the projectile pens were a blast. i used to make [and became well known for between 6th and 9th grade, after which my supplies ran dry] them. cheap Bic pens with a spring from a crappy chinese pen in the cap. if you set it just right you could make the pen's cap capable of flying a good 10-20 feet. i started making a business out of it. got the idea of James Bond 007: Operation Nightfire, which i had been hooked on around that time. so classmates would come to me asking me to make them projectile pens. if at close enough a range they'd actually hurt, so it was good for harassing people/teachers with. they'd also make an incredible BANG sound when they hit the whiteboard [the whiteboards weren't nailed over the older blackboards directly, so there was a hollow behind them]. would make the teachers leap out of their skins 8 times out of 10. i think i managed to earn the equivelent of a good 30-40 USD selling those things one year [which, considering i was selling them for about 2 USD each and the limited supplies, isn't bad, especially considering that 1-2 USD [equivelent to half a Kuwaiti Dinar] was the common amount we'd be given for lunch money by our parents. why bully when you can trade them a cheap toy for it?

]. a single pen was probably really worth around just over half of what i was charging for them, but none of them knew how i made them so effective, so i got away with it. managed to get some good money out of it at the time. bought me some nice video games [among which was a Spyro game that i really enjoyed], back when they were cheap

i always kept the most powerful projectile pen for myself. i kept all my pens in perfect condition, so when i swapped my old one for the new stronger one, giving the old one to the guy asking for one, he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. my very first business
i also was the only one who knew how to dislodge the springs from the caps, so if someone ratted me out or looked like he was going to, i could dislodge the springs and hide them. so when he goes and grabs one of my pens and tries to prove it to the teacher that i'm making them, the cap would just drop to the floor like a regular pen, making him look even worse to the teachers, with me playing the victim
