The Exhausted Dad: Bringing juice and soft squishy things to the North Pole

After a chaos-ridden, eardrum-piercing evening of playing dominoes at the kitchen table, my family of six attempted a “quieter” game during the holiday.

Mayhem still ensued, of course, but at least the commotion couldn’t be heard all across the neighborhood.

We played a variation of a guessing game that involves bringing certain themed objects to an island vacation. We changed it to themed objects you would bring to the North Pole. Same game, just vaguely festive!

The player who starts the round comes up with a theme, then lists the first item. For example, “I’m going to the North Pole, and I’m bringing fried chicken.” Then everyone takes turns asking, “Can I bring (BLANK) to the North Pole?” A guess of Ritz crackers was allowed to go on the trip, but vanilla wafers and tacos weren’t.

My wife concocted this particular theme, which turned out to be food items with two words, with the first word containing one syllable, and the second word containing two syllables. Seems hard, right? Well, our kids and I managed to figure it out with only two rounds of guessing around the room.

How my kids chose a theme on their turn said quite a bit about their current personalities.

For example, my 14-year-old, currently struggling with daily bouts of “BLEH” syndrome, decided to make her theme as what she could currently see on our kitchen table. It didn’t take long to figure this out, mostly because she looked over at the table on every person’s guess. Example: “You can take a fork to the North Pole, but … (teenager raises her head and squints her eyes in the direction of the table) … you can’t bring a spoon to the North Pole.” Subtle.

After I figured it out (but my younger kids hadn’t), I walked over to the table and placed a pair of headphones on it. When I asked if I could bring headphones, she said no. I said, “ARE YOU SURE?” while looking over at the table. She said, “Oh … yes!”

My 12-year-old son conjured a very specific theme around “soft, squishy things that can be found near his bed.” This included the dog, a pillow, some stuffed animals and carpet, but NOT a blanket and NOT the dog’s fur. Because apparently, his blanket is not “squishy” enough, and the dog’s fur in and of itself is not squishy. Also, I would never categorize our carpet as soft and squishy, but fine.

My 10-year-old daughter came up with the only truly appropriate theme of the round. It was something that had a clear set of objects, and she expertly led the group to the correct answer after only a few guesses. She believes the game should only be played by the rules she first learned and that a theme shouldn’t be lists of things specific to a person. She loves rules. As a result, however, her theme was something so boring and/or predictable, I can’t remember it.

My 8-year-old son giggled throughout his theme round and bragged about how “nobody would ever guess it.” It became clear after about six guesses that he hadn’t made a theme. He insisted for a while but eventually admitted to his ruse.

“Ha, ha, ha. I had no theme! I fooled all of you!”

Not to be outdone, I made a theme that no child was ever going to guess. You might ask, “How is that fun for the kids?” My answer: “It’s fun for me.”

My first clue: I’m bringing “juice” to the North Pole.” Everyone asked to bring a bunch of foods that didn’t fit the theme. Then I brought “meatballs” to the North Pole. More failed food guesses resulted. Then I brought “mixed nuts.” More bad guesses. One kid asked if she could bring our dog, Marley, and I said, “Almost, but no.” This frustrated everyone.

My next item: “Taxi.” My wife asked if I was bringing “A taxi” or just “Taxi.” I said, “Taxi.” She was onto me!

My kids still didn’t understand, even after another round and another item I listed, “Fried Green Tomatoes.”

My wife ended the suffering and correctly guessed “Movie titles.” Or more specifically, “Movie titles our kids wouldn’t know and would be confusing to them, basically ensuring they could never win the round.” The “almost” correct guess was “Marley and Me.”

Anyway, we stopped playing the game after my round. Game night in the Wilson house is always chaotic, and the underlying cause is obviously genetic.

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Tyler Wilson is an attorney, a freelance writer and a parent to four kids, ages 8-14. He is tired. He can be reached at [email protected].

  

   

    

  

 The Exhausted Dad