Games People Play

Surfing the net I came across this guy on the Upper West Side who was looking for people to play games. Not mind or Olympic or Highland, but stuff like charades and Cranium and Password.

This was the perfect storm for me: I LOVE to meet new people and I LOVE to play games. Wow.

I e-mailed him and he gave me his number and I called him and he explained that it was just that, game playing. No sex, no drinking, no smoking. Well, I immediately wanted to hang up (kidding!), and thought "Perfect!" He told me they would try me out and I would try the group out. I felt like it was fraternity rush in college all over again. (But without the sex, drinking and smoking of course!)

I went to his apartment and there were about 8 guys my age in the middle of a raucous game of Scatagories. I introduced myself, put on my name tag and waited for them to be done. Immediately we delved into Catchphrase. OMG, I loved it. Bill the burly guy was brill at this game. (In fact he was brill at all of them.) I did well, but screwed the pooch on "Science and Technology." Some horrible word held me up and my vertigo brain just could not seem to act around it. Okay, I am blaming vertigo. It has to be good for something.

Our team won. Nonetheless.

There was a pause for drinks and then we each had to tell an up to 3 minute story from our lives. It was not therapy or anything like that. People talked about what they did this summer, someone else talked about working at a jewelry store. I told the story of my days as a security guard at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel in the eighties with Crazy Eddy, the famous hotel thief with the straight razor, Diana Ross, Danny Kaye, electrocution and the French bag lady who carried a globe and did her hair in the Bulgari mirror in front the the hotel. It went over well. And what an amazing parlor game to get to know people, not just through content, but through style. Fantastic.

Next we played charades. I am aces at this game. I tried to keep my competitive side at bay, but it didn't seem to matter as all were equally into it. I got 6 right. Enough to come in 2nd place, but not enough to beat burly Bill!

What fun it was and I walked out into the hot summer air of a New York evening feeling all chuffed with myself for having gone.