Colored Eggs:The Game, Not the Edible

As I was watching the students at recess while I was on playground duty Friday, I took notice that none of the kids play actual games. There are swings and seesaws and sliding boards to keep their attention, but if they aren’t on one of those, they are usually running amok. There is screaming and chasing without reason. I don’t hear the words monster, villian, or bad guy mentioned at any time. They would never use the word villian anyway. They are just amok runners.

So, I stood there, trying to think back to when I was little. Did we act goofy like that? I mean, I am sure we did, but at least we were organized with a goal in mind kind -of- goofy. And that goal was to stay away from someone who had cooties or run faster than a fox or wolf who may be chasing us. And that made me think of  playing Colored Eggs.

Colored Eggs was a childhood game that we brought to the playground. Well, I tried to bring it to the playground at the Sister Mary Mary Immaculate Academy.  I played it at home with all the neighbor kids, and since we really didn’t have much in the way of a playground at this nun academy other than gravel beneath of swings and a leaning sliding board,  our recess was a wash. So, I thought that I would mention Colored Eggs to the other kids standing around because they didn’t want to go down the slide ten times in a row because there wasn’t anything else to do.

The object of Colored Eggs was to be quicker than the fox. There was going to be a lot of chasing with this game.  First, the kids had to decide who wanted to be the fox first. If no one spoke up, I volunteered, because, well, because I had my reasons. Then we all had to quietly pick a color. We sat in a circle on the grass when we played this game at home, but since the nuns had spread gravel under our feet so it would cushion our fall, gravel was not fun to sit on with your legs crossed.Plus we had to wear stupid uniforms. My skirt went down to my knees, so I could completely hide my legs under it while sitting down if I wanted to. And I wanted to.  Back then we called it sitting Indian style. Nowadays I hear the kindergarten aide telling the kids to sit Criss cross apple sauce.  What? See, this is one reason I don’t teach the little ones. Who would have thought that the way you sat down would be considered politically incorrect.

So, anyway, after everyone chooses a color and sits down, the fox stands to the back or side and calls out a color. The person that silently has that color needs to stand up, run quickly around the circle and get back in his or her spot before the fox can tag them on the back. We sat in a wide circle.  For some reason I always always called yellow.  I called yellow because I knew that every time we played Adele Stillman would pick yellow. She never changed her color. I would position myself close to her so that when I called yellow, I would be on top of her. Was that cheating? No, I was a fox, dammit, and foxes are crafty. I was being crafty.

I yelled, Yellow, and Adele took off. Too bad I knew her past behavior and I was on that chick faster than you can say creamed chicken on biscuit. She was now the fox and I had to quietly pick a color. Sometimes kids picked the same color and it was easy for the fox to pick off someone. When it was my turn to sit on the fun gravel, I had to move those ugly gray rocks around and position myself to where there wasn’t a piece of gravel biting me somewhere, like my butt. Once I was comfortable, I wasn’t going to get up and run around. I was done. So, I picked an odd color.

My mom unknowingly helped me master this art of not playing the game.

“Mom, what are some other colors beside yellow, green, blue, red, and white?”

“Well, there’s black…..grey…..silver…..gold…..brown……..and orange.”

I thought gold or silver would be good enough but the next time we played the damn fox called out silver. I had to jump up and wrinkle my nest of smooth gravel with my shoes as I took off to avoid the fox. And trust me, it is not fun to run from the fox around the circle and then plop yourself down once you made it around safely. It’s a hard landing and I had little sharp gravel points all over my legs and butt. Stupid gravel spreading nuns.

“Can you think of other colors?”  Surely my mom didn’t think I was asking because I wanted to broaden my color horizon.

My mom took me downstairs where she kept all of her thread for sewing. It was like a goddamn rainbow. She read the colors off the thread for a good five minutes. “……..and there’s beige, maroon, turquoise, violet, burgundy, lime, pink, lavender, and umber.” I never understood why she had so many colors. I don’t remember her ever making me a top that had lime in it. She came home with a spool of thread every single time we went to Grants Department Store. She was a thread hoarder I am sure.

Anyway, I had an arsenal of  color names that were just not used when playing Colored Eggs. After volunteering to be the fox first, I could make my bed and lie on it, never to get marked up by gravel again. Stupid nuns.

I knew that there would be no way anyone would ever call, “Umber!” That sort of made me chuckle. Of course, I had no idea what the hell umber was, but my mom was the one who told me it was brown like, so the rules did not state to use common colors. I was a very smart second grader I thought. But it was all in the name of not getting sharp gravel biting me on the butt.

I also realized that you could lie. I mean, who the hell knows what color you picked? You didn’t have to write it down. I learned that after some smartie said my color, “violet” and I just really didn’t want to run, you know, because of my nest. So, when Winston demanded to know my color, I would say one that hadn’t been called yet. I realized that pretty soon they were all going to be mad at me, so I would oblige once in a while to take sharp gravel on my ass for the team.

All in all, playing Colored Eggs was fun. I taught my own children strange colors like magenta, and ecru, but realized that they had grass to play on. Being a yellow or a red was not so bad…..if you could out run the fox.

Six Word Saturday

 

Pong Killed Outdoor Play, Tis True

You just have to love technology. But, then again, it did wipe out imaginative play as we know it. Childhood was so simple in the early sixties. We had no choice. My parents and their parents had even a simpler time. We didn’t have cell phones that interrupted our play with a text from your mother that simply read, “Dinner.” No, they had to stand out on the porch and yell for us. On the third yell, we would go home.

We had jump rope, a kick ball, and indoor board games. Can’t forget about pogo sticks. We weren’t indoors much. The neighborhood was filled with children playing, people hand washing their cars, and neighbors sitting outside on their porches in the hot summer evenings. Many didn’t have central air conditioning. We knew our neighbors. We also knew when Mr. Softie was coming around in his ice cream truck. We could hear the music. Because we were outside.

 As the sixties moved closer to the seventies, it was still like that. We now had eight track stereos to occupy our time, but not much more. We would sit out on our front porches, but this time, waiting for boys to drive around and around the block, finally to stop and talk to all the neighborhood girls my age who hung out on my front porch. But, in and around 1975, that all changed. We started staying indoors more. Things were changing, for sure.  And we can point our fingers to one new gadget.

Pong.

Yes, Pong. Not to be confused with Beer Pong. This was played without alcohol. Well, unless you really enjoyed drunk ping pong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPkUvfL8T1I

I know what you young people are thinking. Are you kidding me? But, yes, this was exciting stuff. I mean, we could turn on the tv and use this game console and play ping pong. There were no pictures  or bombs going off or bullets flying. This was ping pong and nothing else. And we were thrilled.

Now, we did have pinballl machines. I was quite good at the one at The Pub, a local dive where we all congregated in college. My mom even bought a pin ball machine for our basement rec room. We were the coolest family on the block. But, Pong was different, because it was on tv.

In the end, Pong was fun, and it was just a matter of time before we were hearing names such as Sega and then Playstation.

And life as we knew it changed forever.

And we can blame  it all on Pong.

Hopscotch Should Actually Involve Scotch

One of the best games of my youth, Hopscotch, involved just rocks and a piece of chalk. The first time I ever played the game, I scoured the neighborhood for the best rock to use. Nobody had told me the first time that I played that it was important to have a flat rock. I showed up with a piece of gravel. Well, hell, I didn’t know. Most kids nowadays have it easy. A lot of playgrounds have the hopscotch board painted on the surface. Children use little bean bags or coins for the markers.

Well, when I was young (I’ve always wanted to say that), we didn’t use chalk half of the time. We used the edge of a sandstone rock to draw our pattern. We would then use a flat rock as a marker. To be honest, we never thought about using coins. It just never crossed our minds.We were tickled half to death if someone just happened to have a piece of chalk with them. Chalk was a luxury. I would have stolen a piece of chalk from school, but the nuns would have hammered my knuckles with a ruler and then let me know that chalk stealers always go to hell.

For those of you who have never played the game, Hopscotch is played on a flat surface, such as asphalt or a sidewalk. We used to play on my driveway. We had a great double driveway. You have to draw a pattern with a piece of chalk. There are many patterns to draw, and I think the one we used looked a little like this:

The object of the game is to win. How bout that? The rules are hard to explain, but I shall try my best. We will use my bff Ramaine as player1 and I will be player 2.

Ramaine would stand behind the starting line to toss her marker in square 1. She would then hop over square 1 and land with one foot in square 2 and one foot in square 3. She then continues hopping to the home square, which is like a safe place to stand and turn around, and then she would hop back again. Ramaine would pause in squares 2 and 3 to pick up the marker, hop in square 1, and then out. Then she continues by tossing the stone in square 2 and so on and so on. All hopping is done on one foot unless the hopscotch design is such that two squares are side-by-side. You must always hop over any square where a maker has been placed.

Tossing your rock into the first square was always quite easy, but I basically sucked after that. For example. if it was my turn to throw it in square #7, and it landed in #8, my turn would be over. And again, since I sucked at Hopscotch, I spent a lot of time sitting on the sidelines, looking at my rock.

So, while writing this post, I took a wrong turn and kept thinking about how much time I spent watching my friends play while I, Hopscotch loser, sat and waited for my next turn. I would most certainly toss my rock right on a line (which  is a no-no),and once again, be sitting on the sidelines. So,I was wondering if this is what people sitting on a curb are waiting for.

Waiting their turn to play Hopscotch

Hopscotch losers at a Hopscotch parade of winners

Some mother brought these hopscotch losers cupcakes.

So, then I really got to think that perhaps, perhaps Hopscotch is actually a drinking game that somehow evolved into a children’s game over the years. So, I set out to do some research. What I found was startling.

Hopscotch was actually invented during Easter in Scotland in 1799. Drunk party-goers, bored with playing croquet, drew  numbers on a tennis court  surface and tossed rocks to see if they could land on the numbers. If they hit the numbers, they didn’t have to drink their scotch. If they missed, they had to take a drink, and hop like a rabbit, (you know, because it was Easter). Someone decided that there should be a border around the numbers, and Voila! Hopscotch was born.

Drunks invented Hop Scotch

Ok, so I lied. But, it could have happened that way.

All in all, Hopscotch was a great childhood game. I may not have been a great rock tosser, but I had fun, and isn’t that what really counts? I hope to play it again one day.

This time I will be drunk….and old. But young at heart.

 

Put down your purse, Vickie. No one is going to steal it.

Spinning and Then Something Else

I probably wasn’t much fun to play with when I was little. As soon as someone mentioned a game that had any kind of spinning involved, I was out. I had puked enough for all the kids in the neighborhood. I was already called “Bluey” in the winter because my lips would turn a bright bluish purple and “Picky Vickie” throughout the year because I wouldn’t try to eat anything that had “stuff” in it, like potato salad, or mixed together, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Pukey” was next on the agenda, I was sure, and I wanted no part of it.

I don’t know what the hell it is with kids and spinning. Are we all gluttons for punishment?

Blind Man’s Bluff

I think the first game I played with other kids in the neighborhood that had anything to do with spinning was Blind Man’s Bluff. The rules sounded easy enough. According to Wikipedia:

“Blind man’s bluff is played in a spacious area, such as outdoors or in a large room, in which one player, designated as “It”, is blindfolded and gropes around attempting to touch the other players without being able to see them, while the other players scatter and try to avoid the person who is “it”, hiding in plain sight and sometimes teasing them to make them change direction.”

Ok, that sounded easy enough. Two things were missing from the instructions, however. One, was that Blind Man’s Bluff should be played in an area free of dangerous obstructions, or like, um, stairs, so that the “It” player will not die or obtain a serious head injury. Secondly, who the hell said the “It” player had to be spun around before they went off groping at people? I immediately knew that I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the first one to run into the fireplace hearth or be the one puking because of the spinning. But, sometimes life just isn’t fair for the spin challenged. The first person found me huddled in a corner, cowering and trying to remain oh so quiet. Dammit. I cried foul, as I am sure the person could see below the scarf. I figured out that if you had a big nose, you could cheat. People with big noses always have advantages in this world.

So, Lori, the neighborhood Nazi girl, put the scarf around my eyes. We were playing in her basement, so we had to let her be in charge like she always was. She tied it tight to make sure I couldn’t cheat. She knew I would cheat in a heart beat, given the chance. I remember the scarf being slightly damp. So, I was ready to puke because I knew that meant sweat. Lori lived across the street and she knew all about my spinning “problems.” So, the little bitch spun me hard. Her hands were firm and her method determined. Determined to make the little skinny girl with blue lips puke. After she got done spinning me, I just sat down and threw up on on an area rug. Ta-da. End of Blind Man’s Bluff for Vickie. I staggered home. I think I took the blind fold off first.

I’m thinking that Blind Man’s Bluff led to orgies when played by the older crowd.

The Playground Merry-Go-Round-and Round-and Round

I hate playground equipment. I really do. As an elementary teacher, I watch kids when I am on playground duty. First of all, yes, I do stand outside with fifty-five year old blue lips. That’s with me for life. I am not fond of the cold. But, I watch these sweet children turn into brainless zombies on speed, running amok to and fro each piece of equipment. They climb up slides instead of sliding down them. They run behind people swinging, like chipmunks playing “Suicide” on our country roads. Chipmunks decide in the middle of the road which way they want to zig. Too late, Theodore. Anyways, school children also try to kill their peers on the see-saws. Side note: How the hell do children know what “cherry bumps” even are?

“Ms. Mendenhall, Ralph jumped off of the see saw on purpose and gave me a cherry bump.” I just stared at her. Really? I chuckled at the thought of perhaps sending her to the principal to tell the story of Ralphie, the cherry bumper.

Luckily, our playground doesn’t have the Merry-Go-Round aka The Ride of Misery like we had when we were little. I’m not even sure if it was at our neighborhood playground, but I avoided it somewhere. It was the worst playground apparatus known to man…and pukey little girls.

You know there is vomit on there somewhere

So, the kids would hop on and the strongest child would run on the outside, pushing around and around and then jump on himself. Once in a while some older jack ass would stand there, spinning and spinning despite the pleas of the younger, sickened children. Hahahhahaha, laughed the older kid. Those bully kids back then are the probably the same ones wearing black and white stripes today. Or they are car salesmen. But,I would never go near that damn ride after the first time I was stuck on it….. And puked on it. Ew. I just left, hoping that one day it would rain.

You know this didn’t last long. Dear God, here come the flying wires. Oh, look, one has impaled you.

The Rotor- Kennywood Park

The Rotor was a crazy ride at Kennywood Park, outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We used to go to Kennywood about once a year when I was little. It’s hard to describe the Rotor, but I shall try. Picture a barrel. Or the inside of a washing machine. Or something like that. People would enter the Rotor and stand against the wall, with the heels of their feet against the wall. I think we had to take our shoes off as we entered the ride. Did I say, “we?” I crack myself up. The Rotor had an observation deck around the top, so those like myself, could watch.

The ride would start rotating uprights at 33 revoulutions per minute. Faster, faster, faster. (This is where I would puke just from watching the people spinning.) The rotation would create a centripetal force and then when it was at full speed, the floor would drop down. Like drop down. Everyone was stuck like Velcro to the sides of the spinning barrel. Sick.

I had to finally try it when I was with my boyfriend. Oh, the things you do for love. I was so scared, because those who puke on the ride get to share it, as the splatter would smack up against the wall. I can only imagine the puke on the back of peoples’ shirts. You know those carnival people probably didn’t clean the walls too well. So, I made sure I hadn’t eaten, and went in and although I was sick for the rest of the Kennywood day, I did not throw up. What what one does for love.

There were several Rotors around the country, probably called other names. All American rotors had to be dismantled or modified after the “incident.” Yikes. In 2000, two tweens were injured when their feet were caught between the moving wall and the floor.One suffered broken bones and they were both hospitalized.

Ugh..I feel sick after watching that.

The Basement Swivel Chair

 I wonder if my bff Ramaine remembers this. We used to hang out in my basement. It was a long room with a bar on one end, and a ping pong table on the other end. In the middle was furniture, including two snazzy swivel chairs just like the one in this picture:

         This chair looks innocent enough, but is a vehicle of death     

   Let’s just say that it is not a good idea to put a bunch of neighborhood kids in the basement unsupervised. My mom would stay upstairs, smoking her Salem cigarettes and reading the National Enquirer. Meanwhile, we had a carnival going on downstairs. Ramaine sat in one of the swivel chairs, sitting cross legged on the chair. Sometimes we would pretend we were going into outer space. Oh, we were imaginative. We would then spin the occupant in the chair around and around and around. It would go pretty damn fast.But, alas, there is nothing imaginative about a possible concussion. The swivel chair tipped over and so did Ramaine. She hit her head on the floor, which I think was painted concrete. She immediately said that her head hurt, so we ran upstairs to get my mom.

She checked on Ramaine, and then ran to call her mom. On the way out of the rec room she told us-

“What ever you do, don’t let her go to sleep. She may never wake up again.”

Really? You said that to a child. Of course she was now going to be sleepy. That’s what kids do.

 What an idiot. But, at the time, I thought my bff was going to drift off to sleep and never be able to spin in the chair ever again. I was scared for my partner in crime.

“ Don’t go to sleep, Ramaine”…I wanted to cry. 

Well, she was ok, and I don’t remember if she had a concussion or not, but we went back to spinning that chair. I never sat in the chair, of course, as I knew my limitations and my friends accepted me for the puking freak that I was.

Sit’n Spin

Fast forward many years. When my children were young, they informed me that they wanted a Sit’n Spin. Great. So, they are manufacturing a personal use piece of playground apparatus. Just what I need. So, being the great mother that I was, I bought them this nauseating toy.

My least favorite purchase, other than maybe Kotex

 

Go ahead and puke. You’re not my kid.

Recycling the Sit’n Spin into a turn table. Good job, Pinterest lady.

In the end, there are thousands of things that spin. I will name them all:

yo yo, tops, pinwheel, a fan, hula hoop, frisbee, anything with wheels, including a ferris wheel, whirlygigs

silver maple tree helicopter whirlygigs, a basketball can spin, a record on a record player, a tornado, propellers, pottery thingy,and clothes in a washing machine. I have volunteers come up in my fourth grade class and act out the sun, moon, and earth and have them spin around while they are revolving around the sun. Sure, they get dizzy. They want to get dizzy. Goofy kids.

There was one particular spinning “toy” that did not make me dizzy:

Spin the Bottle

Spin the Bottle, the Older Crowd. Um, ok....ew

 After all these years, they still love to get dizzy.

 .

ColorForms

I feel sorry for the children of today. Really, I do. They have missed out on some many great things that we baby boomers experienced in the late fifties and sixties. Like poking people in the eyes ala The Three Stooges. Like counting how many times the Coyote SHOULD have died in those wonderful Road Runner cartoons. And then there are Colorforms.

 

Photos via ebay seller

Oh, I’m very aware that Colorforms are still around. They will celebrate their 61st birthday this summer. They were re-releasing their Michael Jackson Dress Up set for their big 60 celebration. Um, okay…..

I remember when my mom bought my very first colorform set. I am sure it was hard to find something a hyperactive chichuahua of a child would play with for more than 30 seconds. I am pretty sure it just had geometric shapes to move around. I remember smelling the thin vinyl. Could one actually get high sniffing Colorforms? I don’t think so, but they did have a smell to them. But, I took to them like a floundering flopping fish takes to water. I liked them. I remember the following Colorforms. I loved this one.

Of course, who would have known that a hyperactive child would also be a bit OCD? After playing with Colorforms, it took me forever to put the pieces back where they belonged.

“Vickie, it’s bath time….put that away now……………………………………….Come on, Vickie…………………………..Vickie…………………..”

Well, I just couldn’t put the pieces in a pile and just walk away. They had a place for each piece, dammit. And I had to put them back where I found them. Afterall, that’s what my mom always preached.

“Is that where you found it, Vickie? Put them back where you found them.”

So, it’s my mother’s fault that I was OCD with the Colorform pieces. I would freak out if I opened up a Colorform box and saw pieces lying around like the first picture that I posted. Let’s take a look at that one again. I would have slapped someone. Dear God, what the hell is wrong with you? The only other person in my house who could have done such a thing would have been my sister, Cheryl.

This makes me uneasy even today. My palms are getting sweaty. The pieces need to go right on the line. I mean, right on the line. Anything else was just wrong. I would sit there, taking about three or four turns to get it just right.

“Vickie, your bath water is getting cold…………”

Pretty bad that a mom has to run the bath water for a twenty-two year old.

Ok, just kidding.

So, my sister had to be the nonconformist colorformist. She was putting the pieces back like a drunken groundhog. I refer to that because there used to be a drunk groundhog on our property after I got married. I called her Mrs. Daegle after the drunk woman in The Bad Seed. Or maybe it had rabies. But, it couldn’t walk straight. Just like my sister couldn’t put the colorforms back straight. Dammit.

So, I did the only thing one could do in my position. I hid the Colorforms. Not the box or the little setting you got to decorate. Just the Colorforms. Which I guess were important.

“Vickie, where are the Colorforms?”

“Right there.”

“There are no Colorforms in the box.”

“You bought Colorforms without the colorforms?” I was a smart ass at a very smart ass age.

“Vickie…………….where are the Colorforms?”

“ Susie ate one and got sick, so I threw them away.” Susie the dog would never have eaten a Colorform. Although a brilliant answer coming from a hyperactive obsessive compulsive compulsive liar, my mom would never buy this one.

“I will count to three, Vickie, and you better bring them all back………………………1……………………………..2…………………………………….2 1/2………….”

She always used a “2 1/2″ before she asked my brother David to go get the belt. That was David’s job. He was the belt getter. Why couldn’t he just once say, “You want the god damn belt? Go get it yourself.” He was too nice. I on, the other hand, pushed her buttons way too much.

“Vickie, go to your room.”

Susie the dog would follow me to my room. I would wave at my dad on my way past his room. She must have sent him to his room, as he was usually lying on his side, watching the little red tv that was sitting on a tv dinner tray or whatever they are called.  So, there I was, in my room, with the Colorforms hidden in my scuffy slippers in my closet.

All in all, Colorforms were a great thing for me. I was able to sit and play with something for more than five minutes before moving on to something else that caught my eye. I never walked away from Colorforms.

Well, not until I put the pieces back where I found them.

L is for Quitters

I have been playing Words with Friends and have become quite addicted to the little game. I can understand how Alec Baldwin just couldn’t put it away. I play it from Facebook. I’ve always been a Scrabble player, and I didn’t think this would match what Scrabble offers. When I first started playing, I thought you had to sit there and play it. I mean, that’s what you do with Scrabble. But, no. I found out that you can play a word, go out to eat, watch a movie, and then play your next word. It would suck if your opponent had no such plans, and was waiting for you. But, after playing a couple of times, you finally figure out that you can lead a life, be a mother, wash clothes, AND play Word with Friends. But, I’m not writing about how wonderful the game is. Oh, it is wonderful. I’m writing about particular opponents who are just pissing me off.

They are pissing me off because it reminds me of games I played when I was little. My mom taught me how to play everything from 500 Rummy , Gin, chess, to Yahtzee and chinese checkers. As I have written numerous times, I was a hyperactive child, but games and strategy kept me in focus. I was all about the game. But now, my opponents, well, they weren’t in the same league as me. At eight years of age, I was a gaming professional, dammit, and I expected those who played with me to follow the rules. Just follow the rules.

It all started with Candy Land. If my sister was losing, she would quit. I would have my little gingerbread man close to the end, ready for a little gingerbread victory dance.  It would be exciting. Everyone likes to win. But then, she would simply stand up and make an exit.

“I quit. This is a stupid game.”  What the hell, stupid sister? You always finish what you start. I was hyperactive as that little cartoon dog that follows the huge Bulldog,  Spike, and I even knew that.  I was three  years older than she was, and she was an easy mark, but that is no excuse for a five year old. Get off the short bus and finish the damn game. But no. If was ahead by much, she would just stand up and quit.

Get back up and fight, soldier.

When we played Go to the Head of The Class, and if I was winning, she would quit. If we were playing Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button, and she was on a lower step, she would just get up and walk away. If we played Chutes and Ladders, she would pout for a while, and then get up and walk away. I mean, come on. It was Chutes and Ladders. That is one game that should be played to the very end.  Well, like all freaking games. What the hell is wrong with you? Games are meant to be played until the end. End of discussion. Like my mom always said:

Quitters never prosper.

Dear God, I think she said that several times a week. I didn’t know what the hell “prosper” meant for the longest time, but that didn’t matter. I learned about context clues all on my own. Quitters never something…..Quitters never won…..Quitters were always losers. Yeah, that’s it.  Quitters were losers. My sister was a loser. God, I wish someone would have thought to put their finger in an L shape over their forehead years ago. I would never have had to talk. There were a lot of losers in my household.

So, why do people quit? Did the ClemsonTigers  leave the football field during the Orange Bowl when the West Virginia Mountaineers were pummeling them 70-33?  No. They stayed until the very end. Thank goodness, or we wouldn’t be able to put these billboards up on the interstate near Morgantown. I love my WVU.

Yeah, it's a real sign.

It reminds me of the kid who brings the ball and if doesn’t get his way, snatches the ball and walks home. Cry baby.  But, for the most part, sports teams stay until the very end.  My son had a ten-run rule when he played baseball when he was younger. But, no one was quitting. They were just sent home early, dignity intact abeit tail behind their legs.

I did get confused about the whole quitting scenario because my mom used to always tell me when I got in trouble:

             Quit while you’re ahead

Understand my confusion? First she was telling me all Kung Fu Caine-like that “Quitters never prosper” and then she turns around and tells me to “Quit while I’m ahead.”  I’m thinking my mom may have been wise, but not all the way. She was a Sybil quoter, split personality and all. I should add that she used to also say, “Cheaters never prosper.” No one prospered with that woman.

 I guess my rant should make a sharp point. Well, let me back up. Now that I have been playing Words with Friends for a few weeks now, I have gotten used to the people I play. I can tell which ones use other sources because, I mean, what the hell does “distome” mean? Well, I will tell you what it means. It is a parasitic flatworm. Ok, sure maybe Player #1 had an opponent play it and they remembered to play it with me. I guess I shouldn’t complain. I am using new words that I have learned.  I’m not talking about the vocabulary geniuses/Scrabble dictionary users.  Right now, I’m talking about the quitters.

I am currently playing twenty people. Well, sixteen people, since my son and I are in the middle of four games. But, I have two opponents that I play a lot who just quit if there are only about seven tiles left and I am way out in front. Then they immediately start another game. What? Oh my God, is my sister on the other end?  Why do you do this? I don’t do it when someone is beating the hell out me, 419-302. I know I’m going to lose. But, I don’t quit. I play to the very end. Sure, I may send a friend a note that reads: “Is there any stopping you?” like I did today to a friend I just can not beat. She is good. And she probably appreciates the fact that I don’t quit.

I never quit anythi

                                                                         

Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?

One of my favorites games to play when I was little was Button Button, Who’s Got the Button?  It was a pretty easy game to play. It didn’t matter how many kids were playing. And all you needed was a penny. When I first started playing the game, I was OCD about using a button, because, well, as in the title, someone was asking for a damn button. But, after using about ten buttons that my mom sort of needed, I was told if I ever used a button again, my name would be Mud.  Which in mom speak meant I would be getting “The Belt.” So, I used a shiny penny instead.

The object of Button Button, Who’s Got the Button is an easy one. The game was usually played by several children and one adult. I wish someone would have told my mom that, because we all took turns being the “adult.”  The children start by sitting on the bottom stair of a staircase. We played on my front porch steps. If it was raining, we used my basement steps. It was a pretty flexible game.  So, again, the kids are sitting at the bottom of the steps. The adult (Me, at the old age of  eight, perhaps) would hold out in front of them two closed hands, with one holding a “special” button hidden inside of it. I would ask, “Button, Button, who’s got the button?

For example, let’s pretend that my neighbor friends and siblings were sitting side by side on the bottom step. LeeAnn, Ramaine, Cheryl, and David. I would put my hands behind my back, and put the penny in one of them and then hold it out in front of LeeAnn. “Button Button, Who’s Got the Button?” She would then pick one of my hands. If she was right, she would get to move up one step. Then I would go to Ramaine, etc. etc. Whoever got to the top of the steps won and then they would get to be the leader.

This was such a fun game. For a while. One day, two of the neighbor girls, who were older and never played with us, wanted to join in the fun on summer afternoon. Well,  how cool was that? I ran into the house and asked my mom if she would make Kool-Aid for all of us. She obliged and added cookies to the mix. This was going to be a great day.

Well, Linda, (not her real name) one of the older girls asked to be the leader. Of course, you can be the leader. We all squeezed on the bottom step and began to play. The other older girl, Kathy,(again, not her name) picked the right hand first thing. She got to advance up a step. I was next. Loser. David picked the right hand, as did my sister. Lee Ann and I were left behind in the dust. I dont think my bff Ramaine was there this particular day.

It was amazing how Kathy  picked the right hand every time. Wow! She was so lucky. She quickly won. My mom then had us come in the house to have Kool-Aid and whoopie pies. Those older girls were going to want to play with us all of the time. My mom’s whoopie pies were the best cookie in the world. It was great how she was making them the very same day that Linda and Kathy decided to play with us.

So, after we got done eating, it was Kathy’s turn to be the leader. I was doing a bit better this time and was able to move up a little bit here and there. Linda was getting them right every time. She was almost at the top, when my brother, who was just coming out of the house, stopped and watched the fun, and then exclaimed, “You are cheating!”  My little brother did not just say that. Did I just hear him tell the two older, beautiful popular girls  that they were cheating? I was ready to get off the bottom step and run past everyone to tell my mom that David was going to make those girls want to quit and go home.

The girls looked at each other  and then started laughing. They dropped the penny and looked us over and then Linda said, “This is such a baby game………….. We just came over here because your mom and my mom were talking on the phone and said she was making whoopie pies. We wanted some…….We’re leaving.”

And off they went with an air of superiority, munching on one of my mom’s world famous whoopie pies. I just wanted to cry. It’s funny, but we just sat quietly and watched them saunter down the street. They would turn around in the middle of the road, and laugh every couple of yards or so. I was so mad. I just wanted to throw rocks at them.

Well, Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button was put on the back burner for a long time. We switched to Mother, May I, or Colored Eggs. We saved Button, Button for our rainy day fun.

At least we knew on a rainy day we could play the “baby” game on my basement steps. The older girls couldn’t see us and we wouldn’t have to share whoopie pies with them ever again.

I skipped a decade or so but taught my children how to play Button Button, Who’s Got the Button on my old steps while visiting my parents. We had an inside staircase at the home we just built, but I wanted to initate this fun game where I learned to play. I explained the rules and talked about how much fun it would be. I got a real button from my mom’s decades- of-grand- button- collecting- collection, and we began to play. Adam won quickly and was able to be the leader. I sat down, sort of excited to share this wonderful game with my children.

Button, Button, I've got freakin Buttons

Adam put his hands behind his back, and put them out in front of his sister. One of his hands was out in front of the other. She picked it, and the damn hand held the button. He was lucky if he was six years old and already figured out how to cheat. I just looked at him. He was laughing.

I stood up and sighed.

“Let’s go eat some whoopie pies.”

More Fun Than a Barrel of Monkeys

So, I just got back from stupid Walmart, and I made a few purchases for myself that may seem strange. Even the check-out lady asked me, “Aw, I remember these. Are they for your grandchildren?”

“No. I don’t have grandchildren yet.” That sort of pissed me off. Fifty-five year old people are too young to have grandchildren. And besides, I don’t look a day over thirty. My class tells me that all of the time, so I know it to be true.

“Oh, you’re a teacher?”  Nib shit wanted an answer. I was in the mood to mess with her.

“No. They are for me……I never was allowed to play with toys when I was little……. I can afford them now.”  I tried to deliver the line like Bob Newhart, my idol, with a hint of Ellen DeGeneres, my other idol.  The man behind me in line cracked up. Ahhh, someone in this town understands snark.

Anyway, I brought home a fun game of my youth:  Barrel of Monkeys. I guess you knew that was coming by my title. Can’t fool you guys. I wanted to write a blog post on games we baby boomers played, but thought, “Why, hell, Vickie, buy the damn thing, and take pictures of how stupid you look playing with it.”

Inspiration for my next blog post

For those of you who don’t know what the hell I am talking about, Barrel of Monkeys is a game that was brought to store shelves by Lakeside Toys in 1965. I guarantee you that I had this as soon as it came out. I was nine years old and my mom bought anything in sight in order to find something that would keep me occupied for more than 20 seconds. It’s hard to entertain hyperactive Mexican jumping beans.

Apparently, the idiom, “more fun than a barrel of monkeys,” was the inspiration for the game.  I just really don’t understand how people start idioms, because why would monkeys shoved in a barrel be fun? I mean, wouldn’t the damn monkeys be so claustrophopic and pissed to high hell, that when released from the barrel, would start attacking and perhaps chew someone’s face off or something?  So, to me, “more fun than a barrel of monkeys” should be a sarcastic remark, to be used, for example, at say, Grandpa’s funeral.

“Well, this is more fun than a barrel of monkeys.” See, makes sense.

Years ago, sometime during the 1950′s, Dave Garroway, host of The Today Show, asked, “What’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys?”  A huge barrel was rolled out onto the stage. Garroway released them and they climbed the curtains, ran out into the audience, climbed on top of the cameras,  and just generally wrecked havoc on the set.  See, once again, sarcastic idiom. Monkeys in a barrel are not flippin fun.

So, fast forward to 2012. I opened up the barrel, all excited, because I have not played with the little plastic simians since my children played with it for ten minutes when they were young. And it was for that long, only because I just brought it home, and made them play.

“It is not boring. Look, hook the monkeys and see how many you can get………Well, they have to be in a pile or it is hard to hook their arms……It is not boring……….I played with this a LOT when I was little……………….What do you mean?  I had more things to play with.”

Ok, didn’t last long. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see this being a top seller in 2012. But, I was still excited to play with it once again.I opened up the barrel to find 14 red plastic monkeys in a plastic bag. The plastic bag had warnings in 19 different languages:

“To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this bag away from babies, and children. DO NOT use in cribs, beds, carriages, or playpens.”

Found a loophole. You can put the bag on their high chair.

According to the instructions that did NOT come with the game,  each game contains a “barrel” which is filled with brightly-coloured plastic monkeys with “S” shaped arms.  Players must dump the monkeys on the table or other even surface and the objective of the game is to hook all the monkey’s arms together to form a chain.  A player’s turn ends when the chain is broken. (I got this from their web site, as they neglected to put instructions in the barrel.)

So, what if a person from a foreign country or like, Zanesville, Ohio, opened the barrel only to find just what I did: monkeys in a plastic bag and that is all. Are they to assume that they know what the hell they are supposed to do with them?

Once out of the little barrel, what would you do with the monkeys since there were no instructions?

And the directions are where?

The monkeys would run amok, just like they did in my townhouse.

Messing with my tv, demanding to watch Planet of the Apes.

Messing with my cat, Whiskers, who roared like a lion to scare them. (No, she is not yawning. She is roaring).

They totally messed with a couple of my Words With Friends games, clicking on the ”resign” button when I was clearly beating the hell out of my opponents.

Then I caught them trying to escape, out into the Wild Wonderful West Virginia woods.

Quit flushing the toilet, you stupid monkeys.

I don’t know what the hell they were doing here, but I did find jello with bananas in the refrigerator. One of the monkeys must have decided to swim in the cherry liquid, because it is now hardened up to his neck. I promptly closed the door. (Pictures are too graphic.)

Helping themselves to some mango juice.

Attacking the cat from another angle

They got into my pill compartment thingy that I received as a gag gift for my 5oth birthday, but I use anywho. Two of the monkeys overdosed. You have no idea how hard it is to give CPR to plastic.

They got entangled in my floss and I don’t even want to know what the hell they did with my toothbrush.

Oh, that is just wrong! Get the hell out of the kitty litter box!

Ok, monkeys! That’s the last straw! No really. That’s the last straw.

I found all 14 monkeys and put them back in the barrel.

It was more fun taking pictures of them than actually playing the game. What’s fun with hooking monkey arms?

In the end, this game was great in 1965. I learned to be more patient, since I was a hyper little urchin.

But, in 2012……

it was great. Well, only if you had a camera and followed them around because there were no freaking instructions in the barrel.

 Where the hell did this blue one come from?

I really did have more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

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Related Blog Posts:

Guinea Pig Children

Mood Rings

Toy Hoarder

MonkeyShines

Candy Cigarettes

Yeah, I’m a Pez Head

The Flying Parcheesi Board

Easy Bake Oven Guilt

Homemade Ant Farm

I Get to Go First

Since the beginning of time, someone always had to go first. “Ladies before gentlemen,” “Age before beauty” and on the Titantic, “Women and children first.”

The same thing is true when you play any kind of game. Someone has to go first. When I was little, I always got away with going first when I played with my brother and sister.

“I’m the oldest. I get to go first.”

End of discussion. They never once told me it was unfair. My mom taught me how to play chess when I was very young because I was hyper and needed to learn how to concentrate and stay on task. Or she just wanted to play chess. But, she always let me go first too. So, in our household, Vickie went first.

Well, once you venture out of your own backyard, the rules change. I couldn’t use “I’m the oldest, I get to go first” because several of my friends were older than me. This put me in a quandary. I was a tad bit OCD to begin with, so there has to be some sort of order to our childhood game madness. Who the hell is going to go first?   What chaos this would ensue. Someone suggested ABC order.  ABC order? First name or last name?  Who gets to choose? It would usually be the person who’s name is Ashley Anderson or something like that.  Um, no. That would put me in the middle. I wanted to be first. Some one then said,

“How about Eeny Meeny Miny Mo?”

Well, that might work. We all stood around in a circle. The person who suggested it, got to start it.  Now, you have to understand that it was the early sixties, and we didn’t know any better. Our chant was taken from a popular version that American school children had been using since the 1880′s.

Eeny meeny miny mo

Catch a nigger by the toe

If he hollers, let him go,

eeny meeny miny mo

A couple years later, out of nowhere, it was changed to “Catch a tiger by the toe”, which makes absolutely no sense. Politically correct, yes, but I guess you wouldn’t catch a black person by the toe either. I would like to know where our parents were and why they didn’t suggest another rhyme. I would cringe if I heard my children chant that. But, again, the 60′s were a different time.  But, back to the tiger fiasco. My friends tried to use tiger with “tail,” but you couldn’t say tail because then it would have to be eeny meeny miny mail, catch a tiger by the tail  or something like that. It would HAVE to rhyme. My OCD raised its ugly head. Rather than argue with me until I won, someone then suggested playing “Rock Paper Scissors.” I balked at the idea. Mainly because I had never heard of it before, so therefore, um…no.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t have to listen to how it is played.  A clenched fist means “rock.”  Two fingers out means, “scissors.” A flat hand means “paper.” Apparently on the count of three, you put one of them out in front of you with your opponent.

The objective is to select a gesture which beats that of your opponent:

• Rock breaks scissors, so rock would win.
• Scissors cut paper: scissors defeats paper.
• Paper covers or captures rock: paper beats rock

I had only one response, mainly because I just didn’t listen. I would never have remembered it. It just didn’t make sense..scissors, rocks, paper.

“That’s stupid.”

That night when I went to bed, I started thinking about ways people can go first. OCD like. My dad and grandpa always had a way to see who goes first: coin tossing. They would simply take a coin out of their pocket and each would yell “heads” or “tails” and then flip the coin. But, they both fooled me for several years with a particular coin tossed they used with me.

“Okay, Vickie.” He’d take the coin out of his pocket. “Heads I win. Tails you lose.” And he would toss the coin. I never ever won. It takes me a while to figure things out.

When my mom and I would play Yahtzee or Bunco, we would roll the die to see who would go first. Highest number on the die would go first. I thought that was fair and square. In Scrabble, the highest number on the tile would go first. One time we had to keep drawing because we kept drawing the same number. Then we switched to whoever drew the letter that came closest to the front of the alphabet. That worked better.

A much longer way to choose who goes first is by playing “One Potato.”

One potato

Two potatoes

Three potatoes

Four!
Five potatoes

Six potatoes

Seven potatoes

More!

We would stand in a circle and hold our fists thumbs up in front of us. The leader would hit her fist on each of our fists while chanting.  If she hit your fist while she said, “More,” you would be out. This took forever, but elimination games were fun, even if it was to see who went first.

When we played with jacks, we used a method called “flipping” to see who would go first. One would place the jacks in cupped hands, flip them to the back of the hands, then back to cupped hands. The player who holds the most jacks goes first. That person would get to scatter the jacks on the floor and begin play with “onesies.” How did jacks lose its popularity? It was a great game.

In chess, white is supposed to go first. Well, who the hell decides who is white? This could take a while.

In the neighborhood and out at the baseball fields where my brother played Termite baseball, I used to watch the boys use a baseball bat to decide which team bats first. The team captains gripped the bat, starting at the bottom, and took turns climbing hand over hand until one of them ran out of wood, thus deciding whose team batted first. I liked watching that. It would have looked stupid if they did “Eeny meeny miny mo.”

Now that I am in my mid-fifties (sigh), I kinda like the “age before beauty” scenario. But, I guess that would go back to “I get to go first. I’m the oldest.”

So, again, I get my way.

Guinea Pig Children

    With Christmas just around the corner, it reminds me of  the toys and games I received for Christmas when I was young.  The 1960′s and early 197o’s were the decades of  “The Misfit Toys.” 

      I don’t think they had testers back then. If someone invented a toy or game, perhaps the toy manufacturers just packaged it and put it on the shelves. I really think that  if there were toy testers back then, some of them surely would have died. I’m thinking specifically of  my first chemistry set. I can’t find any research on “toy tester deaths.”  I did look. If they would not have perished,  toy testers  would have received brain damage,  an amputated finger, or if not injuries, than stains on their clothing. And on the carpet. And on the couch.  Which piss mothers off to no end. Probably worse than the brain damage. This mother hates glitter. Just thought I would add that because if glitter gets in your eye, you WILL  go blind. For that reason, it is banned in my house.  I know I read that somewhere. You can’t dispute facts. Especially if you make them up.

Anywho,  children got to be “guinea pigs” when the product actually game out.  And of course you know that a “guinea pig”

Gus testing a new product

 is a person  is a person who is subjected to experimental or other observational procedures.  Like children of the 1960′s and early 1970′s. That would include me. I very well may have been one of the “Guinea PigChildren.”   I was, after all, hit in the temple by flying clackers. 

     I loved my Clackers…. until  THE incident. Clackers were popular in the early seventies, when I was about 13-16 years old, perhaps.  Clackers  were  two hard plastic  marbles, (if marbles can be plastic), each about two inches in diameter. They are attached to a ring with a sturdy string. A person  puts their index finger in the ring, allowing the marbles (or balls) to hang below. Through an up-and-down  motion, the two balls swing apart and together, making the clacking noise that give the crazy toy its name. With practice, it is possible to get the marbles swinging so that they ”clack” together above and  below the hand.

     Clackers were discontinued because children were being injured. I continuously hurt my fingers while honing my clacker craft. Not all children follow rules. They also made an excellent weapon. If you swing them over your head, and let them go, they could fly across the room and either hit or strangle a kid…. Or a poodle. I read that cave men used Clackers. Or bola’s, as the South American gaucho called them. (See, I do research). I heard that if struck too hard, the acrylic balls could shatter, with flying consequences. I became really good at clackers. I could hit them above and below. I was the Crystal Lane Clacker Queen.  Self-imposed title, perhaps, but queen, nontheless. 

Clack...clack....crack

One day, several of us were “clacking”, and mine flew across the room and knocked over a glass of water that was on the coffee table, which in turn, spilled the water, which then flowed  into my mom’s pack of Salem cigarettes. I guess water-logged cigarettes aren’t easy to light. I tried to get one out of the pack and it just wilted in half. So, I put it back in there. We were done clacking for the day. My sister told on me and off to my room I went. When I came out, my Clackers were gone.  Damn….

  I really don’t know what the fascination was with Clackers. You didn’t win anything. You didn’t have a high score. But, you could be timed to see how long you could “clack.”  Time clackers, so to speak.  Maybe it was a lesson in eye-hand coordination.

 I really think that I could have been a ninja assassin with my clacking skills. But, I preferred to grow up and become a teacher.

Same thing.

______________________________________________________

Play Time

The problem with kids today (I sound like an old person who walked 2 miles every day to school with cardboard in my shoes) is that they aren’t creative.  They don’t know how to play. Years ago, little boys would play cowboys and indians. Cops and robbers. One is the good guy, one is the bad guy. You would run around and chase each other, scream like a banshee, and it was fun.  Girls would play house. They would put on a babushka and sweep the floor. Talk about what they were going to fix for supper and what a loser their husbands were. (Well, maybe some talked about that.)  They would have tea parties. Even play with Barbie dolls, or in my case, trolls. You used your imagination to create a time and place and characters. It was fun. Especially playing Doctor. Or so I have heard.

Video games have taken away creative play. The kids sit like zombies, working the controls, excited if they blew up the right thing. There are different levels and the higher you go, the more your brain becomes mush. I know they say that if  improves eye-hand coordination. Well, so does double jump roping. Get out there, chubby brain-mushed kid and jump around. I think that if you took two 9 year old video game addicts outside and handed them a white cowboy hat and a black cowboy hat and told them to play, they would look at you like you had 3 eyes. And then go into withdrawl from not being able to finish their level of the game they were playing.

My mom would lose her mind if we stayed in the house all day.  Even if we were mute. It didn’t matter. We were there.  She would hate video games. We had Pong. So, we entertained ourselves. For one, we went through a period where we made prank telephone calls. Can’t do that anymore because of caller ID. We made so many prank calls. I remember one in particular where I called some random number  and as Random guy would say I had the wrong number ,I would cry ,because it was my last dime and my daddy forgot to come get me and it is very scary and then I would say in a whisper, “Oh, no…someone is coming…please help me and call my daddy. My number is 723-…” and then I would muffle the rest of the number and hang up..like some boogie man got the kid……..I’m just rotten to the core.  One day my mom came downstairs, furious. This was going to be another Joan Crawford moment for sure. She couldn’t even look at us and just said, “Ramaine, go home.” and then proceeded to clean the phone with a wet cloth. Clean the phone??  “You will never make prank phone calls again. Do you understand me?  The operator just called me and told me that you were making prank phone calls.  She may call the police. Do you want to go to jail, Vickie?”………..I am cleaning the phone because you have a dirty mouth……..I know you brush your teeth, Vickie. But, you know what I mean……Go to your room, Vickie………..The operator did so just call me……………Go to your room,Vickie…………It only rang one time and it rang upstairs, not down here………….I was right by the phone when it rang………..What do you mean I never stand by the phone?…………Get to your room, Vickie……..The operator said you were making prank calls to people……………..I don’t know to who, Vickie, why don’t you tell me?…………….What do you mean it was Cheryl.  Your sister is not even here……..

I never made another prank call again. I really thought the telephone operator called. I found out later that my mom just happened to over hear our most recent prank and decided to scare me into stopping them.  They were creative, though, I have to admit. But, what goes around comes around. My son made one that surpassed anything Ramaine and I ever did. I will have to save that one for later. t was brilliant. I was quietly proud of his creativity.

Speaking of my sister, we even made the bathtub our playground. When we were pretty young and still took a bath together, we would use the ugly sliding doors with the swans etched in the doors and slide them so she could stick her head out at the front and I could at the back. We would go through about 10 washcloths and play neighbors and called the whole nightly role-playing event, “Mabel and Ethel.”  We were always water logged. My mom must have used that time to smoke another pack of cigarettes. She never checked on us. We would use so much water in the bathtub and that bubble bath soap that came in a Sylvester or Tweety Pie bottle.

We also made a cabin in the woods across the street where we lived. Those days were saved for summer. Well, I guess that just makes sense…duh.. It really wasn’t a built cabin, more like cleared out areas between little trees that we imagined was a cabin. We were very creative. Kids younger than us wanted to hang out in our cabin. So, they were more than happy to do a lot of the weeding…of what was most likely poison ivy. And soon we even had a bigger cabin.. So, we fed them little pears with sprinkles of dirt on them, like pepper to the little neighbor children. Whatever was edible, the little kids ate, because we were nice enough to invite them into our cabin and fix them supper. I am so going to hell.

We also had a band. I think I was about 12 or 13 when we did this. It was called Carnival Kazoo. (I have no idea why I remember this.) Our first song was titled, “Catastrophe in A Minor.”  I had a little organ on four legs. Someone played that. I played the Tupperware. My brother David had a guitar. Ramaine and her brother Bucky were in the band also. I think we only did this for one day. But, we had fun and it was creative. Meanwhile, the nutcase boy, Eddy, who lived a couple doors down was being creative also, throwing bricks at little kids. But, hey, he was outside, getting some fresh air. He was more of a danger than the German Shepard police dog, Max, that bit kids left and right when it got lose. Max was the meanest dog alive.

When it rained, we would usually go downstairs in the rec room and play ping-pong or perform our most creative role-playing game ever.

Yes, thats right. We played Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan.

Most of the time I was Helen. I would keep my eyes open and look up, and feel my way around the ping-pong table.  Hunting for my teacher, Annie Sullivan, who was usually Ramaine. I can’t even believe I am talking about this. Anywho, Annie would spell letters in my hand, and she would take my hand and put it against hercheck and shake her head yes, like I understood.  Just like in the movie. We were such weird-o’s. And we were small, so I just think we were just so far advanced for our ages. That, or we had some mental issues that needed dealt with.

I now have an inner ear disorder called Meniere’s Disease, which is marked by progressive hearing loss.  Karma, Vickie, Karma.

I guess my point that I am trying to make is that if you are a parent, take a look and see where your kids are. If they are playing video games, shut it off, drag their little mushy brains  off of the couch, and…..

show them how to make prank phone calls.

Red Rover, Red Rover, Let’s Mow Vickie Over

Ever wake up and see a clown sitting on the edge of your bed?  Pretty scary, right?  Well, that’s how I felt when someone mentioned playing  Red Rover.  I hated when we played that game when I was little. I mean, who invented this horrible little game? I’m thinking some German woman weightlifter named Olga.  It was bad enough that I had to sing about the plague with “Ring a round the Rosie”,  now I had to get a knot in my stomach every time Red Rover was mentioned.

“Oh, Dear God, Bozo, they want to play Red Rover today. What would you do?”

Future Bully Loser

First of all, no one wanted me on their team.  Remember, I was anorexic skinny.  The other team loved not having me on their team, because they knew I was the weakest link. They didn’t even need to whisper, “Run through Vickie”…..or… “See that girl, the one with the shaking knees and…wait, ok, she was standing sideways,..anyway, see that girl with just a little bit of skin on her bones?… Yeah, the one who is crying…. She will let go of  Lee Ann’s  hand every time. Run at her!”

Now,you have to understand, I wasn’t bad at outdoor games. I was awesome at kickball. I didn’t have much power in the kick, mind you, but I could run.  I ran like a deer. A graceful anorexic deer. We played kickball in my neighborhood all of the time. In the street beside my house. I played Duck Duck Goose. (I’m laughing out loud at that one right now)… Mother May-I?…Freeze Tag….Red Light, Green Light….Hopscotch…Colored Eggs…..Do I need to go on?  Ok, I will.  Drop the Hankerchief….Hot Potato…Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?….Chinese Jump Rope (made mine with a bunch of rubber bands)…Ok, done..Wait..I really liked singing The Farmer in the Dell, but damnit, never got to be the cheese, standing alone….I remember one time when it was getting late, we started playing  Hide and Go Seek, and had Monica be it. We told her to count to 100 so we could find a great place to hide, and then we all went home..Yeah, that was my idea.

We would play outside all day long. We had to. Our moms kicked us out of the house. If we stayed in the house, we had to fold towels and do chores. We had freedom outside. The only times we ran in the house was to pee and to get money for the ice cream man. When we were very little, the whole neighborhood was pissed off at my mom because she called the ice cream trucks company and told them that the truck came when “her children” were taking a nap. How dare that ice cream truck. So, they came after dinner until we got older and didn’t take naps. What kind of pull did that woman have to get them to adjust their arrival times..Wow, what a witch…Anyway, the ice cream man came later…sigh…not when you were playing and it was hot, but after dinner, which  was not as gratifying. Thank goodness I was fairly liked by my friends, or they would be doing much worse things to me than trying to break my arm with Red Rover.

For any of you who have been living  in a bubble and have never experienced the painful game of Red Rover, let me tell you the rules. You get two lines of kids that don’t have anything else to do but inflict pain on each other, make them hold hands  and then you take turns calling someone over. “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Vickie over”  That person runs like hell and tries to break all the bones in your arm as the person you are holding hands with has a death grip on your hand and won’t let go.  And you know damn well they will try to run off-center and concentrate on Brittle Girl.  Every time.

In the end, all games foster cooperation and teamwork, teach social skills and help develop coordination for those who walk funny.

But, call me crazy, but I think Red Rover was a game for losers…..Yeah, that’s right….. Future loser bullies. Because it was those loser bullies who were the first to also want to play Dodge Ball.

Don’t even get me started on that brain-damage-inducing game.