Have you played Uno cards?

Have any of you played Uno cards? I’ve always managed to make good my escape, pitting the kids against each other or passing the buck very gracefully to my mother or sister when they have been available. However this weekend I was well and truly caught.

Stuck as I was, I applied myself diligently to the game. ‘They’re just two ten-year-olds’, I thought, ‘how tough would it be to defeat them and get on with my chores?’ 

After about twenty minutes I was more than willing to eat my words (or even my thoughts). The game just refused to end. The idea is to get rid of all your cards but each time I thought I was almost there I’d be saddled with some more. 

There is a whole big bunch of the most complex rules. (Or maybe is it just me with my terrible memory. I’ll never know). Sometimes I got the sneaking suspicion that the children kept changing the rules to suit themselves. I kept being made to skip chances or reverse the order of playing till I had no clue what was going on.

At the end of half hour I just wanted the game to end. I decided I’d try to lose and get over with it. However, that wasn’t happening in a hurry too.

This game of cards is U.N.E.N.D.I.N.G! 
(Quite like the Game of Thrones, which I am also ploughing through these days.)

After much hard work N finally won and I celebrated harder than she did. Come Monday I will begin work on a strategy to circumvent more Uno card encounters.

Teen Do Paanch and Kot Piece were easier


Did you play cards when you were young? We did. It was’t considered the most respectable of past-times but when six of us cousins got together each summer, card games were a favourite.

Not for us these Unos. We played Teen, Do, Paanch and Kot Piece (or is it Court Piece or Coat Pees, I need to google that). Then there was Bluff which was played with multiple suits and Gun which needed six players. There were also Rummy and Flash which were considered too grown up for us. Even though I did manage to finally officially grow up I never got a hang of those two.

We spent many long afternoons over hotly contested games cooled down by tall glasses of nimbu paani and the fragrant breeze from khas khas mats. Allegations of cheating flew back and forth (Cousin no 2 was a pro at it) and cards would be thrown down with promises of ‘I’ll never play with you again’ (that would be our oldest, Cousin no 1). Many a sad tear was spilt followed by hours of ‘I’m not talking to you’ only to be forgotten in favour of yet another good game.

That’s the way we played cards.

This time when I was home, my father just back from China, got these beautiful dinosaur playing cards. (He’s a Palaeontologist, hence). After we’d admired them enough, I thought it was time to initiate the kids into my kind of game. And so I explained the whole thing about declaring trumps and making hands.

To their credit they took to it way better than I took to their Uno and were soon yelling ‘I trumpeted you’ with great vigour filling me with hope that we'll stick to these. At least our card games have an end to them.

All in all a weekend well spent.

So what did you do over the weekend. Do you remember any childhood games? Or those that you've shared with your kids? I’d love to hear from you.


Linking up with Mackenzie at Reflections from Me
Reflections From Me

Labels: , , , , , ,