Things I always wanted Feb 12th 2009
Take a minute and think back to when you were young. Remember summer holidays? Two months with no school and no set plans on what to do? As a kid nothing beat those 2 months. Especially the meaty part in the middle when you were as far away from school as possible.
Summers were hot and the only downside was figuring out the best way to cool down. Sometimes old Popsicle Pete simply was not up to the task. He just melted and left you with sticky orange hands.
Freezies? Nothing sucked more then ripping them open with your teeth (scissors meant waiting) and swallowing a little bit of plastic with your first bite.
No there had to be another way. The more fortunate of us had pools, the less had water guns.
No water gun brand was held with higher regard than Super Soaker, and no gun was more sought after than the XP 300.
Before I get too ahead of myself and start gushing over the behemoth that was the XP 300. Let me share with you the soakers I did have.
My first Super Soaker was everyone’s first. The classic neon yellow/green SS 50:
It was a trusty gun that was way better than those little semi transparent uzis. It didn’t hold a lot of water but neither did its predecessor. The light water load meant that it was light and easy to run around with.
It also didn’t take long to fill at one of the filling stations (hoses). Long fill times meant your friends just soaked your pants right off.
Ya the ss 50 was a pretty rad gun boasting claims of shooting 50 feet. I don’t recall if it actually did, but that was not really a problem since we never had water fights 50 feet apart.
The problem with them was everyone had one. Someone had to step it up on the block and luckily (for a short period anyway) it was me… well by way the money tree aka my parents.
Not sure how many presents (birthdays, Christmas, good grades) this cost me but I got it and it was on.
Though I would never admit it at the time this gun was just alright. It wasn’t a huge step up over the trusty 50. Really it was just bigger, shot a little farther, and was not as bright.
However the pressure was pretty weak and took some effort to build up. And it’s size made it pretty fragile. I slipped and broke mine one day running away from a fight with my tail tucked between my legs.
Breaking the item that held your status on the cool kid totem pole while running away its pretty devastating. However so was the the gun I was running away from.
The SS 300
This thing was a monster of a water gun. I wouldn’t even call it a water gun it was a water cannon that changed front lawn warfare forever.
The backpack could hold 8 liters of water which mean that I was not man enough at the time to be able to wear the thing and run around, but my friend Andrew’s older brother Jason sure was.
It took awhile for Jason to pump this thing up, but once he did and pulled that lever back the SS 300 let forth a blast of tremendous pressure. Enough to leave red marks down any one’s back, even mine.
It was a magnificent, Jason didn’t really have to move around all that much with this gun (though he could being stronger) all he had to do was wait for us to try and ambush him then blast our eyelids inside out.
I don’t know how popular water fights are today, but you can bet if I found myself in one I would try and get my hands on an SS 300 cause, hey, its something I always wanted.
Tags: Super Soaker, Super Soaker 100, Super Soaker 300, Super Soaker 50
