Fun while you wait for your food

Summer means travel, travel means eating in restaurants, and restaurants mean waiting for your food. What can you do? Reach for the drinking straws, and prepare to amaze your friends and family with some 'straw tricks.'

You can make a 'straw clarinet,' a 'crawling caterpillar,' a 'flutter-buzzer' (which we bet you've never seen before), a 'popper' (at right; this one's hard to do), and more. Did we mention the 'armpit tuba'? Please be considerate of your fellow restaurant patrons - and grownups.

For a link to this story and other 'summer extras' go to: www.csmonitor.com/summer