Houston is one of the largest cities in America, yet there is literally nothing fun to do. I think Houston’s tourist slogan is: “Visit Houston; we have NASA, and Enron was here.”
On a boring and cold early January night, my friends and I sat in the garage and stared at each other with no idea what to do.
“We could go see “Bride Wars” or something. My mom said it was good.”
This kid was never allowed to hang out with us again.
Movies are like 10 bucks, and 20 if you bring a date. She’s gonna want popcorn. “Oh no, baby it’s ok. You can get the Super Extreme Large Combo. Let me just get an advance on my paycheck.” She is also going to need to quench her thirst, so that’s gonna set you back another 10, maybe more. Oh wait; she wants Sour Patch Kids too (of course she does). So total for a date with all the essentials will be around 30 or 40 dollars. That is insane.
So the movies were out. How about a park? Well, I guess we could have, but it was kind of late in the evening, and the only park in Houston that stays open late is a place called Waugh Park. Waugh Park is the destination of all the 10th grade white kids who think that the only person who can understand them is Bob Marley, so they don’t wash their hair and go for the dreads look and then enroll in a religion they can’t even spell; they just know it starts with “Rasta.” I can’t stand dreads; they smell. So we vetoed the park.
So my friend, whom we’ll call Claudio, half-jokingly told us we could always play a board game. We all kind of laughed and then in a matter of 12 seconds all realized that was exactly what we were going to end up doing. So we ventured to his closet and looked through the many different kinds of games. It got me reminiscing about the different board games that we played as kids.
One of my favorite games was “Don’t Wake Daddy,” which was a real game in my house. In the game, you make your way through the house and to the kitchen, each time hitting your–I’m assuming–biological father’s alarm clock, with each push of the knob taking you that much closer to waking your father up and making you go back to the beginning. In the Green family version, you had to sneak past my dad and steal the remote so you could watch cartoons instead of golf.
We actually ended up playing “The Game of Life.” You drive around in a car picking up a spouse and some kids who hop in the back seat while you journey through life and encounter things such as, “You developed a cure for the common cold! Move forward 4 spaces!” At the end of the game you have to choose between different retirement homes or other crazy shenanigans. But where is the appeal in this? Do kids 9+ really want to know what it’s like to experience the painful process of having to choose which retirement home to live in or the financial strain that children take? I mean, if I would have played that when I was nine, I would have felt like a terrible kid, seeing as I would cost my family $20 every 3 spaces. This game should be played by like, young adults. And what kind of parents decide that on their child’s 9th birthday they are allowed to play this game. BAN THIS GAME.
In case you’re wondering, I won life. And I’m not talking about the board game. I rule.
John Paul Green is a freshman theater major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
