Water balloons are cheap

My girlfriend bought a neat gift for my son - a bag of 120 water balloons. He was excited as all hell to engage in some water warfare. Finally, about a month after the fact, his best friend came over to play for the day.

We spent easily half an hour filling up the tiny latex sacks of doom, watching most of them explode in our hands just from simple handling - filling them up with the special tip that was provided, attempting to tie them closed, simply setting them down in the grass... I think I popped ten for each of the first four that successfully filled up.

This can't be too terrible, since they ought to break on impact. So, I grabbed one and tested it out. I threw it at my son's feet, fully expecting it to explode on impact, soaking him thoroughly. Unlike it's fragile brothers, this one bounced on the pavement, rolled across the driveway, and landed in the planter on the side of the house, taunting me with it's stoic resistance.

WTF!?

Anyway, after so many explosions, I got a brilliant idea. I pulled out my big cooler and began filling it with water in between balloons. Every balloon that made it into the cooler survived until the inevitable. I found I could throw the balloon as hard as I could and as long as I hit the water, it survived!

By now, I had also gotten the hang of filling up the balloons, realizing that they need a bit of stretching prior to filling. This moment of limbering up allowed the balloon to expand at a proper, even rate.

At least thirty minutes of filling balloons, and our guest arrived, The two boys went through every balloon in less than ten minutes. I think they spent more time picking up the bits of balloon than they did throwing them at each other.

Oh, summertime... such fun...