the person’s thumb and finger. Tell the person that he cannot drop his hand down in the air to catch the bill; his arm must remain motionless. Then release the bill.

  He will not be able to catch the bill, but he will want to try again! Go ahead and do it, but now as you hold the bill between his fingers, talk a little bit to throw him off guard and then release the bill. It is almost impossible for someone to do so, because the bill falls beyond their grasp in 1/5th of a second. Most people just can’t react that fast!

  Special Bonus Money Trick

  Take a bill of any amount. Fold 2 lines across the face of the person on the bill. These 2 folds should each go through the person’s eyes, running up and down their face across the short part of the bill.

  When you’re done, there should be 2 “valley” folds running across the face. Now hold the bill up to your face. Tilt it toward you. The face is smiling! Tilt it away from you. The face is frowning! Do it over and over until the face talks to you! Then put the bill down and go see a doctor.

  The New Kid

  If you ever have to move to a new school, try this one.

  You Need:

  a piece of paper

  a pen or pencil

  This is a good way to get over that “outsider” feeling you can get at a new school. See, when you’re the new kid, nobody knows what you’re really like, so they will believe almost anything.

  Write a note, fold it partially, and leave it in a class as you’re getting up to go. No teacher or student can resist the temptation to read a note to somebody else! The sample note below is just something to get you started; you can do better than this!

  Dear M.C. Pain,

  It’s weird being back in a “real” school after two years at juvey. It’s nice not having a counselor watching me all the time.

  I had to talk to the principal here about school rules. What he didn’t know was that now that I’m a black belt in karate, my hands are deadly weapons.

  Anyway, I am going to try and stay out of trouble here. I know that you’re laughing at that, but I think I have a chance. Some of the kids around here sort of bug me, though. They need to be really nice to me, or I might do something. You know what I’m talking about.

  Word,

  Masterman Puff Googly

  He Wet His Pa-ants

  A classic!

  You Need:

  a glass of water

  a dollar bill

  a funnel

  Note: Have the glass of water nearby, but not in an obvious spot. If you can hide it, do so. You don’t want anyone to notice the glass of water.

  There are many ways to try to get someone to wet their pants. I think that we have all heard of (or tried) putting a sleeping person’s hand in a bowl of warm water. That trick doesn’t actually work that often. This one does.

  You might want to use a couple of the “innocent” tricks in this book to make your volunteer relax. As long as he’s not suspicious, and you are acting normally, he will probably agree to cooperate. (If he doesn’t agree to do the trick, try him again some other time. Don’t try to force him into doing it, or it won’t work.)

  If you can, do this trick in an area where a little water spill won’t matter. Hand your friend the dollar and the funnel. Make sure that the glass of water is somewhere nearby. Tell him that if he does the trick correctly, he can keep the dollar. (You’re not lying; it will be worth a dollar if the trick works!)

  Keep acting innocent. Tell your volunteer that this is a test of balance and coordination. First, he needs to put the funnel down the front of his shorts or pants. (Just so that the spout goes into the waistband.) So far, so good. Then he needs to tilt his head back. He should then place the dollar bill across his forehead and hold his arms out to his sides. (If he asks, tell him that in a moment, he will try to drop the bill into the funnel.)

  The rest is easy. His eyes are up and his arms are up. Quickly grab your glass of water. Pour it down the funnel. Do this fast! Now run away! Do this fast too! It might help the trick to run away yelling, “ He wet his pa-ants! He wet his pa-ants! ” On the other hand, this might make you laugh so hard that your friend actually catches you.

  The Old Plastic Cup Trick

  This is one of the few jokes you can play on strangers!

  You Need:

  a plastic or waxed cardboard cup

  a fairly strong magnet

  a car

  This is an easy trick. The next time you are going to be driven somewhere, attach a big, empty plastic cup to the top of your car with a powerful magnet at the bottom of the cup. Then drive off. As long as you’re not going highway speeds, it should stay up there just fine.

  People will frantically try to wave to you to point out the cup you “forgot” on the car. Wave back and smile! Fun for th
e whole family!

  Variation: You need a clear plastic cup for this one, and you need to wear a long-sleeved shirt of any kind. Put the plastic cup well up in your armpit, away from the front of your body. (You don’t want anyone to notice it.) Tell someone your neck is out of whack. Reach up with the hand on the non-cup side and place it palm-down on top of your head. With your other hand, grasp your chin. Now pretend to twist your head, and at the same time, crush the cup against your body.

  The awful crack will frighten everyone!

  Wolf Jaw

  Want to scare someone? This is the trick!

  You Need:

  just you

  You need to be seated next to someone for this trick. It helps if they are relaxed. It also helps if you can act.

  Rub your jaw on the side your friend is on as if you were in pain. Mumble something about your jaw.

  “Your tooth hurts?” your friend will ask.

  Tell him that you have a medical condition known as “Wolf Jaw.” It is not contagious, but it is very painful. Continue rubbing your jaw. Your friend will probably want to know more about it; even if he doesn’t, tell him to feel the part of your jaw that you’ve been rubbing.

  Now here’s the trick: As they reach out to touch your jaw, wait until they’re almost touching you, and then turn and snarl and snap back and bark while showing all of your teeth! (The more dramatic you make this part of the joke, the better it works.)

  Your friend will freak out and pull back, horrified, and you will laugh yourself silly.