This morning, as I drove young Djangolina to school, she outlined for me the rules of a fun, new game called "Red car, blue car". These rules are simple to elucidate - one player looks for red cars, the other for blue cars. On seeing a car of the specified colour, one cries out "RED CAR!" (or indeed blue car, as the case may be), while hitting the other player on the arm.
Djangolina took the blue corner, I the red. Every time any car of blue-ish hue hove into view, she would cry "BLUE CAR!" and slap me.
Whenever a red car appeared, she would swiftly interject "NOT THAT ONE! IT'S BURGUNDY!" or similar. The final result was - Djangolina - 24, Daddy - a bruised arm.
Was her conduct within the spirit of the rules?
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15 comments:
My two played a similar game. Although, with three years' advantage, her rules involved him spotting cars travelling in the same direction as us, and her taking the ones coming the other way. It took him some years to work out why she always won.
Obviously girls are naturally smarter.
Sx
Hmmm. In my lifetime, this game has been played specific to VW "bugs". Once a Volkswagen was spotted, you yelled "slug bug- no return!" and punched your brother/sister.
Not sure how old your daughter is, but I personally would give a quick dissertation on the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law and then slug her (lightly) the next time I saw a car that could in any way be construed as "red"...
Pearl
What you want to do is get her on CNPS (consecutive number plate spotting) and *insist* that she sticks to the *exact* rules:
http://www.richardherring.com/cnps.php
If you find it difficult to read because of the colours of his website change the "Skin Selector" (scroll down towards the bottom left) to "Original Website" -- it's much easier to read on a grey background.
Richard Herring (comedian) did not invent CNPS but he is one of the few people who have managed to complete the challenge -- he did it within 6 months during 2004 and forced himself to complete it so that it could become part of his act!
The challenge is to spot cars with number plates from 1 to 999 in *consecutive* order (not just at any random time).
Herring admits that he did become a bit obsessive during his quest to complete CNPS .... but it didn't involve any bruised arms (as far as I am aware)!
I reckon she was was smart to take the blue corner. Lots of reddish colours have different names (burgundy, crimson, scarlet...) but blueish colours all still have the word blue in them (sky, Prussian, cobolt...) Just an idea.
Women always make up colours that don't exist - burgundy is a place, olive a food, and slate a building material (and in Wales also a food).
You can respond by inventing male colours - power drill (a light grey), porn (a glossy red) and ale (nutty brown).
The game you describe was also popular with my father and uncles, although their criterion was not colour so much as the Englishness of the driver, and they eschewed calling out in favour of unloading both barrels. The same applied to arm punches.
Brother T - Girls are clearly more devious.
Scarls - See above for the male way of saying the the same thing...
Pearl - why do so many sibling games involve physical violence? When my sister - then 4 - was asked to look after me when I was a baby, she interpreted this to mean 'put baby brother in wheelbarrow, take him down the garden and deposit him on the compost heap'.
Ms S - A fine suggestion, as long as Djangolina doesn't interpret that to mean that she has to punch me when she sees one...
Gadjo - sky, cobalt and Prussian are colours? Are you gay? One is a view of the atmosphere, one an element and one an annoyingly po-faced German, surely. I think you do have a point about Djangolina's choice of colours, though. I originally suggested I do 'silver' (that being the median car colour in our parts), but she vetoed it, presumably on the grounds that she didn't want to get pummelled.
Boyo - my feelings exactly. There's only one thing worse than the mem-sahibs for imaginary colours, and that's interior designers.
Sounds like she might grow up to be an interior designer. Switch to cream cars, and see if she comes out with "vanilla", "oatmeal", "magnolia" or "eggshell".
"blueish colours all still have the word blue in them...", i.e. sky blue, Prussian blue, cobolt blue...... Do we gays have to constantly spell everything out for you??
Daphne - I think I'd prefer being punched, to tell the truth.
Gadjo - Spell what out for whom? ;o)
Wordver: mingst - the ugliest of all
Only joking, Gyppo! And the words I used were, I repeat, "everything" and "you".
WV: emeradd: Welsh precious stone
What? This isn't a game, it's life. Which your daughter clearly realizes, even if you don't.
You know, gyppo bapak, scarlet is right. We are smarter than silly old men. You, along with others of your own gender, are only for financial support and pro-creation.
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