As you know, dear readers, many of the most exciting children’s games began as a warnings against hanging out with ugly people, and foreigners. We need only look back to the nuclear age to discover one of your personal childhood favorites: “Ring Around the Rosey.”
“Wait,” you say, “doesn’t that have its origins in plague-stricken England.” Well, first of all, this is my blog and I wait for no one. If you can’t keep up, well, you’re an illiterate boob. Secondly, you are clearly Irish or something.
There'll be no "Ring Around the Rosey" for you mister...until you clean up your mess.
With all the newly evacuated, so-called, “Brownfields” in Japan and places in the U.S. of A., like the New Mexican desert and Pittsburg, and the surplus of bland 1950’s children, entrepreneurs saw a way to make money by combining the two. They turned these toxic waste sites areas of low vegetation and non-potable water into Magical Learning-grounds!™
Teacher: “Look children, a three eyed fish!”
Ignorant Child: “Why does it have its intestines outside its body?”
Teacher: “How the hell do you know what ‘intestines’ means?!…I mean, here child, drink some water…”
"Ashes, ashes, we all play in a nuclear blast site!"
Over the years, the lyrics to “Ring Around the Rosie” have changed, but children have always held hands while running around a glowing mudclod. Especially the dim ones.
This brings me to “Backgammon” (there’s no good segue to this), a game young children hate. Just as much as they hate dental visits, broccoli, and cleaning up after their alcoholic parents. There’s good news though; we can solve this problem with “information” (the Backgammon problem, not the alcoholic parents problem – sorry kids!).
Before the advent of nuclear war, people had trouble coming up with stuff to do. But after several thousand years of trial and error, they decided to stick with error.
The curious countenance, the bloodshot eyes, and the yellow mustard-stache. Notice the signs of genius? No, me neither.
Enter Hans Gammon, the inventor of “Triangles, Circles, Numbers, and Racoons.” It was wisely retitled after his death, against his wishes. Here’s how you play:
1.) Find an empty table. No empty table? Try the floor. No floor? Where are you? Outside? You heathen.
2.) Just add water! Just kidding – add 30 checkers, four die, a doubling die (you know…for kids), and a board covered with triangles and a bar in the middle.
3.) Oh! I almost forgot, you also need a caged rabies infected raccoon. If you don’t have a raccoon, a beaver with bad breath will work.
D.) Now, place all your checkers on the table, or “flatwood” as the Brits call it. Roll to see who goes first…then that person rolls the dice to determine the number of moves.
0.) I know what you’re thinking now, seems pretty intuitive. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong! Oh, dear Lord, you don’t know how wrong you are! Roll two sixes? Move 24 times. Roll a five and a six? Time to get the doubling die!
10.)Doubling die: using an unnecessarily obscure mathematical process (multiplication) a player “ups the odds” or, as I say, “increase the risk.” Player one rolls a five and six, and the first of the two players to grab the doubling die gets to roll it. The other player will use the rolled number to determine how many times he has to stick his hands in the raccoon cage.
Zucchini.) The first player to get all of his checkers off the board, and doesn’t have rabies, wins.
Final Analysis: I realize, however belatedly, that this was probably not very convincing. Also, using a beaver with bad breath is not actually an option in tournament play.
