The Incredible Versatility of a Croquet Mallet

Summer is a time when my family loves to play games together outdoors.  Friday evening, after a lazy dinner (Chipotle) on the patio, we decided to play a calm game of croquet.  Now, anyone who has ever played croquet, knows that there can sometimes be a bit of waiting involved.  My siblings and I, while waiting our turns, began to discover other uses for our mallets.  Some of them involve a little imagination, but try your best to see what we were getting at....

1)  A guitar (or banjo) - this is (by far) the most obvious and popular thing to do with anything that has a handle (broom, shovel, croquet mallet, etc.)

2) A jackhammer - I was really impressed when my sister came up with this use.  I never would have thought of that.

3) An umbrella - "The weather is looking pretty bad today, isn't it?"  *said with a British accent*

4) The pendulum on a grandfather clock - tick tock tick tock

5) A crutch (or a cane)

6) A grappling hook - I didn't even know what a grappling hook was...my family had to explain it to me.  Basically, it is a 4 pronged hook attached to a rope.  You throw it and it hooks onto things like walls and mountains.  Then you can climb up them.

7)  An anchor

8)  An oar - or as my brother G said, "It's a row!"  Hehe

9)  A hammer - not a very creative use of a mallet

10) A hitching post - picture the mallet with the handle side stuck into the ground and a horse and buggy tied up to the mallet part

11) A machine gun - well duh.  Boys always turn things into guns.  It's no different with my three brothers.

12) An axe - "TIMBER!"

13) A wagon handle

14) A bicycle handlebar

15) A pump trolley - one of those railroad cars that has two pump handles that propel it down the track

16) A jet ski - specifically the handle bars.  This is similar to the bicycle concept

17) A car shift, a train lever, or an airplane throttle

I think we had more fun imagining what our croquet mallets could be than we did actually playing the game!  Go figure!

My brother and I playing our croquet mallet instruments.  

Photo by my sister.