The failure of MARSH in adulthood

[flexagon]

Ever play MASH or MARSH when you were little? For those who didn't, it's a fortune-telling game; you write M A S H (or M A R S H) across the top of a big square, and on the other sides of the square you write the names of people you might marry,* various numbers of children you might have (0, 1, 2, 3, 10!) and various professions you might end up in. Then you do your best to randomly generate a number (by drawing a spiral in the square until a friend tells you to stop, then counting how many circles you've made). Say your number is four; you then count around the edge of the square, crossing off every fourth entry. You don't count any entry you've crossed off, and once you're down to one option on any one side you circle it and don't count that either. You do this until only one option is left per side, and then you know your future!

The letter remaining in MASH or MARSH tells you whether you'll live in a Mansion, Apartment, Ranch, Shack or House.

I tried to play this in a long and very boring meeting on Friday, and realized just how hard it is to play when you already know who you've married and how many kids you're having. I ended up playing with MARSH (home in 10 years), retirement age, profession in 10 years, and where I would go for lunch that day.

* This was about 25 years before gay marriage, and about 7 years before I even heard of gay people, so they were always boys.

Comments

[miyyu.livejournal.com]

We played this constantly in 7th grade. Wow. Nostalgia! The rule was though that you had to include on each list three "good" items and one bad one -- for example, three jobs you would love and one awful one, like gravedigger. And then we'd shriek with laughter whenever someone got a bad one.