When I play cards, I always envision the World Whatever Poker Tournament in Vegas, on ESPN at 2 am. Players have sunglasses on and usually look like a cross between a gamer and a pedophile. How my husband watches this and finds it enjoyable is beyond me. I would rather watch someone mow grass…with a push mower.
Last night my children taught me how to play BS. I put 2 and 2 together to realize they were playing the game Bull Shit but thankfully the nanny edited the name just to BS. The only reason I know about Bull Shit is the scene in How To Loose A Guy In 10 Days where they played the game.
But first let’s back up to what and how we usually play.
Poker
Apparently there are multiple different ways to play poker. I thought poker was poker and if anyone asks me what type of poker I play I’m left dumbfounded responding with, “ummm…poker-poker.”
About a year ago I Googled POKER CHEAT SHEET and found an amazing one that I printed off and hung on my fridge. Anytime I’d play with my kids I’d grab my cheat sheet as I refuse to memorize anything and lay it next to me.
“Can we just grab our own cards? Like UNO?” I asked the rule Nazi, a.k.a my oldest.
“No! That’s not how it’s done. You’d be missing cards.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. No one knows how many of each kind there are,” I said with the same assurance I would say when announcing the benefits of Botox.
My son and husband looked at me as if I had just sharted in front of them. They began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“You don’t know how many of each one there are in a deck?”
“Seriously, you don’t know that?” My husband chimed in.
“No, I don’t know how many stupid cards there are. I don’t play cards!”
“4 of each,” my husband responded, sensing my agitation.
As we begin to play, I look at my cards then consult my cheat sheet. I suck all coolness out of the game by doing this and I really don’t care. I could be at a Vegas poker table in a 1980’s cocktail dress, sitting next to the most interesting man in the world and have my poker cheat sheet sitting next to my martini.
Black Jack
I like this the least because when you are the dealer you have to do extra work and well….deal. As a player, you have to add numbers. Considering I tapped out in 2nd grade math, this is a recipe for a disaster. I detest when my 2 cards are 5 and 3 then an ace then I’m sitting there adding 5+3+1 but would I win if I do 5+3+11? Because I’m unable to think fast on my feet I deduce that I would bust with 5+3+11 (obviously I was wrong) and have a better shot with 5+3+1.
“Ok, lemme think.” I say as I pull out my fingers and began to count on them. I made my decision.
“Hit me!” I yell. My son slaps down another card. It’s an 8.
“Ok, lemme add this up. How many is this?” I realized I sounded like a 4-year-old as I still had my fingers out, using them as an abacus. My son giggled.
“I’m this many!” He mimicked, holding up 10 fingers like a child does when you ask them how old they are. This made me burst out in laughter because it was the truth, I sounded exactly like this.
BS
So now we are back to BS or Bull Shit. If you haven’t played BS, allow me to demonstrate. BS is like playing the card version of Chutes and Ladders. You are in the home stretch of the game being over, only to land on tile 87 where apparently you stole a stupid cookie and have to go down the chute to tile 24. It’s a never-ending game where you get down to 2 cards, call BS and suddenly you now have 30 cards in your possession. I was so awful at this game that I grabbed my youngest’s card holder (great for little hands) and put my 30 some cards in it so my hand would stop cramping up. Another time I amassed 80% of the cards, I sarcastically split them up into 2 hands and held 2 hands of cards.
So there you go. If you play cards with me, you’ll probably win. Now if it’s UNO, I’m a total boss! God I’m such a nerd.
I haven’t played BS in so long. It’s a fun game with the right people. Back in high school, my family had poker night every Wednesday night. We went all out. We played Texas Hold Em’ style, with chips and everything! Now that was fun!! 🙂 Have you heard of/played Egyptian Rat Screw?
No what’s that all about?
It’s like War (you know that one?) where each person is blindly putting cards down in one pile. Any time a royalty or ace is put down, the next person has to put down x amount of cards. If its a jack, they put down one card. If its a queen, 2 cards. King, 3 cards. Ace, 4 cards. If they put another royalty/ace down during that time then it switches player. If no ‘special’ cards are played, then the player who played the ‘special’ card picks up the stack and shuffles it into their hand. The point is to get all the cards. You can also play that if there are doubles (2 of the same cards played back-to-back), the first person who smacks the pile, gets the stack. Make sense??
I think so! Ill try it out with my boys.
I don’t play gambling type card games BUT when I was younger, I loved this game we called “kent”. Others call it “stop” basically you need 3-4 decks of cards, plus at least 10 crazy people. You pair up and make a secret signal with your partner. When you get 4 of a kind you do your signal and your partner yells KENT! if someone sees you doing the signal they yell STOP. Then you have to show them your cards. If they are right woohoo…if they are wrong, the whole game has to start again. You do anything to get your cards (which are thrown out 4 at a time into the middle of the table). Like anything. I had some guy smash my hands, I’ve been scratched, and pushed and pulled. Oooo good times. If you are playing with older teens (like I’m 12 and they are all 18) you can technically pull off a fake cry maybe once and then they all stop and are like “OMG ARE YOU OK!? CHRIS WHY DID YOU HIT HER!?” as you secretly steal the card you wanted from the middle, but then it doesn’t work after that. They catch onto the sweet little girl routine really quickly. lol
That sounds simply delightful! LOL! I could totally see my sons taking that WAY to far!
Lol taking it way too far is the point! Unless you are playing with sissies….then you just kick them out and keep playing haha!!
Ok, I would totally be that sissy! LOL!!!
Oh no!! Lol
I work part-time a day care. Recently they taught me how to play Garbage. It’s really fun. Not so fun when they beat me and get all smug. I taught one boy how to play solitaire because sometimes he doesn’t play well with others. The next day he asked if he could play Cemetery again. Wait, what?
OMG!!! Cemetary? Kids say the darndest things! How cute! So I’m guessing Garbage is the same as Trash. Another game the nanny taught the boys. Please tell me there aren’t 2 games out there, one called Garbage and one called Trash. P.S. Your a brave woman for working at a daycare! LOL!!!