Toys.

As you get older, they become more and more awesome.

Your old 10-speed: now an Italian superbike. That old Spytech gear: now the kind of technology actually used by spies.

Oh, and about that old slingshot of yours...

It’s become this: the Y-Fork Slingshot, a so-unnecessary-it’s-necessary slingshot for whatever one does with slingshots, available now.

If you could stick a needle into Bear Grylls, extract his general mojo and utilitarian ruggedness and inject them into one of those old plastic-and-sagging-rubber slingshots of your summery yesteryears, you’d basically get this (squeezing water from elephant dung afterward: optional).

Now, as far as slingshots go, this thing is a tank. Its frame is cut from a half-inch-thick aluminum plate that has been pressurized for strength, which is good considering the sling itself is strong enough to house a .44-caliber lead ball. (In other words, when this thing is loaded and pulled back, be somewhere other than in its path.)

And you’ll be happy to know the 550-test-weight paracord that wraps around the handle can be removed and employed during emergencies, should you ever be in a situation where you need that as much as a slingshot.

Three words: zombie squirrel apocalypse.