I remember a time before we all played video games and squinted and hissed like a Gremlin whenever someone opened the curtains. A time when video games where nothing more than jumping around platforms and hopping on enemies just to kill them.
Hey soldier, pump me full of your lead
Now whenever I play Modern Warfare online there’s a little snot nosed cuntnugget no more than 11 years old smearing me all over the screen. Wouldn’t be so bad only the little fucker has the headset and microphone to go with the insult and giggles giddily as your corpse lays twitching on the ground. For some reason it makes it sting even more when you find out it’s a girl. The sting is taken out of it when she emails you her profile pic though.
What has this kid got to grow up to apart from virginity? Obesity? The highest score? The most UAV’s taken down with a rocket launcher? That’s a well spent youth.
There was a time when the summer holidays came around and we wanted to be outside getting sunburnt and chased by farmers out of their fields.
Maybe it’s just me and maybe I’ve reached the age when I can say that “I remember this place when it was all fields”. Thing is though, I do. I grew up in Dublin. Before Liffey Valley, before the Blanchardstown Shopping center – it was all fields.
But it was also a time before 4 cars to a house, so we could play on the street, safe from being run over or heading face first into a parked bumper.
Sometimes I wish I’d see kids playing the kinds of games we used to play. Not in a pedo telescopic lens kind of way, but in a way that means the longer they’re away from the fucking computer games, the better my chances are of increasing my online ranking.
Here’s a few of the games I remember from my youth:
Kerbs (or Curbs, depending where you were from)
Yup, get used to that lonely feeling
The game was simple. Take a soccer ball, stand on one side of the street with your mate on the other side. You had to
throw the ball over to try and catch the kerb and get the ball to bounce back to you. If you got 3 kerbs in a row, you could go to the halfway mark for an easier shot. You lost your turn when you missed the kerb. Actually when I
describe it like that it bores me to depression, but this was an ace game.
It was also the only time I ever had contact with a soccer ball. It was extremely addictive for the players and bewildering for any spectators. Actually a few years after I’d out grown this game, I was woken one morning by the sounds of a ball boinging off of a kerb. It was the most annoying sound I’d ever heard, so I went out and twatted the little cunt. He was playing on his own at 5am with a basketball. Fail on so many levels. I think he grew up with a hole in his kitchen and a poodle called precious.
Better than Xboxidness – Nope
"Please Mr Crocodile can we cross the river? Sure mate, then I can stick my finger up your bum!
Mr Crocodile (Or lion or Giant, or whatever)
You needed a few mates to play this one, not like the last basketball toting wank stain. The game was simple. The “crocodile” had to stand on one side of the street and turn the other way. The rest of us had to ask -
“Please Mr Crocodile, can we cross the river?”
And you could, depending on his requirements -
“You may cross if you’re wearing anything blue/have brown hair/have a c in your name …”
Unless you were ginger, then you were shit out of luck, because even crocodiles even hate the shit out of gingers. The first person to reach the other side of the street became the next crocodile.
Simple.
Fun for all, except the one kid that no one liked who was always left without taking a single step. Was probably a ginger and probably grew up to be a forum moderator.
Better than Xboxidness – Sometimes
And here’s a few that don’t need much explaining.
Rounders.
Lots of mates, lamposts as bases and a tennis racket and ball. Hoof the ball down the road and run like Forrest Gump to get around the course. Simple. Special note, never have the fat kid as the one who has to collect the ball. He’ll pass out, vomit and shit himself before he gets the ball back. Bonus points for smashing windows and collectively blaming the ginger kid.
Better than Xboxidness – Yes, if you’re not fat or ginger or a fat ginger.
Angry because he doesn't know what a vagina feels like. If you're reading this, it's awesome.
Kiss chasing.
Boys chase girls and when you catch one you force yourself on her get a kiss. Girls chase boys and when they catch one they learn the first lesson in mickey teasing giggle like a hyena. Being the fat kid, I never caught a girl. Also being the fat kid I wasn’t chased. But I did get the left over fat girl who felt rejected and she wouldn’t even look at the ginger kid. Score.
Better than Xboxidness – Let’s face it, you’re a kid and you have the chance to get some tongue action off a chick, or stay inside and nuke some Russians online. If you’re still a virgin reading this, you have your answer.
There are tons more, what did you used to play?
I remember that whenever there was Show-Jumping on TV we used to head for the local supermarket and raid their rubbish, collecting any large cardboard boxes we could find. We’d set them up into increasingly difficult ‘jumps’ in the garden and time ourselves completing the course. If you knocked a ‘jump’ down you got 10 penalty seconds and had to rebuild it.
We were never really very good at numbers, so whoever was the last to sustain a career-damaging injury was declared the winner.
Career damaging injuries should be in the rule books for all child hood games.