On Wednesday, I spent a couple of hours in the evening hanging out with a group of friends. The last few times my friend invited us to her apartment, we would watch a movie. This time, though, she decided we should shake it up and have a game night. You know, after we spent the first hour catching up with each other about our lives.
The first game she retrieved was her unopened Ultimate Werewolf card game and tried to understand the instructions. The poor girl probably spent a good twenty minutes studying everything before realizing that she had bought the expansion pack but did not possess the starter kit. So that idea got tossed aside.
The eight of us then migrated to her kitchen table, and we played a few rounds of Nertz. Mainly because my friend (whose apartment we were at) wanted to practice on us because another friend of hers was always beating her at this online game.
Most of the people, myself included, had never played the game. Thank goodness I was seated next to a girl who had, so she helped me out. I did all right, but I certainly felt overwhelmed at times. Keeping track of 32 piles in the center of the table at the same time, along with my own deck, started to become stressful.
But at least I was doing better than the Graphic Designer sitting on the opposite end of the table from me.
“I’m so confused!” she exclaimed. “My brain was not made for this. I’m a creative, right-brained person.”
After a few rounds of Nertz, when it became clear that the same two people were always winning, we stopped and moved onto another game: Taboo.
I feel like I must have played this game at some point in my life, but I couldn’t recall. And once again, half of the other girls had no idea how to play. But we were able to split into two even teams, and away we went.
For those of you who aren’t sure what Taboo is about, you basically have to describe a particular word for your teammates to guess. Except there are usually six words relating to the topic that you cannot say while describing the chosen word; otherwise, the other team gets the point. Your goal is to collect as many cards/points for your team.
I was a bit skeptical of my skills for this game - especially since it requires a lot of talking - but after the first round, I discovered that I had ran through the most cards within the minute. Some of the other girls began to pick up on how well (and quickly) I could describe the item for my teammates without slipping up on the forbidden words.
Eventually, it had had dawned on me why I was surpassing everyone: I am a writer. And I was the only one.
In my head, I essentially have a working Thesaurus. I mean, when you’re writing, you don’t want to constantly repeat a certain word or phrase. Therefore, you use a different word that means the same thing. Can’t use the word “small”? No matter. I can describe something as “little” or “tiny” instead. No big deal. I can work around it.
At one point, I was a little disappointed in my two teammates (because the third one had to head back home) about not knowing a certain word. I had to get them to say, “tweet,” so I used the word “avian” instead of bird to reference the noise they make. The Graphic Designer and the another girl stared at me with blank faces. They didn’t know what “avian” was. After I repeated myself, the girl who works in Finance (whose place we were at) jumped in and had to inform them of what it meant.
“Avian” is not that uncommon of a word, is it? I know it’s not as popular as canine or feline, but c’mon. After all, “avian” and “aviation” are both derived from the same Latin root word.
Ah well. This is not the first time I’ve used a word in a conversation that the other person had no idea what it was. Last month, I had used “tirade” to my brother’s confusion. I also once said “sporadic” to a friend, and I had to explain it to her once she expressed her bafflement.
Either way, it’s always heartening to see my talents actually useful for something. Even if it’s just to win a silly game among friends.
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