I made the grave mistake of reading this during lunch. Somehow I managed not to spit food all over my monitors and keyboard. Thanks for the much needed laughs!
1) Can you write a newsletter where you review games and make recommendations? Bonus points if the reccos help us know what ages the games most appeal to (e.g., “Waffle-level”, “Betsy-level”, or “save this one for the drinking crowd after the kids have gone to sleep”)
2) This newsletter, or similar stories, is what you MUST draw from for your stand-up gig. Other than pig stories, I think your excursions with family (or friends) (and the way you tell them) are some of your best material. It helps when Star Wars is involved.
Our family's go-to board games were Monopoly, Rail Barons, Clue, and occasionally Risk.
When we were very early teens, my parents left my brother and me with two of our eldery aunts in their Brooklyn brownstone for the afternoon whilst our parents went off Doing Something (I've never been able to remember what). I suspect the reason I've never bothered to remember is due to the game we learned that day.
Wondering how to keep entertained two twelve or so young boys, our great-aunts, Carol and Phemia (pronounced Fame'y, btw, short for Euphemia), asked if we were aware of a card game of sorts called Pit. We had not.
The deck is made up of several nine-card suits of commodities, each of which having a single value (the highest being wheat, at 100 points, Barley, Rye, Corn, and Oats having lesser suit values). The object is to acquire all nine cards in a suit, at which point the value of that commodity goes to the winner of that round. The "Pit" refers to the Stock Exchange.
The trick is to acquire the cards, one just trades with the other players, offering one to three cards at a time, Sight Unseen: you hold out the cards face down: you can trade with anyone else offering the same account of cards, and once traded, you see which commodity players are discarded by others. It's less convoluted when actually playing.
But half a century later, the one thing my brother and I still quote from that day, just as we went to start the first round, was Phemia pleasantly saying, "Now remember... no screaming..."
Turns out, there is *never* No Screaming in playing Pit; I'd posit some game-prophet foresaw your daughters, and designed it for them...
I totally get the Garfield reference. I threaten to ship my friends cat off to Abu Dhabi every time I house sit for them. As for games do you have King of Tokyo? I think your girls would love it
Nice to know Scrabble is serious business in another family. My grandma was the hardest person to beat and I felt like a grown up whenever I won against her. We played every weekend and even though she never finished 9th grade, she was the toughest competition until I was a teen. Now I’m the toughest competition and no one wants to play against me. :( I wish my family would do more board games!
Well your 4th of July family revelations were much less life-altering and disturbing than mine at least!
I found out that my younger sister has a 4 inch tear in her rectum, compliments of the kid she popped out nearly 7 months ago (and my family wonders why at 34 and married, I still have zero interest in doing so myself) and that was by far the least disruptive revelation of the weekend.
I also learned that the reason my parents have been strongly discouraging us from doing any of the popular genetics testing kits (23 & Me, Ancestry, etc.) is because they’re legitimately concerned we may have a multitude of half-siblings running around out there somewhere as my dad used to use a fake name when he hooked up with random women before he met my mom. Apparently they don’t actually want to know how bad things might actually be. Ignorance is bliss? But if that were really the case, they shouldn't have gotten drunk and spilled the beans. I thought I’d lost the ability to single-handedly implode their lives somewhere in my mid-20’s, but they’ve just handed me the most perfect family hand grenade if there ever was one!
Finally, after voicing my serious displeasure with SCOTUS to my very conservative, right-wing family,my tipsy, and at that point extremely emotional mother revealed to me that she had an abortion at 17, after her boyfriend was forced to move across the country with his family and she then found out she was pregnant. Since her own parents were divorced and her mother was basically MIA and shacked up with a revolving door of losers while she tried to raise her two younger sisters, she panicked. As an incredibly sensitive and also perennially guilt-ridden Christian who has spent nearly my entire life believing God was going to smite me down for her sins, she claims it is still her biggest regret nearly 40 years later, and the reason why she opposes abortion. So that was a supremely fun conversation to have, since she’s never been able to grasp that her trauma-induced sensitivity is not necessarily characteristic of every other woman on the planet.
Basically I learned that my mom spent my entire childhood terrified and also has serious projection and codependency issues and should probably get some therapy immediately. She’s gonna need it for when I reveal my two dozen newfound siblings!
I made the grave mistake of reading this during lunch. Somehow I managed not to spit food all over my monitors and keyboard. Thanks for the much needed laughs!
My only goal in life is to cause a choking hazard for others.
Two comments:
1) Can you write a newsletter where you review games and make recommendations? Bonus points if the reccos help us know what ages the games most appeal to (e.g., “Waffle-level”, “Betsy-level”, or “save this one for the drinking crowd after the kids have gone to sleep”)
2) This newsletter, or similar stories, is what you MUST draw from for your stand-up gig. Other than pig stories, I think your excursions with family (or friends) (and the way you tell them) are some of your best material. It helps when Star Wars is involved.
I totally got the Garfield reference... so who's the other person who did?
Me
I still make that Garfield reference from time to time!
Our family's go-to board games were Monopoly, Rail Barons, Clue, and occasionally Risk.
When we were very early teens, my parents left my brother and me with two of our eldery aunts in their Brooklyn brownstone for the afternoon whilst our parents went off Doing Something (I've never been able to remember what). I suspect the reason I've never bothered to remember is due to the game we learned that day.
Wondering how to keep entertained two twelve or so young boys, our great-aunts, Carol and Phemia (pronounced Fame'y, btw, short for Euphemia), asked if we were aware of a card game of sorts called Pit. We had not.
The deck is made up of several nine-card suits of commodities, each of which having a single value (the highest being wheat, at 100 points, Barley, Rye, Corn, and Oats having lesser suit values). The object is to acquire all nine cards in a suit, at which point the value of that commodity goes to the winner of that round. The "Pit" refers to the Stock Exchange.
The trick is to acquire the cards, one just trades with the other players, offering one to three cards at a time, Sight Unseen: you hold out the cards face down: you can trade with anyone else offering the same account of cards, and once traded, you see which commodity players are discarded by others. It's less convoluted when actually playing.
But half a century later, the one thing my brother and I still quote from that day, just as we went to start the first round, was Phemia pleasantly saying, "Now remember... no screaming..."
Turns out, there is *never* No Screaming in playing Pit; I'd posit some game-prophet foresaw your daughters, and designed it for them...
😉
Lara and Larry Skywalker are the funniest thing ever, thanks! 😂 lol
I love the stories that come out when alcohol is flowing, it's like spending an evening in a room with perfect strangers.
And he can take the Kessel St. exit at 60 mph!
His Chevy gets 22 parsecs per gallon.
I got the Garfield reference. +1 to you.
I should have listened to this instead of reading it. Maybe I’ll go back and listen as I want to hear those sounds. Love your stories!
I totally get the Garfield reference. I threaten to ship my friends cat off to Abu Dhabi every time I house sit for them. As for games do you have King of Tokyo? I think your girls would love it
I have that, and it made my 10-year-old cry when she lost. We need to work on sportsmanship.
My 50 year old brother still gets pouty when he loses lol
Nice to know Scrabble is serious business in another family. My grandma was the hardest person to beat and I felt like a grown up whenever I won against her. We played every weekend and even though she never finished 9th grade, she was the toughest competition until I was a teen. Now I’m the toughest competition and no one wants to play against me. :( I wish my family would do more board games!
Well your 4th of July family revelations were much less life-altering and disturbing than mine at least!
I found out that my younger sister has a 4 inch tear in her rectum, compliments of the kid she popped out nearly 7 months ago (and my family wonders why at 34 and married, I still have zero interest in doing so myself) and that was by far the least disruptive revelation of the weekend.
I also learned that the reason my parents have been strongly discouraging us from doing any of the popular genetics testing kits (23 & Me, Ancestry, etc.) is because they’re legitimately concerned we may have a multitude of half-siblings running around out there somewhere as my dad used to use a fake name when he hooked up with random women before he met my mom. Apparently they don’t actually want to know how bad things might actually be. Ignorance is bliss? But if that were really the case, they shouldn't have gotten drunk and spilled the beans. I thought I’d lost the ability to single-handedly implode their lives somewhere in my mid-20’s, but they’ve just handed me the most perfect family hand grenade if there ever was one!
Finally, after voicing my serious displeasure with SCOTUS to my very conservative, right-wing family,my tipsy, and at that point extremely emotional mother revealed to me that she had an abortion at 17, after her boyfriend was forced to move across the country with his family and she then found out she was pregnant. Since her own parents were divorced and her mother was basically MIA and shacked up with a revolving door of losers while she tried to raise her two younger sisters, she panicked. As an incredibly sensitive and also perennially guilt-ridden Christian who has spent nearly my entire life believing God was going to smite me down for her sins, she claims it is still her biggest regret nearly 40 years later, and the reason why she opposes abortion. So that was a supremely fun conversation to have, since she’s never been able to grasp that her trauma-induced sensitivity is not necessarily characteristic of every other woman on the planet.
Basically I learned that my mom spent my entire childhood terrified and also has serious projection and codependency issues and should probably get some therapy immediately. She’s gonna need it for when I reveal my two dozen newfound siblings!