Things I Miss #7

At my prep school most boys owned a spud gun of some sort. The superior ones were made of metal, while inferior plastic ones were also popular. One dug the barrel into a potato, pumped the grip with one's fist, and used the compressed air to fire the spud pellet at someone or something. There was also a cap-gun version that claimed to fire the spud pellet by means of the explosive discharge from the cap, but I never saw this actually work. The metal version (the "Potato Zapper") also purported to double as a water pistol, but as with the cap-gun, this never actually worked. As raw potatoes were rarely available at school (except, accidently, at meals) one had to make do with an apple.