One of our things we did was to “accidentally” break a thermometer, then coat nickles with the mercury, which formed interesting little balls amid the broken glass. We had cool-looking, shining nickles when we got done. We probably put all sorts of contaminated nickles into circulation until one of our parents convinced us we would die a horrible death if we ever touched mercury again with our bare hands.
My brother and I had an indoor Bb gun range. We shot each other a few times...
“One of our things we did was to “accidentally” break a thermometer”
I sure do miss those thermometers because they were so accurate. While visiting my mom at the family homestead built in 1830, we ran across five “real” never-used thermometers. A treasure!