Gullible

Have you heard of the one-word game? Tell me you’ve heard of the one-word game. It’s where you’re supposed to describe a person in ONE word? It’s making the rounds in forwarded emails, but also at the Boys and Girls Club where my two oldest kids hang out after school.

I can see where this MIGHT be a fun game at a party, after everyone’s had enough coke and rum to loosen up the I-give-a-crap-what-you-think mechanism:

“Everyone describe Catherine in one word!”
“Loopy.”
“Vulgar.”
“SHORT...”
“Campy...”
“Flirty...”
“Limber...”
“Artsy-fartsy...”
“That’s two words, dude.”

But to ask people to describe me in one word for the sake of describing me in one word? I don’t get it. What’s the point of making people lie? Who wants that?

My nine-year-old recently asked that I describe HER in one word and my mind started preparing a speech about how I didn’t want to play because it’s so… one-dimensional and unrealistic, superficial and kinda crazy. Toni is a million and one different things depending on the time of day and/or TV show airing. She’s nervous yet patient. Lazy yet helpful. She’s silly and thoughtful. But also quiet and unsure. She’s intelligent, beautiful, twitchy, sensitive and bony.

And just as I was about to open my mouth and tell her these things, Jonah said, “I think you’re lovely.”

Leave it to Jonah to make me look all mean and cynical.

But Jonah couldn’t stop there. “Now you descwibe Mom,” he told her.

She looked at me very straight-faced and assessed me just long enough to make me think that her ONE word was actually going to be a bad one. And since reproachful and unsympathetic aren’t really a part of her vocabulary, I was waiting for words like MOODY. Distracted. Busy. Lazy. Hungry. Sleepy. Strict….

And then she said, “Talented.”

I never knew that one word could reduce me to tears so easily.

So maybe the one-word game doesn’t totally suck after all.