Can of Sprite as a Weapon of Choice. A continuing line of the Weapon of Choice series.

I used to watch movies where a small package the size of a text book is enough to blow a good portion of a house up and think, "No way something as small as that can produce an explosion that big." Now I don't doubt it.

Don't doubt the power of a can of Sprite. If we use the equation, E=mc2, the amount of mass in a can of Sprite is approximately more than enough to blow Los Angeles to smitherines. Of course, getting a nuclear chain reaction is a bit hard to do, so my friends and I settled for the next best thing.

Every summer, my friends and I go camping at the beach for a few days. Normally, we go with some parents, but last summer, we just went on our own. It's pretty awesome, being able to wake up and be in the ocean literally less than 5 minutes later. Every night we set up a huge camp fire with a ton of firewood we brought with us. We brought a fire pit too. It has a bottom to hold the wood, a center ring where heat can come out, and a pretty heavy metal top so the heat goes out the sides through the center ring, and not straight up.

The last night we were there, we pretty much threw in the rest of the logs and lighter fluid we had because fire's a pretty cool thing and we didn't want to lug it all back home. We were also throwing trash in there, because we were too lazy to throw it away, and it adds to the flame. So we throw napkins, paper plates, etc... while playing Risk on a nearby table under the light of a lantern.

This is when my friend Bryan decides not to think and throws an old deformed can of Sprite into the fire.

Right after he does it, he goes, "Uhhh.... Maybe that wasn't such a good idea."

Me: What wasn't?

Bryan: I just threw a Sprite can in there.

Me: Oh, THAT'S smart! (sarcastic like).

What we're worried about if that the hot flames will heat the Sprite inside the can, and that the top will blow of shooting flaming hot Sprite everywhere. Turns out we would have been lucky if that had happened.

Anyway, Bryan and I stand there watching the can of Sprite (While Joey, the third guy there, was probably adding like 20 armies to Eastern Australia or something while we weren't looking) and a jet of Sprite starts shooting out a hole on the side. I'm relieved because I figure that the presure inside the can will be relieved, and I won't have to worry about boiling Sprite flying everywhere.

But then the hissing from the jet of Sprite shooting out got louder and louder. hhisssssssSSSSSSSSS

SSSSSSSS

SSSSSSS!!!

It got loud enough to warrent a response from Joey.

Joey: Uh... guys...

Can of Sprite:

BOOOM!

Yeah, the can of Sprite blew up. Not just a little boom. But it blew the metal top right off the firepit. We see a column of fire about seven feet high shoot up in the air, and the next thing I know, hot wood chips are falling everywhere. There's no more logs in the fireplace, just raining fire for a radius of about 20 feet around the firepit. The soda can had blown the metal top off the fire pit, blew the logs to smitherines, and made a sound heard from quite a ways away. The Risk board has a bunch of burn marks in it now (like there was a real war on it!). Wood chips had landed on my car. Bryan's tent has holes in it. The neighboring campsite got holes in their tent. Everybody's running this way or that not knowing what to make of the noise and the red burning wood chips that are falling everywhere. The park rangers rush over and starts trying to get water to put all the wood chips out before things start catching fire. And the entire time, Bryan, Joey, and I are thinking, "Oh crap. We're sooooo going to get kicked out of the park for this..."

Yeah, maybe this is why we have parents. To keep us from doing stupid things like throwing a full can of Sprite into a fireplace.

Anyway, after all the hot embers are out, the rangers just asked what happened, and just told us that if we see anymore hot embers, to put them out right away. Then they left. They weren't the least bit mad or visibly shaken by it. It's like they see stuff like that every few hours or so.

Yes. That explosion of fire has to be one of the coolest and stupidest things I have ever taken part in.

Apart from the pyrotechnic uses of sprite, there are many other (semi-)warlike uses:

  • Shake it up and hand it to someone :-)
  • Poke a small hole in it with a pen or similar, put your thumb over it, shake it up, and spray away
  • Chuck the can at 'em. It's pretty hard and heavy
  • Shake it up, then chuck it at 'em. Pretty good chance it will spray all over.
  • In wasp-inhabited regions, use any over the previous methods to pour it on someone. Sting-time!
  • Rip the can in two and stab them with it.
  • Sprite serves as an excellent propellant for other substances. Here's how:
    • Poke a whole in the (unshaken) can.
    • Place a piece of tissue paper on top of the hole. (about 1 centimeter squared)
    • Put the substance (hot sauce is nice) all around the top of the can.
    • Put a little "hat" made out of a piece of paper folded into a cone on top of everything. There should be a tiny hole at the top.
    • Tape it all to the can, really well.
    • Shake like crazy, and the "substance" mixed with a bit of sprite, will fly out of the hole on the top of the "hat". Tons of sprite will come out, too.
    • sometimes the tissue paper will clog the "hat". Try it without tissue paper.
    • if you want a quick and dirty method, ignore the hat and the paper. Poke a hole, smear the stuff, shake, and fire
  • Poke a row of holes on one side of the can (unshaken), and roll it down towards the victim. It will alternatingly spray them, and spray the ground, which will (potentially) launch it a few centimeters off the ground, like a hovercraft.

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