duck, duck.....shit.

For some reason, as I was drifting to sleep last night, I started to think about Duck, Duck, Goose. You know, the kids game where everyone sits in a circle and someone (It) walks around, patting people on the head saying, “duck, duck, duck….” until they finally decide to yell “goose!” on a particular cranium, thus prompting a foot race around the circle. If It sits down in the Goose’s spot before the Goose can tag them, the Goose must then go on to be It. But if It gets tagged, they have to sit in the middle of the circle until they are replaced by another It that was tagged. The Goose goes on to be It.

Wow. Typing that out just made me lose brain cells. And now Goose is starting to look funny to me. How can that even be a real word?

Anyway, this is not a productive game. Think about all the games of Duck, Duck, Goose you played. Did you ever finish any of them? Is there EVER an end to that game?

There was one part of it that made it so insufferable – the chase. You would think that the person being chased would just make one voyage around the circle in order to find the Goose’s spot as fast as they could and sit down to relinquish their It crown. But no. Oh, no.

There was always that asshole kid who panicked when the Goose got too close and veered off the orbit. For some reason, his logic was that breaking free from that path would give him the ability to outrun the Goose, even though it carried him all the way to the other side of the gym or through the Big Toy on the playground. It didn’t even matter that the path he was making was of Family Circus proportions – that extra five minutes of avoiding the tag was totally worth it once he finally hit the Goose’s spot. Most of the time he would be two feet from sitting down and end up getting whacked anyway. Thanks for the effort, Jimmy.

And at that point, everyone is putting their money on the Goose. That way, Asshole can be exiled to the center of the circle and the rest of the kids can throw every race so that It gets the Goose’s spot and Asshole has to sit there, chewing on the fact that no one really likes him anymore.

Give me Heads Up, Seven Up any day. At least there was some skill involved.