The Biggest Loser

Winter in Maine makes folks stir crazy. So what do we do? Get together for a game night and torment each other to tears. Happy, laughing tears. But it makes me wonder how some relationships survive family game nights every week. Game Night Revisited was held at HappyDaze's house once again. Mainly because its certainly centrally located to Mass, NH and Maine. Cause I'm sure I'd still be sitting here playing Solataire by myself if I held it here in Bowdoinham! LOL!

Gracious hosts for sure, they open their home to an evening of winter foolishness and laughter. But before I even set foot in thier house, I had an afternoon of misadventures. And Teacup wasn't even with me! For this days misadventures I had my teenager, Ashley along for the ride. I've often joked with her that I'd dub her my Ashley, Ashley but her internal navigation system is chronically broken. Well, it would seem so is her internal clock. She's a senior this year and everything is being accomplished at the very last minute. Luckily, we've been fortunate enough in most cases that we've been able to squeek by. But I just shake my head and remind her that if she told me earlier, we wouldn't be scrambling like we were. She just smiles that impish teenager smile and asks for money.

So on this particular Saturday she decided we should drive to New Hampshire to pick up her prom dress. Okay - I can deal with that, we'll be half way there. Might as well just go another hour and pick up a dress. Knowing that we had to be at Happydaze's house at 6pm, we decided to leave at 2pm so we wouldn't have lots of lag time between picking up the dress and the party. We get in the car, program Maggie and head south. We are about 30 minutes away from home and she decides to tell me the store closes at 4pm instead of 5pm. I look at her as if she has two heads. She couldn't have told me this at 10 that morning? Okay Ashley. Here's the deal. We will not make it to New Hampshire before the store closes and we are already 30 minutes away from home. So what do you want to do?

Being a boxer with a mini meet fast approaching I was ready to pull the car over in a parking lot for a couple hours and prep images for stamps I need to carve. She on the other hand had $150 dollars in cash in her wallet earmarked for her dress but it was quickly setting fire to it! She wanted to go walk around the Old Port, which in teenspeak meant, spend money. Not that? How about the mall? Teenspeak translation: spend money. I wanted to go sit in a Dunkin Donuts with a cup of coffee and prep images. This was not even remotely interesting to her.

So where did we end up? In the art store in Portland. We walked around for about 30 minutes and the only one who ended up buying anything was me! I picked up 4 sheets of textured paper to make logbooks and a green container for an event box or a naked postal. Haven't decided which yet, and an inkpad. You can just guess the color! But the teenager, who is art addicted, picked up paintbrushes and put them down again. Picked up mural canvases and put it down again. Pointed out the canvas she wants for her birthday (which will NOT fit in my car! Its 6'x10') Picked out colors for her wedding invitations (five years from now) and pointed out the big honking containers of glitter. But we did kill some time.

From there we went off in the direction of the mall and reflected that TGIFridays had closed. A victim of the economy for sure. We decided to go in and have appetizers at Pizzeria UNO, home to the Chicago style pizza. Trying to pick out something that wouldn't kill our appetite for dinner, I perused the cocktail menu. A whole list of yummy sounding Margaritas, all with jalapeno peppers! Since when did Chicago take over the Mexican connection?? And do we REALLY need peppers in our cocktails? Well close on the heels of Mardis Gras I opted to have a Hurricane. While the drink was yummy - I think the only Hurricane that ran through the restaurant was through my wallet. Oh yeah, now I remember why I don't drink out - so darn expensive. It was $8 and I could have made a whole lot more and had a whole lot more fun drinking them if I had just picked up a bottle and took it to HappyDaze's house for the evening! After all - I did bring Ashley along so she could be the designated driver. I probably should have designated her to drive BEFORE we parked in their parking lot. I attempted to navigate around a manhole cover and managed to drop into the edge of my frame. Yup - hit it with both wheels! At least I was consistent!

When we left, they had placed a barrier over it.... hey I already turned over the keys to the minor! I'm not driving anymore! We had turned off Maggie after we turned into Portland and headed for the art store. Do you have any idea how irritated those navigational devices get if you actually know where you are going? "Please make next availability legal U-Turn." I then kindly tell Maggie to get a grip - I know where I'm going here, I need you later. So just hold onto the dashboard and enjoy the ride. The view is lovely, take a break and enjoy it. "Please make next available legal U-Turn." I need coffee, after that I'll turn any direction you want me to!

So we had shut it off, which may or may not have been a good idea. I knew we were heading south. And in Maine today, all roads heading south led to Saco. One way or another, I was sure of it. What I didn't think was that my darling daughter would turn into a rogue operative for the competition! I guess part of the blame is my own, but I wouldn't have thought she could turn so quickly on her mother. As we were at the mall, we opted to just avoid the highway and head south on Payne Rd. Well eventually, on this road is one of Bean's competitors. Since it opened, I have avoided at all costs driving in front of it, turning into the driveway, steering anywhere near its general direction. Which up until this point had been easy. When I'm with Teacup, we usually take the highway!


But we drove past it and Ashley says, "I want to go in and look around." Immediately my heart quickened, I could heart the blood pounding in the veins in my head. The voices in my head were screaming at me "That's the competition, what could you be thinking???" And what came out of my mouth? "Okay, if you want to - but we only have a little bit of time." And ZAP! Just like that, I was blind! Okay - so maybe I just was snow blind for a moment or two as the sun reflected off the stark white snow. But she pulled us into the parking lot and I managed to get out of the car without incident.


They have about 100 kayaks hanging out in the front of their store. And one very big honking moose standing watch. Not unusual, we are in Maine. Moose tend to stand watch over lots of stores, though I will have to say that the one at the Farmington Candy store is more impressive. But alas, I digress. We entered the store so Ashley could see the "Big Game display" and I'll have to admit, it was definitely a BIG display. The store was alas, a store. Didn't see anything in it that hit my WOW trigger. Ashley did inform me that she liked some of their women's clothes better than Beans, but she's 17. What does she know about brand loyalty? But back to the display. We walked around this big honking mountain in the middle of the store. Yup - it was definitely big. And all I kept thinking was, that's a lot of stuffing in those animals!

Saw the bear that we saw in the woods, from about the same distance! But I'm thinking this one was way past thinking I would be a good dinner entree. We moved past the Maine Moose standing at the front of the display up to his shins in water. Hmmm.... made me wonder, 'Wouldn't that rot his hoofs after a while?' and continued around the display. They had a wide range of animals from all over the country. And at the back of the display was a Canadian Moose. It looked like a Maine moose on steroids! The thing was ginormous! We glanced around the store and saw zebras (are they indigenous to North America?) and some other continental big game animals. But the thing that impressed me the most was the jeep on the top of the Customer Service area. Now that's some Extreme Driving! I don't remember them asking anyone I know to drive it up there - but I bet it was fun watching them!

Well, we made it around the display that is ironically labelled everywhere "Do not throw coins at the mountain," and headed back for the front door. I was almost home free! And without incident. We quickly looked at a couple things and then beat feet out the front door where WHAP! I managed to smack my hand on the front door! It was a cosmic slap for even entering the store! We hustled to the car before any other calamity could befall me and quickly drove out of the parking lot! Ahhh! I survived stepping into the competition void and came back to tell about it. Reflecting with Ashley in the car, we both felt like the store itself felt like the Wal-Mart of sporting stores with a big honkin wild game display in the middle. High ceilings with skylights like Cosco. It definitely lacked the cozy atmosphere that Bean's Fish & Hunt store had. It even has shopping carts so you can load up on all the carting filling items as you wander the store. Ho hum. I'll stick with filling boat and totes : )

Further south! We still had a timeline to follow and we still had to pick up veggies and dip. Since I thought we were heading to New Hampshire first, we had to stop at Hannaford to pick up kibbles. I thought this would be a fairly simple task. Silly Kathleen. Nothing is that easy with a teen in tow. I managed to get the veggies and dip, and then thought I'd add some Hummus. Alas, I picked the wrong one and she put it back to get the 'right' one. Now to pick up pita chips for the hummus... again, not such a simple task. We had to find the organic section and pick up the perfect chips. Okay - so once we were eating them, they did taste remarkably good together. But I'm pretty sure I would have NEVER found them on my own! Then the daunting task of picking out beverages.

If any of you have ever gone out with my daughter you would quickly figure out that she has champagne tastes on a ginger ale budget. Not only that, but she prefers to 'try' things when mom is footing the bill. So along the way we also had to pick up a star fruit to satisfy her fruit quota for the day (because the banana in the car wasn't good enough) and then we had to find the right drinks. She must have a homing device for them in our local grocery store, but her beacon was off in Saco. She couldn't find what she wanted and tried to get me to buy Blueberry soda. I knew she wouldn't drink 4 bottles, and managed to get her to let me get Cream Soda instead. And even that, I knew we would only drink a tiny bit of it. I should have picked up the bag of ice like I had been thinking about, because I'm a chronic ice chewer, but I thought I could last the night.

So we piled the provisions on the counter and headed back to the car. Happydaze's house was literally just around the corner so I took the wheel and drove the mile to their house. By this time the Hurricane buzz was pretty much over and I didn't want to end up in Biddeford because Ashley was in the wrong lane. Cause Lord knows Biddeford and any part of Team MudCup does NOT bode well together! So we turned towards their house and I took the first road I thought was close to their house. I told Ashley to look for the house with all the cars in the driveway. But that wasn't going to help - we were first on scene! Should have guessed since the others coming tonight were rarely on time for anything. LOL!

But it gave us prime parking, once I turned around and made 40 attempts to back into their driveway. I know the Hurricane buzz was gone, but I suddenly was driving like I was 90! We grabbed our stuff and in we went. With just enough of a head start to cut up the veggies and 'settle' in logistically before the troops started to arrive.

I'm not sure why, but like all the times before - we all gathered around the butcher block table in the kitchen. There were lots of chairs for folks to sit at, but that's where we always start out! Mrs. Happydaze dug out the very dusty bottle of rum and the strawberry daiquiri mix. I think she was hoping to finally get it off her counter : ) Takers? Anyone? Littlmoon was willing, for the cause of course to help Mrs. HD out of her conundrum. Then Mrs. HD tasted her concoction and decided it wasn't half bad. Then there was a great flurry of eating activity. Jiffy brought a pasta dish that had 9 pounds - wait, that's supposed to be 9 types of cheese in it! Everyone hold onto your cholesterol counter - cause dang its tasty! Vicki brought some mighty tasty chicken wings that managed to get tucked behind so folks had to go back for seconds to get them. We were also munching on veggies, chips and dip. Seems sometimes we can pretend to like healthy food! Littlmoon brought a spinach, artichoke dip that I regret I did not get to try. And since Mrs. Gollygee was in the house - there was also whoopie pies!

I abstained on the whoopie pies but did snag a chocolate chip cookie that HD had sitting out for us, cause really, desert should have been first Once everyone had managed to get a first round of food under their belts, Jiffy brought out the first game of the evening. We should have guessed what kind of foolishness we were in for when she couldn't even get it out of the box! Then we had the job of finding 12 game pieces. Game pieces on a board is a usual happening for any board game - but when there are 12 very loud and boisterous folks playing, it takes a while to get back to your turn. And by that time - you've forgotten what color your piece was! Did this happen? Only to everyone! So all of a sudden we were writing our game piece color on our paper so we could remember which one was ours. Let's see, there was Susan - clear yellow. Ray was white, Naughty Scottie started out as brown but quickly switched to a beer bottle cap.... and the colors continued until it reached me. I was purple, which just felt odd as I'm almost always green. I think Vicki was green. At least Ashley was orange - so that seemed about as normal as normal could be tonight!

Okay - so the game we were playing was called LOSER! and the object was to be the last one to collect the letters making you the big winner! Letters were picked up by getting the information on the cards that were read either right or wrong. And they were based on your life's experiences. So if you ever bounced a check, you picked up a letter that matched the space you were sitting on. To up the ante, if you landed on one space - everyone had to answer the question - lots of letters were gained this way. You could challenge someone, it helped if you knew your audience. And sometimes it helped to NOT know your audience! Then there were gimme guesses just based on the audiences ages. But by far the funniest spot to land on was the "Service" square. For this - you had to provide services for everyone else playing the game. People were serving up water, beer, cookies, and veggies and dip. And when we ran out of food and beverages to be delivered - we upped the ante. Time to empty everyone's bladder with one bathroom service call! Albeit, that didn't seem to work all that well for most of the folks on the receiving end - but it sure was funny!

Quickly folks became big LOSERS! and started dropping by the wayside. And as each person fell, they had their honorary photo taken. These are now proudly plastered all over Facebook! Some folks were so proud of their LOSER status that they made the images their profile photo! I'm working on raising the 10K required to pull my photo OFF Facebook ; ) Anyone need any shoveling done??? But it would seem we ended up down to the wire. Neck and neck to find out who the best model citizen was within our small group. Because let's face it, if you we not deemed one of the LOSERS! you really had led a 'sheltered and proper' life. The final two were Vicki and Heather. Gollygee and Littlmoon pulled out a stack of questions and started firing away questions like it was the speed round! Both ladies needed two more letters. The nodding of heads continued. I mean these ladies are downright upstanding citizens! But all of a sudden things changed - they each had to take a letter! The battle was tight! The sweat was beading up on the backs of everyone's neck as we listened and watched. Who would it be? Who was the next to fall off of society's straight and narrow and who would be left holding the silk ribbon of perfection? Well it was....

So after we found our winner and the two photos we taken, we shuffled up the deck and hauled out the game of all games. The Newlywed Game. Now in December, this almost brought the marriage of Wildcats to the brink of diaster. Would the same happen with any of the grouping here tonight? Lets see? I must have a wicked twisted sense of humor. Because as I had left Ron at home, my game partner for the evenings foolishness was my poor teenager. This would turn either very embarassing or extremely funny. Time would tell. So the usual questions started to float around the room. And as was with poor Wildcats, those that had been married the longest, struggled the most with this game. Some had no idea how to answer questions for fear of the doghouse, while others couldn't answer the questions because it had been so long. Which room was first, again? Hmmm... bedroom to bedroom was deemed boring. Park to Corvette probably raised eyes, but trying to figure out which room had the most storage space was by far the funniest!

Now is the garage a room in the house or not? And what do we call the second bedroom/office/playroom? What would you consider embarrasing in your bedside table? Or would it be more embarrasing if you never opened the drawers so you were completely clueless that they even opened let alone hold things! And let me tell you - many of those drawers hold lots of the same things! The real fun was in how the wording would match up. Was it the pink one? Maybe the other one? But honestly, do we remember the color - because surely color is not important in the dark! But again, one couple fell to the Wildcat phenenomen. Why? Hmmm... I think I'll have to plead the fifth. Because he couldn't remember because it had been so long.

Another truely hysterical evening spent in Saco. Now if we can have this much fun while stuck inside on a cold February evening, with most of us not drinking - just imagine the foolishness we get into when its outside and we are truely running amuck! But for now, another game night over. And the final count on the Newlywed Game - Ashley and I won. Now consider that for a minute and I think everyone knows WAY to much about mud!