Livingroom Sportsing

I dread the day when my niece and nephews do not fall for the “smell my feet” game, no matter how cleverly deployed. To be clear, my personal strategy lacks finesse. I find a kid on the floor and exclaim, “Oh look, Jack wants to smell my feet.” Then I count on the existential fact that I’m bigger than he is.

Tom, on the other hand, premeditates. When we were down in Richmond, he told Jack and Ella to lay on the carpet, head-to-head, face down. He told them to close their eyes and lift their chins. Then he shimmied between them, his giant feet just under nose-high.

ha ha. smell my feet. The crowd went wild.

The Dark Game will also be mourned even though playing it can get tiring after about six hours. It’s basically the love child of hide-and-go-seek and your basic game of tag: Just played inside, after dark, with all the lights turned off.

The rules are starting to get really complicated. Recently we added a “shake the water bottle full of dice” element, which is the indoor translation of kick the can.

Grandma and grandpa are exceptionally skilled Dark Game players. The last time I was 'It,' I captured grandma sidling down a hallway pressed up against the wall with a blanket hoisted over her head.

Grandpa tends to find a comfortable chair and sit in it very very quietly. He’d be a Dark Game phantom menace but you can always manage to catch him when he remembers he has a pretzel in his pocket.

There’s also Cards Against Humanity, for the under-10 set. This means censoring all but a tiny sliver of cards. Luckily there’s plenty featuring straight-up gas passing, pooping, Jean Claude Van Damme in slow motion and middle aged men in roller skates. 

The first time we played, Jack belly-laughed so exuberantly he slammed his tiny heiny right through a plastic lawn chair and we had to break for medical attention. I told his dad this is a very educational game. Most second-graders cannot yet sound out words like “explosive farts."

Cousins night is coming up. I look forward to a new game - Pie Face. We’ve heard good things.