Sometimes, I really get these monster, Godzilla Tokyo-stompin' type headaches that blow my brains out each one of my ears, a right nostril and other more heavily trafficked orifices below the equator line. All I can do to keep myself sane is IV a pint of elephant tranquilizers in through a forearm vein and hibernate. Either that, or I fantasize about taking my Richter scale shattering seismo-headache from Hades and just sort of giving it to someone else far more deserving. Like, I don't know Vin Diesel.
Wouldn't that be cool if you could do that? I mean, not riddle the scarecrow from Oz -- as in, "If only I had a brain" -- Vin Diesel with kryptonite headaches, but like just being able to touch someone and pass afflictions, ailments, moods, what have you, to whoever. Tag would be so much cooler.
Think about it: The game of tag really isn't evolving with the times. Sure, in the 1800s when people were forced to cross the Oregon Trail and stage sock puppet productions while wearing petticoats for fun, tag was different. The oxen were dying left and right, the shoddy wheels and axles were about as fallible as my knowledge of organic chemistry and little Jebediah had the "fever."
Back then, when Jebediah chased you in a game of tag, there was a real sense of urgency there. You didn't want him touching you! The boy had cholera. But with the progression of medical technology and that pesky vaccination, the thrill of tag was shot (wooowooo pun police, put your hands up!) and now when someone tags you, you'll most likely live.
This means that the game can never end. Ever. You people are still in a game of tag right now. On the Oregon Trail, when Jebediah finally kicked the can and swan-songed up to the great big Target in the sky -- because that's what heaven is, Target. . . for the working-class American with 2.5 kids, a mortgage and a quiet drinking problem, that is -- the game of tag would end.
Now, people are living way past the age of 8, and tag has no closure. Tag can't be stopped just because someone has to eat dinner! Lil' Frank is still "it." Hello. This begs the question: Are you still "it?"
People who are "it" need to be branded Hester Prynne style so we can know when they're coming. Of course, I'm not suggesting that we break out a needle and thread and stitch them scandalous varsity letters. That's just way too Plymouth Rock -- it's time the game of tag joins us here in 2002. It is time tag employs rabid animals, bladder control and prisons/insane asylums/haunted Indian burial grounds. Who is "it," the consequences of being tagged and the scenery for the game will be revolutionized and all will throw confetti.
In the future, kids have got to tell their parents a full day in advance if they plan on coagulating in the cul-de-sac for a tag romp so that parents might rent tigers, hippopotami, killer bees, Canadian geese or any other savage beast skilled in the art of toddler consumption.
Once the predator is secured from the mall, the mom on duty can give the neighborhood kids a full 5-second head start before releasing the famished Komodo dragon. The game's over when the Komodo is full.
Or, if Komodos are in short supply, kids can be it, but I'll just have to make a deal with the devil (a.k.a Regis Philbin). I will exchange England's royal jewels for the wish that all the people in all the world -- barring Finland -- can have the uber-cool power to transfer bladder capacity to anyone who they tag.
No one will be allowed to play tag until they have to use the bathroom. Then, once the game begins, it's every urethra for itself as inner kidney byproduct is magically transported from one bladder to the next. The game's over when lil' Frank wets his third pair of underwear.
Finally, the environment in which tag is played should directly correlate with these new thrills. The backyard or the mulch pit between the jungle gym and swings is not 2002. Tag during a prison riot? Now that's tres modern. The new criteria for all tag locales will be: any place that has been investigated on "Scooby-Doo Mysteries" (i.e. a haunted amusement park) or depicted on "Homicide: Life on the Street."
Now, this shouldn't be confused with TV tag because lil' Frank isn't allowed to broken record-repeat "Full House" 50 gajillion times whenever an impending tagger approaches. He is, however, encouraged to be a meddling kid and figure out that the haunted amusement park isn't really haunted at all -- it's just being terrorized by Old Man Marley in a clown costume for the insurance.
I would just like to say in closing that tag is great, but a rabid ostrich chasing someone who has to pee like he's being tested on the alphabet and just said "q," while running amok in a poltergeist infested bordello would really add to the game.
In fact, I would draft legislation for it all right now if I weren't plagued by such a stick-me-in-the-eye-with-a-flaming-fruit-roll-up headache. OMG!
What if
dude, what if I have cholera?
True, the symptoms of cholera aren't headache, but rather dehydration, diarrhea and vomiting. Still, I experienced all of the above when I saw the preview of Vin Diesel's "Knockaround Guys."
Maybe I don't have cholera, maybe I just have -- hold on, let me try a bit of this granola bar I have sitting right here -- yep! I was right. I don't have cholera.
I just have taste.
Phew. Close call.
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