Telephone... what?

Last night au pub Shannon was explaining the game of Pictionary Telephone. I started listening to the rules, but then was overcome with distraction of memories of the original telephone game and started to get mildly stressed. For the unfamiliar, Person 1 whispers a word or phrase into the ear of the person next to her. That person whispers it to the person next to her. Rinse, lather, repeat. Eventually it gets to the last person who announces what she heard. The originator announces what was originally said. Sometimes it matches, sometimes it close, or when I played, completely different.

I hated that game.

We played it at Brownie camp with a huge group of girls. In case you missed the memo/childhood, about 5% of girls are actually mean dictators of evil, disguised in the body of a prissy 7-year-old girl. Then they recruit unsuspecting friends into their group of evil, and thus develops a group of bitchy girls that make fun of others and everyone hates. Brownies was no exception. When the word returned to the original Telephone-er one Spreader of Evil just *needed* to know where the word/phrase got so off-track and how something to stupid could had happened.

Oh, Evil Girl, it's not so necessary to be an awful person. It was obviously me who completely changed the word. The rule was you could whisper it into the person's ear only once. I don't think I had my hearing aid yet, and I don't think I yet knew to always have someone whisper in my left ear, and never my right. So I ruined the game. And it was great to have that pointed out to a Gaggle of Girls. I couldn't hear the person next to me so I sent the word "abracadabra" around the room. Recently I had read someone that it was the longest word with no vowels other than 'a'.

Eventually I got better at the game when I learned to always have people whisper in my left ear. Even better, I didn't play. Now, usually when I can't hear someone I smile and insert random chuckles where I suspect to be appropriate. Or better yet, just tell them I can't hear them. Kind of a conversation killer though, particularly if asked a question.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Telephone is an evil, vile game.