She said tetherball, and I immediately felt sorry for her.

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It won't work without the right chalk.

It never fails to generate conversation, though.

Especially at the Freshmen and Sophomore levels. They love thinking about being a kid again…but that’s not so hard a leap to make since most of them are still acting like they are kids.

Yesterday, when I asked this question I got mainly typical responses: Hide and Seek, Cops and Robbers, Red Light, Sharks and Minnows, Freeze Tag.  These quickly escalated into junior-high types of games, such as Dodgeball and Steal the Bacon. And one rather adult game that I’d never heard of before, called Traffic Light. (I’ll have to discuss that later. Over drinks, I’m afraid).

One poor thing, near the middle window, said Tetherball, and I immediately felt sorry for her.

After mulling over their responses, though, I realized something upsetting: The main point of half the games mentioned was to outwit, outrun, outdo an opponent. Or, beat them senseless with a large rubber ball, either free-hand or tied to a string. All the games they mentioned were, in effect, games that taught skill at the price of humiliating defeat.

I was hoping someone would have more innocent games to discuss, like There Are No Ghosts in the Graveyard, but when I mentioned how I used to play that all the time as a kid, they gave me a ridiculous stare and said things like that sounds stupid, or why did you play that, were you retarded, you know things like that.

Obviously it’s not a game most are familiar with.

One guy said he loved playing Deers and Dogs when he was little. That was too new for me, and I was about to dismiss it entirely (not the least of which was due to his errant use of the plural form of deer), but he was very eager to describe the game in detail.

It took about half a breath: someone is the hunter; someone is the deer; someone is the dog. The deer hides; the dog finds him; the hunter pummels him with pine cones and kills the deer.  I asked if they ever skinned the deer, hung him up from a tree to let the blood drain out, but he said No, they never did that.

The slow girl, who sits in the corner, offered this as her favorite childhood game: Slumber Party.

I asked, “That doesn’t sound like a game. How do you play it?”

She straightened up (like she does when I mention Pizza Hut), and replied, “Well, you invite a bunch of your friends over, and then you stay up as late as you can. But, it’s OK if you fall asleep, too.”

I'm afraid my pillow is in the shop.

I replied with, “I’m afraid that’s not a game. It’s an actual slumber party. No one wins.”

No one wins.

That was the trigger: it’s always Win or Lose with this culture. Isn’t it?

After this idea seized me, I got off-track in class, big surprise, and we ended up spending a great majority of the class trying to come up with some childhood game that didn’t require a Win Or Lose showdown.

I couldn’t think of anything.

Tag, board games, Marco Polo, Hide and Seek, you name it, and there is some element of “losing” involved. Sure, you say, There’s not such an element in Freeze Tag, but there is. If you’re not “It,” you’re in the line of fire. What about Hide and Seek, you posit? Well, what’s the point of hiding if you don’t know how to not get caught. This game is invaluable to the troublemaking adolescent; trust me, there’s a lot at stake for the clever hider. Many a fight with my cousins came over the I’m Pretending To Close My Eyes and Count but Not Really Because Last Time You Hid in the Laundry Chute and We Said No One Can Hide in the Laundry Chute Again facade.

I never said I didn’t cheat. And if you can cheat, then someone can lose.

The girl who mentioned Tetherball spoke up again, and said she often would just play by herself on the playground, hitting the stringed ball around and around the pole, and watching it unravel itself. So, she never really lost any game, she said, because she was playing by herself.

I had two responses for her. And I was in serious debate with myself over which one to give.

Do I say, “Well then technically you never won, either,” and leave it as a philosophical breath of fresh air, OR Do I state the obvious and remark, “You are a sad, uncomfortable, little girl, and you have my pity. I’m also sorry you feel the need to TiVo Reba.”

There was an awkward silence in the room. The rest of the class knew what I was thinking; maybe she did, too. It was a pitiful commentary on this girl’s childhood: I mean, who on earth plays tetherball alone? I think you know the answer to that. All of a sudden, the tension thickened, and I realized that we’re never not playing a game of some sort.

It's the color of a Smiley Face, which just makes it sadder.

Every game doesn’t require a yard, a field, a diamond, a board.  Some of the hardest and toughest games we ever play happen right out in the open, don’t they?, in a quiet battle of wills, in a difficult conversation, in a struggle for power and attention from your peers, or a class…and whether I liked it or not, I was stuck in the middle of just such a battle with this young woman, as I stood in front of all my students.

What could I say? What would I say?

Nothing, really.

Instead I gave her my widest You Try Hard and I Recognize Your Effort Smile. It shows a lot of teeth, and teeth are my biggest weapon. She looked hard at me; I felt she was searching out a sign of weakness, of fabrication, for a hole in my armor. She found nothing. So, she accepted my smile, and smiled back, and then, lowered her gaze.

Which means, of course, that I won.

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