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Thursday, March 1, 2012

Allez, Allez, In Come Free!!

Did you used to shout that at the end of a game of Hide and Seek?  When either the seeker has caught some poorly hidden hider  or finally given up and decided it sucked to wander around alone, knowing they're all snickering quietly at you as you peer into empty corners looking for them?  I really have no idea where it started, if everybody says it, where I learned it....nada.

Hide and Seek.  Now there was a game.  If you didn't lose the game of One Potato you got to show off how well you knew your area, and your awesome ninja skills, by becoming a shadow...a puff of smoke...an invisible agent hiding from your enemy!  And this is not as easy as it sounds because you have to find a hidey hole that the other neighbor kids aren't going to beat you to because they're faster runners, but you need to get going or your little brothers are going to be tagging along and they ALWAYS get caught because they're little, aka slow and stupid, and if you get caught you'll have to be IT.  And being IT always sucked.  If you kept tagging the little ones Mom would eventually yell....and they really couldn't be IT anyway, not being able to really count past 10 yet.  If you somehow managed to find one of the older kids, well, they could outrun you with their shoelaces tied together anyway, so they'd be back at Safe before you could even get up to speed.  So there you are, wandering around the yard hoping that you'll somehow sneak up on that one other kid who maybe won't see you coming, who you can tag and escape the hell of being IT for at least another turn, once again getting to show off your mad ninja skills hiding under the car or the bushes or the shed or where ever.

The brutal lessons of childhood:  If they're bigger and faster then they're going to have an advantage and all you can do is cross your fingers and HOPE maybe you'll outwit them just one time.  Otherwise they're just going to keep trouncing you and if you whine about it they'll do it even worse and call you a baby and not let you play anymore.  If they're younger you have to give them special treatment because you're bigger and faster, and if you don't the authorities will force you, so you really can't ever beat them, either.  All you can really do is play along and hope that sometimes you'll get your shot to be the winner.

I'm pretty sure everything I needed to know about life I learned playing Hide and Seek....

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