Camp, part 4. Uno.

[parasitegirl]

You might have assumed that one of the things that can get lonely about living in a country where English is spoken only sporadically is the difficulty in having intense intelligent conversations. You’d be partly right. But when you find and intelligent person and you share some common language this can be achieved, it just takes longer and you may find that in clarifying your ideas for ease of communication, you also refine your thought process…

 

No, the thing I miss and if I even sense it in someone else I fall head over heals is…the ability to banter. Witty repartee. Fast and furious with the insults. Word play. Flinging invectives! Sarcasm… I love Raymond Chandler, Thin Man movies, the scene that Faulkner wrote for Big Sleep…my father and I insult each other for sport and family gatherings…Dorothy Parker is a start but I wanna be Wilde.

 

And that was the high point of my Kiddy Kat camp experience. Forget all of that about learning my coping mechanisms, giving sticker monsters some bling-bling, the rewarding glow that comes from teaching students…that’s nice and all…but by day two we wanted another night of UNO!

 

The mark of good companionship and a well-balanced group is not needing that second, or even that first, can of Chu-hi to keep a night rolling. The first night of playing Uno was a unplanned. It was a small game, about 7 of us and one deck of cards, but it soon became the source of all banter. We taunted the losers, insulted each other, did quick “dances of conquest” ganged up on frequent winners, blamed each other for everything and constantly kept up a thin layer of verbal bullshit about each other’s hands “We know he ain’t got not green, the bastard is barren, bring him down with the draw fours, reverses or bring on the greens…no green baby green baby green green…”

Uno is ideal for talking smack. It isn’t hard to learn. No money is involved to sour the mood or force people to take things seriously. No real strategizing gets in your way of being competitive. And it is a random enough game that everyone wins and loses in similar proportions.

 

Amechi had been the major loser of the first night. We stayed up until 1 or 2 AM and eventually gave up…this gave us the need for a rematch to help Amechi reclaim some dignity. Looking forward to the rematch gave us a goal for surviving day two at camp. And if we had nothing to say in passing we’d just simply say.

 

“Tonight you’re going DOWN!!!!”

 

Almost all of us showed up for the match. A few women with weaker constitutions begged out, preferring to watch and not get ulcers. Not me, I arrived early and took to pacing the floor and greeting new opponents with mock jabs, taunting “Bring it on, bitch!!!” I’m all about the psyche.

 

But there were far too many of us to all play in one game, so we had to find more cards. Dave, a British bloke who’d never played the game had become convinced over the last 24 hours that everyone else in the world knew the game except him. He suggested we raid the kid bunks, saying “Apparently everyone in Japan and America are given a deck at birth and are raised playing it.” We quickly had three boxes of cards.

 

Then there was the delay over how we would break down into smaller groups. Jimmy came up with a complex and highly competitive scoring system that would bring the best of the best into a final face-off. We vetoed this on the grounds that it would involve counting. 

 

Another very bizarre plan of swapping good and bad players back and forth to constantly rotate who you were playing against was suggested. I did not remind everyone that no two Uno games begin and end at the same time. This too was vetoed because it involved thinking.

 

So we splintered into 3 groups. I grouped with the guys who were most similar to me in verbal nastiness...I’m not a screamer or a gloater. I question your integrity, lineage, sexual prowess…everything. “A little premature with your victory dance. Is that a problem with you, the premature thing? I know it’s exciting but keep your pants clean and your hands where we can see them…” 

 

I played with Andy (a scruffy American boy who possesses an alarmingly similar sense of humor to my own …the next morning over coffee we insulted each other until another American yelled “ what the fuck did your parents dooooo to you two?!?!”) Norman the Kiwi, and Dave, who didn’t know Uno from his ass from a hole in the ground. Dave was in charge of all of us foreigners and was a seriously hyper-actively ebullient chap who radiated a sharp edge of healthy with a strong twist of fucked up stories. The kind of guy who gives every new task his alarming 100%.

 

Beginners are ideal for upping the humor factor. Uno is such a basic game that some beginners assume that the rules are really more complex than stated. Dave was an ideal beginner. Dave had no hesitation about asking the stupid questions.

 

Dave moments:

 

A red reverse can be put on top of a yellow draw two because Dave assumes that reverses, skips, draw two cards and the like belong to a special class of “revenge” cards and thus, like a shared color or number, share the common goal of fucking someone over and thus…

 

Dave; “Okay, that’s a red 8…now if I have two cards that add up to 8…do I get anything?”

Andy: ”You get to feel special”

Kayt; “and we give you a sticker for your counting abilities…”

 

Dave lays down a wild card. When we tell him he has to “call it.” He looks confused and Andy explains that a wild card means “Kayt has to do something wild.” I veto this and start explaining the wild card person calls what can be put down next. Dave calls…fives. We explain it must be a color…he calls white.

 

Kayt “You’re just fucking with us now…aren’t you?” 

 

We played, and bitched, and screamed, and checked the other teams until the facility fun patrol busted us for being up and loud past lights out time. If you don’t know what a Japanese-fun-patrol man looks like, they often wear dorky but official looking white polo shirts or random arm bands, carry a flashlight, and keep saying “you understand, you understand?” when addressing comments to foreigners.

 

It was probably for the best. A day of kid wrangling, campfire songs, and talking smack at Uno had left my voice pretty raw. Raw enough that two of the boys turned around in alarm when I did my most accurate Tom Waits impersonation to date.

 

It was time to put in the earplugs and sleep once more…the uprising would begin again tomorrow.

 

 

This is some, but not all, of us staffers with four Japanese helpers. Jimmy has the sunglasses on, Dave is saluting, And Andy is mocking my stance and sticking his tongue out...

Comments

Wow!! That sounds like so much fun!!!

[lissa-andstuff.livejournal.com]

Kayt that sounds like a blast!!! I am glad that you had a good time in the end..cause it just sounded like purgatory going to be a camp councilor seems like masochism....

as for the Peaches..I know you love them bestest of all!! They sound like the Bad News Bears..^_^ and at least they had character...

Silver Shiney Coffee Thermoz is still in the works...looking for perfect shine and warmness factor..since where you are it actually gets really cold..

glad your back...*hugs*

Re: Wow!! That sounds like so much fun!!!

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

It was great and horrid all rolled into 3 days. Trial by fire built by wee-people.

I begrudgingly liked the Peaches, but I was envious of Jimmy's kids, who also loved me and had attitude but not too much.

I figure the Peaches were an example of my Karma made flesh...god knows I used to be a well-spoken pain in the ass as a child ( no need for anyone to post the follow up question..."Just as a child....?)

I may finally have an office with a real heater, but it still gets mighty nippy here.

I have sick fantasies about real heaters...I set my own skirt on fire once while teaching a class standing infront of the thermo-bomb of a space heater in one of my old classes. But don't worry. Mom keeps me in stock of silk and poly long underwear in animal prints...