Little known fact about me: I am was a Champion Apple Bobber.
That’s right, every time I bobbed for apples as a child, I dominated. I was generally the only person at the party who was more-than-willing to stick my entire head into the bucket and push the apple to the bottom so I could grip it in my larger-than-average mouth.
Half the fun was the drama of flipping my sopping head up out of the water triumphantly.
Fine. More like 7/8 of the fun.
Anyway, when my soon-to-be 9yo declared that he wanted to bob for apples at his party last week, I had one of those glowing mommy-moments where I loved that my son wanted such an old-fashioned game instead of having a Wii tournament.
So I enthusiastically agreed.
And then realized something that never occurred to me in my days as Apple Bobbing Champion of My World back in the 80s.
Bobbing for apples . . . is rather disgusting.
Open mouths all going into the same vat of water, one after another? Noses too?
Grody to the max.
So this mama-who-is-a-germaphobe-but-tries-desperately-to-not-let-her-“issues”-affect-the-childhood-experiences-of-her-kids started thinking.
I headed to the dollar store and picked up seven slightly-bigger-than-face-sized large bowls.
Seven . . . because there were going to be seven kids at the party.
It was totally worth it to me to spend seven dollars to avoid being totally grossed out or responsible for the spread of who-knows-what diseases among the third-grade boys of my small town.
I placed two apples (one large and one small) in each bowl and then Hubby filled the bowls with water. I said “Go!” and the kids got to bobbing. We congratulated the first to come up with his first apple, and then everyone continued to re-bite their apples and perfect their personal apple-bobbing techniques.
The snot-streaks on wet, happy faces and hundreds of tiny pieces of chewed apple bits in one of the bowls confirmed that my new method of apple bobbing . . . was genius.
Oh this story struck a funny bone with me and made me laugh til my eyes watered. Love it!! Reminds me of the time I took all the little 3rd grade boys home from my sons birthday party as they all practiced burping the alphabet. It was enlightening. Being a girl, it never occurred to me.
Yes, Peg . . . that sounds very much like the ride from the pool to our house last week!
I knew a girl in college who could burp at least the first 2 lines of the Star Spangled Banner before she ran out of air. An unusual talent, to say the least.
Hmmmm. Wondering if that was my cousin, Michelle?
Oh, my – you mean there’s more than 1 girl that can do that!!! No, it was not Michelle!
Great idea! I wonder though, what did you do with the bowls now that you’re done in order to keep them from cluttering your home?
They’re going in next month’s donation pick-up!
Why didn’t I think of that!? It’s a perfect solution! I, too, have avoided this “old-timey” game (my 14yo and 9yo have NEVER done it), due to my own “mommy issues and yuke-factor”. But we will give this a try this fall!
Thank you, you genius, you!
I am going to pass this idea on to my friend who has a Halloween party with apple bobbing every year.My boy’s have never participated because they too are germ phobic, so you are not alone in thinking using one big bowl is gross.
We used to have Halloween parties for our kids, too. They bobbed not only for apples, but also for garlic. The other kids were hesitant, but my son killed it! He loves garlic so much that this game was a trreat for him.
that is a fabulous idea!!! I am going to add this to pinterest under cool ideas.
Truly an inspried idea! I’m like you in that the gross factor never occurred to me as a kid, but as an adult, just thinking of it when I saw your post title made me go EWWWWWWW!
You can also put them on a string and hang them from the ceiling. First one to take a bite wins (no hands). It is much harder than it sounds!
I think I’ve done that at a party before!
Not to add to your anxiety, but if you’re concerned enough about germs to buy special bowls, why are you filling them with the hose? We drank from hoses when we were kids and we all seemed to turn out fine but as an adult I’ve learned that most hoses are made from PVC which uses lead as a stabalizer, not to mention if you didn’t let the water run cold before you filled the bowls there could be bacteria build up in warm standing water in the hose. Sorry for the Debby Down comment, I truly love everything you have to say and you have so helped me in my slob journey! Thank you for all you do!
Hahahahaha! I wondered when someone was going to mention the hose-pipe (as we call it here in Tennessee).
Great idea! I would venture to guess that my 25 and 23 yo sons have never bobbies for apples or drank (drunk?) from a hose(-pipe)!
Thanks for a great laugh!
This is too funny. Totally something I would do! 😉
This was so great! I’m hosting our playgroups Halloween party and wanted to do old fashioned games and then it dawned on me — “DISGUSTING!” Literally googled ‘apple bobbing for a germaphobe’ in a desperate attempt to find a like-minded “mama-who-is-a-germaphobe-but-tries-desperately-to-not-let-her-“issues”-affect-the-childhood-experiences-of-her-kids”and found this… hilarious and thanks for the suggestion! 🙂
I am so glad to read that individual bucket bobbing for apples is a thing!!!! With the 2020 pandemic, I was trying to come up with some kid friendly games to do with our quarantine families and I thought bobbing for apples in take home trick or treat buckets would be perfect. Thanks for the tip on putting a couple of apples in each bucket. We are planning on doing 3 apples in each bucket and who ever can get out all 3 the fastest is the winner. Happy Halloween!!!
Love the visual of the snot-streaked wet, happy faces. That laughter felt so good!
What an amazing idea – Love this!!!
Thank you!!
My aunt use to get a kick out of it, when I bobbed for apples, because I had split teeth that were also rather bucked. So you could DEFINITELY tell which apple I had been going after.
Brilliant solution!! I always loved that game, and bemoaned that it was no longer considered germ-free.
Though I must add an unfortunate observation, which is that filling with a garden hose is likely to cause its own germ problems. Look it up. Garden hoses are germ breeding grounds, and should not be used for drinking water.