Let’s turn off the TV, put away the board games, and toss the deck of cards in the trash.
Yes, it’s time to play all the made up games you played as a kid. Let’s chat about some of the greatest:
• Erupting volcano (also known as Snake Pit or Shark Tank). Here’s where you pretend the floor is covered in molten lava and you have to jump across the furniture without falling in. Sweatsocks on slippery coffee tables, ottomans with wheels, and top-heavy bookcases can be dangerous. House rules dictate whether riding the Golden Retriever across the room is allowed. Either way, I’m pretty sure you can use a blanket as a life raft to get to dinner.
• Kitchen Rock Band. Grab all the pots and pans you can find, steal a handful of wooden spoons, and set up your kit on the cold linoleum floor. Now most makeshift kids bands are all drums – or percussive ensembles, if you will – so bonus points are awarded for anybody bringing in new instruments. Tip: Rubber bands over empty tissue boxes add a banjo section.
• Indoor baseball. Never popular with the parents this is where you simply swing a mini baseball bat at a tennis ball in the front hallway. Feel free to set up a GI Joe and Cabbage Patch Kid stadium seating area, create bases around the house, and keep playing until something shatters.
• Cardboard roll swordfights. Remember those long and thin cardboard rolls left over when mom finished wrapping the Christmas presents? Those were perfect for trumpeting announcements around the house, practicing robot voices, or using as pirate telescopes. After that they made for great lightsaber duels, Robin Hood swordfights, or gentle beating sticks. Finally, after a giant whack to your brother’s forehead caused them to spiral apart it was time for some nun chucks battles. Everybody wins.
• Any game involving leftover cardboard. Yeah, speaking of leftover cardboard, the holy grail of made up childhood games was when your parents got something delivered in a giant cardboard box. A new fridge or oven could meant months of fun inside a new basement stronghold.
• Store. Here’s where you empty out your kitchen pantry, put everything on the floor, and sell it back to your parents.
Yes, made up games you played as a kid let creativity roam wild to the outer edges of our brains. Rules are invented and changed, action takes over the living room, and big-eyed fun, screaming smiles, and sweaty foreheads crash together in a great big bang on Saturday afternoon.
AWESOME!
