Shark Games
For those of you living in Amish communities (into which you have smuggled but a single electronic device whose sole function is to display the contents of this blog), Squid Game is an investigative docu-series, an exposé on a secret society that convenes annually on a remote island to host a frightening competition in which participants are made to play traditional Korean children’s games. Losers are “eliminated,” which—and here’s the kicker—means “brutally murdered with absolutely nothing resembling due process.”
After completing the exhilarating series, I was left with only one thought: “How do I get into this whole ‘Squid Game’ business?” And I figured that if I came up with a compelling proposal for next year’s event, perhaps I could land a coveted user experience gig at Squid Game HQ, so I scoured the dustiest corners of my memory for games from my own childhood that might translate well to the unique format.
(1) Red Light Gaslight: This was my sister’s favorite game growing up. It is a game in which you gaslight your scatterbrained sibling into believing that they have misplaced a valuable item such as a TI-89 calculator when, in fact, you have stolen it. The greater the wrath inflicted by your parents, the greater the prize money.
(2) Kick Balls: This is a game in which female participants attempt to dismantle oppressive gender regimes by striking male participants in the testicular area with their feet. I found myself in a mountain of trouble the very first time I played this game, which occurred shortly after an older friend of mine slyly informed me that this would cause immense pain. As an aside, the target of this attack was a boy who I will call “Atticus,” because, I shit you not, that was his real name. Many years after the incident, Atticus was marrying my good friend’s cousin, and, though I was not invited, I had the great privilege of sending my friend to the wedding under strict instructions to inform the groom that “Julia Irwin says congratulations and she hopes that you are still able to have children.”
(3) Grape Surprise: This is a game of deception in which you fool vegetarian participants into eating meat. The longer they have adhered to their vegetarianism, the more prize money is awarded. Growing up, my father and I loved to eat frozen grapes, and we had a game in which one person (the surpriser) would recite, “Close your eyes and open your mouth and I’ll give you a grape surprise.” (This was very hilarious because it sounded much like great surprise.) The other participant (the receiver) would close his eyes and open his mouth and receive a frozen grape. However, on one occasion, the surpriser decided to really surprise the receiver, who had been a vegetarian for more than 30 years, with a morsel of roast chicken instead. This was the last time this game was ever played.
(4) Wet Baguettes: This game dates back to when I ran cross country in middle school. It was a very rainy day in San Francisco and we were running hills on purpose. We were told to run up and down a particularly steep hill five times; the winner would receive a $5 Jamba Juice gift card. However, on this hill there was a small community church, outside of which sat a folding table piled with baguettes (which, we were later told, were for the homeless). This is great fodder for Squid Game because, as I learned that day, baguettes make for excellent weapons, but only so long as they remain relatively dry—there is a lot of strategy in attempting to prevail in a footrace while simultaneously beating your opponents to death with a baguette that is becoming ever more flaccid by the second.
(5) Hide-and-Don’t-Seek: This is a game that I used to play with my mom. It is much like hide-and-go-seek: one player (the hider) hides and the other player (the seeker) tries to find her. The twist is that unbeknownst to the hider, the seeker sometimes makes no attempt whatsoever to find the hider, and instead capitalizes on the rare moment of peace and quiet to do chores. My favorite memory of this game is this one time when I hid in the box that our new dishwasher had arrived in, covered completely in Styrofoam peanuts. After three hours passed and I had not yet been found, I was certain that victory was mine, so I emerged gloriously from the box amidst a shower of packing peanuts and loudly announced that I had won. Hearing no audible admission of defeat, I exited the box, walked upstairs into the kitchen, and found my co-participant sitting at her desk paying outstanding bills and making no discernable effort to locate me.
(6) Green Bombs: This is a game in which each participant tries to enrage their most volatile co-participant to the point where the angered co-participant attempts to inflict grievous bodily harm upon them, and it is won by evading this attempt. This game is named after an incredibly volatile old classmate of mine named Jessica Greenbaum. I loved nothing more than to tease Jessica by calling her “The Green Bomb” until she was past her breaking point, which was not very far, so that she would chase me around the playground yelling, “I am going to kill you!” Interestingly, many years later, she ended up in a lot of hot water after stabbing a woman over a parking spot.
