Where can I find a water gun in Boston? (or how can I make one?)

August 15, 2008 2:15 PM

Where can I find a water gun in the Boston area today? (Or, how can I make my own?)

I am participating in a Revolutionary Water Gun Battle tomorrow, but I don't have my "musket", yet. I underestimated how difficult it would be to find a water gun at this time of year. (It's the summer! Shouldn't they still be everywhere? Apparently not.)

So, first, is there somewhere in the Boston / Cambridge / Somerville, MA area where a person CAN find a water gun? (No more than 10-15 minutes out of the city, please; I will need to take a Zipcar if it's not T accessible.) K-B toys in Cambridgeside Galleria and Target on Somerville Ave don't have them - they say that they're out for the season, because they're stocked for back-to-school.

More importantly (since I think the odds of finding one to buy by tomorrow morning are pretty low): where might I learn how to make my own?

thanks!!

posted by inatizzy to sports, hobbies, & recreation (9 comments total)

if you have to have a traditional gun, I'd try the toy aisle of the nearest full-service pharmacy....but if you do want to make your own, the easiest way is to take a length of surgical tubing, tie a knot in one end, and put the other end over a water faucet. As it fills up, it will 'plump' out into an arm-thickness-full of water. Depending on how you squeeze the end when letting water out, you can go for distance, or width, of spray. With two people, you can loop it across your bodies and carry a considerable supply of water about.
posted by nomisxid at 2:29 PM on August 15, 2008

nomisxid is right about using surgical tubing. The bottom half of an old fashoined button-clicking ball point pen (the kind that screws together in the middle) makes a perfect nozzle. Just force the tubing over the screwy part, leaving the hole that the pen tip used to poke through as the nozzle. Also, prepare to be amazed at how wet this will make your opponents.
posted by fritley at 2:38 PM on August 15, 2008

You can make a water weenie from a length of rubber surgical tubing and a ballpoint pen (clicky type).

Google "water weenie instructions".
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:44 PM on August 15, 2008

Toys R Us in Woburn (366 Cambridge Road)? Take bus 350 from Alewife Station Busway out to the corner of Cambridge and Lexington Avenues and walk back down Cambridge a few blocks. The MBTA planner has it, I can't link to the route.
posted by mdonley at 2:56 PM on August 15, 2008

They're open until 9 and it's only about 20 mins on the bus, too.
posted by mdonley at 2:58 PM on August 15, 2008

There is a closer toys r us to alewife, just a quick walk south from the station on alewife brook pkwy. google maps here
posted by NormandyJack at 3:39 PM on August 15, 2008

NormandyJack, that one's closed: it's listed as "Removal Requested" for that reason...and so is the one in Revere.
posted by mdonley at 3:57 PM on August 15, 2008

Seconding a big pharmacy - Walgreens, CVS, Rite-Aid. Mom and pop toy storse might work, too. Here are a few I know of:
Brookline: Irving's Toy & Card Shop, 371 Harvard St, Brookline, MA 02446 [phone]
Cambridge: Henry Bear's Park, 361 Huron Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138 [phone]
Cambridge: Stellabella, 1360 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA [phone]
posted by cocoagirl at 7:19 PM on August 15, 2008

awesome, thanks guys. we wound up finding some at CVS and Walgreens so we are stocked and ready to go for tomorrow!
posted by inatizzy at 10:12 PM on August 15, 2008