I do agree that these men fall somewhere between “good times” and “slightly menancing” but they might just be cranky from too many hours planning out the festivities. Now don’t get me wrong, I would never suppose that this motely lot have been mixing punch or shaking up the Chex mix, but they might have been put in charge of the fun ‘n’ games, no? A late night at the card table with some scotch and _The Complete Book of Games and Stunts_ by Darwin A. Hindman (1956) seems to me a distinct possibility.

It is quite a book! 415 pages of ideas for games and stunts! Now that’s a helpful guide. There are an incredible amount of suggestions in here — from Dodgeball Games to Combat Games and everything in between — but many of them are quite strange and seem to be incredibly inappropriate for a situation that might call for “fun” or “good times.” I will leave the homoerotics of “Bear-in-the-Pit,” “Storming the Fort,” and “Rooster Fight” (Uh, this one is subtitled “Free-for-all Cock Fight” and requires men to “begin pushing and bucking each other” — not for kids, I’m guessing) to instead look at the chapter entitled, “Snares.” These games come from “Section I: Physical punishment or discomfort.”

Would anyone like to play: Pinchy Winchy, The Black Saucer, Who Hit Me?, Drying the Floor (requires player to sit in a puddle of water and swat at people with a flyswatter!), Knight of the Blanket, or Kiss The Mystic Book?

The goal of these games is to cause the “victim” to suffer “physical punishment or inconvenience” or to leave him “simply embarrassed or left in an awkward position.”

C’mon! You know the big guy behind the genie would love to play a game in which a player is smacked or paddled or swatted by the group, right? Or maybe the diabolical “How Do You Like Your Neighbors?” Have fun kids!

xoxo!
Miss Sharon