Game Night
About two weeks ago, Beth and I journeyed in the Perfectly Terrible Cruiser over to her mother's house for yummy food (you have to love anyone who makes you steak, fresh green beans, summer corn (she freezes it so she can have summer sweet corn all year round. That's just ingenious. Why have I never thought of this?), baked potatoes and garlic bread (and then says to you, "Oh by the way, I have butter, garlic butter and honey butter for you to take home" (and when you respond "I love you" she replies with "Yeah, I know.")) AND homemade ice cream. With mini chocolate chips).
After stuffing ourselves with incredibly good food, we decided to play Trivial Pursuit. I think everyone has a good Trivial Pursuit story, I know I have several. Such as answering every question about a US president with "Martin Van Buren" just because I like his name. Or trying to remember the name of the author of "Peter Cottontail" and only being able to say, over and over again "Beatrix...Beatrix...damn it, I know this!" and have your English teacher say "Yeah, I'm just impressed you knew her first name but watch the swearing." Or my favorite Trivial Pursuit story about the night the police were called.
But anyway, we are gathered around the table at Laurie's (Beth's mom), the board spread out in front of us and questions started flying. My personal favorite category is brown but I soon realized that this was the 20th Anniversary Trivial Pursuit and brown was not Literature based. Dang it. Beth said that it is more fun to play this game with people who don't know all the answers because the result is hilarious. And she is right.
B: What Mediterranean nation saw an increase in Ostrich farms after Mad Cow disease was discovered?
DM: Um, New Zealand.
B: What Mediterranean nation saw an increase in Ostrich farms after Mad Cow disease was discovered?
DM: Oh! Uh, Greece?
B: No, it's Italy.
DM: I like how you just read the question over again with the emphasis on Mediterranean. Geography is not my strong point.
This was proved over and over again because the stupid blue question - Global View. Grr.
The night continued on, more questions were asked, answers both wrong and right were given and there was a lot of laughter. And that's the best part of playing a game. It doesn't matter who wins or loses, just as long as there is a good time had by all.
But I won. Just so there's no doubt. You know, because I am a winner, baby (and no, I'm not really this obnoxious when I win, I just couldn't resist it).
That Sunday, after visiting Laurie again, Beth thought it would be a good idea to stop at Target to kill some time (we were way too early for karaoke). We ended up in the game aisle and Beth decided to pick up two games, one a Trivial Pursuit game with questions from the 80's and another one called Loaded Questions.
Playing Trivial Pursuit at karaoke is actually a lot of fun. We normally get there early and sometimes on Sundays it is slow. So this gives us time to interact with each other and get Bryan involved as well (we normally ask him the music and movie questions that we didn't get just to see if we can stump him). Liz has started playing with us as well once she comes up. We laugh, we talk, we try to stump one another, we even give hints (that sometimes includes playing charades. Something I'm also not good at) in creative ways - it's an excellent way to increase the greatness that is karaoke at The Chalet.
The other game Beth bought, Loaded Questions, is also fun but it would probably be better with a large group of people. It reminded me of a time in my past that I miss (but also regret as well).
Years ago, I hung out with a girl I met in college, Becky, and also some people we met through out the years. One of them was named Illya (totally cool name) who lived in Minneapolis and we would go over to his place or over to Becky's and play games. One night, we were hanging out at Illya's and decided to play Trivial Pursuit. But instead of going around the board, we just read the questions to each other. It was late, we were making up answers and just started getting sillier and sillier. Suddenly there is a knock on the door. Now it is 3 in the morning, Illya doesn't live in the best part of town (example - at his New Year's Eve party (the one where I decided my New Year's Resolution was to kiss every man in the apartment. Damn, that was a fun party) a random man walked in and started wandering around. There may have been the attempt to sell us drugs. I don't remember much about it but I do know that I did NOT kiss him) so we're a little concerned. Illya checks the peephole and pulls the door open. It is the Minneapolis police.
Police Officer #1 (PO1): What's going on here?
Illya: Uh, we're, uh...
Police Officer #2 (PO2): We got a complaint about the noise. What are you up to?
Illya: Well, I have some...
PO1: Are you going to let us in?
Illya: Sure.
Police Officer 1 and 2 walk into the living room. They see the group of us sitting on the couch, spread out on the floor, etc. On the coffee table is the Trivial Pursuit board. Scattered around it are the overflowing ashtrays (only with cigarettes, thank you very much) and different pop cans.
PO2: What are you all up to?
PO1: Oh, good Lord. You're playing Trivial Pursuit?
Illya: Yes.
PO1: Okay. Well, keep it down. Stop having so much wholesome fun, dang it.*
*No, he didn't say the last sentence. Apparently a neighbor called the cops and waited downstairs to let them in because it was a security building. Granted, it was 3 in the morning but still...
There was another night when we were over at Becky's. We decided to start playing a game where each person would make up a question, every one had to answer and then the person who asked the question had to figure out who said what (this is very similar to Loaded Questions). This is the night that I was compared to an onion (Q: What vegetable would Dana be? A: An onion. There's more to her than what meets the eye. And she's got layers), a romantic porno (I'm not sure how where that came from) and was also called a "Love Bomb" (Illya - "When you meet the right guy, you're just going to explode all over him." Off my look. "In a good way. This is a compliment. I swear.")
I miss that group but if I hadn't ever drifted away from them, I never would have met Beth and Keem and Liz and Bryan and James and Matt and the rest of the Chalet crew. And my life is so much better now.
In other news, did you know that 40 is the new 20? I don't know if that scares me or makes me feel a little better about the fact that I'll be 40 in a few weeks.
So, since I got such a great response on the last question - what games do you like to play? Any favorites?
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