Games We Play

When I was a kid there were some games that my sisters and I would play whenever we had to drive somewhere. There was always Punch Buggy but I don't remember that as being wildly popluar in the back of the Great Beast (my dad's 1973 Pontiac station wagon). At night we played Padiddle (which I still play to this day). We didn't do the point system thing it was more of who could spot it first and yell "PADIDDLE!" at the top of their lungs. We also used to hold our breath when passing a cemetary (because it is impolite to breathe in front of those who cannot). My dad would more often than not slow down when going by cemetaries. He'd end up with 4 kids slowly turning blue stubbornly refusing to let him win. He always won that one.

There is a game that I still play to this day and it doesn't necessarily have to be played whilst driving. I'm going to credit my sister Patty for this one but I'm not entirely sure of its origins. How you play is when you see a Post Office truck, van, jeep-thing or whatever, you cross your fingers on one hand. The goal is to keep those fingers crossed until you see another mail truck. When you see the next one, you can uncross your fingers and you get ... wait for it ... Good Luck! Yep! How exciting! And, the longer the time between crossing and then uncrossing, the longer the good luck will last. However, if you uncross your fingers BEFORE seeing another mail truck, you get Bad Luck! And the same duration rule applies. OOoooOOooh! Scary!

cross, uncross, cross, uncross, cross...DAMMIT!

As far as I know this game doesn't even have an official name or anything. It doesn't even have clearly defined rules. Or at least it didn't always have rules. Over the years I have added special conditions and other regulations to make it more complicated. For instance: what is the relationship between length of real time with crossed fingers and the resulting good/bad luck? My sister Patty never really addressed this important question. So I had to. The relationship is 1 to 10. If you cross your fingers after seeing a mail truck and successfully uncross them at the next sighting 10 minutes later, you will get 100 minutes of good luck. Holy hell, I sound like a crazy person.

But it gets weirder. In my travels I have often found that might have to uncross my fingers for just a second or 2 (like to pick something up or maybe flip someone off. Have you ever tried to give someone the bird when your fingers are crossed? It totally loses its oomph) but I don't want to get penalized for this. Ah, no problem. In every game of ... whatever this is called ... you are allowed a 5-second uncrossing. But you must immediately re-cross after this 5 seconds is over. Failure to do so will result in DOUBLE the bad luck. Harsh? Meh. What's worse is you have to make a really embarrassing move to make sure the uncrossing is recognized as the 5-second variety. You must "throw the cross into the air". Yep. You read that right. You take your hand with the crossed fingers and flick them up into a "peace sign". Then, and only then does the 5-second rule come into play. You can only do this once per, uh, session.

I wish I was lying about this but everytime I happen by a Post Office with a whole bunch of mail trucks all lined up in the back, I cross and uncross my fingers like..well, like a madman. Is this too much sharing? I also get genuinely disappointed if I am unable to find another mail truck and have to concede to uncrossing my fingers and enduring the bad luck penalty. Similarly if I see a truck and decide NOT to "take it" (as I call it) and then later I see another truck, I get kinda pissed that I missed the opportunity. Wanna hang out? No?