Fill-it-buster

Forget those tedious Senate filibusters -- at your Top Chef party, it's an action-packed orange-squeezing race to fill a pitcher first.

Two teams, many oranges, serious competition. This challenge could get a little seedy (and it’s sure to get very messy), but it brings out the best hands among us. Two fresh-squeezed carafes of O.J. await your guests at the end of the competition.  Who gets to drink them?  That depends on democracy...

SUPPLIES
40 or so oranges
4 large bowls
1 cup measure
A timer
2 carafes or 2 pitchers that have a wide opening at the top and can hold at least 8 cups of fluid
2 plastic juice squeezers (you can buy cheap plastic manual squeezers for less than $5 each, but this is optional; squeezing can also be done by hand.)
2 large plastic garbage bags

PREP
1. Put large plastic garbage bags on the game-play surface.  That will help contain the mess.  Then you can turn them inside out to quickly remove the sticky remains after game play.
2. Wash the oranges and slice them in half.
3. Divide them equally into the two large bowls.  Place the two large bowls of oranges next to two empty bowls on the game-play surface.
4. Pour 8 cups of water into each container and draw a thin line (or put a piece of tape) on the outside of the container -- aligned with the top of the fluid.
5. Empty and dry the containers. 

GAME PLAY RULES
1.  Ask all participants to wash and dry their hands carefully.
2. Divide your party into two teams: say, the Democrats and the Republicans. Or the Tea Party and the Orange Juice Party.
3.  Ask each team to send one de-seeder to the bowl of oranges.  Then turn on the timer for one minute as they race to remove seeds from the oranges.  After each orange is de-seeded, it should be tossed into that team's empty bowl.  De-seed carefully!  There will be penalties for seeds in the juice.
4.  Repeat the de-seeding four times with a different player each time, or stop sooner if all the oranges have been de-seeded.  Even if some oranges have not been de-seeded after four tries, then the game proceeds without further de-seeding.
5.  Team members form a row and the timer is started.  Each team member has 1 minute to squeeze the oranges.  This can be done manually over the pitcher, or with an inexpensive plastic squeezer (twist the oranges on the squeezer, then pour the juice from the drainage area into the pitcher).  After one minute, each team member must stop, make way for the next squeezer, and move to the back of the line.
6.  Game ends when one of the teams fills fluid up to the line on the pitcher, or when one team uses up all of its oranges.
7.  As the impartial host, you count the seeds in each pitcher.  If one team has three more seeds than the other team, then they must pour 1/4 of a cup of juice out of their pitcher and into the measuring cup for each of the extra seeds.  That juice is then poured into the other team's pitcher.
8.  The team with the higher level of juice wins and revels in glory. At that point, the winning team gets to vote:  Do they drink all the juice, or let the other team keep their own pitcher?  Democracy in action!  Either way, it's bound to be juicier than what happens on the Senate floor.