Bored games (Dave Barry)

If you answered, ''Spin the Bottle,'' then I frankly do not want to know any more about your childhood. What I'm referring to is, of course, the classic board game ''Clue,'' in which you try to solve a murder by using a logical process of deduction to narrow down the various possibilities until your sister has to go to the bathroom, at which point you cheat by looking at the answer cards. At least that was always my strategy.

In Monopoly, my strategy was to be the car. The car was one of the little metal game-board pieces; the other ones, as I recall, were the hat, the dog, the shoe, the guy on the horse and the iron. I never wanted to be the shoe, and I definitely did not want to be the iron. I wanted to be the car because I could make car noises by vibrating my lips -- brrrrmmmmm! -- and drive the car around on the floor to amuse myself while waiting my turn, which is mainly what you do in Monopoly, which I always considered to be one of the most boring activities on the planet.

But I had friends who loved it; when we played, they became insane, money-grasping capitalist pigs. They'd crouch next to the game board, looking over the tops of their hotels with greed-crazed eyes, watching me throw the dice, waiting for the little car to come around the corner, motoring innocently along -- brrrrmmmmm! -- until it stopped on -- Hah! --Boardwalk, and they'd triumphantly announce that I owed them some huge amount of pretend money that they knew to the exact pretend cost of landing on Boardwalk without looking at the cards.

I'm not saying that all of these friends went on to become attorneys, but it was a healthy percentage.

I will say this about Monopoly: I was better at it than at chess. My problem with chess was that all my pieces wanted to end the game as soon as possible. ''Let's get this over with!'' was their battle cry. If the rules had allowed it, my pieces would all have charged out onto the board simultaneously the instant the game started. Unfortunately, this was not legal, so they had to content themselves with charging out one at a time, pretty much at random, and immediately getting captured. Here's what it they sounded like:

Because of the level of my chess game, I was able -- even against a weak opponent, such as my younger brothers or the dog -- to get myself checkmated in under three minutes. I challenge any computer to do it faster.

The one board game that I still play is Scrabble. I like it because, unlike most other board games, which basically are pointless time-consumers, in Scrabble you can do something mentally stimulating and worthwhile: make naughty words. There is nothing quite like the sense of intellectual accomplishment that comes from spelling out, say, ''b-o-s-o-m,'' knowing that it will be sitting there on the board for hours, staring up at your opponents.

The thing is, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, both ''gleet'' and ''pood'' really are words, as are ''kloof,'' ''fremitus'' and ''woomera.'' It turns out that, if you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word, which means you can put down any old letters you want and claim it's a legal move.

Of course, you have to be careful whom you're playing with. The number of violent Scrabble-related incidents is on the rise. I have here a news item from the Nov. 29, 1996, Hagerstown, Md., Morning Herald, sent to me by alert readers Bill and Louisa Sonnik. Here are the first two sentences of this item, which I am not making up:

``SMITHSBURG -- A Hagerstown woman was charged with second-degree assault on Wednesday night after her husband was struck in the forehead with a Scrabble game board, according to the Washington County Sheriff's Department. The incident happened when the man tried to restrain the woman after she threw the Thanksgiving turkey into the yard.''

The item does not state why the woman threw the turkey, but I would not be surprised to learn that a word like ''gleet'' had something to do with it. I would also not be surprised if, next Thanksgiving, this couple leaves the Scrabble board in the closet and just throws the turkey, which sounds like more fun

I thought I'd update my technology letter, in light of an incident I'll describe later.

Here is what I wrote a year ago:

Hi all,

You all can welcome me to the 21st century. Actually, I guess, the 20th century, I'll explain in a minute.

Since 1988, I have resisted getting a cell phone. To me, phones are the most intrusive devices known to man. And cell phones are incredibly intrusive.

Imagine this: you are in somebody’s office doing business when the door is opened, and a person says "What are you doing for lunch...man have I had a bad day.... yatta....yatta....yatta". If it were me, I would throw that person out of my office so quick, their head would spin. But, let the phone ring, and all conversations have to stop while the office holder discusses lunch, bad days and yaddas. And we accept it. Talk about intrusive (not to exclude rude).

My phone rang at 2 am. You have to answer a 2 am phone call. It could be serious, not that you could do anything about it. But still the phone rings. I answer. Drunk voice: "Is this Bills Bail Bonds?" Instead of telling the unfortunate party he has a wrong number and has used his one phone call on it, I tried to help. I asked what he needed. Told me he needed $25,000 bail bond cause he was driving while drunk. I asked his name, and told him to hang on, I'd be right there. I went back to bed, slept great.

My office phone number was 1 digit off from the IRS help line. Now, I promise I didn't do anything, but boy was I tempted to give some bad advice, like "oh, don't worry about it, I will mark your record so you don't need to pay taxes this year". Or "holy crap, if you put that on your return, you will get a $75,000 refund". But I didn't do any of that, I promise.

Now CELL PHONES!!!!

Lady in front of me in grocery store, writing a check, makes a cell phone call. Her reason "hi honey, what is today’s date?". She found out the purpose of the rubber thing the grocery stores have on their checkout stands, as I beat her senseless with it.

Grocery store: Man with cell phone in ear "now I'm in frozen foods, how many pizzas do I need to get?" EVER HEAR OF A LIST???? Turns out, he was talking to his wife 2 aisles away, she was getting milk. I beat them both senseless with the rubber thingy.

It is a good thing my kids were grown and away before cell phones became popular. I would have been reported to family services because I refused to get them a cell phone.

I was talking to my son last night, and he said he had 3 cell phones. His wife has 2, AND THE 5 YEAR OLD HAS HIS OWN!!!! Good thing he lives 1,000 miles away from me, I'd beat him senseless with the rubber thingy.

I see on TV that some cars are now, on their own, making cell phone calls when in an accident, or sending you an e-mail once a month, I guess just to converse.

Cell phones with cameras!!! What the hell??? I can't tell you haw many times I have been photographed beating somebody senseless with a rubber thingy.

Cell phones with text messaging!!! Isn't that a step backwards? Alexander Graham Bell (I called him "Al") invented the phone so you wouldn't have to write a letter.

OK, so the other day I am in Wally World, and I see they are giving away a cell phone, with no contracts, no strings, no camera and I only have to pay 10 cents a minute for when I use it. I foolishly buy it.

Now, the FREE phone cost me $53.00 but I have 300 minutes to use. 300 minutes!!!! that is 5 hours. Who the hell do I know that I'd talk to them for 5 hours????

AHH, but my new phone has 2 great features, a flashlight (I swear, a FLASHLIGHT), and a rubber thingy, so I can beat myself senseless.

Yes, it is a 20th century cell phone, not quite a 21st century, but, like my kids say, "It's a start, Dad".

The new phone number is 555-555-1555. If you want to call me, my paypal address is xxxxxxx (10 cents a minute)($1.00 will get my undivided attention for 10 whole minutes) LOL

Now for the incident that prompts me to update this letter.

The bishop and I are in Wally World, he getting a tarp (one item) and I need groceries.

We wander off separately, and when I next see him, he has a cart full of items. Turns out Mrs. Bishop has been calling in to him to pickup more items. And his phone rings.... again.

He answers, it is Mrs. Bishop. She tells him to go to the "craft section" of Wally World, and call her back....I tag along.

At the craft area, he calls her. She needs some plastic sunflowers for a craft thingy. He hangs up and wanders around to find sunflowers. We (yes, now I'm sucked into this mini-drama) find 4 different sunflowers. He calls her back with a sunflower report. She says "take pictures of the sunflowers, email the pictures to me, and I'll pick out which one I want you to buy".

I dig out my little rubber thingy.

Yours

.....Bob

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