weirdness plus one - edit

For Dan, a summary of the Weirdness Post that vanished upon morning light: the washer committed suicide and an attempted autopsy revealed that the dryer has been a huge fire hazard for 2+ years; I ran into my ex's parents at the store and I can't fully explain how or why chatting with his mom made me so happy, and then so sad; and Dan, I must insist, the whole world is pregnant. Really. Okay, not the whole world. I'm not and she's not.

Played Left-Right-Center with a small group of kids today, but added a twist. For those unfamil w/L-R-C, it's an all ages game that you can tweak to suit the interests of a particular group. It's usually a party game, where everyone starts w/two or three dollars, pieces of candy, shots, etc. Of course in the classroom it's always been candy. You roll two or three dice with sides marked L, R, C or keep. You roll and pass pieces of candy to the guy on the left or right, or if the dice dictate, into the center (pot) till all the candy is in the pot and the last guy standing gets it all. Today's twist was, the candy was replaced with slips of math problems. Everyone got two to start, and we played the game exactly the same way, with interesting results. I thought everyone would want to get rid of their math problems and not want to end up with the pot, but just like with the candy, they pouted when they rolled L's and R's and cheered when they rolled Keep. They folded them up and tried to sit on and hide them, did the whole neener neener neener thing when their neighbor had to part with one (or both), and started audibly praying to God to "be generous, dude, be generous!".

Interesting.

In the end, the bell rang and Buddha tied w/one of his cronies (each had one slip left) so they had to divide the pot, which they did with studious concentration ("One for me, one for you. One for me, one for you ...")

Crony: "Can I take it home and do them for homework? Oh please, please?"

(I am so not making this up.)

Me: "Well, ah, yes, if you want to, you can do that. Are you sure you don't want to share with the others? You can give each person one or two so you don't have to do them all."

Hopeful stares from the non-winners (yes, I almost typed "losers").

Crony to puppy-dog-eyed non-winners: "No! Get your own!"

Me: "Suit yourself."

Crony and Buddha run out the door before anyone can try to steal their precious math problems.

I tell you, just when you think you've got kids figured out ...