Extreme... Tiddlywinks?
As pulse-pounding as racquetball is, for some reason on a rainy Tuesday it
just wasn't exciting enough for me and my friend Zach. On this fateful day,
we had to go and create Full-Contact Racquetball instead. Full-Contact Racquetball
is played similarly to normal racquetball, except that the defense (that is,
the player who just hit the ball) is allowed to get in the way of the offense
(the player who's about to hit the ball), and can do everything in his power
to screw up the offense without actually touching either the offense or the
ball (though piercing, incoherent screams help oodles). The offense, on the
other hand, has to actually get to the freaking ball so they're allowed to push
or hit the defense away if necessary. After 30 minutes and 31 broken bones'
worth of this game, we realized that if we were gonna take this game seriously,
we'd need a referee, medical coverage and about 16 cheerleaders.
I wasn't joking about that medical coverage (or the cheerleaders, come to think
of it). I spent the next three days in Pomona Valley Medical Center, where I
had plenty of time to reflect on why exactly I had ended up in a full-body cast.
Maybe it's that human need to take a normal, respected sport and make it completely
fucking insane. This is how the twin face-crushing activities of skateboarding
and skiing spawned the backbreaking bastard child that is snowboarding. This
is also how the esteemed game of caps originated from basketball and beer drinking
(I'd hate to be those first guys that tried to play with an actual basketball).
Not that caps is all that extreme, I really just needed an excuse to work it
into another story (so far the tally's at 34!).
At any rate, these days you don't need a Colorado mountain range to enjoy an
extreme sport anymore. No, these days you can turn anything into an extreme
sport with a few modifications. Hell, last year my sponsor group invented Extreme
Spoons, which is basically like the regular card game of spoons but with a few
key modifications. Being towards the beginning of freshman year, when Gateway
boxes lined the halls and sponcest was still a bad idea, we had the idea to
play in the middle of the hall. The game progressed as usual, with cards being
passed along until someone got four of a kind. At this point the player in question
would grab a spoon from the middle; but, being extreme, the spoons were not
in the middle of the group; instead, they were fiendishly placed at either end
of the hall, surrounded by walls of boxes, pits of styrofoam and probably a
couple of pissed-off rats. Upon getting four of a kind, the player would get
up and begin running the obstacle course, and of course the second he jumped
up, everyone else would follow suit. So basically we had a bunch of horny teenagers
running through boxes towards the coveted plastic spoons - the kicker was, you
never knew how many spoons were at either end of the hall, so groups would often
have to charge back and forth tripping over people and rodents trying to find
the last piece of plastic goodness. Yes, we were very, very bored.
This little anecdote just goes to show you how easy it is to invent your own
extreme sport (and incidentally, how easy it is to lose one's top layer of skin
from one's foot). Here's another idea: Double Jeopardy Arm-Wrestling. In this
breathtaking event, the competitors, whose arms are tethered together, must
best each other while being chased by a horde of rabid Dobermans. Since the
competitors are connected at the arm, one cannot let the other fall mercy to
the dogs, though he must remain cunning enough to find an open opportunity to
win the actual arm-wrestle. The game has turned from your average run-of-the-mill
blah-fest into a deadly orchestra of diplomacy and pain that's fun for all ages.
If you can't find a bloodthirsty pack of Dobermans on short notice, you could
opt instead for Patty-Cake Circle of Death, which is played on a tilting surface
above a shark-infested pool. The players must simultaneously develop hardcore
freestyle rhymes while attempting to push the opponent into the drink using
only his palms and deft rhyming scheme. Alternately, just imagine the fun of
Extreme Monopoly! In this edge-of-your-seat adrenaline rush, players can choose
whether or not to pay their rent. If they decide against it, the two players
involved engage in fisticuffs to determine who ends up with the money! And while
these two are busy, the others are perfectly free to steal their money and property!
Just imagine the chaos that will ensue when people begin to play dishonestly…!
You know, that actually really doesn't sound any different from how I usually
play. OK, say we add a time bomb or something, that might be better.
Anyway, these are all great ideas, but I'm sure you, dear reader, can come
up with even better ones. In fact, I'll stake my reputation (what little of
it I have left) on this: if you can come up with a good idea for an "extreme
sport", email me at [email protected], tell me how it's played (bonus
points if you actually play it). I'll print the best submissions in a future
story, and yes, I will (probably) give you credit. Get out there and invent!
[I never got a single email. Just goes to show you why faith in society is completely unfounded.]