The Taxonomy of Pididdle

[pseydtonne]

I realize I am waving a sword at the ocean when I delineate the rules of Pididdle. Pididdle is older than anyone now playing it. Someone else has probably cvreated formal rules for it. However, the rules Josh and I developed turned the knocking of the car roof into a skill one could cultivate.

First, I must explain a little about Josh. He and brIAn are two of my best friends ever. I miss them both very dearly and think about one or the other every day (neither is dead but they're both stuck in Utica). Josh was the John Lennon of our high school class. He had one of those smiles that made you listen to anything he said. I wanted very badly to be him but I didn't have the self-esteem. I studied at his feet, mostly during the summer of 1995 when I worked at Arby's and hated every single day of the summer except the ones when he was around.

We'd get niiiice and he'd teach me card games. When I'd get good at one, he'd teach me another. Then we'd hop in the car and refine the rules of Pididdle.

Purpose of the game: to determine who gets the first hit off the next bowl.

Rules: When you spot a car with a burned-out light of some sort, you hit your hand to the inside roof of the car and state the type of light out. The phrasing must be accurate, as it would prevent fights about who saw it first. If you define the affected light type incorrectly, you lose. However, there are variances allowed depending on the skill of the players in the car.

Rules of Nomenclature:

• The word "pididdle" is convenient in that it ends with the 'L' sound. Thus it lends itself to the swapping of the L for an R. Thus we start or rules at the end of the word: the suffix -le denotes a car with a light problem on its left side, whereas the suffix is -er when the affected light is on the car's right. Note that right and left are centered on the driver of the affected car. This is very important because it means you have to have enough brain activity to tell left from right based on an oncoming car. If you're driving north and see a car heading south with its passenger side headlight out, you call "pididder".
• Moving from right to left in our word, we come to the double Ds. They stand for DeaD, you see. When a light is merely out of alignment or darkened, that on the bliNK or kiNKed. Thus we have 'pidinkle' for a yellow to brown driver-side headlight.
• The second vowel of the word determines which type of light is affected: I is the front headlight by default; A is the red tail light (bAck); U is any signal light (because it makes the "clink-clUnk" noise, a real thunk); and O for the fOg lights.
• When you have both lights of a type out, the "id" after the P drops out as does the suffix, then word is repeated. A car with both headlights off is a "pid-pid"; both headlights dimmed would be a "pink-pink".
• When you have different types of lights out, you wind up with the shortened short but you must delineate the sides of each error as well as the type. Also, any headlight out becomes the opener of the hyphenated word because... uhh, it just seems logical. Let's say there's a fucked up but still working rear passenger light and a shot driver's side head light; we'd have a piddle-panker
• Finally, there's the driver with no lights on at all when it's clearly dark enough to need them on. This is a "pidasshole".

There, the damn rules. Now that I've written them down, I don't wanna think about 'em.

I really shouldn't watch IFC's original programming so much. I'm enjoying it too much. I'd go way too geek. I flicked on "Dinner for Five" when I started writing this. Then came the quiz show. It's like I want to be a movie addict but it seems too indulgent, too time-consuming, too much time alone. However, I am getting the channel anyway. I sell it every day.

I'm starting to thrive at the new office. However, I found out Saturday that my best buddy Anthony isn't coming up. Without him, I have no idea whether I want to keep working such a task. I'll have to think hard about this.

Comments

[michigansundog.livejournal.com]

Good grief. Our version was much simpler. First one to see a headlight burned out screams, "Piddidle" and promptly PUNCHES the other person. Also, there was a game of Punch Buggy, which will have special interest for you. First person to spot a VW Bug screams out "Punch Buggy (Color of car)" and PUNCHES the other person.

I hated these games, as Martha was really into them and ended up punching me alot. That's the price of our miles and miles in fabulous suburban teenage purgatory.