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December 19, 2007

New Rules

It has been quite a week. Last Friday in Baltimore, there was a bowling baby shower for our friend Courtney, who is due in about two weeks.

Matt Westbrook of the democratic Westbrook family was there.

Courtney, the guest of honor was employing untraditional bowling technique.

Scott, the man responsible for her Courtney's current predicament, had an interesting shirt that seemed to be written in Martian.

But further investigation revealed the true meaning of the shirt's message.

As soon as Scott discovered what his shirt actually said, he took it off immediately. But I'm not going to show that here.

Courtney opened her presents, one of the necessary evils of baby showers.

Fortunately, there was also duckpin bowling. My team lost in the semifinals, but won the consolation game.

Later, we went over to friend Beth Duncan's house for a sleepover with Beth and Supi Loco.

We thought about doing our nails. I have for some time now been trying to persuade Beth to give me a pedicure, but for some inexplicable reason, she continues to resist. So instead we gave Supi and Beth their Christmas presents.

Those of you who don't know Supi probably aren't aware of her intense love of pirates. Hence, the pirate launcher we gave her.

She really loves Scooter, her cat, hence the crazy cat lady figurine.

Beth got the "Naked Men in Oven Mitts" refrigerator magnets, but Supi immediately snatched them away from her and demanded them for herself.

Beth finally got Supi to give the magnets back by offering this snow shovel in exchange.

The next morning, I continued my love affair with Spud.

Robbi and Beth ate oatmeal.

At one point, Iggy and Spud exchanged conspiratorial whispers.

I wonder now if whatever they discussed had something to do with Spud's new rain slicker.

Later that afternoon, our friend David arrived on the train. We picked him up and brought him to Chestertown for a short visit. On Sunday, David and I drove back to Baltimore to hang out with Christian and Rich Flynn, who is awesome.

For a long time now, my friends and I have enjoyed playing Uno. We play Uno with an uncommon passion, for uncommonly long stretches of time, and with some rather uncommon ritual components. For example, we don't play to see who wins. We play to see who loses. Getting rid of one's cards first, usually the point of Uno, bears no special distinction in our version. Nor does going out second. But going out third, providing one is playing with four persons, as was the case last Sunday, is everything. For, by finishing third, one avoids being the "Big Loser." The "Big Loser" is he who is left with cards in his hand when all of the other players are done. The "Big Loser" has to hold the losing card against his forehead and endure the utter humiliation of his "friends" pointing at him vigorously, shouting "Big Loser, Big Loser, Big Loser, Big Loser." There are exactly four utterances of the phrase, "Big Loser," no more and no less. And after the fourth "Big Loser," everyone claps for the big loser while saying "Yeah!", thus rebuilding his shattered self-confidence and preparing him to play another game. Does this sound childish? Trust me when I say that it is not. It's actually quite wonderful.

On Sunday, David was the first Big Loser of the evening.

He took it well, poor fellow.

Then Chris got unlucky, and was named Big Loser.

Then Rich was the Big Loser. Then David again. Then Rich again. Everyone was the Big Loser but me. I started gloating about my Uno prowess, confidently predicting that I would never be Big Loser.

Sometimes such hubris has a way of kicking one in the teeth.

After a while, we got adventurous, frisky even, and started proposing new rules. For example, we decided that instead of placing an 8 on an 8, one could place two 4s of the same color on the 8 instead. Or two 2s and one 4 of the same color. And so on. You get the picture. We decided to name instances of this phenomenon a "Magoo."

Why?

I cannot say. But, believe me when I tell you that we were so taken with the Magoo that we decided that it should be the namesake of a whole new game.

Further, we decided that in the game of Maggo whenever a player accumulates any three of the same kind of card, of any color, he may use one of his turns to hand the entire pile of three to any other player.

Further, if any four of the same kind of card were played in succession (regardless of color), those four cards were placed to the side, forming a pot of cards that the first player to "go out" would be forced to add to his hand.

We kept adding new rules like these, dizzying ourselves with the complexity, but driving ourselves into ever higher bands of hilarity.

I am lucky have some very good friends.

When the evening wound down and Rich was forced to drive back to New Jersey and Christian was forced to go to bed, David drafted the "Constigootion" of Magoo, which will be posted here soon, as soon as debate by the rules committee has ended. Magoo is a very nuanced game. I would hate to ruin its inevitable debut upon the world scene with less than perfect explanatory documentation.

Posted by bogenamp at December 19, 2007 07:01 PM

Comments

Posted by: Jessica at December 21, 2007 12:29 AM