Race Across the Sticker Patch...

I am not sure what we were thinking, but one of the games I played with my cousins when we were younger was “Race Across the Sticker Patch”. A game that could be likened to running across hot coals.

The gist of the game was to see who could run across the section of Granny’s yard filled with grass burrs without getting too many thorns in your feet, or God forbid you should stop running, and get marooned out there.

My cousin David and I were good at this game and we loved to entice the “little ones” to play along. Invariably one of them would not set the right pace and end up getting stranded out there. David and I would find it so amusing and rather enjoyed the sound of their begging us to come and save them. We let them “suffer” until we thought that Granny would hear them, and then we would rescue them.

The whole saving thing was tricky. We had to run as fast as we could, grab them quickly, and continue running to the other side. We would take turns heroically liberating them one by one. The game was over, David and I were the winners! The “little ones” may have usually been pampered by the grownups, but this time they had needed us! We were their saviors! Well at least until the little brats would go running to Granny and tell her what had happened.

Our celebration was to be short lived, because when Granny found out what we had done (again) she was furious! I do not recall what our punishment was, I think because at the time it paled in comparison to our “victory”. I wish now that I could say that we never played that game again, for in retrospect it was not a very kind thing to do to the “little ones”. But we did. We played it many times after that. Funny you would think that the “little ones” would have learned their lesson and refuse to play. But then again, maybe they just wanted to “saved” by the “cool” cousins… or at least that’s how I’ll choose to remember it!