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LAURA ON LIFE
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Once a month me and a group of about twelve wild and wonderful ladies get together at one of our houses to play Bunco. My husband calls us the "Bunco Squad". He thinks it's funny.
Bunco, for those of you who have never heard of it, is a game played with dice, scorecards, and a ridiculous looking hat that we have the privilege of wearing if we get a Bunco. There is no challenge, no strategy, and therefore, no thinking involved. I think that's why I like it.
We all bring a dish to pass; another reason why I like it. There are some pretty great cooks and bakers in this group, so I get to sample some real food for a change. My own offering is usually less than appealing. Needless to say, I am not a good cook. But luckily, there is plenty to choose from and I can hide my noodles ala shoe leather behind someone's wonderful baked ziti.
One time I made a cake. It was not from scratch. I wouldn't even attempt something as complicated as that. It was from a box, but I still managed to screw it up somehow. Luckily, it was I who tried the first piece. It tasted a lot like really thick pie dough, so I put the cover back on it and hid it behind a crock pot. These ladies were my friends; I didn't want to poison them with my pie dough cake. I'm still not sure what ingredient was missing or, heaven forbid, added, but whatever it was, I didn't trust myself not to put us all in the hospital that night. We had kids to get ready for school the next morning.
If I had poisoned all of those women, one of which was a senior member of the PTA, schools would have had to be shut down, grocery stores would have closed for lack of customers, not to mention the shoe stores, and men all over the county would have been forced to make their own dinner. It would have been pandemonium!
Really, we don't get together just to play a dice game with no apparent point to it or to eat (although, I'd go just for the food). The real reason is so that we all have a chance, once a month, to talk to adults and to say and hear intelligent things like, "I just heard that there is going to be a 70% off sale at Belk this weekend." After a month of conversations with children in which every other sentence starts with "Can I…?", and every other answer is "I don't know", it is difficult to speak intelligently about anything. But we persevere and try to take tiny steps toward fulfilling our dreams of autonomy. We must resist cutting up each other's food, or asking each other if they've washed their hands before we eat. We try not to talk about bed-wetting, toilet training, or diaper rash. For the most part, we are successful in these endeavors.
Not that our conversations do not descend into the gutter, from time to time. (Oh, should we dare?) We are so busy at home trying to discourage potty-mouth, that we can't help getting into a deliciously naughty conversation about some hunk on TV, or what our husbands do when they are feeling amorous.
At the end of the evening, the prizes are passed out. If there was ever any doubt that most of these women have children, this one fact would have proven it: Even the person who lost the most games gets a prize.
Laura Snyder may be reached at lsnyder@lauraonlife.com Or check her website www.lauraonlife.com for archived columns
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