Apples to Apples

Today I sat down with my room-mates and played a rather hilarious card game called “Apples to Apples”. In this game, each player is dealt seven "red apple" cards, each having a different noun or noun phrase (such as "Madonna", "Canada", "The Spanish Inquisition", etc.). The judge (a chosen player) draws a "green apple" card on which is printed an adjective ("scary", "un-natural", "patriotic", etc.), and places it face-up on the table. From amongst their red-apple cards, each player (except the judge) chooses a card that they think is the best match for the green apple card, and places it face-down. The judge shuffles the red apple cards, reads them aloud, and decides which noun is the best match for the adjective. The player who submitted that red apple card wins the round, and takes the green apple card to signify the win.

The object of the game is for the judge to manipulate you into thinking like him/her, because you can only win if the judge chooses your card. You can even be as obvious as to put down a red apple card saying “my life” for the green card “luxurious”, because whenever a card reads “my______” it is referring to the judge. A red card player could also put down something specific to the likes of the judge. For example, one round I knew the judge loved steak so I put down “steak” for patriotic and won. However, the red card players usually pick something funny that doesn’t make much sense to them, but they know it will make the judge laugh and therefore consider it. For example, for the green card “neat” the chosen red card was “picking your nose”.

This idea has ties to the real world in that society tries to manipulate us to do what they think is best. The recent presidential election ads, for example, use harsh negative language chosen specifically to try and get you to vote for a candidate. If we decide not to follow the rules of society and vote for someone who may not be in the foreground of the election, our votes are tossed to the side, just as the losing red card nouns are in the game. Our ballots only count if they appeal to the “decider” (the same word George Bush used to describe himself).

The first person to reach five green cards won the game. Then, every player read whatever green cards they had acquired out loud, because it was supposed to say something about them (according to the rules). Some of my green cards were “Melodramatic”, “Natural” and “Mystical”, while one of my team-mates were “Mischievous”, “Sensuous” and “Juicy”. While I cannot determine whether these evaluations were true or not, it was still very entertaining. After a long day of work and school, my brain had a chance to relax with this silly game that allowed me to blow off some overwhelming stress. I think this was a great way for me to see that by sitting back and doing something fun for awhile I can lower my stress levels and improve my mental health.