Playing for keeps

I wasn’t a particularly rebellious kid. In fact, my teenage rebellion mostly consisted of responding to lots of my Mum’s questions with a grunted “I’unno”^[1]Saying “I don’t know” was clearly too much effort for me then, so I mushed it all together into something that was less of a word, so much as a sound that pretty much encapsulated … Continue reading. I did have a very short-lived act of rebellion while still at primary school though – so short-lived that it was entirely contained within the space of one school day. 

It all came about thanks to one of the strangest playground infatuations that took place while I was at primary school: collecting and playing with “Pogs”. These were small discs of cardboard that you stacked up and then took turns trying to flip onto their backs by throwing a larger, heavier plastic disc, known as a “slammer”, at. And of course what quickly happened is that most of the games in the playground were “playing for keeps” where each of the (usually 2) players put the same number of pogs in the pile, and you got to keep whatever you flipped.

Thinking back to it, I can see how the way that they were priced had a big impact on how quickly they seemed to take over the playground – it was 99p for a packet of 6 pogs and a slammer, which fit squarely in the “pocket money” range – even though you knew you wouldn’t be able to collect them all^[2]This predated Pokemon – I can only imagine how out of hand it could have got if there were Pokemon pogs and everyone was trying to catch them all. The slammers could even have been pokeballs! … Continue reading. And it was important that you’d paid for them; Tazos (which came free in crisp packets)^[3]I’ve just found out that there were Pokemon Tazos, so my Pokemon pogs idea isn’t really a new one. I’ve stood my entirely fictional accountant down. never caught on to the same level, despite having slots cut out of them which you could use to connect them together to build things^[4]Anything you could imagine, provided a) you and your family had eaten enough crisps, and b) it could be constructed as effectively as just a frame of circles that had to each be at 90 degrees to each … Continue reading. But being the age that I was, this meant that I had to convince my Mum that these were something worth spending my pocket money on.

There was just one snag getting in the way of me becoming “one of the cool kids”^[5]Or at least that’s what I was hoping would happen, subsequent experiences leading me to the firm conclusion that I would never be one of the cool kids. Now I am older, proud of who I am and not … Continue reading. My Mum told me that I wasn’t allowed to “play for keeps”. Still, I’d got my pogs, got my slammer, and was ready to join in on the playground at breaktime. And I managed a few games, although not as many as I’d like, as so many people only wanted to play for keeps. This was somewhat deflating, especially as it seemed that I was pretty decent at it. I’d worked out a way of flipping my slammer so that it mostly ended up the way that I wanted it to when we flipped to decide first player, and seemed to do pretty well at flipping on my first go.

Thus began my act of rebellion. Not playing for keeps was keeping me from playing. I was already basically the “nerdy” uncool kid, and this wasn’t helping. And after all, there wasn’t really a good reason for me not to play for keeps – after all, it wasn’t really gambling if I was likely to win^[6]I think everyone reading this knows where this is going now. So I ignored my Mum, rolled up my metaphorical sleeves, and got stuck in.

At first, everything went just as planned. I won a bunch more pogs, and it quickly went to my head. Not long into lunch and I was all ready to head home with my haul, spread it out in front of my Mum and show her just how wrong she’d been. Wasn’t it a good thing that I hadn’t taken her advice?^[7]Yup, by this point my Mum’s rule had been downgraded to advice in my head. And there’s still time for plenty more fun games!

Lost that one. Never mind.

Lost that one too. Sure I know what I did wrong.

Another win… and another loss.

Why have I started losing?

Wait, why can’t I stop losing?

How do I have fewer pogs than I started with? I can’t go home with fewer pogs than I started with! Mum will know that I disobeyed her. There’s only one possible solution^[8]I kind of want to reach out to past me at this point to tell him the blindingly obvious.!

Oh no. Not again. And again.

By the time I was down to just one pog, I was getting pretty upset. Something kicked in, and I wanted to keep this solitary pog. As long as I had this, I hadn’t lost everything, I could still play not for keeps, and that would make things better somehow?

But the primary school playground is a harsh place, full of young people with a still developing sense of empathy. Somehow the supply of people willing to play just for fun dried up, and I cracked, wagering my last pog. Which I promptly lost, leaving me to spend the rest of the school day deeply sad wondering how I was going to admit to my Mum that I’d lost them all (slammers of course not counting).

It turned out that the way that I would tell her was by blurting it out and promptly bursting into tears. At which point she was an excellent Mum and didn’t tell me “I told you not to” or anything like that. She hugged me, and understood, and comforted me, and knew that I’d never do that again.

Looking back, I think I was so lucky. Not just with Mum, but in getting such an obvious lesson in the non-existence of a “sure thing”, and not getting overconfident in abilities that I may not in fact have.. Maybe if I hadn’t rebelled then, I’d have ended up with a similar experience further down the line and picked up some wisdom that way. But to be honest…  

I wouldn’t bet on it.