Dear Mom and Dad...Love, Anonymous

If your family is one of those that chooses to celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas with mass amounts of alcohol, this is for you. This is for you to anonymously mail to your parents for them to take a hint that you don't want them drinking with you, or to drink until they're blue in the face (or red and green as the case may be). 

Mom and Dad, if you want to drink with your kids this holiday season, there are a few things you must know. First and foremost, don't. Even though I am explicitly telling you that this is a bad idea, you're still going to so you may as well learn to play these popular drinking games correctly. 

BEER PONG:

EQUIPMENT: Two ping pong balls, a table, plastic Solo cups, beer, maybe a creative team shirt. (Suggestions: "Team We'll Regret This Tomorrow" or "Team We're Not Related". 

RULES: Two teams of two stand on opposite sides of the table, usually the size of a ping pong table if it isn't actually a ping pong table. In front of each team are ten plastic cups set up in a pyramid. Each cup is filled 1/4-1/2 full with beer, depending on how shitfaced you'd like to get. Cheap light beer like Natty Lite, Coors Lite, Beer:30, or Bud Lite is most acceptable, because it is easily chugged. (My personal favorite is Beer:30, obviously. {Now is the part where you say "I remember when I was a freshman..har, har, har.}) 

               Through a simple two-out-of-three rock-paper-scissors match, arm-wrestling contest, or cage fight until near death, one team is chosen to start the game with both ping pong balls. Each team member shoots the ball at the opposing team's cups, the object being to sink the ball in one of the cups. If a ball is sunk by a player, the opposing team must drink the contents of the cup while the other team does some kind of high-five hoot-n-holler ceremony. Each team gets two shots, unless both of the players on the same team both make a cup, in which case they get the balls back and the other team loses their turn. Each team shoots back and forth, the first team to sink all of the opposing team's cups wins, and the losing team must drink the other team's remaining unsunk cups. Then you will promptly vomit, or hit one of your child's friends. Seriously, don't play this game.

NEVER HAVE I EVER

This is possibly the worst game you could ever play with your kids, because it's sort-of like the truth portion of "truth or dare", but it involves heavy consumption of alcohol. Everyone sits in a circle and one person will say, "Never have I ever..." and say something they most likely know someone in the circle has done. If anyone has done that particular deed, they drink. If there is only one person that drinks, they must tell the entire story of the incident. So, for example, if someone says, "Never have I ever had a threesome with the neighbor and Javier, the Spanish foreign exchange student", and your child is the only one to drink, they have to tell the entire circle how in the summer of '97 they got drunk off of Javier's homemade Sangria and...you get the picture. Are you starting to see how this is a terrible idea? Again, never play this game with your child. Never ever.

CATEGORIES

The rules of Categories are simple, though  many. A deck of cards is spread face-down in a circle, and a beer is placed in the middle of the circle of cards. Everyone sits in a circle around the cards and, going clockwise, each person picks up a card and follows these rules, which are dictated by the number or face of said card chosen.

2 - You: The person who picked the card gives away a drink and says some variation of "you drink, bitch". 

3 - Me: The person who picked the card takes a drink.

4 - Whores: All women/gay males drink.

5 - Categories: Person who picked the card chooses a category. Each person, going counter-clockwise from the original person, has to say an item from that category within five seconds. For example:

Category: Different ways of saying "penis"

So, going around the circle, "dick", "cock", "Johnson", "Noodle", "Trouser Snake"...until someone repeats a name or can't think of one, and that person drinks. 

6 - Dicks: All males/gay females drink.

7 - Heaven: The person who picked the card points to heaven, or in a general up direction, and all follow in turn. The last person to do so, drinks. (This is because "seven" rhymes with "heaven", beginning to see a pattern? Pointless, but a pattern none-the-less.)

8 - Beer Me: The person who picks the card must chug the beer in the middle of the circle of cards, and replace it with a full, preferably cold, unless you're a total douche, beer for the next person who draws an 8 to enjoy.

9 - Rhyme: The person who picked the card must say a word other than "orange" or "flamingo" and the person to their left must say a word that rhymes. This continues on until someone repeats a word or can't think of one within five seconds. Loser drinks.

10 - Social: Everyone stands up, cheers, circles their beer around their head, and drinks. (I am unsure as to why the head-circling, I suppose it represents everyone in the circle.)

Jack - Back: The person to the right of the person who picked the card, drinks. This is because "jack" rhymes with "back". Is this sufficiently idiotic enough for you yet?

Queen - Question Master: The person who picked the card may ask anyone a question at anytime until the next queen is drawn or the game ends. If anyone responds with anything but a subsequent question, they drink. Example:

Card Picker: (to you) Who is your favorite singer/songwriter?

You: John Fogerty.

You: Drink.

King - Rule: The person who draws the card makes a rule. Like question master, this rule stands until another king is drawn or the game ends. An example of a rule is that no one may say "drink!" As people get progressively three sheets to the wind, the following is likely to happen:

Person who catches someone breaking a rule: 

"Drink!"

Person who catches other person saying "drink!":

"Ha! Drink!"

Person who catches other person who caught other person saying "drink!":

"You drink!"

Ace - Waterfall: Everyone stands up and begins to drink. When the person who picked the card sets their drink down, the person to their left may stop drinking, and so on and so forth. Therefore, the person directly to the right of the person who picked the card is the last to stop drinking and hence the most Hasselhoffed of the bunch.

(Crowd roars, someone yammies, two females make out with each other.)

Now, I realize that the rules to Categories vary, so, if you are someone that's reading this and shouting in vain at your computer/ipad/tablet-not-as-cool-as-an-ipad, "No! Ace is chugging contest not waterfall!", I say, shut up, idiot. This is how I play. Deal with it. If you want to try to tell your parents how to do something differently than they've just learned, be my guest.


Good gracious, am I glad that my parents don't drink, or approve of me drinking for that matter. They would be ashamed that I knew enough information to write this, let alone have experienced it. Hey, thanks for the new car, guys!