Balderdash

Every New Year’s Eve was game night at my parents' home. There was always a large spread of junk food and sugared drinks that were mostly forbidden, except for this special holiday.

Dad’s favorite game was Balderdash. For posterity’s sake, the premise of the game is to make up a definition for an unknown word. Each person makes up a definition and then the group votes on which definition is correct. Every person that you can trick moves you one step closer to the end of the game and winning.

Being allowed to play this game was like an acceptance of maturity, a welcome into the adult world. And it was so fun. Dad, I don’t think, ever won. His specialty was writing definitions so ridiculous that he’d get the whole table hooting. Dad himself would getting laughing so hard that he was crying and slapping the table and getting his hankie out to blow his nose. As the night wore on, Dad’s answers would get sillier and sillier, and the laughter was uproarious.

My mom or my uncle usually technically won the game, but no one cared. With Dad at the table, the point was to have fun and so, although Dad often came in dead last, Dad was really the winner every time.