Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock

When I was a small child (in high school) there were strict rules governing how one could obtain the privilege of riding shotgun in a car. You could "call it" by shouting "shotgun!" This gave you all rights and privileges of having the shotgun seat unless there was an attractive girl in the group that the driver of the car liked, in which case your call became null and void.

If someone were to call shotgun there was one way (besides being an attractive girl, which I couldn't do) to dispute the call. There were various contests that you could challenge the caller to and they were required by law to participate in the challenge and the winner would gain all the rights of shotgun that the caller previously acquired. These contests were as follows:

Rock
The classic game of rock paper scissors, best 2 out of 3 obviously.
Spit
You would have a spitting contest and the one who spit farthest wins
Shoot
Before playing you would both select whether you wanted to be odd or even. One person is odd and the other even, together you say "once, twice, thrice, shoot!" When you say shoot you both show a number of fingers. You add yours with the other persons to see if the sum is odd or even. This practice is based on seeing George and Jerry play it on Seinfeld. (Of course, they call it "choose" instead of shoot.)
Race
You would race to the car, first one to touch the door gets to sit there.
Thespian
Each person performs a death scene, the driver of the car determines which death scene is better and that thespian gets to sit there.
Canadian
You would perform a Canadian mating call, again the driver would decide which was best. (This originated from a friend of ours who was from Canada. He made this wierd screaming sound that we determined must be his mating call.)

This wide range of contests made for a more fair and equitable selection of who would get to sit in shotgun. Of course, you could eliminate these contests when calling. A very safe call would go like this: "Shotgun no rock, no spit, no shoot no race, no thespian, no canadian."

Why am I telling you all this? Well, just this past weekend I was with my brothers and my dad. We had gone to the priesthood session of General Conference together. On the way out to the car, I suddenly felt inspired to call "Shotgun!" I didn't bother to call out any of the protections, I didn't think anyone cared that much. Of course, my brother felt the same nostalgia I did for old times and he called "Rock!" As he and I were standing by the door playing Rock, my youngest brother got in through one of the back doors and climbed over the seat. Back in the day I would have been apalled at this lack of respect for law, but I happily got in the back seat while my brother, who had beat me in rock, proceeded to battle it out with the cheating brother. It was some fun nostalgia indeed. But it then occurred to me there needs to be just one more contest and that is Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock. You could call for it by yelling "Spock!"

To explain the game, here is Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory


As sheldon says:
Scissors cuts paper.
Paper covers rock.
Rock crushes lizard.
Lizard poisons spock
Spock smashes scissors
Scissors decapitates lizard
Lizard eats paper
Paper disproves spock
Spock vaporizes rock
Rock crushes scissors

Or, for those who want to see it visually I have included the following table:

As you read left to right, a plus means the thing on the left beats the thing on the top.

So, just think about it. Next time you want the front seat, try yelling "Spock!" It could change your life.

9 comments:

  1. But sweetheart one of us will, at some point, need to choose something other then Spock.

    I love my nerdy boy!

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  2. I don't think I'm smart enough to play that game.

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  3. WOW!!! HAHAHAHAHA this totally made my day!! Next time I see you we are having a battle! HAHAHAHAHAHA

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  4. You forgot to list all the privileges people can call. I mean girlfriend privileges are obvious but what about madre privileges. I remember in high school having to call "no rock, no shoot, no spit, no privileges."

    I must have left before all that Canadian scariness what added onto the end. Good thing too.

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  5. I do remember the privileges thing now. I think people only called "no privileges" when you were around because you always called "girl privileges." It was quite unfair.

    All the extra contests came from Jared trying to make up new ways to obtain shotgun after people had already shut down the other ways.

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  6. I'm pretty sure I just always got shotgun in Jeff's car. (Pre-Robyn) When I was growing up the only valid challenge was 'wrestle' so I didn't sit in shotgun very often.

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  7. I really enjoyed playing this with you last night, especially dominating you! :)

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  8. I am so implementing the "death scene" challenge! That's awesome.

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  9. Chanel --I got the madre privilege!!

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