Infernal Game Night (Part II)

It took a few days for me to recover from that last post as I needed to reconfirm my sanity before I began again.

I suppose you could consider this two part post a type of therapy, a purging if you will, of letting out the tension and angst that dwells within me over what was supposed to a simple ‘game night’.

So I left off at game number 2, ‘Scene It’ which went over as well as psycho-therapy drugs at a Scientology conclave.

Everyone decided to take a brief ’smoke break’, yet again…I have a suspicion that they were actually all secretly comparing the color of their teeth, a game in which I was not allowed to participate in as I have better things do with my fidgety hands and spare $7 that to see who can get cancer the quickest.

Up next was ‘RockBand’ on Xbox 360.  Now we’re talking!  This is a game I could get into as long as I can play either lead or bass guitar.  I’ll even do drums on ‘easy’ or attempt to sing if need be, but things are starting to look up…

And down again they go.

The main guitar is broken.  As many of Rock Band’s initial shipments of guitars went, the strum bar is broken on the down stroke.  Only the ‘upstroke’ strumming works, which makes it difficult.  The second guitar had a faulty ’tilt’ mechanism within and a bad ‘blue’ fret button.  Great…both guitars aren’t functioning properly.  Next is our singer, who wants to participate…but doesn’t.  All the songs, despite the words scrolling across the screen, proved to be too hard for her and thus she ‘only’ wanted to sing like 3 songs out of the 40+ that were available.  Okay…so lets play “Should I stay, or should I go” again…and again…and again.  And let’s turn the volume down on the mic, so we don’t embarrass ourselves and so no one can hear.  Another disaster that was abandoned mercifully after 30 minutes.

Good God…what the heck is wrong with these people?  There are 10 adults here who can’t play a game that requires a 5th grade level attention span.  My wife can tell I am getting frustrated and silently whispers to me that I need to ‘reign it in’, that it is supposed to be ‘game night and fun.’

Really?  That is the object?  To have fun and play games?  Well….I would have fun if we actually played an actual game, and followed actual rules, and everyone had basic comprehension skills, and crap wasn’t broken, or we need to take nicotine breaks every 10 minutes.  I am clearly not built for this.

Next up was the pinnacle of the night….Trivia Pursuit.  Crap….I hate trivia pursuit.  Reluctantly I agree and we begin to play.  Then I noticed something 15 minutes into the game….that the two owners of said game (a married couple) were winning hands down as they new the answers to the most ridiculous of questions.  The rest of us I don’t think got one question correct as the questions were meant for Mensa members.  After 20 minutes of this, I actually said something…”Why are the two owners of the game seemingly getting the all the answers correct when the rest of us have our thumbs up our collective asses?”  They feigned ignorance, but it was too suspicious for me.  I bowed out.  I declared I had lost interest and in an effort to speed this agonizing trouncing up, I folded like a cheap lawn chair.  I think I was the catalyst, because soon after, there was no left playing except the husband and wife…who then lost interest as well, figuring it was not fun beating each other since they appeared to already know the answers.

By this time, four hours after we arrived, I was more ready than ever to go home.  Nice people.  Nice idea.  But in my mind a complete and utter waste of time.  Oh you may think I’m an old sour puss, that I can’t hang in a social environment with friends of my wife.  Yeah, on the surface I may even tend to agree with you as well…..but this was a poorly planned evening with ridiculous games, short attention spans, too much booze, and clearly not enough tobacco for the masses.

I signaled to my wife I wanted to leave and she told me after she finished her drink.  Oh, that drink that she’s been nursing for the last 45 minutes that she hasn’t taken one sip of?  Great, at this rate this evening will never end.   I sat back on the couch and was biding my time in silence.  The topic being discussedin the kitchen with great enthusiasm and interest that seemed to be a round table panel better suited for ‘The View’?……Car washing.

Yes…..car washing.  The subtle weather indicators, techniques, soaps, and optimal conditions for washing cars.  I kid you not.  It is now 11:15 pm, and I am listening to grown adults discussing the intricacies of proper car washing in-between inebriated slurs.

Finally, after everyone else began to leave at 11:30, my wife submitted and decided we could now go…she didn’t even come close to finishing her drink.  So there it is, almost 6 painful hours of the most inane game night I ever attended.  I’d so rather be home by myself at this point.  My wife was clearly upset that I was ‘bored to tears’ and I’m sure I won’t be invited again in the future….Fine by me.