The other night we were playing charades at a party
-- an actual grown-up party for grown-ups! Jane came with us and slept in a back room, and incidentally, we have reached the stage where I am not at all sure that she is still welcome at any given event just because she was welcome there a few months ago, as she becomes less and less a portable baby and more and more a mobile yet distinctly non-adult person, though the hosts for this party were nice enough to mention explicitly that we should bring her and her sleeping tent, and I wonder just how much longer I can keep going with this aside and indeed with this sentence; I was thinking the answer was "surely not much longer now," but since I introduced that semi-colon to the proceedings, the possibilities have expanded considerably, although in any case, I've already made my point, which is that it is tricky to figure out when and how to navigate the transition from having identified the set of Events Where a Baby Is Welcome to identifying the much smaller set of Events Where a Toddler Is Welcome --
and Steve drew the word "buffalo."
He later explained that he was aiming for the scene in Dances With Wolves where Kevin Costner learns the word "tatanka," i.e. "buffalo."
So he pawed at the ground for a bit, and pranced around with two fingers representing his buffalo horns, indeed just like in the movie. It worked for the Sioux! But not for us. "Antlers?" "Horns?" "Deer?"
He pulled at his hair and indicated, rolling it up, that it was curly. "Ram?" S. guessed. Then he gave us a little more context. He indicated that he was on a train, shooting a rifle. Then he had horns and fell down dead. "Hunter? Matador?" Again. Horns! Curly hair! Man with rifle shooting! Falling down dead! Horns! Hair! Dead!
"Jew!" I shouted, because I am always appropriate.
We had to stop the game for several minutes while everyone collected themselves. And that is why I don't have to worry about whether Jane is getting too old to bring to festive events, after all, because no one will invite me to one ever again.
It is well known that the Jew eschew the rifle in favor of poisons.
Posted by: jessamyn | 04/07/2011 at 02:25 PM
Cossacks, though, are totally rifle-ready.
Posted by: redfox | 04/07/2011 at 08:11 PM
I'm glad this has been noted for posterity. I've cracked up again thinking about it several times since the party. You can come again.
Posted by: GB | 04/07/2011 at 08:20 PM
Wow.
Posted by: David Auerbach | 04/09/2011 at 03:44 AM
Peter: You gotta help me Brian. Teach me how to be a gentleman.
Brian: Well, Peter, it's not really that hard. Let's start with polite conversation. For example, 'It's a pleasure to see you again. Lovely weather we're having.' Now you try.
Peter: 'It's a pleasure to see you again. After Hogan's Heroes, Bob Crane got his skull crushed in by a friend who videotaped him having rough sex.' How's that?
Brian: Wow. Perfect. My work is done. But just for the heck of it, let's try it again.
Posted by: David Auerbach | 04/09/2011 at 01:11 PM
there's a mashup in here, somewhere. i'm sure of it.
Posted by: rozele | 04/12/2011 at 01:54 PM