Score... Egg-Pus!

Yellow-car-games: I am not sure who first brought the yellow car game to my household, but we have played for a long time now. It's simple. You see a yellow car and say "score". You get a point. Simple, right?

No. NO. NO!...

Laughter: There are so may disputes in playing this game that there is yelling and laughter almost every time we play.  Sometimes there are even disputes of who has the right to end the game; disputes within disputes within raucous laughter (and sometimes hurt feelings), and further laughter's disputes...

Disputes: The variations of the color yellow are a point of constant dispute. When do you cross the line from yellow to orange? Are service vehicles (orange-yellow) acceptable? What about "yellow" school busses (NO!)? Do yellow panels on a truck count if the cab is clearly not yellow?

The location of a car matters too. Can you score a car on a return trip on the same day, or is it already scored? Who makes the rules; does the driver have claim over the rules or should insurrections of "I'm scoring it anyway!" be allowed? Well the inter-webs has a site for all these conflicts which I plan on using to my advantage in the near future with my family.

http://www.yellowcargame.co.uk/index.htm 

The inter-webs is a wondrous quagmire of dys-information that must make "it" true: The site has everything I needed for my blog entry today! History, official (?) and alternate rules, even extras that test your tolerance for colour [sic.] variations...

Professor J Bulmanovich of the University of South-West Sussex has researched the game and has given the following as a probable history.

The history of the yellow car game can be traced back to the early 1600's and to the carters who used to transport the harvested rape seed from the Cotwolds across country to the barges that would carry the rape across to Dublin. 

Professor Bulmanovich (is he even a real person?) suggests that a "good luck" hit was offered from one dock worker to another after each successful barge arrived. Over time this translated to yellow carts, vehicles, trains, etc. and on and on and on... I have not validated any of the story, now do I wish to at this point. Urban myth or not, it makes a great story...

Yellow-car pain: It turns out the British version of our family game involves hitting (much like the punch-buggy [color] game of my youth). This could create problems given the extreme reach my son has developed as he has climbed to 6" over my sadly shrinking 5'7" self. It also turns out the punch-buggy variation is one of the "official" alternate rules resulting in two hits, not just one. Who knew?...

Double-dipping is bad manners except in close company: I particularly like rule section 4 as it backs up my own feelings of multiple scoring a car on the same trip:

4. Once a car has been used it can not be used again in the same game

4.a. When playing on a journey the game is reset when that journey ends. Otherwise the game resets when the players part company.

4.b. Sleep also resets the game.

Eggs?: This all leads up to a moment yesterday when my daughter and I were driving to Saratoga through small picturesque upstate NY towns on a gorgeous spring day. There is a VW Bug color that is so pale with elements of green in the yellow that it is debatable if it qualifies:

Only cars which are yellow are allowed. The definition of yellow can be down to interpretation, but here are some guidelines. Gold, bronze and shades or green are not yellow. Metallic yellow is acceptable but pearlescent is not unless the colours in it are only shades of yellow. Some manufacturers call a colour yellow, just because you name something yellow that doesn't make it so.

I was looking to find a gracious place to include said car while at the same time not opening to door for every putrid off-yellow out there. While I was thinking of my ruling my daughter exclaimed "Egg Pus car!" I am not sure why this shocking proclamation amused me so much but I guffawed for at least a block before agreeing that it was a new special category in the game.

Of course there was the obligatory discussion of what egg pus would look like if eggs had pus, and although I was smiling and acting amused, inside I was totally grossed out. I couldn't get my brain off the question of the yoke vs. this fictional egg-pus; ick!

I made sure the eggs were scrambled this morning...