Step aside kid...your childhood games have been hijacked by your parents

Girls' trips are, in my circle of family and friends, an absolute. If you are a female, you will be going; if you marry us, you will accept that we will be gone. Moms, sisters, aunts, cousins, nieces, daughters, friend (friends - of friends, sure!) - at any given moment, it is totally within the realm of possibility that we will pack a bag Thursday night and head to parts unknown after work on Friday for a weekend. There is no method to the madness, no rhyme nor reason to our destination selection; it could be Chicago to see a play, Madison for a garden tour, Bloomington to check out some breweries, or even Ft. Meyers Beach for, well, the freaking beach. The places change, but one thing is constant - games. There will be games. They will be large, and they will be loud.

Tonight, it is St. Pete Beach, Florida, it is a group of six girlfriends, and it is charades. This is serious. The first order of business is the selection of teams. This can cause a bit of contention. We have a fairly serious actress - we need her to give the clues, an intuitive who can apparently read minds - we need her to interpret the gestures, and a walking encyclopedia - she has the most random knowledge of books, movies, and tv shows - we need her to create the things to act out . These three are FORBIDDEN to pair up in ANY combination. Of the other three, one is super competitive, one is flamboyant to the point that her clues get swallowed in her movements, and the third is so easy going that she can't stop laughing at the whole stupid, heated selection process. After much debate, much laughter, and much drink, the teams are decided and the battle lines drawn.

Technology lets us play with our phones on our heads (and the six of us trying to remember if we should flip up or down is an entirely separate story.) We finally decide on "Act it Out" because "Literature", "Movies", and "Songs of the 70's" is not universally easy/hard for all, and "Animals", just seems embarrassingly juvenile. Seems simple enough - act out activities. Taking out the trash - check, building a snowman - check. More laughter, more drinks. Cooking..cooking eggs... mixing..baking ..baking a cake! check! (Hey, you flipped that the wrong way! We didn't "pass", we got that one.") Jumping.. ("hahahaha look at her jump!" spit water out of the nose onto the tile floor) up and down.. bounce... bouncing...drawing a circle...bouncing ring... ring bounce...what are you doing? bouncing ring!! (REALLY? TRAMPOLINE!!) no check, leaping...you are a fairy...a gymnast...doing gymnastics...

Remember the drink that came out of someone's nose? In an attempt to act out "jumping hurdles", one of us leaps across the room, into the puddle, slips, and falls. She is sober enough to windmill her flailing arms and grab a chair, thereby avoiding the potential crash and hospital stay, but her foot catches the table and most likely breaks a toe. Laughter turns to panic, panic to regret for spitting water, regret to concern, then laughter at our graceful friend the fairy gymnast who will not win the gold medal and a disqualification of the other team for introducing obstacles onto the field. We decide that perhaps a rousing game of euchre or nerts (cards) might be better at this late hour.

But hope springs eternal - three of us were cheerleaders in high school, and I bet I can still do a back handspring, and we have heard there is an obstacle course just down the beach...