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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Spin the Bottle....a family game?

DIG REPORT 5/14/11: TRUMBULL ESTATE SALE

Fortunately for my marriage, I don't buy everything I see. This weekend, however, I did come across a stash of toys from the 60's that were really tempting. As I was about to consider buying, I thought, "Wait. I'm not going to Ebay this, and if I buy it, I'm going to have to put it somewhere..."  And then I remembered the camera on my I-pod and came up with a way to build commentary for this blog without always having to buy. Here's the item:

spin the bottle Close Up
Think back to your teen-age years... ever play this game? No, I don't mean this exact game, I am talking about the savvy friend at the teen mixer that steps into the group and says, "Wanna play Spin the Bottle?"  Then everyone looks around furtively and does a quick accounting of the sexes. Do I want to kiss her? Does she want to kiss me? Is there an even number? Seems like an imbalance would cause some one to speak up to the negative. Those were the days when a teen had to make a decision and the peer pressure was simple. Today's teen  has the weight of a dock and 4 boats on them if they choose poorly - I call it Pier Pressure. Few would want to be the spoiler anyway, so, off they go into a right of passage. Spin the Bottle was (and maybe still is) a pretty innocent game, and I don't think anyone ever got pregnant from playing it, though I may be revealing too much here about the lame-ness of my teen years. As I recall, it was a wine bottle and spinning it so you could tell who it pointed to, and without injuring someone's ankle seemed a true challenge.  I had no idea that Hasbro manufactured a board game version of this boy-meets-girl, boy-awkwardly-kisses-girl game. 

I photographed the box because I had to ask, as I often do, "What were they thinking?
spin the bottle game
I'll take a stab at it -  Hasbro Game Developer: "I've got it!  If kids are going to play spin the bottle anyway, let's make a family version so the kids will stay at home and play it in the safety of the family rumpus room with mom and dad. It'll keep 'em from pairing off and doing god-knows-what before they're married."  That strategy probably worked on Mom and Dad, but I'm pretty sure that no kid would be caught dead playing this with their parents. I'm looking at the image and trying to guess what's going on. In this version, you spun a bottle-shaped piece of cardboard and picked up cards that had odd physical challenges, sometimes involving the other players. I didn't look at all the cards, just enough to make sure this was based on the game I remembered....It was:
Well, if it had been in a little better shape I would have bought it, because the whole awkward-inappropriateness of it all is still making me chuckle. I wonder if the young kid playing the game there on the box had to ask the question,  "Umm, Dad? What is sex?...and which is the opposite one I'm supposed to kiss?"

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