Weird Games I Play With Myself

Filed under: Personal — joy at 11:32 am on Wednesday, April 11, 2007
  • Let’s see how long I can go without going to the grocery store (usually until I run out of coffee or nonfat milk).
  • Let’s see if getting free samples has any impact whatsoever on my budget. (It doesn’t, but it does help me more successfully play game number one. A free coffee sample? Great, I don’t have to go to the grocery store today.)
  • Let’s see how long I can make a garbage bag last before I have to change it. (Nine days is the record.)
  • Let’s see how many people I can get to eat a piece of strawberry cake before it goes bad. (So far, four.)
  • Instead of hanging up my clothes, let’s do it slowly by hanging up one piece of clothing every time I go into the bedroom.
  • If I root a potato and put it in the ground, will it really grow? Even if it is a weird purple hybrid potato?
  • If I take a dollar out of Kyle’s wallet every time I see it, will I squirrel away a big store of cash that we can suddenly use to do something fabulous? (The answer is no. This is a stupid game when you are an adult with a savings account.)
  • If I leave the junk mail in the mailbox with the flag up, will the mailman get confused and take it back with him? (No! Alas.)
  • Will I like an audiobook of the Hardy Boys mystery The Case of the Missing Chums simply because I like the word “chum”? Let’s see!

4 Comments »

Comment by marcia

April 11, 2007 @ 11:49 am

My game: How far can I drive on empty before running out of gas? Getting gas is such a bother!

Comment by justin

April 11, 2007 @ 12:25 pm

I’d be curious about Kyle’s reaction to games 1, 3, and 7.

Comment by joy

April 11, 2007 @ 1:37 pm

Marcia, yeah, I play that one too.

Justin: For the groceries, he doesn’t seem to notice, because part of the game is for me to make delicious food with as few ingredients as possible. For the garbage can, I explained to him how at this rate a box of trash bags would last us two years. He seemed impressed. Also, I don’t let it get gross or smelly.

For the money thing, here is a conversation I just had with Marcia:

(12:55:14 PM) DonnerBrandPears: I really had high hopes for the squirreling-away-money game
(12:55:28 PM) DonnerBrandPears: it worked for housewives in the 50s
(12:56:14 PM) Marcia: you could maybe buy a cake with the money
(12:56:36 PM) DonnerBrandPears: I got $50. It took forever.
(12:56:44 PM) DonnerBrandPears: and it was all in $1s and unwieldy
(12:56:58 PM) Marcia: people at stores thought you were a stripper!
(12:57:01 PM) Marcia: or a waitress
(12:57:20 PM) DonnerBrandPears: and Kyle kept wondering where his money was and then getting more out. which was counter-productive!
(12:57:28 PM) Marcia: lol
(12:57:37 PM) DonnerBrandPears: and then he caught me doing it and laughed at me and made comments about how I wasn’t living in I Love Lucy.

Comment by Grogged

April 15, 2007 @ 8:07 pm

When back in school, my roommate and I played the garbage bag game. After slightly more than a week, trash had reached “bulge” status. At this point, laziness took a back seat to inventiveness, and I scoured the house for an unused cardboard box (found a full one in roommate’s bedroom - emptied the contents onto floor in a pile, an act that went completely unnoticed). I chopped the box up and used the pieces to extend the height of the garbage can a full sixteen inches on all sides. This process was repeated at least twice more. When deemed unsightly about three weeks later, the overall height was just under six feet. Fortunately, sheer weight crushed the trash down neatly, creating solid debris fields that kept the foul odors of the bottom safely contained. The cardboard had to be duct taped to avoid distaster. It took three grown men to remove the sky-scraping column of rubbish.

I am now perfectly content to spend copious amounts of cash on trash bags to ensure frequent removal.

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