Games People Play

It was not that easy, after all donkeys, by their very nature, are recalcitrant beasts, added to that, the natural fear of any mortal being when confronted by a potential predator – and as everyone who has ever survived a Christmas dinner will know – Brussels sprouts do have lethal tendencies. The donkey as a veteran of more up-market Children’s nativity plays than it ever dared remember was – quite naturally, therefore, more than a little perturbed by anything redolent of the festive season – up to and including traditional vegetable accompaniments.

However, such was the urgency in the situation – which I’m sure doesn’t need much explanation, except to confirm that the lady in question did, indeed, have a temper if left to seethe - it was best we all thought to do our best to find something without yuletide connotations to fill up the donkey’s basket.

I suppose really we should have made more of an attempt to source some tools and other materials more closely associated with gold-prospecting in the Californian gold rush era, but she had sprung the idea on us at what was almost the last minute.

I further suppose it was therefore inevitable that, when a number of injuries resulting from our last neighbourhood game of Strip Twister left many of us feeling we were not up to another bout, there would be a modicum of scepticism when presented with her new idea for a way of breaking the ice at our next… er… intimate evening.

But – surprisingly enough to many of us there that evening – her suggestion of playing Strip-Buckeroo with a live donkey and real accoutrements did turn out to be far more entertaining than some of the more pessimistic predictions suggested. Although, they were right about having a great deal to clean up afterwards, after having a perpetually-surprised – and somewhat already nervous – donkey in the living room, an attribute the makers seem to have surprisingly overlooked in the original game.