Bursting the Bubble of Complacency in Your Own Home-Town

Despite your own mental acumen, there will be times throughout your life when you lay prone under the icy, paralyzing grip of that creature we call Boredom. Therefore, as a public service we offer the following alleviations for your condition. Use them well and wisely and remember that Axes & Alleys, its creators, its parent and affiliate companies are not responsible for the consequences.

Retailer’s Nightmare
Requirements: Backpack or shopping bag, various cans of food, boxes of pre-packaged meals, boxes of crackers, or other non-perishable foodstuffs. Two or more people.

Take the food goods into a non-grocery store, someplace like Petsmart, Home Depot, Borders or Bestbuy. Put out the food as though it’s a sales display. If you enjoy merchandising, you might try to create an end-cap display of canned corn at the Virgin Megastore. Feel free to bring along fake price tags for the items as well.

Ti-Fi
Requirements: Tin cans, length of string, perhaps some hand-crafted Ti-Fi brochures. Two or three people to be sales-reps.

Make tin-can telephones (you know, two tin cans connected by a piece of string). Take it to an area frequented by laptop users, you know, somewhere with wireless internet. Offer to show them the latest in wireless connectivity, “Ti-Fi.” Then pull out the tin can phone and attempt to get them to use it. For bonus fun, try creating a USB attachment.

Free the Holy Spirit
Requirements: Poster board, markers, megaphone (or energy-saving paper cone). Four or more people; the more the better.

Take your group to any Christian church. Hold up signs protesting the captivity of the Holy Spirit inside. Accost passersby and speak forcefully on the need to free the imprisoned Holy Spirit. Feel free to print out some handy pamphlets or palm cards.

Transportation Charades
Requirements: Two to three people, preferably in some sort of mass-transit vehicle full of strangers (be it long bus ride, subway, train or aircraft).

In the middle of the trip have your group begin a game of charades. Try to get as many fellow travelers as you can involved in the game. Play for the remainder of the trip and have fun, a heck of a lot of fun.

Tour Group Hijacking
Requirements: Official looking uniform or clothes, possibly pre-written note cards if ad-libbing is not your skill.

Simply go up to a place frequented by tour groups. Head to the front and wait for the guide to pause in their speech. Step up and begin loudly giving your own tour, spouting useless and erroneous information that you make up: “We are now coming upon the Queensboro Bridge, the bridge featured in the famous film Bridge on the River Kwai.” Attempt to take the group with you down side streets, into stores and enjoy watching as the tour guide gets more and more flustered. If at all possible have two or more moles in the tour group who can try to sway the other group members into following you.

Appliance Store Stock Trader
Requirements: Business apparel, lots of papers. Two to twelve people.

Go into an appliance store and begin changing all the display TVs to a financial network. Once the TVs are set, begin yelling as if you are trading stocks at the exchange. Use weird hand signals, shake papers violently in the air. If not stopped by security, retire after four or five minutes.

Cleveland Kazoo Corps
Requirements: 12 or so kazoos and a matching number of kazoo players, matching clothes; perhaps t-shirts with “CKC” on them, perhaps a banner proclaiming the “Cleveland Kazoo Corps” in bold letters.

Get together and practice a few times, although it’s okay if you happen to be terrible. Head to a popular public place and begin your parade. Find some interesting compositions to play; “Flight of the Valkyries,” “Duel of the Fates,” “Flight of the Bumblebee,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” or “God Save the Queen” (either the Sex Pistols’ version or the UK national anthem).

A City Under Seige
Requirements: Two or more people, fishing pole, rubber bat.

Find a local TV news van and wait until they’re filming live. Have one person scream wildly about a massive cloud of killer bats decending on the city while the others use the poles to swing the rubber bats around threateningly. See if you can cause a city-wide panic. You can also use rubber spiders, or even stuffed monkey dolls.