~Friday~ Imagine a road near to you that has a 25 MPH speed limit, and think about how slow that is. Now slow that down by 5 more mile per hour. Got it?
On our return trip from DC today, Bob and I traveled in traffic for an hour-and-a-half at an average speed of 20 miles per hour. Can you imagine how excruciating that was?
In an effort to take my mind off the situation, or perhaps in an attempt to keep me from saying, “This is ridiculous,” or This is crazy,” one more time, Bob suggested a game.
He started off by saying, “I’m going on a trip, and I’m taking an apple.”
Not being familiar with this game, but using my powers of deduction, I replied, “I’m going on a trip, and I’m bringing a banana.”
He then said, “I’m going on a trip and I’m bringing an apple, a banana, and carrots.”
Then, I “got” how the game worked, although I was at first reluctant to repeat the previous list items, but eventually started doing so.
This is what our final list ended up being:
- Apple
- Banana
- Carrots
- Doggies
- Egg
- Fruitcake
- Gerbil
- Hampster
- Iguana
- Jack O’Lantern
- Kool-Aid®
- Lard
- Muff (No comment!)
- Nasturtium
- Oprah (We had room in the back seat.)
- Petunia
- Quilt
- Raisins
- Sweater
- T-shirt
- Umbrella
- Vivaldi
- Watch
- X-ray
- Yarn
- Zebra (Right beside Oprah.)
After we’d been going 70 MPH for quite a while, I said to Bob, “When did the traffic break, somewhere between lard and muff?”
After that we played a game where the first person says the name of a famous person, and the next person has to name someone whose first name begins with the last letter of the last name of the previous person named.
We started off with famous real people, but ended up including fictitious people, such as characters in TV shows and in books.
Last names ending in y became particular problematic for the next person the longer the game went on.
I had never played either of these games in the car as a kid, at least I don’t remember them if I did.
I did play a game based on license plates that I think was finding a license plate beginning with the letters in the order of the alphabet — so first finding a license plate number that began with A, then one that began with B, and so on.
It might have been that, or it might have been that we tried to find a license plate from all 50 states, although I don’t remember how we kept track of which ones we’d already seen, although we did have pencils and pads back then.
If my sister is reading this, perhaps she can confirm or deny these musings.
What games did you play in the car as a kid?