Okay, this one doesn’t take up nearly as much head space as the last few weeks. Chilling rocks are pieces of carved stone, usually soapstone. They function in a fairly simple fashion. You put them in your freezer, then you put them in your drink. Your drink stays cold, but doesn’t taste nasty due to melting ice!

They average between ten and twenty dollars and can be found fairly easily from a variety of online retailers. Most of ’em look something like this:

So what’s so great about these babies?

The possibilities, my friend, the possibilities. Dropping ice down someone’s shirt used to be a simple, juvenile prank that left water all over the place and was a pain to clean up. Now you can just slip one of these babies down the shirt and once the show’s over pop it back in the freezer! No fuss, no mess, quality entertainment!

If that’s not sophisticated enough for you, you can take the whole mess and sit them in someone’s shoe for ten minutes or so, just before you leave the house. Dump ’em out just before you leave then enjoy a new variation on the classic hot-foot prank! Just be sure to wash those boys off before you put them back in the freezer. No telling where those shoes have been.

Most people know better than to go licking a flag pole in the middle of winter, but they’ll never see one of these rocks coming the first time around. Plus, there’s no standing around for fifteen minutes while someone heats up water to melt them off, just wait a few minutes and it should fall off on its own. Previous comments about washing the rocks applies to this stunt as well.

Of course, you can always use them for scotch “on the rocks” as well. But really, the strange appeal of chill rocks comes from their incredible versatility. Put your mind to it and I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with plenty of creative uses for your little portable chunks of winter.