Photo by Bill Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that as part of Xmas entertainment at the keeper and Phyllis’s Vista West place there was a “game” introduced by Phyllis’s son Kevin in which each player antes up $10 with the kitty then triple wrapped and taped and retaped in a cardboard box. Object of the game is to open the box while wearing oven mitts as the box is in a player’s possession as determined by when the next player shakes doubles with a pair of dice.
The keeper was quickly informed that he could not use his Swiss army knife which pretty much put him out of the running even though he has gone through much of his life with the sense that he was wearing oven mitts.
As the game proceeded a certain tension built up until younger players determined that to accomplish much of anything while wearing oven mitts it is necessary to first smash hell out of the object you are working on.
The outcome was predictable and the winner was not the keeper or Phyllis but a much younger Gwinn who promised an accounting of how the jackpot would be spent.
Phyllis got her oven mittens back and the keeper informed Kevin that in the future any Christmas games should be played barehanded and with odds stacked to give vintage age an advantage. Maybe something like pin the tail on Rudolph, or on Kevin.
