This past weekend Bossy attended her annual block party, where she made a sport out of the buffet table while others wrapped their minds around more challenging things.
What is it about summer that makes Bossy want to recommit to games? In Bossy’s childhood, summer was a time for doing puzzles and playing marathon games of monopoly, but in Bossy’s adult life, it’s all about the cards.
Bossy can sum up her summer games experience this way: Does a flush beat a straight and pass the wine.
Which is what today’s Ten-Word Challenge is all about. In exactly ten words, can you tell Bossy about a game you equate with summer?
And be sure to check back later today for the gamest comments on the web.
Click here to see last week’s ten-word challenge where Bossy’s council shared ten-word facts about the history of the house or town where they live.
Do physical games count? If so, it’s “hit the bat”.
Kick the Can until the fireflies came out to play.
Ghost in the Graveyard. But now I pee my pants.
Not until college. Oh, you said “gamest”. Never mind.
Cribbage and Yahtzee marathons at camp in the Maine woods.
And hello, squatting man in gray t-shirt playing chess! Will you be my friend?
a flush beats a straight .. even though in MY opinion a straight should beat a flush .. or the other way around.
please dont talk about cards between the hours of 8-5 mon-fri .. because if you do .. Madness will walk out on her job and drive straight to the nearest casino .. because she has PROBLEMS like that.
Backyard kick-the-can while our parents talked on the porch swings.
Marathon softball in a lot full of boulders and shrubs.
Poker on a picnic table, a jug full of pennies.
“While you’re up game.” Honey, while you’re up, would you?”
5-card stud poker, with potato “chips”, grandpa taught us.
Ghosts in the graveyard, the source of many scabby knees.
anything outside with neighborhood kids, until mom rang the cowbell
I love Backgammon, summer, fall , winter and spring.
Please please please please please please please please play Clue?
Perpetually wondering if maybe there aren’t some missing puzzle pieces.
How’s it possible that game of War lasted that long?
Well, not summer, but extreme leisure. I remember very, very, very long marathon sessions of Cosmic Encounter at the frat house. And we were playing with the original Eon edition of the game, with all the expansion sets — not the inferior West End edition, the fairly celebrated Mayfair edition or the misbegotten Avalon Hill edition. I have not seen the recently released Fantasy Flight version.
Clue?
Bossy’s Husband, in the Kitchen, with a Knife….
Impossible to play Spoons with friends and not hurt hands.
20Q on road trips – i always won with object “sawhorse”
Marco! Polo! Marco! Polo! Marco! Polo! Marco! Polo! Marco! Polo!…
Puzzles are usually completed, currently hiking miles and miles instead
Cousins playing Chinese checkers
Bossy could be bad at sports but Great at frisbee.
Triangle ball on the beach until waves destroy playing field.
After dark Hide and Seek with strictly defined neighborhood boundaries.
Arizona summers, too hot for anything but swimming pool games.
Nighttime badminton in Grandma’s yard. Glowstick in the birdie. Oops.
Badminton played badly in the backyard with all my cousins
Endless games of hearts, booze for parents, cookies for kids.
Cards, cards, cards!: pinochle, spades, canasta, war, slapjack, gin rummy.
–>As kid in the pool shouting MARCO, waiting for POLO!
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Lawn darts when young, but now golf or car racing.
Freddie the Frog gets a lawn dart in the ass.
(not really In the ass, but near. Freddie the Frog was an annoying neighbor kid.)
Beating the pants off my boyfriend in horseshoes. EVERY TIME.
swimming, never-ending bike rides, inside with the street lights.
And I’m with David… I want the man in the gray t-shirt to be my friend too! lol
Canasta! Hours of it daily, while tending the neighbor’s farmstand.
Jarts are totally illegal now but back then they weren’t.
Smear The Queer in my brutal childhood lacking in sensitivity.
Definitely Uno, with crackers and Cheez Wiz in Seaside Heights.
“Bloody Murder” screaming, night, mosquitoes, hide, don’t breathe, RUN!
Learning gin rummy from my dad while down the shore.
Kick the can was played in the cul de sac.
Hours and hours and hours and hours at the pool.
Farkel at the lake, roll the dice, cross your fingers!
Michigan rummy or hearts for hours and hours every evening.
Cribbage at cottage, nighttime Kick the Can, top bunk Clue.
Napping — sounds of baseball on radio, lawnmower droning. That count?
Hide’n’seek. Catching fireflies. 10 rows into cornfield limit. Ah childhood!
Roll the dice
Yahtzee!
Gloat, run victory lap
Win game!
Speed. Kick husband’s ass. Best two out of three wins.
Kick the can on balming Virginia evening with my cousins!
Sweaty neighbor kids running. Lightning bugs. Dark. Not yet, Mom!
Being young & kissing boys in the dark (Kick the Can)
Bossy, why no chairs at most of those game tables?
Games played in the middle of the street. Every. night.
Mille Bourne poolside on 100°+ days in the Sacramento Valley.
Whiffle ball until the mean skeeters bite us to death!
Certainly tanning by the pool reading a book counts?
Marco Polo in the pool with my sister and my mom.
Playing Pitch (card game) at the Cape while enjoying beers.
Hit the crochet ball into the window well., I win!
“Relievo” A hiding game. “All ye all ye in free!”
Barbies. Sitting in the grass. 5 girls. Clothes all over.
Summer in Oregon: Finally stops raining; time to start weeding.
Sardines-darkness,single hider,friends find, join,last one Freaks!
Card game Spit and Bossy always wins. (Take THAT, son.)
Card game Gin and Bossy always wins. (And THAT, son.)
Bossy’s son won’t go camping so Bossy talks card trash.
Paddle ball at beach, just keep the rally going, please.
volleyball with gang in Germantown. 1-3 am. kind neighbors!
Playing bandits on horses, hiding in cave up in mountains.
Who can finish puzzle? Hide the last piece to win.
Bossy and dad always played Gin, now they drink it.
Goal isn’t wining, it’s keeping up with the word game.
Hand-held Yahtzee. Poolside at mom and dad’s with Yuengling.
Freeze Tag. Lawn Darts. Hide and Seek in the dark.
Oooh. Just remembered: Star Trek (my short hair = Mr.Spock)
Childhood memories of canasta and Yatzee. Now — Avalon Hill’s “Civilization.”
Kick the stick, run the bases, tons of neighborhood kids.
TAG, YOU’RE IT! Tree is base – ollie ollie oxen free!
Whiffle ball in street. Chasing fireflies. Miss my childhiood.
You get 50 extra points for a “Bingo” in Scrabble.
Homemade golfball/ladder toss; scoff at fools who bought same.
Naked tricycle races around Grandma’s driveway in a soft summer rain. (When we got older, we put on some clothes and played badminton all summer!)
Scrumping apples in the orchard by the railway line, ace!
Corn Hole, Sun, Beach, Beer, with extended family always near!
Cribbage with Mom. Perry Mason on tv in the background.
Scrabble on the screened porch while roasting. I always win.
Skee ball on the boardwalk
Monopoly at night. TV sucked back then. Actually, still sucks.
Kickball, kick the can, time spent mostly exploring woods, pool.
Torturing brother was favorit-est, till he grew bigger than me.
Late night backgammon, the tiles black, white, clicking and clacking.
I don’t really play games unless surfing counts as one.
Cribbage with Dad, Nickels with Aunt, OH Shit with friends. Definitely card games and alcohol
Baseball: they’re not called The Boys of Summer for nothing.
Catching fireflies not a game? Someone should tell the ‘catchers.
Gin rummy with my grandparents.
Whiffle ball with my cousins.
Ditch, sardines at night, kickball on the 4 corners daily.
Plastic boules set for the beach. Every Brit has one.
Have to go in when the street light goes on.
Keep the kids alive and try to nap whenever possible.
I also enjoy Scrabble, but that requires brains and partners.
Canasta in the cool depths of basement. Now, no clue.
quoits downashore, croquet, scrabble, monopoly, mouse trap, checkers, backgammon – FUN!
Death Croquet. Who put the wicket in the tree trunk?
Jumping rope and Mrs. Mary Mack, all dressed in black.
Definitely skeeball in arcades so loud you couldn’t think. 100!
One game of monopoly all summer. Board stored under bed.
Ladder Golf with the neighbors and lots of cold beer!
Catch Phrase until daybreak despite dirty rotten scoundrel cheater opponents.
War, spit, slapjack…solitaire 24/7 the summer I was grounded 🙁
Setting a New World Standard? Bossy has a new subtitle.
Regarding games, my parents convinced me cutting grass was fun.
Besides cutting grass, I spent my time at the pool.
I ran around barefoot and I rode my pony bareback.
I roller skated in the same rink my grandmother did.
I’d go up the creek in a rowboat for hours.
Hide and Seek after dark until midnight
badminton in my grandmother’s backyard. (watch out for the clothesline!)
Double Monopoly. One board. Two sets of money. Total avarice.
It’s all about the Rummy, baby. And sometimes the spoons.
Took stuff from parents house, turned into museum, charged admission!
Women’s softball church league – we always lose but have fun!
Slap Jack and double solitaire will get you red hands!
half ball. capisca? then you must be from the city.
neighborhood baseball; Dad pitches Suzy hits bully between beady eyes.
Slapjack, speed, go fish – cards so old they were soft
Kicking Gramma’s & GrandDad’s butt in canasta @Lake Texoma.
Baseball: Sunflower seeds + Mountain Dew = breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner.
Intense Capture the Flag Till I Barfed Dinner Through My Nose.
shame of being last pick for softball because I threw like a girl (hello—I am a girl, duh)
frisbee at the beach, mancala after a long day camping
And don’t forget gin rummy and crazy eights while camping!