This game is played between four or more people. Everyone stands in a circle and starts with their fists extended towards to the center. One person takes the first turn and indicates by making a throwing motion with their fist. When this happens, the person whose turn it is tries to guess how many fingers will be extended. During this turn, every other player has the choice of either keeping their fist closed or extending five fingers. This makes the number of fingers in the circle somewhat random. If the person whose turn took the turn is right, they are out of the game. So, the last one in the game loses. An extra rule that is occasionally instated involves celebrating after getting out. If you high five someone else or obviously celebrate in any other way, you are back in the game. This can lead to loud, intense games where people go from very happy about getting out to very upset about getting put back in.
Category Archives: Game
Dropped Your Pocket
The informant is a college student from Malibu, California. She went to a large high school and was on the cheerleading team. It was during these long, somewhat boring practices that this tradition would take place. It was mostly to pass the time.
“Dropped Your Pocket” is a game played by the informant in middle school and the beginning of high school. The game involves only two people; the instigator and the victim. The goal for the instigator is to make a circle with their thumb and forefinger and get the victim to look at this circle. If the victim looks at it, the instigator can punch the victim in the arm. The only condition is that the circle must be held below the waist of the instigator.
Because of this condition, much of the game is centered around trying to get the victim to look below the waist of the instigator. This is where the phrase “you dropped your pocket” comes from. The instigator acts as if they have picked up what they dropped and has it in his or her hand in hopes that the victim will look. The informant that it is more humiliating for the victim if they are fooled into looking by a statement that inherently does not make sense, such as dropping your pocket. Another popular one is “Your sock is untied”. However, the instigator does not need to say anything in particular in order for them to have punching rights. As long as the victim looks and it is under the waist, it is valid. Once this process is done once, the game becomes very contagious. Everyone is on high alert not to look down, as the attempts to get people to do so become more desperate. Most players of this game do not state outright why it is bad to look below people’s waists. However, it is true that children that age are often told of the dangers of sex. Although they may not know everything about it, they know that it has to do with parts below the waist. This may be part of the reason for the appearance of this game and its popularity among this age group.
Hold your breath through a tunnel
The informant explained this game they often play on road trips: “Whenever I go driving with my family, we all hold our breaths whenever we reach a tunnel. Though it often turns into a competition for them, it has become a tradition.”
Me: “When’s the first time you heard this game?”
Informant: “I don’t remember exactly… I just remember someone said, “There’s a tunnel, hold your breath!” and somehow we all started doing it. I think you were supposed to make a wish, but in the end we just saw who could last the longest! I remember my little brother would just puff out his cheeks so it looked like he was holding his breath when he was just breathing through his nose (laughs).”
Analysis: This game is common-practice, however it is hard to pinpoint the exact origin online. In the 1980s, it was thought that tunnel air would cure whopping cough, so mothers would bring their children to tunnels to cure them. In order to keep from contracting the respiratory disease, the people with the infected children would have to hold their breaths when accompanying them into the tunnel.
Another interpretation is that the air pressure may change when one goes through a tunnel at fast speeds, and holding your breath cures the pain in your ears. It’s is interesting that such a practice to prevent pain has developed into a superstition or game.
Annotation: This cure for whopping cough is mentioned in Arthur Beavan’s book “Tube, Tram, Train, Car” in the chapter about the London Railway.
“Tube, Tram, Train, and Car” by Arthur Beavan
Blow a dandelion, make a wish.
The informant told me that when she was younger (age 4-5), she would pluck a dandelion and blow on it to make a wish. She learned this practice from her friends in preschool. “It was a lot of fun! We would run around looking for dandelions to blow on and fight over them sometimes.
Me: Do you have to get all the dandelion seeds off in one blow?
Informant: I think so!
Me: Do you still play this game?
Informant: Hmm… I think it’s second nature to pick up a dandelion and blow now. You don’t really think about it.
Analysis: This is a common practice in the United States, where dandelions are abundant in the grass. It is similar to blowing out all the candles on a birthday cake. It most likely stems from the belief that if you blow out all the seeds, they carry your wishes and dreams and eventually blossom. It is unclear where the origin of this game came from, however there are variations, such as if you blow a dandelion and all the seeds come off, your lover loves only you. If some seeds remain, he is not loyal. This may have come from the daisy petal-plucking “He loves me, he loves me not”, game.
For the informant, this game or ritual has become so common-place that it is almost innate for her to want to pluck a dandelion and blow the seeds into the wind.
License Plate Game
I like to play the license plate game when we go on road trips. My sisters and I used to play when we would take family trips to Vegas. Vegas was such a good location because people from all over the country would visit Vegas. We would spend hours looking out the windows trying to spot one from New Mexico or New York, whichever cool plate we could find. If we spotted a license plate from another state we get to punch the others while yelling the state name. In scoring the game we add all the numbers on the plate. For example, if there’s a plate dg429f1 the points for that plate would be 16 but it would be 1 plus 6 equaling 7 points.
This game is very common among North Americans. This is not the first person to tell me about the License game, as it is a very common way to kill time while driving on a long road. I think this game is common among younger children as a distraction from boredom of road trips, but adults play it too. It’s est played wth more people in the car because it’s a challenge to be the first one to yel out the state to which te plate originates from. When asked how he started to play this game, my informant just remembered his dad starting it when he was younger. “I’m sure he got it from his parents, and so on. It’s a just a known road trip game.”