One thing I’m really missing during this pandemic is game night with my friend Nancy and her husband Paul. I love word games, so prior to Covid-19, we used to get together once a month to play our favorites, which included Upwords and Scattergories.
Upwords is like Scrabble on steroids, but Scattergories, is just plain crazy. My stomach always hurt from laughing so hard while playing it.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Scattergories, it involves rolling a giant die with letters printed on it, and whichever letter comes up, that’s the letter you have to use to start every answer on a list of questions in categories such as food, actors, colors, songs and more. The fun part is you have to rush against the timer, so you don’t have the luxury of taking a lot of time to think of answers. Part of the craziness is whether your answers are accepted by your opponents or not. If not, you don’t get any points for it. Also, if your answer matches someone else’s, neither player gets a point. So it pays to be as creative as possible. That way, your answer has less of a chance of being duplicated.
For example, “Name a state capital that starts with the letter P.”
All three of us wrote down Portland. Well, I now know that that the capital of Maine is Augusta and the capital of Oregon is Salem, but we didn’t know the difference back then. We were certain that Portland had to be a capital somewhere. It didn’t matter anyway, because all of our answers matched, so no one got any points.
But now, because I’ve had so much spare time during the pandemic, I’ve made a point of memorizing all of the state capitals, so I’m all set for when we play again. There actually are three state capitals that begin with the letter P: Phoenix. Pierre and Providence. But nope, no Portland.
Paul always managed to get points for sheer creativity, however. He wanted to make certain we wouldn’t match his answers, and believe me, we rarely did . For example, in answer to “A reason for being late for work” that started with a G, he wrote down “gallbladder.”
Nancy and I burst out laughing. We, however, accepted his answer...mainly for originality, if nothing else.
Or, “Something you see at a theme park,” starting with the letter P. Nancy wrote “prizes” and I wrote “popcorn.” Paul wrote “puking.”
“An occupation starting with the letter S.” I wrote “secretary,” Nancy wrote “scientist” and Paul wrote “stripper.”
There were plenty of times, however, when we came up blank, such as when we were supposed to name a state that started with the letter B, or a pizza topping that began with the letter I. Paul wrote down “ice cream,” saying it was a dessert pizza, but we didn’t accept that one. My answer of “iodized salt” wasn’t considered a topping, either. Later, Nancy thought of Italian sausage, but by then, which was the next day, it was just a little too late.
If you are able to use two words that go together, you can get double the points for it, so we always tried to do that, too. If the game asked, for example, for a cartoon character that started with an M, we’d write Mickey Mouse or Mighty Mouse to get the double points.
Once again, Paul put his creativity to use. For “things you pack in a suitcase,” starting with the letter J, I answered, “jacket,” Nancy wrote “jeans,” and Paul wrote “jeweled jockstrap.”
We gave him the double points.
You know, maybe it’s not so much the games themselves that I miss…it’s laughing at Paul’s answers.
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Sally Breslin is
an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for
newspapers and magazines for most of her adult life. She is the author of several
novels, including: “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and
“Inside the Blue Cube.” Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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