BUNKO!

On the first Saturday of each month, I play bunko with a group of ladies. We are all different in age, personality, and level of obnoxiousness.

Everyone brings a dish & $5.

I'm usually the one who makes dessert, but I was hosting and I ran out of time. I had store bought cookies, cake, & pastries - I figure I made up for lacking in the home-made department with volume.

The five bucks is to contribute to the ante - there is $60 bucks total, the most of which you can win is $50. The remaining $10 goes to the loser. This is one of the few games where when you just can win, you go for the losses to at least come out ahead. It turned out to be me this weekend. My husband pointed out that the money spent on food & alcohol amounted to more than the $10 in winnings so I actually came out in the hole. Blah, blah, blah. It's not about the money, it's about the fun (well, maybe it's a little bit about the money).

Our bunko group requirements:
Minimum of 12 ladies - sometimes dancing ensues
Three sturdy tables - just in case dancing ensues
Nine dice - three for each table. It is a dice game so it's good to have these as a requirement.
Fuzzy dice - must be light weight & easy to throw
Bell - to tell everyone to sit their butts down and get to the business of rolling the dice
Lots of food - duh, since when can a bunch of women get together without food?
Something to drink - when you're in my house, it's strong alcoholic concoctions

Speaking of which, I promised to share the recipe for the Limeberry Smash.

Original:

• One can of frozen limeade concentrate (the only brand I’ve ever found was Minute Maid)
• One can of Bacardi strawberry daiquiri mixer (although we have substituted other brands with equal success)
• One can of lemon-lime soda (Sprite, Sierra Mist, 7-Up, etc.)
• One can or bottle of beer
• One of the 12 oz juice concentrate containers re-filled with tequila
• Combine all of the ingredients in a pitcher and stir until well mixed. You may also choose to use a blender to mix it up; beware, though, that even a 64 oz blender pitcher has a hard time holding all of the mix (most glass blender pitchers are smaller than that), so you might have to split it up.

The variation served on bunko night:

• One can of frozen lemonade concentrate
• One can of frozen limeade concentrate
• One small container (8-10 oz) of frozen strawberries
• One can of lemon-lime soda (Sprite, Sierra Mist, 7-Up, etc.)
• One can or bottle of beer
• One of the 12 oz juice concentrate containers re-filled with tequila

Although the strawberries weren’t blended the other night (perhaps I had already been hitting the liquor to not think of that?), I would suggest blending at least some of the ingredients together in order to chop up the strawberries.

Sometimes this has come out more tart than others, for whatever reason, so you could add a little bit of Splenda (or use sugar or whatever is your preference) to help sweeten it up a bit.

This is sooo yummy and considering the amount of tequila in it, you can imagine how the descriptor "Smash" became part of the name. Let's just say the pitcher went pretty fast and the party really started rollin'!

On that note, let's talk about Debbie. She has what some would say is a generous bossom - I call 'em honkers. I can say that because I've got 'em too. Alcohol has a tendency to make her warm up and she was sucking up the Limeberry Smash. Next thing you know, we need to turn up the fan because her boobs are sweating.

Now, with the fan going on high, the throwing of the fuzzy dice could become a hazard. Every time someone got bunko, the first words out of my mouth, were "Watch the fan!" Those fuzzy dice take flight between the last & the new bunko winners, because why walk the fuzzy dice over to the next person with a bunko, when you could flick them across the room?

Another requirement is background music. Background my a**, when you've got Sandy around. Apparently, she has basic television at her house. I didn't think that actually existed anymore, and one would only find reference to it in the Smithsonian. I'm sure it's right there, next to the TV dinners and Fonzie's jacket.

We happen to Dish Network with all the Sirius radio stations as well as a universal remote. She was in the mood for 80's so I gave her a brief tutorial on how to operate the remote and then left her to fiddle. The whole "guide" thing was not sinking in so she would just use the arrows to move the channel up and down so there was all kinds of music spewing from the speakers.

Of course, once we were on an 80's channel, there was something really good and we cranked it up. I had the standard satellite remote and slowly turned the music down because not everyone appreciated Prince's "I Would Die For You". Come on, admit it, if you grew up in the eighties, you just did the little hand motions - don't forget to bring the one shoulder up & out. You probably threw in a wink too.

This episode prompted a request for 60's music. May I remind you, Sandy had the universal remote & I had the standard remote. Sandy & I had just a tiny bit of alcohol in us (if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you). I, as the fabulous hostess I am, was joyously willing to oblige. Sandy was not. We had a little battle of the remotes until I grabbed the universal one and stuck my tongue out at her.

The 60's music coincided with a new round of play; thus, the first target is a "one" on the dice. That made me think of "One is the Lonliest Number". I only know the chorus on this one, so once I've had a little bit to drink, I repeat this over & over every time the target is "one". I'm famous for it. Well, may not famous outside the bunko circle, but amongst 12-15 ladies, I am.

The night was fun and I highly recommend that everyone find at least 12 people to play bunko with (click the title above for a link to the basic rules). It's awesome for stress relief - and a good excuse to kick the guys out the house and have "Ladies Night In"!

Until next time, that's it!

Silver lining:
Don't really need one! Bunko rocks!