My cousin Joy, Nicole and I were (are?) the sort of little girls who scorned tea parties with teddy bears in pink sparkly dresses. We were the sort of children whose teddy bears were the prey that we, mighty leopards carefully stalked the bears-now-gazelles to feed to our 'cubs' (invisible but very real characters we play all at once). It was amazing. RAWR. My teddy bears had grass stains, not tutus.
We played rough, in everything we did. You didn't have fun if you didn't get a bit battered up. I remember playing tag on a broken foot. I had a scooter so I could keep going. It was awesome.
Every year, the McCutchen and Walchek families would get together in sort of a family reunion. For us, three hyperactive little girls, this was one of the best times of year. The best part of the entire day was before meal games.
Our family is comprised primarily of athletically challenged people, and people who dont understand football. That meant that to us, the youngest by far, that the grown-ups were playmates.
One year, when I was about 8 (Joy would be about 6 and Nico 5) we begged people to play with us. After spending days watching us violently rough house with our toys, most of the grown-ups gently declined our offer, quickly excusing themselves to do urgent business somewhere safe from our recruiting choruses. We were just losing hope when Uncle Tom agreed to play something with us, just so long as it was something civilized.
We had intended to play a jungle cat game and have any grown-up be our prey, but by that point, we were elated to have someone who would play with us. We offered a variety of games, very diplomatically listing off the risk and danger factors of each until we finally agreed with Uncle Tom that we would play a nice game of tag. As soon as we had gotten his word that he would play with us and not go inside while we were still playing, we all linked hands and skipped outside.
We immediately explained to Uncle Tom the rules of how we played.
Joy: were gonna play normal tag, except since you're so big Uncle Tom, you're on a team, and were on a team
Uncle Tom nodded his consent, it seemed fair.
Joy: if you're tagged then you're it, or you can take the mercy rule of you don't want to be it.
The mercy rule, though Uncle Tom was unaware, stated that if you didn't want to be it, then each member of the other team, or the individual person being it could punch you as hard as they want.
Again, Uncle Tom agreed without questioning our scheme.
Me: no bases, no time outs, no breaks. Ok? Let's let Uncle Tom be it first. Count to ten while we get away.
Uncle Tom began to count very slowly. He thought he was giving us a head start, to be fair I think. We quickly found our hiding places preparing to run. As we waited, our little bodied began flooding with adrenaline.
When he reached ten, which took considerable time in our perspective, he began searching for us. He made quite a lot of noise, talking to himself very loudly on the pretense of not knowing where we were.
When he was within about ten feet of one of us, he made a huge point of exclaiming that he found us and hoped to himself that he hoped we would be able to get away. As soon as we were sure he saw us, we launched with energy only emphasized by the amount of sugar coursing through our veins (it was a holiday after all). We dove headlong toward him, with speed and tactics honed in hours of chasing the very traumatized cat Mittens. Right before our skulls became acquainted with his knees, we pivoted to dart up trees. We had waited for this for weeks. Slowly and labouriously, Uncle Tom clambered up after us. With a conspiratorial glance between the three of us, we agreed silently to let him tag one of us. Joy pretended to slip, allowing Uncle Tom to tag her. She feigned momentary frustration and then we regrouped. It was our turn to be it.
We gave Uncle Tom 15 seconds to hide before we came searching. While we counted, he again made a point of talking so loudly to himself that we knew exactly where he was. When the time was up, we made a mad dash to come and tag him.
By "tag" him, I really ought to say violently assault him. We each tagged him as hard as we could. We were still in predator/prey mentality and gosh darn it, he was going to be the gazelle.
When we were satisfied that we would have killed him had he actually been a gazelle, we asked him graciously if he would like to call the mercy rule, or if he would like to be it. We hinted that we wouldnt mind too terribly if he called the mercy rule. Somehow, Uncle Tom seemed to mistake our blood-thirsty expressions for sympathy and agreed to opt for the mercy rule, hoping that it would mean no pain.
We each took a swing, holding back a bit to keep his favour. He started, it seemed to question the wisdom of playing with us.
We reclaimed our positions for round three. This time, we gave him a whole minute to hide because it had been too easy to find him. While he hid and Nico kept time at the top of her lungs, Joy and I decided to to try something different. We informed Nico of our plans and quickly found hiding places.
When the time was up, we lay in waiting for our gazelle. A minute passed and Uncle Tom slowly came out to investigate. We were deadly silent. Our plan was working. As soon as Uncle Tom had passed one of us, we all leapt out of our hiding places and started shrieking and racing toward him like a pack of wolves we had learned to emulate from a National Geographic special. Apparently startled, Uncle Tom actually ran around to the other side of the house. Unable to keep up with him, we began stalking after him, furtively hiding behind bushes, being as quiet as we could. As soon as we caught up with him, we leapt out of hiding. He was cornered. Immediately we began violently trying to bring down our kill. We bit, hit, scratched, clawed and otherwise inflicted pain without actually drawing blood. When we were satisfied that our "gazelle" was "dead", we stopped mauling him, and cheerfully proclaimed "Your turn to be it, Uncle Tom!" in sweet little girl voices.
He told us he would join us again momentarily, that he needed a drink of water and then, of course he would come back out and play another round. We waited patiently for several minutes before realising he wasn't going to come back out. We had won.
The rest of the day, we played with our vast collection of pokémon cards and watched cartoons. Later, I think we were rewarded with extra pie for displaying "such good behaviour" all day.
For some reason, every year since, Uncle Tom has actually agreed to play with us. The game has had several names, though it always ends the same way. Uncle Tom, you're one of the best. Or insane, that works too.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch
