Car game

Whenever you ran a yellow light, everyone in the car had to kiss their hand and then touch the top of the car whether you were driving or just a passenger. Whoever was the last to touch the top of the car lost and was ridiculed mercilessly by everyone else in the car followed by a few light punches to the arm. Then if there was a car with one head light out, whoever saw it first had to scream “sex” and whoever said it first gets to choose who in the car they want to kiss.

Alex doesn’t remember who initiated this game but he remembers learning it from a male friend of his when he was attending UCSB. One day he was in the car with three other people, 2 girls and 2 guys, and they ran a yellow light and three of the people did the game while Alex didn’t do anything, not knowing how to play. They teased him and then punched him. Since that day, he has taught many people the game and has met other people who have played the game or at least heard of it.

When Alex told me this game, I had heard of it but a different version of it. In my version, instead of saying “sex,” we just looked for cars with one light out and if you saw one, you had to yell “car” and then whoever was the last to yell car had to get out and run around the car once before the driver locked the doors after counting to five. While each version of the game has a different outcome, the general idea is to embarrass someone in the car and make them do something they might not necessarily want to do.

Alex believed that the game is relatively harmless and I completely agree however, I found it interesting to note that this game is very similar to the game I know, but you just kiss your hand and hit the car and that’s it. But in Alex’s game, it goes much farther. When I then realized that he was taught the game by a male, it occurred to me that it was the exact same game but the guy who taught it to him was around seventeen when he had learned the game and it was clearly a game that was elaborated on in order to fulfill the desires of guys in a car if they were with attractive girls. This specific game and how it was changed shows how just gender can change a folk game and make it into something new.