The boredom bug is always lurking, waiting to strike when you least expect it. Days of Indian summers turn to that of rainy fall. You have some unexpected time to kill before your big night out. While visiting your Grandma Grettel, she’s busy to her knitting circle, leaving you to stroll in an unknown city alone. Boredom is rarely a pleasant thing, but if you keep an open mind, let your imagination run wild, and use the list below for reference, you’ll trade boredom for more-fun!
Activities to try with friends:
1. Coffee Cup Corral
Create a challenging miniature golf course around your house using a coffee cup as your hole. You can also play this outside in an urban environments, too, but that’s only recommended for advanced players. (Added challenge : set stroke limits per hole).
2. Pinecone Feed Off
Make pinecone bird feeders using nutella, peanut butter, marshmallow paste, or any other ebidle substitute you’d like. Once finished, position the feeders outside and watch the birdies flock. (Added challenge: see who can attract the most birds at one time, capture it with smart phone, post it on Instagram to see who can get the most likes.)
3. Sunrise 2 Sunset Stain Train
Wake up early enough to watch the sunrise in the morning, then have a competition to see who can collect the largest grass stain (location doesn’t matter) before sunset. Losers by the winner free ice cream, after you watch the sun set, of course.
4. Shaving Cream Slip’N’Slide
The title pretty much sums it up. (Added challenge: measure distance and make it a fun competition.)
5. Sock Charades
Write and act out a sock play for your friends. Length and subject matter are at the creators discretion. (Added challenge: try to make a play with more than 7 distinct sock characters.)
Activities to try by yourself:
6. Super Secret Servant
Offer someone a helping hand, or do something really nice for somebody randomly. Once you do, tell no one about it. Not your mom. Not your boyfriend. Not even your best friend Tootie. Not a soul. (Added challenge: do one random act of kindness for each day of the week. Tell no one.)
7. Wet Hair Metal
Wash your car in your driveway with your favorite music blaring for the whole neighborhood to hear. Alright, you don’t have to have a Pontiac Firebird or listen to Van Halen specifically, but you’ll be surprised at how this normally dull duty turns into fantastic fun with this minor tweak.
8. Held for Ransom
Make a ransom note from an old (pre-1975) National Geographic magazine by cutting out each individual letter and pasting them to form words and sentences. Proceed to slip it in your best friends mailbox. (Added challenge: stick around in the background and watch how they react.)
9. Spontaneous Stamping
Hand write a letter or postcard spontaneously and send it to a close friend who lives a few states away, or is visiting another country. Not only is sending snail mail a lost art, but it will also mean a lot to a friend who hasn’t heard from you in a while.
10. “Do You”
This is your permission slip for one entire day of guilt free pleasure. You don’t want to get out of bed all day? Fine, dude! You want to eat ice cream for all 3 meals of the day? Green light, girlfriend! Whatever you can dream of, do you.
Activities to try with a significant other:
11. Huntin’ Wabbits
Make an “old school” Looney Toons-like trap out of a box, a stick, a long piece of string or twine, and something to act as bait. You and your significant other set up different traps in separate areas of the house using a different lure. First one to trap the family pet gets free dinner.
12. Picky Picnic
Pack a picnic using foods starting with a certain letter of the alphabet, like “W.” (Added Challenge: Use “Q”.)
13. Fake a Film
Mutually agree on a really cheesy romantic comedy movie, mute it while you watch, and voice your own dialogue and narration. (Added Challenge: pick foreign movie.)
14. Rainy Day Races
Make an obstacle course using the entire apartment or house. The one not racing the course gets to set up, and the slowest after 3 trials cooks dinner. (Added challenge: involve the garage, basement, or attic.)
15. Time Travel Taste Test
Head over to your local library, grab a vintage cookbook (the older, the better), stop by the store, grab the necessary ingredients, go home, and feast. Your taste buds have now been transported to 1951, and chicken tetrazzini is still raging in popularity.
Activities to try with your family:
16. Wait Just a Mento
Make a mento and soda bomb in a nearby park, backyard, or school. Be sure that parental supervision is nearby, or at the least have a mature friend around.
17. Bullseye Balloons
Draw a gigantic bullseye in the street nearest your house (front porch or stoop preferably). Chuck water balloons into the air and see who hits the bullseye first.
18. Finger Frenzy
When’s the last time you (as the adult) painted using only your hands and fingers? That’s what I thought.
19. Unknowing Nana
Pay grandma and grandpa a surprise visit as a family. Surprises are always nice, but when the entire family shows up it’s even better. (Added challenge: don’t let distance determine anything. If they live states, or countries, away, plan it far enough in advance to make it happen.)
20. Just Dance
Spontaneous dance parties in the car, the living room, or the bathroom are a great way to bond while simultaneously eliminating boredom in a goofy way. (Added challenge: enroll in a dancing class as a family.)
My grandma used to always say, “only boring people are bored,” and I’ll have to side with her on this one. Don’t let the excuse of boredom keep you from doing super awesome things with your family, your friends, and yourself.
What did I miss?
Featured photo credit: Skateboard Kid / Ababaka via 123rf.com
