It is a holiday tradition at my mother’s house for the family to sit around the dining room table and play Scattergories. Somehow, I always cave under the pressure and NEVER manage to win…so many times I have lost by one point. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, you get a list of 12 categories, and one of the players rolls a 20 sided die (Q, U, V, X, Y, Z are left off…we always find H and K to be the most difficult) and then everyone has 2 minutes to think of a word that suits that category. The same word, or part of word can not be used twice in the same round (Bird-Bluejay and Flower-Bluebell would be against the rules), the category can’t be used in the answer (no Kitchenware for Kitchen) and the big kicker is that the word doesn’t count if more than one person writes it down, so besides thinking of the words, you also need either think of something so obscure that nobody would write it, or gamble that it’s so obvious that everyone else would be afraid to. That’s why I offer the challenge of thinking of the most obscure words to fit these categories, and hopefully I’ll be able to commit them to memory in time for Christmas.
Unfortunately I don’t have a copy at home so I can’t list the categories myself (if anyone reading this does have the game, would you mind listing some, particularly cards 7 and up?), but a couple off the top of my head are:
Things Associated with Money
Things You Replace
Things You Throw Away
Things That Are Cold
Items Found in a Kitchen
Things Found at the Beach
Things Found in a Purse/Wallet
Terms of Endearment
Things you Shout
A Flower (this one always kills me)
A Type of Sandwich
A Type of Car
Ways to Get Somewhere
…and what the heck do you put for A Country when W is rolled, since everyone else is going to put West Germany?
Don’t forget about creative adjectives. We play pretty lenient rules, so Honey Ham sandwich with Horseradish would count as three points.
Good names to remember too
Herbert Hoover
Calvin Coolidge
Woodrow Wilson
Ronald Reagan
Betty Boop
Donald (Daisy, Daffy) Duck
Mickey (Minnie) Mouse
Bugs (Babs) Bunny
Beavis and Butthead
Tom Terrific
Wonder Woman
Klu Klux Klan
Christopher Columbus
Jessie Jackson
The only friends we know who have and like to play this game always give up after about 5 rounds. They can’t beat me (or get anywhere near my scores), and so they decide to move onto something else.
Things Associated with Money: Hundred, Knox (as in, the Fort)
Things You Replace: Hat, Kite
Things You Throw Away: Hefty (the garbage bag),
Things That Are Cold: Heart
Items Found in a Kitchen: Hotplate
Things Found at the Beach: Hottie, kids
Things Found in a Purse/Wallet: Handkerchief, Kotex
Terms of Endearment: Honey, Kissyface
Things you Shout: Hell, Kill
A Flower (this one always kills me): Heather
A Type of Sandwich; Honey Ham
A Type of Car: Hyundai, Kia
Ways to Get Somewhere: Honda,
Things Associated with Money: Keogh (a type of retirement plan)
Things You Replace: Kleenex, Keds, kites
Things You Throw Away: Kleenex, Kotex
Things That Are Cold: hail
Items Found in a Kitchen: knife, ham, honey,
Things Found at the Beach: hibachi, kite, halter tops, hardbodies
A Flower (this one always kills me): hollyhock
If a country can be a country that once existed but no longer does (I don’t play Scattergories, so I don’t know the rules, but if they can use West Germany, it sounds like this is OK), Westphalia or Wallachia
And just after I hit submit, I thought of another one.
Things found at the beach: Horses (at least on Assateague Island in Maryland and Chincoteague Island in Virginia, plus I’ve seen mounted police officers on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland).
Mine’s not an H" or a “K” answer but I did once win a round by thinking outside the box.
Category: States
Letter: B
General response: There’s no state that starts with “B.”
My answer: Boredom
To mix my game metaphors, “Circle gets the square!”
I played this once with my friends after having moved from the northeast. The category was “Desserts” (I think) with a D and I was all excited to think of “Drakes Devil Dogs.” Apparently these are a regional snackfood, and the other players refused to give me my three points because they never heard of them… Ten years later is still ticks me off.
Yeah, I think some people play with very loose rules. I mean, I could easily say “Disgusting, dingy, dirty disposable diapers” or “excellent, effective enemas” but that seems to be a bit over the top for me.
I only played it once, but IIRC, you were allowed to tack on adjectives, and place fast and loose with the definitions. So if the clue called for a state that started with an E, you could write “state of ennui” and get a point.
I used to play this game every night with a “usual” crowd and sometimes it’d get so silly that we had to start not accepting answers.
For example…if it was M and “Things found in this room” a typical answer we’d use would be “Many, many, many muli colored mugs meekly moping in the maze of cuboards”
No. You’re not. My family enforces this rule very strictly. Any time we play, there are a lot of shrieks of “No! Adjective! Adjective! You can’t do that!”, and game-show style “buzzer” noises, and thumbs-up/thumbs-down voting on the legitimacy of the answers, and loud, enthusiastic arguments. It’s tremendously fun, but it makes it hard to play with people outside the family who Just Don’t Understand The Rules.
The only friends we know who have and like to play this game always give up after about 5 rounds. They can’t beat me (or get anywhere near my scores), and so they decide to move onto something else.