Yellow Mini
November 27, 2011
The game "Yellow Car" was first introduced to us by one of Isabel's friends. His knowledge of the exact rules was a bit woolly but basically it's a counting game in which you get one point for seeing a yellow car, one point for a Mini and one point for a convertible. And a million points for a car with jigsaw puzzle pieces on it.
I soon realised this was a totally unfair points system, as Minis are quite common and yellow cars are (relatively) rare. So I re-designed the scoring system as follows:
Mini = 1 point
Mini convertible = 3
Yellow car = 5 points
Yellow Mini = 20 points
Yellow Mini convertible = 50 points
I later added an extra rule where you also got 5 points for a pink or orange car.
Other rules:
Vans/lorries/motorbikes/emergency services vehicles do not count. Vehicles must be at least 50% yellow to qualify. If anybody gets out of the car for any reason, the game is over and scores reset. Nobody scores if there's a tie. Vehicles hidden behind hedges or down side roads don't count - they must be in clear view of all occupants of the car. You can't opt out of playing, even if you say you have. And if anyone ever spots a car/van/lorry/anything with jigsaw puzzle pieces on it, they score a million points, become the ultimate winner and the game ends forever.
Isabel, Mattgreen and I played this game with ferocious competitiveness for about ten months. Every time we got in the car, it shook with the cries of "YELLOW CAR"! It became so ingrained to look out for yellow cars that Mattgreen and I couldn't help noticing them even when we were alone in the car. We never saw a jigsaw puzzle piece van, despite playing the game for literally thousands of miles.
Then my brother came to visit. We played the game with him. The next day he went to Leeds with a mate of his and texted me from the motorway. Yep:
Isabel declared that this did indeed count and the game is now over. Several months later and I'm still noticing yellow Minis....
