Word Philosopher

Almost as soon as I posted that “space time continuum” would be on your Lori bingo card (see: “But Is It Really Cool?” blog post), I started thinking about a bingo themed blog post. What else would be on a Lori bingo card? Would other people have a different idea of what should be on it?

I sent family and friends a text asking “what are words/events/things that you associate with me? Just the first things that come to your mind.”

***Note:  Thanks to everyone who replied. I appreciate it!*** 

My original plan was to use the answers to make two bingo cards—one with my entries and one with theirs. Discuss how we see ourselves vs how others see us, etc.

I couldn’t make it work. Because I had not told anyone it was for bingo, many of the replies were not “bingo friendly.” For example,

• Introspective – How can someone tell if I’m being introspective or just trying to remember the capital of Latvia? (I’m still studying for Jeopardy).
•  Liquid lasagna -Yes, I once used so much sauce in a lasagna that it came out like tomato noodle soup. I had to serve it in bowls. It’s one of those things people never (let you) forget. Even so, it wouldn’t be good for a bingo square because it will probably never happen again.
• Intelligent/smart (thanks again, everyone!) – Ok, I’m smart, but is it observable? Maybe, if we’re watching Jeopardy together and I remember that Riga is the capital of Latvia. Otherwise, you’re much more likely to see me lock the gate, close the garage, and only then realize that the ladder is still in the backyard. People rarely ask about random capital cities, but I did the ladder thing just last week.
• Over-reactive – This is an outrageous lie. Clearly someone is trying to sabotage bingo so no one wins.

Due to the lack of bingo friendly responses I didn’t have enough information to fill out two bingo cards–not even if I relented and included over-reactive. So I set the idea aside for a while, hoping that something would occur to me.

Months later (procrastination should have been on my list) I still had nothing, but I wasn’t ready to give up altogether. People had taken the time to answer my question–it would be rude to not at least try to do something with their answers. Not to mention that by this point those people were probably thinking I’d only been fishing for compliments. I dragged out the lists and tried again.

The two card option was still not going to work, so I thought maybe I could tweak the lists to come up with one card. That sort of worked. I did come up with a card, but it didn’t seem like it would be particularly interesting to anyone. It was barely interesting to me. The only way it might be fun is if A–people followed me around all day, and B– it was turned into a drinking game. “She sneezed! Bingo! You have to do a shot!” 

Yeah, not so much. 

I finally gave up. Nobody would get anything particularly useful out of it, and honestly, it was just too dull. Pointless and dull is a pretty good description of 2020, but who needs more of that? Instead, most of us would probably like some encouragement and fun. So I came up with something else: “Kick Ass Bingo.”

It’s a did it/avoided it/overcame it list crossed with a bingo card. Instead of just checking items off of a list, we mark a square for every item we accomplish.

Items on my “Kick Ass” card for this week:

• Mow the lawn
• Text a picture of the dogs
• Do something  charitable
• Avoid cooking fiascos – no liquid lasagna, or similar
• Make someone laugh
• Take the dogs for a walk
• Sneeze – my life’s equivalent of  the FREE SPACE
• Dance
• Go to bed by midnight  
• Research anything
• Avoid overreacting at least once
• Quote a movie/tv show/book – “Not the droids you’re looking for!”
• Star gaze
• Stay up late reading
• Write 3000 words
• Equivalent of remembering the ladder before closing the garage
• Avoid cussing until after ? – (timing to be determined)
• Have chips for dinner only twice
• Cry– sad cry, laugh cry, sappy commercial cry, whatever
• No clod incidents – “I didn’t break anything (or myself) this week!”
• Prompt a “you’re not from around here, are you?” type comment – this usually involves my supposed accent
• Procrastinate
• Mention time travel or the space-time continuum
• Create a hot key for an em dash
• Sing at the top of my lungs

You can put some actual goals on your card if you want that motivation factor— I included a few on mine— but the main point of the card is to remind us to celebrate ourselves and the things we do.

You can yell “BINGO!” when you win, but I think it’s much more fun to yell “I KICK ASS!” while doing a victory dance. Your choice.

Once we have kicked ass (and we will!) we get to reward ourselves. Double rewards for getting two lines! After all, not everyone can do what we do.  We kick ass! We are amazing! And that is not an overreaction.