I am going to make my co-worker spit.

June 1, 2018 6:43 AM

I made a bet yesterday with a co-worker. He said he would give me 50$ if I could make him either 1) spit his drink out or 2) had his drink come out his nose. So, uh,.... any suggestions? Because I could really use that 50$.

I consider myself a moderately humourous individual, and I definitely have made people spit their drinks out from laughing in the past, but never on purpose and I have no idea what I said/did to trigger it in the past. Also, the future spit-laugher is a good natured guy who laughs easily. There is no issue making him LAUGH. It is making him laugh extremely hard.

Details:
- I don't work on the same project as him, so my opportunities are limited to work social events, or random encounters. Luckily, my office has a weekly friday "social hour" that generally involves a lot of alcohol and goes a lot longer than an hour, and we both frequent it. Friday Beer O'Clock would be the logical time to attempt to achieve this.

- I can't touch him/hurt him. No suddenly going up to him and socking him in the gut while he is drinking his coffee.

- I asked how long I had, and he said "until the end of time", so no problem if this takes multiple attempts, or some sort of elaborate slow burn set up situation that crescendos into a spit-inducing hilarious shock.

- There was no specificity made on WHY he spits out his drink. The obvious trigger would be humour, and that is the direction I mostly want to go, but I'm not above shock or saying something extremely sexual/bizarre/raunchy to get the response.


For anyone concerned about the work appropriateness of this bet, we work in a super chill easy going office where the company higher ups would probably not only not disapprove, I would not be surprised if they wanted to get in on the bet. I have a cool office.

posted by PuppetMcSockerson to Human Relations (23 answers total)

1. As someone who handles HR, I caution you against "sexual/raunchy" tactics.
2. Part of the trouble of this is that spit-laughter is generally (IME) related to the element of surprise. And he knows that you have the specific intention of making him spit-laugh. So you may want to play the long game, here, waiting for him to semi-forget about the bet. Perhaps even waiting for a naturally amusing thing to come up, and then capitalizing on it.
posted by pammeke at 6:50 AM on June 1, 2018 [8 favorites]

Air horn?
posted by supercres at 6:52 AM on June 1, 2018 [10 favorites]

Is there a specific definition of "you make him"? I mean what if you got someone else to ask him to spit or get him to spit?

I'm thinking either someone else tells him there's something wrong with his drink (what? that's your coffee cup? I thought you were done. I put my gum in there.) or ideally you somehow arrange to be there when his dentist makes him spit, after getting the dentist to tell him to spit (yes, dentist would have told him anyway, but if you tell the dentist to do it, are you still making it happen?).

I think the hard part about laughter is it's not enough to make him really laugh hard, you have to do it at the precise moment he's drinking.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:01 AM on June 1, 2018

Take out a horse face mask and put it on. Or some other weird/bizarre/scary face mask.
posted by like_neon at 7:01 AM on June 1, 2018

Can you tell him you think you used his glass to mix cleaning supplies or something? Terms of bet do not explicitly require that he spit it out due to laughter...
posted by suncages at 7:02 AM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: We have since clarified that the spitting should be due to humour/laughing.
posted by PuppetMcSockerson at 7:22 AM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

Here are some tried and tested tips.

- He needs to have enough liquid in his mouth that he can't laugh around it. So time it when he's drinking a pint of beer (or whatever), or even better, from a large bottle of something that he can't quickly remove from his mouth.

- Surprise will help. So do it suddenly in the middle of a perfectly normal conversation, or quietly step up behind him and say something quietly in his ear that you think will work.

- You need to tune it to his sense of humour. The incident I am using as citation for these tips involved a victim whose humour leant slightly surreal. My weapon of choice was the single word "eyeballs" spoken in a normal speaking tone directly into her ear. It worked extremely well.

- Have some kind of napkin ready, particularly if the beverage is sugary. I still slightly regret not offering one as penance.
posted by greenish at 7:26 AM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

It's all about timing. Timing timing timing. Wait for when the liquid has just entered the mouth and then BAM! *insert incredibly amusing thing here*
posted by h00py at 7:28 AM on June 1, 2018

Readers on AskAManager often complain about spitting out their drinks when reading certain comments, so maybe make your co-worker read those?
posted by LoonyLovegood at 7:33 AM on June 1, 2018

Response by poster: - Surprise will help. So do it suddenly in the middle of a perfectly normal conversation, or quietly step up behind him and say something quietly in his ear that you think will work.

I actually love this idea, the quiet subtle attack. I am not known for my subtlety, so that would definitely be an unexpected tactic and could be extremely effective.

Suggestions for things to quietly whisper in his ear while he is drinking would be great. Perhaps some really random fact, like how female kangaroos have three vaginas?
posted by PuppetMcSockerson at 7:42 AM on June 1, 2018

MISDIRECTION. have somebody else tell him that something is bad with the beverage he's drinking. a sudden "oh shit don't drink that" - you'll need something believable. he spits it you.

you reveal yourself as the mastermind.
posted by entropone at 7:59 AM on June 1, 2018

I actually love this idea, the quiet subtle attack. I am not known for my subtlety, so that would definitely be an unexpected tactic and could be extremely effective.

From the depths of my memories of eighth grade, a very proper friend pulled off exactly this move, making the target spit milk, with "There's something hanging out of your nose." But that may have been in his delivery.
posted by LizardBreath at 8:16 AM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

I mean, the Whoopie Cushion is a classic for a reason.
See also: well-placed rubber chicken.
posted by oflinkey at 8:16 AM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

Good luck man! I've only done this 3-4 times in my entire life, so the odds are totally against you. I'm kind of always trying too - I think I made about 7 people laugh last week and no spit. I recommend going big on a costume or something at Halloween or if you are in a bar and not at work, do something crazy like pull a sign off the wall, run for the door, and hit the door in an insanely exaggerated comic way.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:32 AM on June 1, 2018

Something that never fails to make me laugh, although it'd be louder than a whisper: anyone who can pull off a convincing pterodactyl screech.
posted by helloimjennsco at 10:20 AM on June 1, 2018

Best answer: just as he's taking a sip, quietly say "I peed in that"
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:04 AM on June 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

I managed to get my sister to explosively spit mashed potatoes and orange juice not once but THREE TIMES by leaning over at the dinner table and whispering "Grandmother's big fat toe" into her ear.
posted by ball00000ns at 1:07 PM on June 1, 2018

Props!
Handi Squirrel
Tiny Hands
Duck Mask
posted by prinado at 1:07 PM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

I once raced my sister to the water fountain. She beat me, so as she been down to drink, I got real close and said, "SHLSSHLHOR SHSSSSLSHLRH" like I was grossly imitating the sound of her slurping out of the water fountain.

I highly recommend that everyone does this to someone they love.
posted by meemzi at 6:52 PM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

Nthing the slurping noises. Sometimes my brother does sound effects for me or others while they are drinking (either irl or on tv) and it always cracks me up. Kind of like the start of this Bad Lip Reading video where Zuckerberg takes a drink, and the BLR makes exaggerated slurp sounds. (It starts at about 20 seconds).

You can either imitate them while they take a drink, or imitate someone else while they are both drinking-- (like someone across the bar or something). Either way, I also highly recommend this tactic.
posted by Dimes at 3:05 AM on June 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

I mean....unless we know the target it’s very hard to recommend humor.

Spitting drinks is a tough goal.

Element of surprise, a random humorous joke, and a well timed delivery.
posted by christiehawk at 12:54 AM on June 3, 2018

We had container with multi colored aquarium gravel sitting on the bar top in our kitchen. Yesterday I was putting up groceries and my daughter was sitting at the bar. I turned around to see her, head slightly tilted back, with a small green rock in her nose. She dead pans, “Look Mom, I made a rock shooter” and then she blew the tiny rock out of her nose across the bar top. I didn’t have any drink in my mouth at the time, but I definitely would have spit it if I did.
posted by ZabeLeeZoo at 1:31 PM on June 3, 2018

how did it go?
posted by anthropomorphic at 6:28 PM on June 25, 2018