Dengler

Bored? Not inspired? Have a hankering for something to do? Play card games. The oldest trick in the book. Grab a deck of cards, and everyone will have fun. No need for a fancy board with miniature game pieces which always go missing, or trying to keep track of the fake cash. None of it. Only fifty-two cards to account for. Keep it simple.

Go fish. The two worse words you hear when playing “Go Fish.” Hearing those words means yet another turn you will have to play. A higher chance now exists someone else will finish the game before you, and you are stuck holding on that pesky jack of spades. Talk about a simple game. Pick up a deck of cards and start naming them. No physicist required. Gameplay is easy, the action is fun, and making it worth it all the way around.

Another quick and easy game is fifty-two card pickup. Sounds simple? In fact, it is. The rules are simple. Throw cards up, pick up cards, game is complete. A strategy may not exist with this game, but it is fun to play when you to occupy someone’s time, particularly a small child. No sophisticated rules with this game. Simplicity goes a long way. For that reason, it makes it easy to play. The only problem is this game can end very quickly or take a long time depending on where the cards ended up on the farm. Hopefully, the cards do not slip through a crack on the couch. This game then may never technically end.

I am cheating on this one going away from the standard fifty-two card deck. Grab that colorful deck full of red, yellow, green, and blue numbered cards and play Uno. Not a hard game to understand. You better play with the ability to stack +2s and +4s on top of each other. Otherwise, you are not playing Uno. People should play this game as long and hard as possible. Players know Uno is being played right when one person has twenty and another has two cards. The other two players have a moderate number of cards. This game should go longer than anyone wants to play it for. When Uno ends, no one has a temptation to want to play another round.

You should already know these card games. If not, I hope you enjoy them. Simple games to keep the mind active by providing a cheap form of entertainment. Have fun and enjoy these games. It will be good time. Now go cure that hankering.

Sean Dengler is a writer, comedian, podcaster, and farmer who grew up on a farm between Traer and Dysart. You can reach him at sean.h.dengler@gmail.com.