Capture Torture

Recently I was at a big family dinner with several of Robyn's siblings and other family members.  We had finished partaking of various delicious food items and were discussing important things like wicked witches, aliens and dragons.

My eight year old niece came into the kitchen, took my hand and informed me that she had a very important game for us to play.  I followed her into the living room and asked her what we were going to play.  "Capture, torture" was the reply.

Any game that has the word 'torture' in it, is not usually one I would select to play.  But, I thought, perhaps it was just a poorly named game.  So I asked her how we play.  The rules are simple: "You try to capture me and after you capture me, you torture me."  I suppose the game actually has the perfect title.

If I'm going to play a role, I need some back story.  I talked to her a little bit and she helped flesh out my character.  I was to be a troll sleeping in a cave.  My niece and nephew were exploring the cave and they come along and wake me up.  Upon waking, I capture them and torture them.  I'm motivated by my desire to sleep, but also by my love of torturing children.

Often when I play with these two, the game starts out with me sleeping.  That originated from the fact that a sleeping monster is very similar to a sleeping Jeff, so it's a pretty easy role to play.  I can usually lay on the couch and emit an occasional growl, which is sufficient to send them running in gleeful terror.  Then I get to sleep another 15 minutes or so while they develop the courage to creep back into my lair.

Apparently, that strategy was not to my niece's liking this time.  After a few minutes, she let me know in no uncertain terms that there was way too much sleeping and not nearly enough capturing and torturing.

I had to up my game.  I can't let the word get around that I sleep too much when I should be torturing.  (Have you heard about Jeff?  He hardly ever captures or tortures.  I hear he sleeps nearly twice as much as he tortures!  How embarrassing!)

So I turned it up.  I busted out some serious capturing.  That's the easy part.  

The hard part is the torturing.  I'm not too familiar with torture.  I'm sure there are many strategies out there, but it's just not a subject I've studied.  I decided to try eating the children.  I mean, getting eaten alive sounds pretty unpleasant to me.  

I quickly learned I was wrong about that assumption.  After pretending to eat my niece's arms, followed by her legs, she told me, "Eating is boring.  Do a different kind of torture."

I considered water-boarding.  I wasn't sure how well that would go over with her parents.

Next I tried tickling.  That was also unacceptable.  "No eating.  No tickling.  Try sitting on us, or trapping us with your arms."  She is pretty picky for someone who requested torture.

Finally, I discovered something that worked for all of us.  I held her up in the air and she would squirm until she could get out of my grip and fall to the couch.  

I'm not sure if that form of torture would be sufficient to get terrorists to talk, but apparently it's the ideal torture for an 8 year old girl.

"I'll tell you everything.  Just don't make me squirm until I fall on the couch."

Here are the important life lessons I learned from playing "capture, torture"

1.  Torture is awesome.  Kids love it.

2.  Sleeping is not an activity that trolls should spend much time doing.

3.  If you are a sleeping troll, eating people is hardly a deterrent from being bothered.

4.  There's a right way and a wrong way to torture.  Doing it wrong is embarrassing.

I hope you all can learn these important lessons without making the mistakes I made.

P.S.  This is a non-political piece.  I don't want to hear your thoughts on torturing terrorists.  If you have thoughts about torturing little girls, those thoughts are welcome.