Tuesday, July 11, 2006

The Slug Bug War of 2006

In our family we have certain traditions revolving around riding in the car. The first is the involable rule about “shotgun.” And you don’t mess with that one. The second revolves around Slug Bugs. You probably know the drill. You see a VW bug (old or new, doesn’t matter) and you call out “Slug Bug blue” or “red” or “primer colored” as the case may be. It used to be that then you got to slug (or smack or slap) the people in the car who didn’t see the fabled Beetle. Reha felt this was far too violent a game for our precious children to learn, so now we just count.

Boring!

Anyway, on our grand trip to Coeur d’Alene a week or so ago, we had ourselves The World Championship Slug Bug competition. The game began when we left the house and ended when we parked in front of our house a week or so later.

I had planned to leave SUPER early in the morning for our trip A) so we could make good time and people who are normally loud and restless (i.e. 13 of the 19 children) would snooze and B) I’d have the advantage for catching an early lead for myself in The Grand Game.

But of course, though we had planned to leave at the crack of dawn, we ended up getting onto the road about noon-thirty. Or a I like to call it, the abyss of the day. Things got off to a rough start for me as Lucas pilfered the first catch of the day. A dark blue New Beetle that lives just around the corner. My attention was on making sure that we had all 18 of the children in the van and the small U-haul trailer we’d rented to store certain excess children. So I was a bit distracted.

The lead shifted a number of times during the trip. So did the players. And the rules. After much deliberation, we decided NOT to take away a point if you called out “Slug Bug Green!!” and on closer inspection the vehicle in question turned out to be a dark grey Hummer H2. Also, old VW campers counted as TWO points, given their rarity. I also lobbied that a Baja Bug should count for something other than just one point, since they are also pretty rare and we were pretty far away from the Baja, but no one ever listens to me anyway.

We ended up with three teams. Me. Lucas. And Mom (Reha) and Jonah. Carrie was the ref, and if she was concious, she also served as the final arbiter of who won any given diagreements over who called what and when.

So we were on the way home. Jonah and Reha had a commanding lead of 36 to my 25 or so. To tell you the truth, I was never all that clear on my count at any given time. I sort of made up a number that seemed reasonable and that probably wasn’t cheating. (Give me a break, I was driving and trying not to fall asleep in Eastern Idaho, a tough call under any circumstances, given how incredibly boring the scenery is there). Lucas was a distant third with 18 or some such and only really served as spoiler for me as he kept spotting the stupid cars a millisecond before I could. Plus, he was playing PS2 in the back seat for most of the trip home. But it seemed like he’d be saving his game or what not, he’d look up for half a second and then we’d pass a Bug or twelve and he’d sing out.

Anyway, I had a plan. I’d seen VW dealership on the way out, but hadn’t realized what I’d seen until it was well passed. This VW dealership is right off the freeway and by the time we’d pass it, it would be nice and dark. And mostly everyone was drowsy or comatose who was still playing. So if I could just start saying “Slug Bug X” (where x represents a random color, like Sea Foam Green), nice and quielty and not alert everyone in the van to what I saw, I’d be able to catch up and take the lead in one fell swoop.

My plan worked perfectly and I nabbed a VW bus and eight Slug Bugs before anyone knew what was going on, except that Reha roused herself long enough to get two so they took the lead back and went on to win. Jonah has been quite smug about the whole thing. And he keeps asking where his World Championship Slug Bug 2006 prize is. I told him it’s a big, wet, sloppy kiss from me, and he gave me a look. You know one of those looks that says, “You are so not ever coming near me old man, with your drooling face and scrathy beard. And where the hell is my prize, you loser!”

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