Boppy and I play slug-bug.  If you have been living under a rock for the last century, slug-bug consists of smacking the person next to you when you see a Volkswagen Beetle.  There are a few rules…these are mostly made up by me, but nonetheless there are rules.  Recently the Volkswagen company released a series of commercials that would lead one to believe that it is okay to shout out the color and smack someone if you spot any of their vehicles.  This is just not true.  To play slug-bug you must see either a VW Beetle or an old hippie VW van.  These are the only two vehicles that are sluggable.  You can’t slug for the same vehicle twice in one trip.  You can’t call “bug” until a bug is sighted.  I don’t care that the multi-colored one that is parked in the lot of the pediatric dentistry office is there from 9-5 Monday through Friday.  If you are going to slug me for it you had damned well better make sure that it is parked there.  That also goes for the Cricket VW that is parked in Fiesta Square.  You’d better see it before you call it.  If there is a tie, it goes to me.  No questions asked…my game…my rules.  If you call “bug” in error, you get smacked.  If you call “green” and it’s yellow, you get smacked.  These are the rules.  No arguing.

Well, every time we go anywhere we play slug-bug.  Annually I am way ahead of Boppy.  He has his good days though.  Yesterday we went to Wal-Mart and he beat me 6-4.  (You know the old adage about the sunshine and a dog’s butt).  We don’t hit hard.  Well, Boppy doesn’t hit hard.  We just have good natured fun.  We play the game alot and we are not always the only ones in the car as we play.  I never thought about how other people would view our little game until my mother told me a story.  It seems she and my sister were out driving one day and mother spotted a VW Beetle.  She reached over and whacked my sister and shouted, “Blue one.”  My sister nearly jumped out of her skin!  “What”, she replied as my mother laughed out loud.  “It’s a Volkswagen.  I’m just playing what Emmy and Boppy play.”  This story cracks me up.  I can just see my 79 year old mother swatting my sister because she saw a Beetle.  I can also imagine the look on my sister’s face as she got swatted just for driving down the street. 

If I had to moralize this story…I guess the moral would be, be careful of what you do because your actions can imprint others.  See, that just seems ways too gooey for one of my blogs.  I just don’t do sweet and sappy.  The moral of this story is, watch out for Volksawagens.  Because when it comes to Beetles it’s much better to be the whacker than the whackee.  Yup…that sounds like me!

2 Comments »

1. 

   The Iowa slug bug rules were similar in the 60’s. But the slug was null and void unless one shouted “SLUG BUG (insert color here)”. Vans did not count since they were , after all, not a real bug.
   Our record was 68 one summer afternoon sitting on our sisters’ apartment porch on dubu

   Comment by pms — July 3, 2010 @ 5:13 pm

2. 

   Dubuque street in 20 minutes. In the 1960’s, the U of Iowa in Iowa City was reknown for slug bugs, hippies and strange cigarettes.

   Comment by pms — July 3, 2010 @ 5:16 pm

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