When we were children, my siblings and I used to play a game called “Guess what?” The rules were simple and violent. You’d say “guess what” to someone, and if the person said, “What?” you replied, “You’ve got five seconds to get rid of that word.” The victim then had until you counted to five to trick someone else into saying “what.” If he or she failed, you could then hit him or her 7 times, while saying “W H A T – that spells WHAT!”
Obviously we had to do this when our parents weren’t around.
What mean jokes did you pull in (or have pulled on you) when you were young?
You had an… interesting childhood. Perhaps you’d like to lay on this couch and talk about it.
My sibs were more direct: they just stole my stuff or pushed me downstairs (I was the youngest). I suppose those could be looked at as “games”. They count as sadistic memories in my head, at least.
My brother and I always had the chore to set the table for dinner. We had this routine where my mom would call us up (kitchen was upstairs from bedrooms/family room). We’d stare at each other like Wile E Coyote/Roadrunner, I’d take off for the stairs and my brother would chase me. If he caught me, he’d drag me down the (carpeted) steps on my ass. Then we’d go and set the table like normal. If he didn’t catch me, then I “won” that round.
When I was around 6, shortly after my mom got remarried, I can distinctly remember my step cousins tying me up with a jump rope on the treadmill then turning it on. They told me that their neighbor had gotten sucked into it and that I was going to get sucked in too. I of course believed them and cried and screamed until they turned it off.
We played “Bloody Knuckles” where one person had a comb and the other person held out their closed-fist hands. The person with the comb I think had their hands at their sides with the comb in one of them, and reached out to strike the other person’s fist, who had to move his fist away fast enough to not get rapped with the comb. Don’t ask me the specifics – mostly my two older brothers played that one. I played “Mercy” with my older brother, you know where you clasp hands and bend the other persons’ wrists backward, and the person has to stop when you say mercy? Except we played it where I didn’t know the word for Mercy so I’d have to guess the word while we were playing. “Tree! Bush!” --meanwhile fingers and hands going numb/shooting with pain "No, it’s something green, though – " “Shrub!” “yes!” and then he’d stop. I have more. Actually, we were and are a loving family. For some reason we agreed to play these games…
I was an only child, and a cautious, bookish thing. Very trusting. I carpooled from way, way out in the boonies with the only other two kids within miles, who were siblings and farm kids and a lot more rough and tumble than I (if only because they weren’t onlies). The girl was my age and my best friend, but her brother was four years older than us and tormented us terribly.
He told me my invisible friend had died.
He told me the eject button on the car’s cassette player was for my seat.
He told me my balloon that had blown away did not, in fact, go to balloon heaven as my mother had told me.
My older brother thought it would be funny to catch me, tickle me until I was gasping for air, and drop things in my mouth. I recall an earthworm and a rabbit “pellet”. It was years later that I learned that rabbits recycle their pellets.
Really not nice in retrospect. Hadn’t thought of it in years…thanks, OP!
I remember “two for flinching”. You would swing your fist close to someones face but not hit them if they flinched you would punch them twice on the shoulder.
My cousin was two years older than I was. He was also the youngest of five, formerly six. And the death of the sixth (next-youngest) created a larger age gap between him and the others. So I can understand why he took his frustrations out on me. Actually, we were pretty close, but he had this one schtick that drove me nucking futs.
He was like the guy in Zsofia’s anecdote, except I never believed anything he said. Then what was the problem, you ask? I always wanted to make it clear that I didn’t believe him, but that just gave him more chain to yank. Back and forth we’d go, with me asking for proof, and him spinning more elaborate stories. And I think there was one time when I played into his hands beautifully.
I forget what he was telling me exactly. Pretend it was that their dog had died and what I was looking at was the “new” dog, who happened to look exactly like the old one. I kept trying to counter this (“You couldn’t just FIND another dog that looked exactly like Sadie”), and finally played what I thought was the trump card: the adults would know about this, and my mom would have told me on the drive down, and my aunt probably would have mentioned it at some point too. So I went in the house and demanded to know if the dog had died, had they gotten another dog…well, because Cousin said it had…And of course, I got laughed at because everyone thought I believed it.
I taught my Sister to play a game, it was called “Butler” where she basically pretended to be my Butler and I paid her a quarter every week or whenever she’d recall it was payday.
I had a good thing going until she was about 7 or 8 and felt that I was just using her.
But I taught her how to make me sandwiches and everything! It used to be SO awesome, anytime I wanted anything I’d have my own personal butler to get me the remote, some lemonade, a sammich, anything…
Stupid her learning about “Child Labor Laws” in the encyclopedia…
My cousin used to visit with her sons, who are 6 and 4 years younger than I am and were (and are) horribly spoiled brats. I couldn’t stand them but was also put in charge of keeping them “entertained” (i.e. out of my parents’ way). I used to play Hide & Go Seek with them and then instead of looking I’d go outside and into the woods. (We lived in the country- the woods were maybe 200 feet from our back door.) Amazingly they fell for it for about 3 visits.
My sister’s still mad because I burned one of her Barbie dolls at the stake (“the stake” being an iron rod in the ground; the fire was dried mown grass and sticks). She didn’t burn particularly well, but her soul was sufficiently cleansed. My sister went screaming to our parents who told her “Well, you told him he could have them” (she was probably about 15 or 16 by then, I’d have been 8 or 9) and she said “to play with, not to burn!” My father just told her “Well, should have been more specific. I’d be more concerned if he was dressin’ ‘em than by him burnin’ 'em.”
I haven’t thought of that for years, but my siblings and I played that too (and also a couple of select friends). We also used to play rose garden. You’d hold somebody’s hand in yours, then “plant seeds” by repeatedly pinching their arm quite hard, then water, sow, weed, etc. similarly. After enough of this torture you’d declare “see - there’s the rose garden” as the arm had turned red because of all the abuse.
Another good one was the hitting contest. It was short but sweet: “let’s have a contest to see who can hit the softest - you go first.” When your opponent tapped you gently you let loose with a good one and said happily “you win”. Of course once the victims got wise you’d have to find fresh blood.
One “joke” a bully in our neighborhood did was ask some if they still had their tonsils. No matter what the kid answered, he’d say “let me see!” and when the kid opened his mouth wide, the bully would spit in his mouth.
As The Younger Sister (of an older brother) my job was to torment my brother–via sarcasm, violence, or just general asshattery–to hit me.
And the moment he did, I would go running to my mom yelling that “HE HIT ME!!”
Since hitting girls was Simply Not Acceptable, he would generally get into a world of trouble regardless of what I did to provoke him. Even if I was the one who started hitting first.
Sadly for me, there were a few times when my mother was too wise and/or annoyed to play along, and we’d BOTH get in equal amounts of trouble.
But that happened rarely enough that I was willing to gamble on it.
People ask me if I’ve ever gotten into a physical fight…and my answer is always…“Um, no…actually…unless you count my brother…?”
