A few months ago the Muffin and I were on a long-ish car trip together.  I don’t remember where we were headed or why, but during this jaunt we had worn out both our iPods, made all the interesting conversation we could stand, and had most likely stopped at Taco Bell at least once so that Muffin could get a Mountain Dew Baja Blast, which, as Muffin will angrily inform you, is not sold in stores.

So we started looking for other highway diversions to pass the time.  It was then that I suggested we play a road game of my own design.  Are you ready for it?  Because it’s pretty awesome, and I just know you are all going to rush out and start playing it.

Here’s what you do: Take the three letters on a car’s license plate, and try to come up with as many words as you can think of that include those three letters.  You can add as many other letters as you like and the letters can go in any order.  Alternate turns with your driving companion until one of you cannot come up with any more words.  Here’s how the game went when Muffin and I played it:

Okay, Muffin, here we go.  The letters are YLY.  Hmm… ETYMOLOGY!

“Huh.   Um… Belly?”

No, no, that’s two “L’s.”  You need to use two “Y’s.”

“Oh, right.  Uh, how about ‘yelly?’”

Yelly?  What is that?  Is that like “belly?”

“No, it’s like… you know, when you’re mad and you shout and you get all ‘yelly.’”

Okay, I’m almost positive that’s not a word.

“Well, there aren’t any other words in the English language that contain two ‘Ys’ and an ‘L.’”

What about, “coyly?”  Or “wryly” or “dryly” or “shyly” or…

“This game is stupid!  I don’t want to play anymore.”

And thus, we have never played license plate anagrams again.  Tell me, Internet… what kind of made-up games do YOU play?

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