Say Yes to Drugs

We were holding the line at Serenity for quite a while Thursday night. (Ha! Get it? That was for you, Guy!) We passed some of the time with an Uno deck, but we got kind sick of that after a couple of games. Fortunately, we also had a few decks of regular playing cards.

Somehow, the classic game of Spoons came up. I haven't played Spoons since high school. And neither had most of the rest of us. One of the people with us had never even heard of Spoons. In case you're like that, let me explain. (If you know, you can skip the next paragraph.)

A number of spoons that is one less than the number of players are placed in the center of the playing space, in reach of all players. Each player is dealt four cards. The dealer then begins looking at cards from the top of the deck, one at a time. He has the option to exchange what he sees for a card in his hand. Exchange or no, he then passes his rejected card to the player on his left, who repeats the "examine, optional exchange, pass" process. The cards continue to circulate around the table. This is all done as fast as possible. The goal is to get four of a kind in your hand. Sort of. The real goal is to get a spoon. See, when any player makes four of a kind, he takes a spoon from the center of the table. Once any player has taken a spoon, all other players may do so, whether they've got four of a kind or not. It's "musical chairs" -- the last player to grab a spoon loses. It's also the basketball game "Horse" -- if you fail to get a spoon, you take a letter, and when you've spelled out S-P-O-O-N (-S, depending on who you play with), you're out, a spoon is removed, and the remaining players continue. Stupidly simple, but way more fun that it sounds.

Now, if you'll recall, here we are in the line, with a deck of cards we don't mind mangling. (Nothing tears apart a deck of cards like a game of Spoons. Except maybe a game of Spit. Or Speed. Or Egyptian Ratscrew. Essentially, these are other "Slapjack"-ish type of card games.) Of course, we don't have any spoons with us. Which was pretty much always the case back when I played the game in high school, too. Substituting pens or pencils is pretty much the norm if you're not playing near a kitchen somewhere.

So out come the women's purses, as the five of us try to come up with four pens for us to play. You'd think no problem, but sadly, there aren't four pens between the two purses, only three. But -- and here's the reason I've bothered telling you this meandering story -- what we do have four of (five, in fact) are drug prescription bottles.

Creepy, no?

So we played "B-O-T-T-L-E." Of course, the five of us playing with prescription bottles got looks from other people in line. At one point, a guy in front of us commented to his buddies that it looked like we were playing "Valium Poker." I'm not sure what that is, but sounds like it could be fun, too.

Let me tell you, those pill bottles are slick. Hard to get one, hard to hang onto. And when one is disturbed during the mad dash for them at the end of each round, it rolls across the playing space, totally out of your reach. This made the game hugely more fun and... well, "challenging" is not the best word for Spoons, so let's stick with just "fun."

If you should ever find yourself in a situation to play Spoons, and you have enough prescription bottles handy, I highly recommend making the substitution.