Game + Math = YUCK!

Molly invited us over to dinner Friday night. I was prepared for a fun evening with Molly, Jeff and their sweet girls. I was unprepared to have to do math, because, you know, when I get invited to dinner, I don’t assume equations will be on the menu.

But Molly borrowed a game we loving refer to as redneck golf (if you know the real name please let me know). You play with a ladder made from PVC pipe and a rope with two balls tied to either end. You throw the ball-rope thing toward the other ladder and hope you can get the ball-rope thing to wind around one of the rungs. We played it with my sister and husband back in May and I remember it being lots of fun. Of course, the way we played it didn’t involve hard-core addition and subtraction to come up with the score.

Here’s how Jeff explained the scoring procedure: Remember how many points are attributed to each rung on the ladder. After each person has thrown his golf ball-on-a-rope three times, add up your team’s points. If your team’s score is higher than the other team’s score you subtract the other team’s points from your points, and presto! You have your points for that round. Add those points to the points you have from the previous round and you have the total score.

I tried to work within this crazy, engineer-driven way to score for about, oh, four second. Then I just said what everyone else was thinking: “Okay, that is a stupid way to score this game!"

Why should I lose the points I earned just because the other team can’t manage their ball and rope?! If I got that contraption around the ladder at all I deserve some points. Why can’t I count all my points? And why should my team be penalized just because your team didn't score as many points as my team? Are you kidding me?

Michael and I were on a team against Jeff and Amy. Michael and I won, but I don’t have a clue how many points we scored, number one because Jeff kept taking away our points and number two, because I enlisted Sean’s help to score for us because, as I said before, that was a stupid way to keep score.

I guess what I’m really saying is this: Look, if you’re going to invite me to dinner, don’t make me do math. And if you do, at least provide pen and paper so I can try to keep up.