Ten on Tuesday!

I'm going to try out this Ten on Tuesday thing. Basically it's a blog fodder generator wherein one is given a topic each week and then one lists ten things that apply. A huge chunk of Blogdom plays and so one can flit about the blogosphere and see what everybody has to say about the same topic.

I was going to start last week but the topic wasn't very interesting to me, so I didn't start out too well. We'll see how often I play.

Without further ado...

Ten on Tuesday -- 10 Favorite Games from Childhood

(This may rapidly fall into the category of oversharing. Or just explaining why I am the way I am...)

1. Careful -- Never heard of it? I'm not surprised. I've never encountered a person outside of my family who has any idea what this is. And we never called it "Careful" (at least I didn't), I always called it "The tower game! The tower game! I wanna play the tower game!" Oh, I was a joy to every babysitter I ever had...

2. Don't Break the Ice -- My cousin, Chris (to be referenced many times herein), had this game and I couldn't get enough of it. In fact, he gave it to me for Christmas one year and I was never so happy to get a hand-me-down gift. Gator and I still play it (a new copy -- alas I don't know what happened to the original one).

3. Payday -- Life was okay, Monopoly got annoying really fast, but I always loved Payday. One summer my neighbor, Kelly, and I played it about 4,583 times.

4. Five Card Draw -- Mom sometimes played bridge in the evenings and left me home with Dad. I wanted to play games. Well, Dad knew how to play poker, so he taught me. I was maybe six. It was a while before I realized it wasn't "Jacks are better". In fact, it may have been a little while before I realized it wasn't "Jaxxerbedder". Which may have explained why it took me a while to catch on...

5. How Dare You Push Me Into the Pool -- A cousin Chris original. Small hill between Grandma's house and the neighbor, Mr. Fisher's, yard. Crouch on top of hill. Take turns saying, "How dare you push me in the pool!!" with your most outrageous indignant accent while being pushed down the hill by the other player. Hilarity ensues. Cousin swears he has no memory of this. He's five years older than me and I remember it perfectly. Pants on fire, there, cuz?? ;)

6. Go to the Head of the Class -- I had a bunch of my sisters' old games (see #1) and this one was another fave. I loved the thick cardboard pupil-head markers but as I often didn't have anyone to play the game with, I mostly just begged Mom to read questions to me out of the book.

7. Feds 'N' Heads -- Ah, the innocence of youth. Aforementioned neighbor, Kelly, had older brothers. One of them had this game that came as an insert in Playboy magazine. I had no idea what it was about at the time (Maybe gangsters? There was something about getting caught with a bag of oregano, and that was a good thing...), but I came to find out later that it was about... drugs. I just thought it was a fun and funny game. Also I just found out that you can download and print out the entire game here.

8. The Brain -- More of a puzzle, I realize. See #6 where, boo hoo, little Sus played by herself a lot. She didn't mind at all when she had cool things that didn't require 2-4 players like this little gem. My oldest sister gave it to me for Christmas one year and I got so fast and good at it that I could do it over and over without even thinking while watching TV. I still have it and I'm still pretty fast. Muscle memory is an amazing thing.

9. Clean Machine -- Another Cousin Chris original. He had a beefy, muscly, "real"-haired G.I. Joe of much toughness. I had... a fifties Ken doll with a somewhat sunken chest and a painted-on crew cut (yes, it was my sister's). They battled and the loser had to be thrown into a mud puddle. Aside from being able to tell just by looking at them, Ken always lost because (as my cousin's rule declared) the mud puddle would ruin G.I. Joe's hair. We played it all the time (when there were mud puddles) and I remember liking to play it immensely. I just can't figure out why...

10. TV Shows -- Charlie's Angels and, more importantly, The Bionic Woman. OMG. Another neighbor, Marla, and I had an elaborate Bionic Woman story arc with an arch nemesis named Mrs. Octopus who was very powerful and scary and lived in Marla's closet. Yeah, we ran in the house, but we ran in slow motion and with sound effects.

So there you go. They ask for ten games and instead you learn 10 things about me that you didn't want to know. Wonder how much I can disturb you next week!
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