February 13, 2018 – The Valentine’s Day game

         There is a cute game that can be played by anyone, anytime, or anyplace. It is fun and educational for kids too. You just need a piece of paper and pen and your brain.

The last time I played this game I was tending bar and I challenged two servers. We had time to kill waiting for customers before the lunch hour and had lots of fun.  [The boss lady didn’t catch us – wink, wink.]

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How many words can you make out of the letters that are in:

Valentine’s Day

The rules:

If a letter or vowel shows up more than one time, you can use it twice.

Example: eel - there are two “e”s in Valentine’s Day, but you can’t make the word: tell as there is only one “l”.

vine   line    alien . . . got the idea?

How many words can you come up with?

“Get read – set – go.”

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Challenge someone you love to see how they think and how many words they can come up with.  Sometimes it is more fun to put a time limit on it.

It is a great time-buster when at work when you need to kill a few minutes or when you are waiting for your Valentine’s lunch date and they are late. Makes a great ice breaker at a party.

Decades ago, I found this little game in a ladies’ magazine while waiting for my hair stylist.  During that haircut, my hair stylist and I called out words to each other. It was such fun. This little challenge game can be can verbal, written, or even long distance.

I dust the game off every year and challenge myself or someone else.  For many years I challenged my Mom when we were corresponding via letters – until sadly a few years back she was so frail she couldn’t see to write and her hands were so crippled with arthritis that she could hardly hold a pen. 

But, for many years I would send my Mom a letter the end of January and challenge her with this game and every year she would oblige me with a separate sheet inserted in my next letter with her listing of words made from Valentine’s Day. 

Sometimes I’d call and check on her to see if she was working on the challenge and sometimes she would be ahead of me in word count and then I’d have to go back to my ‘little grey cells’. Some years we were neck to neck in word count and some years she left me in the dust. When she sent me her list I’d get a glimmer of how her mind worked and then the next year I’d be a stronger challenger.

If you like this little game, you’ve a chance to do it all over again next month with the phrase:

Happy St. Patrick’s Day