Ok, so some of you have asked about this game my family calls "Bob". There's really nothing to tell. Trust me. In fact I am sure you will all know the game once I explain it. Chances are, you just call it something "normal".
The Background...
When I was a teenager there was this really tall, lanky man who was in the bishopric at church. His name was Bob and he was a bit of an eccentric. (Actually, that's a bit of an understatement.) I don't know why, but Bob always reminded me of the character Ichabod Crane, from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." He just looked tall and lanky and strange, like an Ichabod would.
Anyway, back to the story. Bob had lots of strange ideas about how to do things, the order in which things should be done and the reasons why they should be done. He also talked with this somewhat prissy-nasally-tonal accent; over-accentuating and over-enunciating his words. Like the rest of us plebs couldn't understand otherwise. Yup. He done figured we wus all id-yuts. Bob enjoyed being asked "how-to" questions or "what does that mean?" so that he could grace us with his smarts. Now, he didn't do this maliciously or proudly; honestly. He just really believed himself to be quite educated and he really loved sharing his wealth of knowledge.
So picture this really tall, really skinny, awkward man with really out-of-date thinking trying to "bond" with teenagers as he overwhelmed them with stuff they couldn't care less about, all while his really big fish lips were over-enunciating every single word. You could hardly pay attention to the guy with those things flapping.
Now to the game...
So one Sunday evening, just like many others, we (the teens) had friends over to play board games. Then we decided to play a story game. You know the one. Everyone gets a paper and writes one line to start a story, then passes it to the next person. The next person adds a line, folds the paper so only his sentence is showing, and then passes it on, etc. The game continues until the paper is filled leaving the last person to finish off the story. Then everyone reads the story they end up with out loud. Some of them are pretty lame. But a lot of them end up being pretty funny. (And the later at night it is, they funnier the stories seem to get. Go figure.)
This particular Sunday, I don't know why - except for the fact that we were teenagers, someone wrote a line about Bob. The funny thing was, the writer didn't specify as to which Bob she was referring. And no one ever mentioned a last name. Nonetheless, we all knew who it was. The single line progressed into an entire story about Bob and all of his idiosyncrasies. It was quite funny as we nailed him to a peg. Then, as the night progressed and we played other rounds of the game, every once in a while someone would throw a sentence in like "And then Bob took the monkey to the post office" or something totally random that would get us all in hysterics. By the end of the night, the game was dubbed, "Bob". And though we never played another game of "Bob" that was actually about "Bob", the name stuck. We've been calling it "Bob" now for 12 years. So, see? It's really not all that funny. It's more of a "you had to be there" type of thing.
Disclaimer...
Wow. In retrospect my family comes off looking really bad in this post, because it makes it look like we were totally ripping on him. Well - ok, maybe a little. But it was all in good fun and no one got hurt and nothing bad was written about him (except perhaps that teensy little thing about the fish lips). And my family is not really that mean. We are just your average family of quirky individuals who make up corny games that cause us to laugh and wheeze and almost pee our pants.
Fast Forward...
My youngest sister and her best friend (who was playing the game that night) grew up to marry brothers. So now "Bob" has spilled over into other families too. Most men in our family HATE playing Bob. Maybe it's because they don't have the patience to write stories. Or perhaps it's because they don't want to scratch that creative itch. I dunno. It just is.
So that's the story about Bob. What games has your family made up?
14 comments:
All my sis and I ever did was play house or school or find the cow or [whatever] while riding in the car. Your game sounds fun.
We never made anything up! I think we were too competitive and always making sure everyone played by the rules! haha!
That sounds like fun!
We always change the lyrics to songs....we sing commercials....not sure if we actually made up a game.
We love that game in my family. We call it the "writing game" lame name. But we love to write about Sister Miller (a lady in my parent's ward) who is June Clever but kicked up 10 notches. Our favorite story was when my brother started it about the day Sister Miller wore pants...(since she totally disapproved of that sort of pants wearing activity for women).
We made up a game called "The parents gone game" that we only played when our parents were gone. All it was was that we would turn on a record (usually foot loose soundtrack) and dance and dance. One person stood by the stereo and turned it off and we all had to freeze in whatever dance position we were in. Then the person chose the funniest pose and they got to turn the music off the next time. We'd play it for hours. To this day my parents don't know what the game is. Drives em crazy.
Sounds fun. I don't think we made any games up.
All I keep thinking about while reading that was almost peeing my pants about 100 hundred times, while playing that game!!!! Ok two thoughts. And how FAST he would drive over the RR tracks on our way to Firesides at the Bishop's house. SCARY!!!!! We caught LOTS of SERIOUS air!
When my sister and I were growing up, we played a game called "Fallies". It was very similar to charades in a way, but the important difference was that it had to be played on Mom's king-size bed because you had to Fall in a pose while the other sister tried to guess your Fallie. For example, if I raised my right arm and swung it as if swinging a racket while I fell backward onto the bed, then that would obviously be a Tennis Fallie. Hehe, we don't play anymore... must be part of our new mindset that says something like "stop jumping on the bed!" I don't know if my my mom knew we spent hours and hours jumping and falling on her bed. I also don't know if I'll tell her now!
Ok that was even better than I'd imagined Bob to be. You aren't sounding mean I promise. But some people are seriously ASKING for a game to be named after them. Every ward has a few.
My brothers and I never played much except the "I'm going to catch my sister and beat the crap outta her" and I was the one playing the victim. good times.
Lol!
So amazing about the money. You deserve it!
Good news about your gift!
That story is a hoot. That sounds like a fun game. As teenagers, I think all we did was play Trivia Pursuit, maybe the occassional Uno.
What fun:-)
wow! you really make us sound like jerks! maybe we should rename it to "the trailer's a-rockin'" or something like that. shout out to emilyjuice!
What I've noticed about playing BOB is that we as a family put in sentences that we as a family know. Movie qoutes, a reference to something in our familial past, etc.
The other thing I noticed about BOB is that depending on the group of people, it ends up being sexual humor or potty humor. In my case, both.
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