Battle of the Schotts

I am proud to announce that after spending a week at the beach with my family, I have a slight tan. I also have gigantic pale circles around my eyes from where my sunglasses were – oops. This has happened to me before – yes, I should have learned my lesson – and John cleverly decided to name them my ‘raccoon eyes.’ For what it’s worth, I tried in vain to fix this on the last few days of the trip, but the cloudy weather just laughed in my little raccoon face.

Andrew joined us in the beginning of the week but then had to return to work on Wednesday. Despite his short stay, however, he managed to make headlines.

Every Tuesday during the summer, a Beer Dig takes place at Silver Dunes Condominiums, where my family stays during our summer trip. This Beer Dig consists of a tennis ball buried in the sand, an average of 75 sweaty diggers and a trophy gleaming on the sidelines in the form a cooler filled with cold beer. This goes to the lucky digger who unearths the tennis ball.

Our odds of having a Schott affiliate win the Beer Dig this year were good. My family has been visiting Silver Dunes for about 25 years, and each time, we bring a big group – family, friends, neighbors, etc. (The only qualification for securing an invite to our trip is being remotely liked by the Schott family.) This year our umbrella of acquaintances included roughly 40 people.

Not only did we have strength in our number, some of us Silver Dunes veterans are close to cracking the Beer Dig code. We believe the way to win is to follow the eyes of Mr. George, the leather-skinned man who runs our beach and cannot help but look in the direction of the tennis ball during the dig, surely hoping to catch the look of excitement on the face of the winner.

After Mr. George blew the whistle to commence the digging, the Schotts dispersed across the square of sand. After a few minutes, however, we all had gravitated toward the center, thanks to the accidental hints from Mr. George. Sure enough, within minutes, Andrew raised the tennis ball victoriously.

There were hugs all around, pictures, fireworks, confetti and a congratulatory blimp. (I made up the majority of that sentence.) Andrew turned to me and said, ‘Man, this is only my second year coming on the trip with you guys! This must be some kind of record!’

Yes, Andrew, you are the greatest, most perfect person ever! I’ve been coming on this trip for 23 years, and I still haven’t won! YAY, I’M SO GLAD YOU BEAT ME!

I kid … a little bit. If I couldn’t win, my next choice was Andrew or Trevor. (Tyler and Kenzie have each won twice, and my dad has won as well. Mom doesn’t always participate, and when she does, she just watches Mr. George and tells her kids where to dig.)

Of course, in addition to the Beer Dig, we had other competitions throughout the week, including fierce games of Running Charades and Salad Bowl.

Allow me to explain Running Charades. We have two teams, each in separate rooms. One person sits in a middle room with a list of movies that he or she wrote. One person from each team starts in the middle room, where the movie-giver tells them the first movie. They run back to their teams and act it out. Whoever guesses then runs back to the middle for the next movie, and so on and so forth until one team makes it through the entire list.

There were many memorable instances, but I would like to highlight one of my more impressive moments. Nine-year-old Philip ran into the room, counting with his fingers. After a few precious moments went by, he indicated that the movie title had eight words. He then did our symbol for place, and our team shouted every country, state and major city on the planet, except for the one he was looking for. We then determined that the third and seventh words were ‘are.’

Suddenly enlightened, I shouted, ‘THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!’ Philip nodded with glee as I sprinted out of the room.

We also played Salad Bowl on Saturday night at home in Louisiana. Andrew came over, and we recruited Dad to play. To refresh your memory on the workings of Salad Bowl, each player writes words or phrases on pieces of paper. We place them all in a bowl. We have two teams – every other person – and then we pass the bowl around for one-minute turns. First, we give clues like in Catchphrase. Once through all the words, we dump them back in the bowl and do charades and then go through them again using one-word clues.

Andrew submitted phrases like ‘justifiable homicide,’ ‘reasonable suspicion,’ and other police terms, along with the controversial ‘Barj Dubai.’ This is apparently the tallest building in the world, yet no one in my family has heard of it. Trevor wrote ‘Mirado Black Warrior,’ which is supposedly a kind of pencil. Both Andrew and Trevor were scolded for writing obscure words, and they nobly defended themselves. I ended up siding with Trevor who fought like a warrior to persuade us that his pencil brand was a manageable entry. Concerning the validity of Andrew’s entries though, I am still reasonably suspicious.