Monday, January 4, 2010

Charades, Pictionary, and Other Tests of Marriage

by Julia Buckley


























Many divorces, I’m guessing, can be traced to a game of charades, especially in that moment when the charader keeps repeating the same crazy motion—smacking his head, perhaps—and refusing to acknowledge the confusion of his teammates. Smack, smack, glare. Smack, smack, glare. The charader becomes angry that his thoughts aren’t instantly transferred into the minds of the guessers. There is, unless the players are quite good-natured, frustration and eventual fury on both sides.

A similar game is Pictionary. In this case, the frustration lies in having to draw the idea and hoping that your teammates can recognize the picture. At our New Year’s gathering with neighbors, we played a cross between Pictionary and Win, Lose, or Draw. Remember that game? Remember Bert Convy? :)

Anyway, our neighbor Burt set up a big pad and we divided into family teams: our four versus their four. One of theirs was a five-year-old, which you would think would be a handicap, except that our team contained my husband. Not to slam my spouse, but he would be the first to admit that his art skills are on a par with the average pre-schooler’s, partly because he has the manual dexterity of Frankenstein. When he does the dishes, dishes break. When he strokes a child’s hair, the child says “ow.” And when he draws a picture in Pictionary, it looks like the one above. That’s right, the child didn’t draw that picture: Jeff did. Can you guess what it is? I’ll give you a hint. It’s in the category “movies.”

We couldn’t guess, either. My children made some game attempts. “Devil?” “Angels and Demons?” “The Exorcist?” “Dracula?” “Snowman?” “Mothman?” “The Butterfly Effect?” “Come on!” we yelled, wanting more clues.

My husband shook his head and pointed at the thing above. We looked. The timekeeper laughed.

We tried more desperately. “The Thing?” “Caped Wonder from Outer Space?” “The Blob?” “Alien?” “Pig-nosed Horn Creature?”

No. “Time’s up!” crowed our neighbor’s daughter.

“Dad, what was it?” asked our sons.

My husband drooped. “Now I don’t want to tell you.”

“No, really. We’ll get it,” we assured him. Surely, once we had the knowledge, we would link his visuals to the movie in question.

He showed us his card. It said, “The Matrix.” The Matrix. We looked at the card, then at his visual.

Then we laughed for about five minutes.

My youngest son, wiping the tears from his eyes, said, “You should have drawn this.” He sketched a pair of sunglasses and a gun. It took about five seconds.

“Oh, yeah, that would have done it,” various people murmured.

My husband, head bowed, went back to his seat. We had nothing to lose or gain from this exercise—we had stopped keeping score. But I could see how competitive people with a few beers in them would become furious—either because a spouse laughed at him or because a spouse drew an impossible picture for her.

As it was, my husband retained his dignity, blaming the card for being impossible, but my sons and I kept sending him glances of disbelief. Not since his famous drawing of “Brothers” (two mustached men holding hands) had his pictionary been this inscrutable. I wondered if there was a game that wouldn’t bring out the subtle aggressions or humiliations of our family.

Trivial Pursuit? No way. Sorry? Nope. Poker? Not a chance . . . .

Perhaps we should just watch television. :)

6 comments:

Ann Elle Altman said...

What a funny post. I laughed so hard when I found out it was The Matrix. We have a similar game called 'Cranium' where they combine many games and in it there are games like charades and pictionary. I can see where you're coming from.

ann

signlady217 said...

My husband and I would never win if we were on the same team. His mind and mine definitely do not think along the same lines! It's like the gameshows Password and $20,000 Pyramid, too. I could go on those with my mom or one of my best friends and we would probably win, but never with my sweetie!

Elizabeth Zelvin said...

LOL, Julia--and kudos to your husband for letting you post his drawing online. Or doesn't he know? Is it a secret? You know what they say about secrets on the Internet...the opposite of what they say about Las Vegas. ;) My favorite line: "When he strokes a child's hair, the child says, 'Ow.'" Sounds like what happens when I snarl at my hubby, "I need you to comfort me."

Julia Buckley said...

Ann, I'd like to say we were laughing with him and not at him, but . . . .

Liz, he does know that it's here. He's resigned to becoming blog fodder now and then. :)

Signlady, that's so funny, because my sister and I used to play the home version of Password all the time when we were kids, and our opponents always thought we were cheating because we were so in sync it was as if we read each other's minds. That was really annoying to the other teams. :)

kathy d. said...

I sympathize with your spouse because I have no artistic ability.
There is no way I could draw a clue and I still draw like an elementary schooler, a young one.

My sister has always insisted that she didn't know motherhood required arts and crafts' skills which she sadly found out it did.

But these games are great and the fact that your spouse has a sense of humor about it all is the main component.

Julia Buckley said...

You're right, Kathy. He is a good sport--especially because we have the drawing you see here hanging on the wall by the basement stairs. :)