*This post is one of the first I wrote for my blog when I started over-sharing. I’m re-running it because tonight I’m going back to Bunko. Let’s hope it’s improved – greatly.
Bunko is a dice game that is popular among middle-aged chicks in the burbs. The best thing about it is that it requires no skill. You don’t want to have to think when you play bunko. You just roll the dice, blab, roll the dice again and blab, blab some more. Which is perfect because bunko is really an excuse to escape your husband and children, drink heavily during a weekday evening and gossip enthusiastically and in length about the people that aren’t there. In a word – heaven. Except my friends I have found an alternative Bunko universe. Where there are no alcoholic spirits and no gossip. I’m talking about good, clean fun and who wants to waste their Friday night on that?
Let me set the stage. As a neighborhood newbie I’m excited to be invited to Bunko. I can get some tacky tidbits on the neighbors and hopefully a little inside scoop on the moms at the elementary school. Good times. I’ve been instructed to arrive with the “fun” beverage of my choice. Ladies, it’s time to break out the “jingle juice” – vodka, o.j, orange liqueur, and a splash of cranberry. Yummy. I walk over to my neighbors ready to get my groove on with my pitcher of vodka sunshine. First clue something was wrong – I was the only one clutching an alcoholic beverage. Oops. I was adrift in a sea of Diet Pepsi, decaf coffee and root beer (Yes, root beer. Don’t you think that’s odd for a party with everyone over the legal drinking age by about twenty years?) Second clue, the bibles (please note the plural) on the tables.
In this Bunko universe the dice are only for holy rolling. Oh yeah, you read that right. Holy freaking Rolling! You sit down and roll those dice and whatever number they land on you start thinking about a bible verse with those numbers. Confused and perhaps a little scared? I was. (Basically, I’m thinking I’m being punked? Is this some bizarre form of neighborhood initiation?) Let me explain further. For instance, it’s my turn to roll the dice and one dice rolls 3, the other a 1. Let’s get our bibles and see what verse we can find to share with the group. Oh goodie, here’s one Proverbs 3:1: “My son, do not forget my teaching . . .” Now, Proverbs 3:1 is a perfectly good bible verse but Bunko isn’t about the bible or at least it shouldn’t be. It’s about getting tipsy and bossiping (bitch gossiping) and if you’re really lucky someone will reveal a scandalous tidbit about themselves that you can dine out on for years!
But, I digress, so let’s get back to the rules of Bible Bunko. You read your bible verse. The group ponders and discusses the verse and then the next person rolls her bible dice. This goes on for h-o-u-r-s. Whatever, it wasn’t really hours, but it felt like it. Imagine the most boring church sermon you’ve had to ever sit through while wearing a skirt that was so tight it was compressing your abdominal cavity. Combine that with enduring the most long-winded, repetitive college professor who excels at monotone droning in a two-hour lecture class and you’ve got my evening vibe. So, what’s a girl to do? Hatch an escape plan, course. I would like to go on record and state that I did try my best to be an adult and stay the entire time but I caved. I couldn’t do it.
Escape Plan: Step one – I start drinking the jingle juice. Liquid fortification was first on my list. Step two – after the 16th bible verse is discussed I go to the bathroom and call my son. I tell him to call me in 5 minutes or get grounded. Step Three: phone rings 5 minutes later. I use the standard “family needs me line” and run, not walk or skip, but full on run home, hugging my precious left over jingle juice to my chest and giving the pitcher little kisses as I’m sprinting. Safe at last, I cross the threshold to my house, bolt the door, guzzle the left over jingle juice and pray not for God’s forgiveness, but to help these women find a way to loosen up their spanx and have some fun. Really, all that inner virtue and righteousness will give you wrinkles and who’s want’s that? Not me!
Snarky in the Suburbs 