Board Games: The Blog Series (Part 3)

CHURCH GAMES

PIT: No one knew how it got there, but we knew why it left. It sat in the Youth Cabinet in my church for many months. Unopened and undisturbed at the back of the third shelf from the bottom behind to the table tennis racquets, Bibles, and various Sunday School papers. I noticed the small red box marked PIT in old-fashioned lettering, but because of its age I thought it wasn't a kids game (No, I thought it would be boring).

After many months of curious looks and using it as a divider to keep the table tennis balls from rolling off the shelf, and onto the floor, I decided to pull it from the bowels of the Youth Cabinet! With my arm still intact, I pulled out the box and managed to also drop a pair of table tennis balls on the floor -_- Inside, the box consisted of playing cards, rules, and a bell, which you could find at the front desk of many a hotel establishment. I read the rules, and then examine the cards listing items such as CORN and WHEAT and THE BULL o_O It wasn't long before I understood how to play, and reading the cards made me hungry for corn on the cob, bread, and beef ^_^

WOO HOO! Homer Simpson, what are you doing here? o_O

Weeks later, the church held a congregational meeting (pizza lunch; we like food ^_^). In an effort to find something fun to do, while our parents talked about church budgets and administrative updates, I got the guys together and pulled out the PIT card game from the Youth Cabinet. It took only three minutes to teach them how to play, but for the next thirty minutes to an hour all our parents heard from inside the Youth Room were words such as "TWO!", "FIVE!", "ROBIN, STOP CHEATING!", "NOT BARLEY?!", and "DON'T GIVE ME THAT BEAR CARD, YOU GOOF!" (Hi Robin; oh, and that last one was me...! o_O). It was amazing that such an old game could find a new life among teenagers, who never heard of PIT before! Yet, we had a ball playing a stock trading game in the church...wait, what?

The next week, we couldn't find PIT. We searched the whole of the Youth Cabinet, and the entire Youth Room for the red box and service bell; both disappeared. No one bothered with PIT for the months it was here, but after one raucous and enjoyable game it disappeared from the shelf inside the Youth Cabinet. I bought the PIT card game, and it sits in my collection of board and card games, but since that wonderful Sunday in March years ago I never played it. Nevertheless, PIT will always be one of my favourite games. ^_^