Today’s flashback is just a quick one, denizens. I was going to do one that I’ve been putting off for a while now, but the overwhelming nature of the topic…overwhelmed me. Truth is, though, I think I’ve just built it up so huge in my brain that I’m now frightened of it. Jinkies, it’s just a cartoon after all.
Right. Like Star Trek is just a TV show.
Anyway, so UNO. I’ve already mentioned that I was never really one for board games when I was a pup. But UNO was different. Easy to transport, easy to put together, easy to play on the fly. It was the perfect distraction at recess as we were transitioning out of that age range of monkey bars and merry-go-rounds and heading toward the surly insouciance of teendom.
I remember spending several months of total UNO submersion during the latter part of my elementary school days (I think it was 5th grade, but it could have been 6th grade). Every recess, we would gather under the one tree on the playground and start dealing UNO cards. To this day, I’m surprised that my old school didn’t ban us from playing this game, citing some bizarre mandate that it was akin to gambling and the devil would possess us if we didn’t stop.
One particular game still sticks in my mind, and subsequently still makes me laugh whenever I think about it. We were well into our latest round of games that recess, parked under our regular tree, under the bright spring sky. One girl suddenly called out, “UNO”…and was promptly shat upon by a bird sitting in the tree. Plopped right down in the middle of her skirt.
She ran in and washed up in the restroom, came back for another round, inevitably called “UNO” again…and this time the bird shat on her shoulder.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Third time’s the charm? This time, when she called, “UNO” the bird hit bullseye right on her head. And oh the screaming that ensued, both from her and from the howls of laughter from the rest of us in the game. It was too perfect a set of coincidences, something so seemingly staged as to be from a movie. Was it something about her voice that had an effect on this poor little bird similar to the way a woman suffered epileptic seizures whenever she heard Entertainment Tonight’s Mary Hart? Or was she simply yelling UNO so loudly that she simply (and literally) scared the shit out of this bird?
Who knows. All I know is that it was my favorite game of UNO that I have ever played. I also know that whenever I get ready to call UNO any more, I always make sure to look up first.
Post-Flashback Follow-up
Um. They make a Star Trek UNO. Most awesome UNO EVAR (until they make a TNG version, and then that will win :-D).
