4 Non-Trivia Games, 4 Straight Losses; I Sense a Pattern Here

Continuing the Singles catch-up marathon, we zoom forward to mid-January, which found us gathered together at the Church's recreation center, the CLC, for an all-Singles game night.

Although the CLC has the benefit of housing pool tables, air hockey, ping pong, foosball, and the like, its set-up really isn't conducive to large groups of game players; at our big planning meeting last Sunday, we lobbied for future game nights to take place somewhere a bit big-group friendlier. Besides the usual draws of fun and fellowship, we were also bribed with the promise of cheap pizza. There had been a bit of confusion about what time we were getting started, so I headed over to the CLC even earlier than usual to keep anyone who hadn't gotten the revised time schedule company. Freezout and Papa Lightbulb were both there, and Trouble showed up not too long after I did. She challenged me to a game of pool while we were waiting for things to get under way; I was way off my game, and she was way on hers, so I got trounced, which she saw as payback for my beating her during the Lane Farm cookout last Fall.

People slowly started coming in, and by the time everyone had gotten their dinner eaten and started to break into groups for game playing it was already close to 8:00. Cap'n Cluck lobbied for a round of the game that gave her her namesake, Chicken Foot, but had a hard time getting everyone corralled to get started; her task was made even more difficult by the arrival of Mama Lightbulb, who was brining Baby Lightbulb to an outing for the first time. The instant they walked in they were surrounded by a swarm of lookie-loos; yes, I was one of them. Poor Baby L. looked like he about to jump out of his skin with all of those strange faces looking down on him. Mama L. said that he had dimples that showed up when he smiled, and started trying to coax a smile out of him. His reaction: eyes slit, brow furrowed, nose scrunched, chin outthrust, the very epitome of stubbornness; he looked so much like his Papa then it was scary.

We finally got a game of Chicken Foot going. I had the misfortune of sitting to the right of experienced players Magic Pants and Cap'n Cluck, who were able to successfully block my attempts to discard the dreaded double blank at least once; I wound up in dead last and, in the end, Mama L.'s sister (who had never played the game before) trounced us all royally. By the time we had finished it was time for the CLC to close, but since it was only 9:00, there were some of us who weren't ready to head home yet, so Trouble, Scubagirl, Cap'n Cluck, Magic Pants and I headed over to the Singles portable to continue the game-playing.

First, we played Loaded Questions again, which worked much better with just the five of us playing. I did much better with a smaller pool of people to choose from; my four opponents' distinctive personalities made it much easier to narrow my options down. I think it also helped that, by this point, I had spent more time with both Scubagirl and Magic Pants thanks to our Texas Dance Depot adventure than I had the last time we had played. But, while I did a pretty good job of guessing, my rolls weren't quite as impressive, and so I narrowly lost to Magic Pants. There's at least one question and answer I would love to share, but I know I would be severely punished if I did so; suffice it to say that it reduced poor Cap'n Cluck to near-hysterics of laughter so that she was unable to read the answers out loud. Some things I can share, however:

• The question was "What's the worst thing you've ever done to someone?" I announced that it was going to be easy for someone to guess Magic Pants' answer, since it would be something like "Didn't say 'thank you' when someone held the door for me."
• The question was "How many books did you read last year?" Sneaky Magic Pants, who has repeatedly said that's she's not much of a reader, put down a pretty high number; when questioned on it, she started counting them off for us: "Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts . . ."
• Trouble answered an early question "Sex, drugs, and rock and roll" which became a bit of a running joke for the night; surprising just how many of the questions that could work as an answer for.

Even though it had gotten late by the time we finished up LQ, we decided to play a game of Taboo, but Scubagirl and I made a quick run to 7-11 firs, at which point Scubagirl tried to kill us; or at least so it seemed for a few seconds after the crashing stop her Xterra came to while she was backing up. I thought for sure she had backed into someone pulling into the parking lot, but she had just accidentally backed into a post which was in her blind spot; it didn't do much beside dent up her fender, but shards of broken taillight scattered around the post testified to the fact that she was not the first person to collide with it.

Since we had an uneven number of players for Taboo, Cap'n Cluck became a revolving player; she guessed with both teams, and gave clues for both teams. Trouble had an unfortunate knack of trying to help the person she was supposed to be buzzing for breaking the rules; well, unfortunate for her team, fortunate for ours. I'm a better guesser than I am a clue-giver; through the whole game I kept thinking about all of the hints I could give for each word if I was playing with the Parkerites ("This was Bubbles' major." "Architecture!") or Book Monkeys ("Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate likes to lead his own." "Parade!"), hints which, of course, would mean nothing to any of the Singles; I'm sure if I played with either one of those groups, the reverse would be true.

Favorite Taboo moment: Magic Pants is giving the clues while I hover over her shoulder to sound the buzzer if she uses one of the verboten words. Magic Pants looks at the word, and describes it thusly: "They sometimes play these at funerals." I look at her strangely but say nothing. Cap'n Cluck immediately answers "Bagpipes!" Magic Pants makes a small noise of dismay, as she realizes she's just describe the wrong thing; she instantly switches tracks, saying "No, but they sound sort of like bagpipes," to which Cap'n Cluck immediately answers "Accordion!" . . . which was, of course, the correct answer. With mind-bending logic like that actually working for them, Scubagirl and I couldn't hope to compete.

By the time we finished Taboo it was after midnight, so we called it quits for the night. Our next big gathering would take place a week or two later, at our annual Singles Superbowl Party.