The Results Are In!

James Smothers:

5. inventor of the electric typewriter

Sitatunga

&. A brown antelope with wide hooves that is able to walk on swamp land

But wait! There's More.

For the second part of game one, the Guy Family decided to add another category. In Beyond Balderdash, the version we are using, rolling a six allows you to pick which category you want. In the Guy version, we made six the "vacation novel" category.

The way the game goes is this: in every vacation rental there is usually a bookcase filled with hideous novels. In this game, you pick one, read its title, show its cover, read the blurb from the back cover *only* and then everyone is required to write the opening line of the book. We had two turns in which we rolled a six.

Our first victim was Prairie: An Epic of the West, by Greg Tobin.

1. As the sun finally set, the sweet smell of prairie grass descended like a mist.
2. Joshua took one last look at his home of 42 years and as the sun rose behind him, he hitched his wagon and headed west.
3. It began with a series of lazy puffs, purple-grey smoke signals at the far edge of impending disaster.
4. They saw him laying face down in the dust and mud, gasping to breathe, traces of blood and paint slashed across his brow, and with little hope of ever being found.
5. Beaten for years by the driving sands and the crimson sun, Jasper's skin was tough as leather.
6. In the Moon of the Deer Pawing the Earth, Moon Hawk Sister, one of the older unmarried girls of the Crane band, gathered the children by a large fire in the center of the village.

Our second was Shame of Man: A Geodyssey, by Piers Anthony

1. The red cloud looked like a deer, then slowly changed into a burning teepee.
2. The soul, she told him, is like an artichoke -- the outer leaves hold little bites of truth, but only under the turban of silk can you taste the flavor of the heart.
3. The great rift of East Africa is a fascinating region.
4. In the beginning, when the grass was green and the sky shimmered in azure blue, Hugh and Anne knew they had found paradise.
5. Hugh woke from a deep troubled sleep and as the crushing weight of countless memories of eons past came flooding into his consciousness, he asked himself for the umpteenth time "What year is it?"
6. Hugh saw her across the dance floor and thought that she was the most somber taxi dancer he'd ever seen.
7. The Earth wept as its back burned, and through the pitch black soot, a boy was born...again.
8. "I...will...NOT!" she said, eyes blazing as she broke out of his grasp; the candlelight played across the proud contours of her face.

If you, also, are on vacation when you read this, maybe you should play the vacation novel game.

My abs are still sore from laughing.