Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Get a Clue

Donny returned from America, bearing gifts. For he is a wise man.

One of the most exciting gifts he brought is the game of Clue. I remember spending many happy hours playing this game in my youth. The only downside is that you can't really play on Shabbat; or, you can, you just have to be reeeaaaaaallllly creative.

We tore off the plastic and opened the game. As I started to explain the rules to Ariella, it dawned on me how very macabre this childhood game of mine is.

"See," I began brightly, "there's this guy, Mr. Body. And he was killed! In his own house! By one of these people! And your job is to figure out who did it, where they did it, and how!" Ariella starts examining the little toy weapons, which look like a twisted version of Monopoly pieces. She holds up a slightly bent metal one.

"How do you kill someone with this?" she wonders.

"Well," I chirp, "it's a wrench, you see, so you just bang the person over the head again and again till they die! Haha! Okay then! Maybe we should just start playing!"

After a practice round, Ariella was starting to get the hang of it. Yaakov, however, was not feeling so sanguine about Clue.

"This is a vewy bad game faw my age," he declared, and stomped off to play with his new build-a-tube-contraption-and-throw-marbles-down-it toy.

Ariella had just one question about the game. "But why?" she insisted, "WHY did they want to kill him?"

Maybe we'll just stick with Go Fish.

9 comments:

faith/emuna said...

ha ha ha. once i was riding in a car with an israeli friend and a former canadian and the israeli started going on about this game her kids played at someones house, and she couldnt understand how they could have such a game, what were these parents thinking buying their kids a game about murder, etc etc and me and the other women were like omg clue thats such a great game we had such a good time playing it as kids and she looked at us in horror, you think you know someone ...
but yeah when she said described the game i kind of saw her point

mother in israel said...

Ha, good one.
I once asked to buy Risk in a trendy Upper West Side toy store. The saleslady said they don't sell war games. My brother's reaction, "What about chess?"

Gila Rose said...

f/e - exactly! So much fun to play, yet so horrible when you describe it...

MII - good point. Maybe they shouldn't sell decks of cards either, in case someone uses them to play "War."

Anonymous said...

It's true of all games, really - the idea is to BEAT someone else - e.g., Monopoly - hahaha I want you to be penniless and homeless! Trouble - I want to get all of my family home but I want YOUR family to be unable to get home! and so on.

Baila said...

It's like Grimm's Fairly Tales. Very damaging for children. But hell, they did it to me, so my kids will get it too.

Risa said...

Gila, "macabre" and "sanguine"- you overestimate the intelligence of this loyal reader. I do recall playing Clue growing up and there is a way to play it on shabbos. If you have the pre-printed papers with the weapons, people and rooms on it already ripped off from the note-pad, you could use paper clips to surround the printed names/rooms/weapons that you have elimiated from suspicion. (Perhaps this will be useful when the kids are older and will enjoy the game.) I think I learned this from summer camp when the infirmary used to have papers with a pre-printed range of temperatures on them for shabbos and put a paper clip around the patient's temperature. The range was printed four times on the top, bottom, right and left edge of the paper, allowing one to "record" four temperatures over shabbos. However, I am wondering if the fact that there were sick children involved had anything to do with this allowance, although there was no writing.(DISCLAIMER: I am not a posekes nor do I claim to be one, so please CYLOR re: allowance of playing clue and "recording" temperatures on shabbos.)

Eliana said...

Quite hilarious. Well some things are lost in translation. I guess this means you'll pass on the movie too (yes it was made into a movie in the 90's)

Mark said...

Risa, re:paper clips, some shuls use paper clips to mark pledge cards during appeals.

OneTiredEma said...

Momz has a point. And at least with Clue you have to use your head/logic to try to figure things out.

Monopoly junior, on the other hand. Does anyone want it before I scatter it to the winds? Because OMG HATE HATE HATE.