Wednesday Game Night

Trafton B.

February 10, 2010 - 11:19 PM

Wednesday. Hump day. The middle of the week, signifying that we've made it halfway and the weekend finish line is in clear sight. For me it's seemed too long already, what with two papers successfully completed (at 2AM last night) and turned in this morning and a tad bit of studying left to prepare myself for a quiz on ArcGIS tomorrow afternoon.

As I've mentioned before, I firmly believe that everyone needs to come up for air every once in a way. All work and no play makes Trafton a dull boy. So tonight, instead of piling my nose back into the books, I treated myself to what is soon to become a tradition within our group of friends - Wednesday Game Night.

My academic day ended when I left the McKenzie computer lab around 5:30 after a bief attempt to work on a GIS lab that was rudely interrupted by an Econ class. Econometrics, who needs it? But it did give me time to warm up some leftover pasta at home and catch up on this week's episode of 24 with my friend, Leslie.

After agreeing that Jack Bauer is probably the manly man alive, Leslie brought my attention to dollar waffle cones at TCBY. We called some friends, rustled up some spare change and hopped in the car. Fun fact - we weren't the only students aware of waffle cone Wednesday, but we did make it in before the post dinner rush. Grinning with delight from a belly full of chocolate vanilla swirl, we all headed to our friends', Winston and Kevin, apartment in time to commence the night's activities.

Tonight's game choice: Catch Phrase.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this Hasbro classic, I send my condolences. But I'll try to bring you up to speed. It's a perfect blend between Taboo and hot potato. Players sit in a circle and teams are determined by alternating sitting position, ie no two players on the same team are sitting next to each other. Then an electronic game piece spits out different names, places, phrase etc and a player will get his or her teammates to guess the correct phrase without saying any word within the phrase itself; the team with the game in hand when the buzzer sounds loses the round.

Long story short, if I had enough time and I didn't have to wake up for work in the morning, I probably would have played all night. We played countless rounds, which led to an unlimited number of laughs and a noise complaint from the neighbors below. It's amazing to think about how your mind acts under pressure, and some of the things you hear are ridiculous.

Winston got the name of an actor one round, so he gave clues like, "He's in a wheel chair and talks with an electronic voice. He's ridiculously smart." His teammates yelled, "Stephen Hawking!" Then Winston looked back at the game to see the name Ethan Hawke. "Oh wait, wrong guy." It was even funnier because he went as far as to imitate the computer voice. That joke lasted all night.

Lizzy gave clues in another round. "It's where you go when someone is mad at you. Like if you're in trouble with your girlfriend or........" The first guess was "Planned Parenthood." The correct answer was "the doghouse." Sometimes it doesn't benefit to give specific examples.

In the midst of laughing we managed to watch this week's episode of A Modern Family and agree on hosting game night elsewhere next week, preferably not in an apartment for fear of having the guys evicted.

It's times like these when I reflect back on the friends that I've found over the past couple of years here. For those of you who have been following the blog, these are the same friends that celebrated with a turkey burger Thanksgiving. And the same friends that get together for impromptu games of whiffle ball when the weather turns surprisingly nice during the winter.

Not to mention, these are friends that get me through each and every midterm and finals week. School is tough; no one denies that, but it's an easier pill to swallow in the presence of good company.