...for a different kind of girl

silent surburban girl releasing her voice, not yet knowing what all she wants to say about her life and the things that make it spin. do you have to be 18 to be here? you'll know when i know.

Monday, November 05, 2007

the first rule of Guess the Letter is make me crazy

Saturday afternoon and it's game on at my house.

Literally.

Oh, how I do love games!

As irony would have it, I'm apparently raising two boys who refuse to follow the rules. Me. The girl who knows the rules. Oh, you better believe I do. Though, admittedly, the unwritten ones really kind of screw me up. Then screw me over. Whatever. That's not the point here.

The point here is that my sons are anarchists. Jolly good. Apparently, they're also bored. I suppose being bored + living by their own rules = anarchy. I could be wrong, but go with me here.

Saturday afternoon, I listened in as my youngest created a never ending game of "Guess The Letter."

What's the gist of "Guess the Letter"? Glad you asked. Read the name of the game again. "Guess the Letter." See! That's it. The name is the game AND the rules! So simple a five year old could create it!

Which he did. Patent pending.

Laying upside down upon the couch (defying a rule I have about how to treat the furniture, btw), my youngest pulled individual cards from a deck of standard playing cards and yelled, "It's a letter of the alphabet! GO!" to my oldest son, who was blobbed out on the floor playing some game on the PS2 (I also have a rule about daytime video game playing, but honestly, by Saturday, it was a long weekend already and I'd have done just about anything for a moment of peace. Yeah, so that worked out well).

So my oldest son began yelling out random letters.

"A"

"Nope. Try another!"

"B"

"Nope. Try another!"

"C"

"Nope. Try another!"

"D"

"Nope. Try another!"

"E"

"Nope. Try another!"

"F"

"Nope. Try another!"

You see where this first round is going, right? Through the entire alphabet. Yep. Until my youngest son decided that the six of spades he was clutching to his chest was actually the letter Y. Twenty-five calls and responses. Woo hoo! That was fun! Let's play again! Mom, do you want to get in on this? Sigh.

Round two found my oldest son trying to foolishly trick the card wizard by starting the guessing with the letter B. Tricky. Very tricky. When he would lock onto the winning card (round 2 went to the letter V. Lucky V), my youngest would award him random points. My oldest boosted his round 1 winnings from 12 points to 300,015 in the second round.

Yeah. I don't get it either. Probably because there might have been some shady math involved, and, honestly, I know from experience that guys have a tendency to start twisting the rules around halfway through games and the whole "making up their own rules" thing just kind of slays me, so I started to tune out by the time round 4 was starting and I was all "Seriously?! You're really going to start the guessing with D?"

So that was my weekend. Part of it anyway. Don't be jealous, y'all. And don't go stealing this game idea, btw. Because I trust you, anonymous people inside my computer, and I just may market this idea and make a killing in time for the holidays.

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15 Comments:

Blogger Nature Girl said...

Oh the joys of the invented games and rules! LOL...
Nowadays, it's me that invents the games and rules around here.
"I know boys! Let's play a game called empty the dishwasher, and fold the laundry, you start. Here are the rules. If it's not done in 15 minutes, I collect all cell phones and hold them till the end of the week. If it's not done in 20 minutes, all remotes are mine for the rest of the week, if it's not done in a half an hour, you spend the rest of the week in your room."

Nobody ever wants to play this game, but I insist. It the beauty of being the one who invented the rules, I get to say who plays and who doesn't. Take notes DKOG, one day you will have teenage boys....
:)

Monday, November 05, 2007 9:09:00 AM  
Blogger cat said...

Bwahahahahahhaaaa!!!

Awesome pointage in the second round though. Kudos to your eldest son!

Monday, November 05, 2007 12:46:00 PM  
Blogger Nanette said...

"Cards with the 'tards!"

Sorry, couldn't resist (you know I don't think you or your angels are tards).

I'm thinking of a word, go ahead, try to guess the word. :)

gmonbb

Monday, November 05, 2007 1:54:00 PM  
Blogger FTN said...

P? Was it P?

I can't believe you didn't get in on the game. I would have been all over that.

Monday, November 05, 2007 2:55:00 PM  
Blogger Mandy Lou said...

How did it even get to a second round - I would have been beating my head against a wall! Of course this might explain why we don't have kids...

Monday, November 05, 2007 3:37:00 PM  
Blogger 1blueshi1 said...

and to think I made my kids clean out my car, vaccuum, and wash it...when I could have been playing The Game Instead!
Don't hate me because...I'm driving a clean car.

Monday, November 05, 2007 7:13:00 PM  
Blogger Sailor said...

I'm laughing so hard, I remember so many, many hours in the car, on rainy days, when the kids were entertaining one another in just such a fashion.

Thank god, they're past that stage. (mostly).

Monday, November 05, 2007 9:41:00 PM  
Blogger Desmond Jones said...

The five-year-old version of the 'knock-knock joke' is another classic of the genre:

"Knock knock"

"Who's there?"

"Yogi Bear"

"Yogi Bear who?"

"YOGI BEAR IN HIS UNDERWEAR! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!"

And that's just the first verse. After that, it becomes a race to see who can think of the most people, with the funniest names, knocking on our door in their underwear. Except the five-year-old is the only one in the race. Good, good times there. . .

Tuesday, November 06, 2007 9:36:00 AM  
Blogger Michael said...

I would have played, but guessed letters from an *alien* alphabet... that's how you twist the rules to your own advantage! ;-)

Tuesday, November 06, 2007 2:38:00 PM  
Blogger Desmond Jones said...

Oooh! I like Michael's idea - let's play Guess the Greek Letter, or Guess the Russian Letter! Or Hebrew, or Arabic, or Ancient Norse Runes! And wouldn't it be even more fun if we included Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters? To say nothing of Klingon, or any other version of 'Made-Up-Alphabets-From-Other-Planets'. . .

Tuesday, November 06, 2007 3:34:00 PM  
Blogger for a different kind of girl said...

Stacie - One day, having played the world's worst invented game and by it's bizarre and ever-changing rules, I shall be able to write a book on the ways of these things!

Thanks for scaring me with the teenagers things, too, btw. As if my 10 year old's attitude wasn't already making me question his arrival into the teen years!

Cat - Evenutally, the dude figured out the dealer's system. Brought down the house. We're quietly observing him.

Nan - The word is "awesome." What do I win?!

(there was a moment when I considered that quote to be the post title. Had I not used it before...)

FTN - Final round went to the lucky letter Q!! So close! You win a year's supply of Turtle Wax. Thanks for playing!

Mandy Lou - I confess the first round may have gone over well because part of me was charmed because they were entertaining themselves. So that allowed the second round to slip in. By the 12th, I was about done...

1blueshi1 - Here's me, making notes for how the boys will be spending the upcoming weekend...

Sailor - Cripes, the car games. The insanity! Yes, the car games are way above the madness that are card games.

Desmond - For the past month, the five year old and I have been doing this. I present to you a brief recreation:

Me: "You need to brush your teeth now."

Him: "What do you find on a haunted beach?"

Me: "I have no idea."

Pause. Nothing. Seriously.

Me: "Well then. Ok, listen. We need to get ready for bed now."

Him: "What do you find on a haunted beach?"

Me: "I have no idea."

Him: "A sand witch!!"

Me: "Ha Ha. Hilarious!

Me: "Time to go to bed now. Find your teddy bear."

Him: "What do you find on a haunted beach?"

You see where this is going....good times!

Michael - That's a smashing idea, and thus is one I left to my husband. I tried responding in Spanish, and they didn't dig that as much.

Desmond - A great idea indeed, but wow! Now I feel a little lacking since I can only fake it half way through the alphabet in Spanish...

Wednesday, November 07, 2007 7:54:00 AM  
Blogger FTN said...

I'm stealing that sand witch joke to use at my next standup routine.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007 8:17:00 AM  
Blogger Desmond Jones said...

And you should be very afraid to ever read yer 5-yr-old Dr Seuss' 'On Beyond Zebra'. . .

Because most people stop at the Z. . . but not he!

Wednesday, November 07, 2007 9:52:00 AM  
Blogger for a different kind of girl said...

FTN - Take it. Please. (rim shot)

I tried to convince them to use the cute elephant trunk joke you foisted on me last year, but sadly - and quite oddly - genital humor is lost on the young.

Desmond - As luck would have it, we read an alphabet book last night. You should really hear me make the alphabet more colorful and dramatic! I've seen that Dr. Seuss book, but no way am I going to contribute anymore alphabet shenanigans in this house!

Thursday, November 08, 2007 8:59:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your post took me back to all those lovely, curious and innocent days... I'm especially giggling over the "haunted beach" joke. Priceless!

Friday, November 09, 2007 7:02:00 AM  

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