I Spy

In May 1981, the entire family gathered for my grandfather's funeral. My uncle and his family drove in from Colorado. My brother flew in from Texas. My Colorado cousins are much younger than my brother and me. Although they had already sat in the car for eight hours the day before, two of them thought it would be fun to ride to Wichita to get my brother at the airport. Mom drove. They were getting restless on the return trip and we decided to play I Spy.

There are a couple of variations on the game. We always started each round saying: "I spy something..."  Another is: "I looked around and guess what I found? I found something..."  My grandkids say: "I spied with my little eye, something..."

It doesn't matter how you say it. The idea is to give a helpful clue, but not too obvious, while also making it simple enough for small children to play. It didn't take too much time for us to go around the players twice spying something green (summer flip-flops) or black (the car dash), or pink (a blouse).

It was Mom's turn again and she spied something silver. Everyone guessed. She had stumped us and had to give another clue. It was something silver and round. We guessed the radio knobs on the dash, the knob on the window winder, the push button on the glove box. We couldn't see anything else silver and round. According to the rules she had let us ask for a hint. My brother asked if it was something outside the car that we had passed five miles back. Nope. I asked if it was inside the car. Yes.

The little girls had tired of the game, but my brother and I were determined to spy the round silver object. We looked harder inside the car. My brother asked how big it was. About an inch. We couldn't find anything that hadn't already been guessed that fit the description. I asked if someone was wearing it. No.

I was sitting in the middle of the back seat. That's my spot. Rule Seventeen: the person with the shortest legs straddles the hump. My cousins were technically a little shorter, but they had elected to rest their arms on the armrest. That's what it was there for.

My brother, in the front seat, looked back with his face all screwed up, trying to think of another question. Finally, he asked what supported it. That was a pretty sneaky question.

Mom thought a minute and said she guessed it was the government. Huh?

I asked if she was talking about money?  A Quarter?

Finally, someone guessed the correct answer.

My brother is looking around on the floor boards, in the cup holder, on the dash, trying to see a stray quarter. He asked where it was. It was in her purse. Naturally.

Hey, Mom. The whole point of I Spy is that the players can see the object.

Rule Twenty-four: Never assume Mom won't change the rules in the middle of the game just to drive you crazy.

Oreos

Growing up we had silly house rules for various games, but one set-in-stone rule for life. You do not tell lies. You couldn't water it down and make it a fib, or a story, or any other word which equated with untruths.  Thou Shalt Not Lie.

Liars were punished. Sometimes, just the thought of being punished was dreadful enough to tell the truth, even if you knew you were going to get in trouble anyway for something you did.

One day when my brother and I were about 4 and 6, or maybe 5 and 7, our mother discovered Oreo cookies on the dining room table. The first no-no was that no one asked mom if they could please have a cookie. Egads, the soft yummy filling was missing. Who ate the middle out of the Oreos and left the cookie in plain sight? 

My brother was the closest and he was questioned by Mom. He knew he was innocent, so he threw me under the bus, (a phrase that won't be coined for half a century). 

"She did it." He's pointing at me and I'm wondering what I did.

"Lisa, did you eat the middle out of these cookies and leave the outsides laying here?"

My Mom is looking at me with that scary, mean mom face and I didn't know why.  I hadn't done anything wrong. Therefore, my brother was lying.

"I didn't do it. He did it." I pointed at him to make sure she knew which one of my only brothers I was talking about.

This circular logic revolved around the room a couple of times with mom threatening to get the yardstick and switch us both when my little brother just happened to look at Dad.

Canary feathers were clinging to his lips.  

"Daddy did it," he exclaimed.

Mom apologized to us and asked Dad if he was going to let her punish us.

I never was satisfied with the answer he gave.

HOUSE RULES

My Dad's family was crazy for two things: fishing and card games.  The fishing lure (pun intended) skipped a generation with me. I still enjoy a rousing game of 10 point pitch or Aggravation.

I learned to count and add with Dominos. As soon as my brother and I had learned the rudiments of the game with Double Sixes, Dad graduated us to Double Nines. The only indication we ever got from him that we had accidentally played a tile that scored was if he asked if we wanted that count. When we got older, we learned to watch him like a hawk because he would claim he scored when he hadn't or write down 25 points when he had only made 10 or 15.

When we played Aggravation, which was already a fast-paced game, we discovered it would move a lot faster if every player had his own set of dice, instead of waiting for the preceding player to politely pass them on. 🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲

Here are the House Rules for board games.



 Rule One:  Watch Dad.  He Cheats.

Rule Two: Don't let your playing pieces roll off the table.  All other players may move their pieces at warp speed until you get back to the table.  If your playing piece/s roll/bounce into the floor furnace, you are out of the game.

Rule Three: Don't repeat any words Dad said.





A genius invented 10-point pitch. There are an astronomical number of combinations of hands that can be dealt. The human element of players and their bids increase the combinations to an unfathomable level.

House Rules for card games are a little different.

Rule Four: The object of the game is not to win.  The goal is to keep my dad from winning. Period.

Rule Five: If you are in the hole (have a negative score) and shoot the moon (a bid worth 20), and make the bid, you lack 1 point of getting out of the hole. This is a time-honored tradition dating back to the day my grandfather proclaimed the rule when my Dad and my aunt were kids.
Just FYI, going SET means not making your bid. If you bid 7 and fail to get 7 points, you go SET. 7 points are taken off your running score. That's how you can be IN THE HOLE. 

This looks like a good hand. I'm a cautious player. I'd bid 6 in Spades and hope my partner had some trumps. I know people who would bid the maximum 10 on these cards. Why not go crazy and shoot the moon?

Mom and Dad belonged to a card club for about 50 years. They met once a month at alternating homes. In the early years, the host couple gave out prizes for high, low and the Galloper.  If you bid 7 and made it, you wrote your name on the Galloper prize. Whoever had their name on it the most, took it home at the end of the evening. In case of a tie, they drew for high card. Most of the prizes were white elephants, especially low prize. When the lottery was legalized, $2 tickets became popular prizes. 

My folks taught my kids to play pitch when they got big enough to hold the cards. I think my daughter was about twelve before she caught on to what 'going set' meant. We thought it was odd that she didn't react to losing points. One day it hit her that every time she or her partner went set, they lost that many points.  "WHAT!!" she shrieked. After that, when someone lost a hand, my Dad would mimic her.

I told one of my Dad's friends what a low-down cheat he had been when my brother and I were kids.  
"You learned to pay attention to the game, didn't you?" he said.