Wandering Goblin: 5 Real Life Situations where a Mario Kart Blue Shell would probably come in handy
Ah, the Mario Kart blue shell. It’s been terrorizing children and adults alike since Mario Kart 64. I’m sure you remember being screwed out of first place at least once.
If you play any regular amount of the game, you’ll scream plenty times as the blue shell destroys your victory and you see others slingshot past you into first. If you’re not familiar with it, here’s a little description from Mario Karts own Wiki;
“In Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart Wii, it flies over the course, homing on the leader of the race at the time of launch. After the shell reaches its destination, it will hover for a brief moment over its target, then smash into the ground, giving off a massive shock wave causing the target and anyone near him to bounce around out of control. Winged Spiny Shells nearly always hit, however, they do not actually aid the user unless it is a close race because one won’t gain any places because of it.”
Here’s five situations in which it’d probably really help out to have a blue shell come plummeting down on a competitor.
5 – Waiting in lines, of any sort.
Run it over, I promise it'll help. Seriously.
Lines. These have terrorized nearly every person’s existence on some day. Whether it be standing in line for food, that great new deal on Black Friday, you’re waiting on hold for tech support, or you’re standing at the DMV waiting to get your first license. It doesn’t matter, they’re everywhere and they’re intention is to stop you from what you want and they expect you to wait patiently while doing so.
Well, just suppose for a minute that the last Wii bundle being sold at discount at your local vendor didn’t just get snatched up while you were ‘patiently’ waiting at the back of the line. Let’s picture for just a moment that, on your drive to the local vendor, you passed through a magical prize box with a large question mark on it.
On any normal day, if you picked up a rainbow colored glowing box with a question mark, it’d probably be a bomb and blow you away. But on this particular day… You were lucky enough to find a shell that seems to fly for those deemed to success, those bastards at the front.
Of course, you may want to step back before you launch that bomb, but rest assured, at least the Wii is yours.
4 – The Car pool lane
Sweet, Sweet victory.
Car pool lanes are a thing of great opportunity. You find yourself stuck in slow moving traffic, but luckily you hired a prostitute to double with you so you can take the car pool lane (thanks Larry David), as quickly as you picked up your lady escort, you’re cruising down the fast lane and laughing hysterically as you pass the other cars in traffic. Sorry if the tacked on insanity doesn’t really sound like you, but we think it fits.
But I digress. We’ve all had our moments of glory in the car pool lane slammed to a sudden end. Suddenly you’re no longer speeding, the speed gone. There’s no incredible journey of passing the slow folks anymore. Everything has ended with an abrupt discovery that the man in front of you doesn’t just have just an incredibly ugly color of car, he’s also driving 10 minutes below the freeway speed limit. In the car pool lane.
Your rage intensifies when you realize that he has no other humans in the car with him, just dogs. You spent hard earned money on your excuse for the car pool lane! No more games, send the shell.
Hey, it seems to work for Mario.
3 – An Olympic Race
Damn. Where's that shell?
It can’t get much more serious then the Olympics. Gold is at stake here. This isn’t you waiting in line for the bathroom or trying to get to the movies on time. This is serious business. What better situation to have the ultimate enemy-seeking shell ready on stand-by… just in-case?
You’ve been training for years, you’re finally qualified to race in the Olympics. It’s been years of intense training and practice, and you think you’re finally ready. That is of course, until you find yourself racing against Usain Bolt who runs 100 meters in 9 seconds. And yes, he even has Bolt in his name. You thought you had a chance, until Skynet thought it more imperative to send back in time, lightning fast robots, with incredibly intimidating and fast-sounding names like Usain Bolt, to humiliate humanity in their own Olympics.
It seemed like a lost cause, until of course, you remember your blue friend. Out-skilled and out-gunned, it seems you only have one option left…
2 – Need an Organ? Put your name here. Now please wait.
All your livers belong to me.
Your liver isn’t any good anymore. You don’t have much time left, and you regret the years of booze consumption that may have most definitely contributed to your current condition. That’s okay though, because your liver has been on the way out for awhile. Luckily, you’ve done your due diligence and you are on the waiting list, in fact, you’ve been on it for years in anticipation.
The days are numbered, and you’re beginning to feel more ill. Still waiting on the liver list, but you haven’t heard much. You turn on the TV one day, to see a fellow Liver-suffering brother, Steve Jobs, has just undergone a liver transplant. Wait, that’s weird… Didn’t he only get diagnosed a few months prior?
Wait a second…. Suddenly, the Apple man who brings us such wonderful products is looking a lot more like an angel of death. But, there’s always a second option…
No more waiting and no more playing by the rules. You’ve had that Blue Shell in your closet for years, it’s time to dust it off and get busy.
1 – The Space Race
This started the Space Race?
You’re Russia during the 1960s. Things really aren’t going so hot for you anymore. You’ve got this new type of government you’re really trying to push onto people, and you’re in this never-ending race to the stars with the other bully on the playground.
It all started off great, you launched Sputnik into space and effectively started the whole competition. However, it seems the pesky Americans are about to beat you as their Apollo 11 mission gets close to the moon, and the first dirty American is ready to set his foot on the Moon and install the American colors once and for all.
If we lose the space race, we’ll look ridiculous to the world and it will seem like Communism is worthless! Erhm, well… We just have to beat them. Who knows what kind of military advantage the Moon will give them…?
It’s time Russians, call for the Blue Shell!
And that’s that. 5 totally good reasons why we need to invent the blue shell, for better or for worse…
