Cardiogirl: 19% body fat 100% fun

I’m back. And today we absolutely must talk about the childhood game of Jinx.

In my life travels I have had many opportunities to engage in the game of Jinx. All it requires is two people having a conversation. If, perchance, both people say the same word at the same time the first person to yell, “Jinx!” wins the initial Jinx.

This means the other person in the conversation (the jinxee) is not allowed to speak until you say that person’s name — three times. At least, that’s the version I grew up with. I’ve told you numerous times that our family is full of control freaks. Is it any wonder we had to say the name three times instead of once?

My own twist, as a small child, was to immediately say the other person’s name twice. And then let them hang and twist in the wind, with the hope that I would utter that person’s name the third time, thereby releasing the jinx. Now in our family, we played by the rules. That person would wait for me to release the jinx, just as I would wait (forever, sometimes) to be released.

Mr. C absolutely, without a doubt, refuses to play games with me. He will not do it. I have never once heard him utter the word jinx and he does not acknowledge the jinx when I yell it. What kind of dreary, gray existence is that, I ask you?

I do remember telling him, before we had kids, “You’re going to have to play Jinx when we have kids. They’re going to want you to play with them.”

I felt like the lawyer who walked in with the smoking gun on that one. I was definitely saddled up on my high horse.

And, yet again, he surprised me with his simple answer, “No I won’t.”

I was actually speechless.

Moving on. When I was in college, my roommate Tonya had a different version of Jinx that she grew up with. The first time we said something together she yelled, “Jinx! Cokes on bid. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. You owe me ten Cokes.”

What?

She was equally surprised that I just stared at her mute, as she counted in rapid succession. She then explained if one person yells “Jinx!” the other person must immediately yell, “Stop!” The object being the attempt to stop the Jinxer from counting at all or counting past one.

I found this snippet from Wikipedia regarding collecting the penalty to be hilarious in its uptight wording:

“Sometimes the punch in the arm or “Coke” penalty for losing “jinx” can be replaced with Pepsi or another beverage. Unlike the punch in the arm variation, a common problem in the soft drink penalty lays in its collection.”

Somehow, during our time together in college, I accepted that we must play her version. I guess, as I consider it, like Mr. C, she refused to play my version. After meeting Tonya, I began to employ the “Jinx! Cokes on bid. One, two, three…” version.

I have never once run into any other person who plays Jinx the way Tonya does. Ever. Everyone I have tried that on gives me a blank stare.

So I’ve reverted to my pedestrian version and simply say, “Jinx!” if the need arises. But I usually ask people what their version is. My sister-in-law’s family played where the jinxee could not talk until his or her name was said once.

I don’t recall, growing up, that a penalty or consequence was ever exacted. I do recall, as I mentioned earlier, that we all played by the rules and did not speak until our name was said three times. But my internet source for most of my curiosities, Wikipedia, explained the following consequences.

Traditionally, the penalty for speaking while in the state of being “jinxed” (ie, breaking a jinx) is a firm punch in the arm. Perhaps a more common penalty is that the loser owes the winner (that is, the person who called jinx) “a Coke” (cola beverage). Victory is often announced when the jinxed person speaks out of turn and the winner yells enthusiastically, “Buy me a Coke!”

This is surprising to me, since I know I would have reveled, as a child, in punching my brother’s arm. Just as he would have enjoyed punching my arm in return. But I don’t ever recall arm punching during Jinx.

Now there was one other game we played as kids called “Slug Bug” that was based on punching the other person’s upper arm upon seeing a Volkswagen Beetle. Back then, the style of the car was very different than most cars and therefore stood out in traffic. It looked something like this:

So in this scenario, should we see that car on the road, each of us would try to be the first to yell, “Slug bug red!” Whoever yelled it first was allowed to punch the upper arm of the other person. Most of the time I sucked at this game, since I was always five, eight or ten years younger than the other players (my sisters and brother).

I’ve heard that game referred to as “Punch Buggy” and in my opinion that doesn’t have the same groovy mojo that “Slug Bug” has.

But back to Jinx. Wikipedia also offered a couple of regional versions of Jinx. One being the “California Jinx in which one cannot go to the bathroom until someone has said his or her name.”

I found this experimental version, which was played briefly in Southern Massachusetts in the 1960s, pretty interesting and I can see why it never gained popularity across the nation.

“When two people say the same thing in unison (unplanned!), they must hook little fingers and say the following dialog: “What goes up the chimney?” “Smoke.” “May your wish and my wish never be broke!”

Did anyone grow up in Southern Massachusetts in the 1960s who played that version? I’m going to throw out a challenge to all of you. Ask around, friends and neighbors, to see if we can find one person who played that Southern Mass. version. That would be so awesome to find that person.

Ooh! I could interview that person via e-mail and write about him or her here in this space! Any takers?

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 7:12 am and is filed under Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.