National Water Gun Fight Day - July 30th

July 19, 2011 11:25 AM

Next Saturday, July 30th, is National Water Gun Fight day. Are you team blue, or team red? You can have a water gun fight in the darnedest of places so get your squirt gun of choice and don't forget the first rule of war: He who takes a nap shall get blasted.

From the National Water Gun Fight day page:

Directions: Obviously buy a water gun and some balloons.

*Wear a WHITE t-shirt and write on it:*

Team Blue or Team Red

*You should NOT be wearing a red or blue t-shirt.*

The second you see the opposing team let them know they picked the wrong side! This is a day for all of us to act as kids again. Make sure to invite your friends!

Catching them anywhere is fair game. Take it to the streets, water drive bys, ambushes, stealth missions...WHATEVER!

There is no specific location for this event! The plan is to wake up that Saturday morning, put on your shirt, and go throughout your day.

posted by cashman (20 comments total)

I'm team "Stay at home and drink scotch."
posted by Decani at 11:33 AM on July 19, 2011 [10 favorites]

What's the over-under before someone brings a real gun to a water fight? Or the odds on a police officer overreacting shooting someone who waters him?
posted by Old'n'Busted at 11:34 AM on July 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

Or the odds on a police officer overreacting shooting someone who waters him?

Better than they should be.
posted by codacorolla at 11:36 AM on July 19, 2011

I'd do this iff I knew there would be other people doing this. However, since this is the only place I've heard about it, I don't have any idea how big this is.
posted by LSK at 11:39 AM on July 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

This will end well.
posted by ericbop at 11:47 AM on July 19, 2011

Barely related high school story:

So I'm dicking around on a bathroom trip, sophomore year, and I've got this little watergun I wielded in a modern restaging of Romeo and Juliet for my English class, earlier in the day. Considering our (enormous) school was used a training ground for NYPD School Safety officers -- the ones who get sent to the schools where NYPD-trained security guards are needed -- we got the cream of the crap, free of charge. Anyway, I was pretending to be 007 or whatnot, sneaking around corner with the gun up, evading line-of-sight when I'm snuck up on behind by a dean. Well, shit. He orders me to hand over the plastic, dollar-store firearm and I can have it back when my parents come to pick it up.

Flash-forward a few month when we're lined up outside the foreign language office to find out the results of our scores on the state (Regents, if you're familiar with NYC education) exam. It's my turn, and who should it be reading them off but that very same dean. He almost smirks when he goes to look mine up and proceeds to read it off: 95%

I never knew I could use good grades as revenge on school officials before.
posted by griphus at 11:49 AM on July 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

Don't even think about leaving your house without your strap!

July 30th is the day you get to show your skills with the trigger.

Just what America needs: an event devoted to making analogies to gun violence.
posted by three blind mice at 11:50 AM on July 19, 2011

It's also National Cheesecake Day, National Dance Day, and the U.N. International Day of Friendship. So by all means, if you see see your friend dancing around with a piece of cheesecake, soak them with extreme prejudice!
posted by ericbop at 11:51 AM on July 19, 2011

One of the problems with the squirt guns of my childhood-- I was kind of obsessed for awhile-- was that you had to supply the power with your finger; I used to have a bloody trigger finger on each hand by noon many days.

Wouldn't be too hard to have a recockable spring-powered squirt gun now, however.

I'm imagining a spring loaded piston and cylinder arrangement in the butt of the gun, with a loop sticking out the bottom. You'd pull on the loop to stretch the spring and fill the cylinder with water from a reservoir via one way valves, and squeeze the trigger to open a spring-loaded valve in the barrel.
posted by jamjam at 12:49 PM on July 19, 2011

One of the problems with the squirt guns of my childhood . . .

Another problem was they always had to be re-filled, and even after the Super Soaker type water guns came out, they still never held enough. I think the people I knew just waited for me to refill it and then attacked when I was at the hose.

Just what America needs: an event devoted to making analogies to gun violence.

You must be a blast at parties.
posted by IvoShandor at 1:16 PM on July 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

Prior to the popularity of super-soakers, my friends and I, back in high-school, discovered that old style fire extinguishers (about the size of a standard SCUBA tank) used pressurized water and could send an astonishingly large volume of it down-range in seconds. It wasn't very portable, being a largish, unwieldy chrome tank, but hidden in the back of a Jeep, with the top removed, it was invisible.

So we went to the park, a popular place for cruising, where hundreds of other kids our age were hanging around in their cars, throwing water balloons and squirting each other with spray bottles and the like in an effort to keep the summer heat at bay.

And then some pretty girls in a convertible stood up with some squirt guns and engaged in the most fool-hardy and futile attempt at water warfare against us that we'd yet seen. The escalation was instantaneous and devastating.

We soaked them. Soaked.

We also failed to impress them enough into giving us their phone numbers, but we were young and dumb enough that we still viewed this as a victory of some kind.

So, fast forward to years later, where an older and wiser me is chatting with some pretty girl at a party, and she is reminiscing about spending summers at in the park with her friend, hanging out in her dad's convertible, until one day some assholes came along with a fire extinguisher...

In my efforts to get away without laughing, I still failed to get her number.
posted by quin at 1:52 PM on July 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

Is it safe to assume we're all on Team Blue here?
posted by ShutterBun at 2:28 PM on July 19, 2011

Medic!
posted by kbanas at 2:32 PM on July 19, 2011

On one hand spring break is over. On the other hand...TEAM BLUE!!1!!!!

(and I'm squirting everyone unless they look mean or ill-tempered. )
posted by snsranch at 2:33 PM on July 19, 2011

Unless you're rocking one of these you're doing it wrong. Those wanting to steampunk it up have options. If you're on a budget and have a ready supply of nearby water, suck-and-blow ones like this are a close second for distance and volume. An option to measure your local police reaction.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:57 PM on July 19, 2011

Just remember water around computers is never funny.

Go out, be safe, and have fun!!
posted by Alles at 4:14 PM on July 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm on team Oozinator.
posted by Horselover Phattie at 5:30 PM on July 19, 2011

This sounds like the kind of thing that a dickbag older brother would cite as an excuse for running into your room and shooting you in the face with a super soaker.

"Yeah, well it's National Water Gun Fight Day, boogerface!"
posted by Old Man McKay at 6:13 PM on July 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

The week following Mother's Day is devoted to Appalachian Trail hikers in the tiny town of Damascus, Virginia. Hundreds of hikers, past and present, converge for the festivities. The Hikers Parade happens on Saturday afternoon. It is basically a town-long massive water fight between the hikers in the parade and the spectators lining the streets. All manner of water guns and cannons are supplemented by tubs of pre-filled water balloons and the occasional extra-long garden hose. Inventive hikers have been known to rig up large balloon slingshots and trebuchets. Oh, and they also throw candy....
posted by maggieb at 9:29 PM on July 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

I live in Los Angeles. I don't think it's safe to play Bloods red vs Crips blue. My squirt gun is a converted Glock. It just looks bad, you know dog?

I think I'll pull a Switzerland and wear white.

Go team blue!
posted by troll at 4:21 AM on July 20, 2011