Egyptian Rat Fink

Or ERS. Or Egyptian Rat Screw. Or Egyptian War. Or what have you.

Egyptian Rat Fink is a simple game. The deck is dealt face down to the players and at no time is the player supposed to look at their cards. Play goes clockwise until a face card is played... and so on and so forth. It's an easy game requiring a decent amount of luck. What makes this game unique was that you could slap doubles and collect the cards. That makes it a fun, fast-paced, sometimes painful game.

2001, I think early May.

I was stuck in Algebra II, a class that was actually a slower-paced repeat of my Algebra I class. One day we essentially had a free day. I broke out my trusty deck of cards. I also had my trusty class ring by this point. Normally, we had a rule that for slap games rings weren't to be worn. That day, we decided to go ahead and ignore that rule.

My reflexes are typically fast, faster than the next person's. This is useful in a variety of ways but especially useful in a card slapping game. First to slap the pile gets the cards, true. That also means that he who gets the cards has become a target for the others.

I think there were two upperclassmen and two others in this particular game. I backed off slapping first. One particular salvo, I nailed someone's hand with my ring peridot side down, I think her name was Jamie. She got a welt in her hand. I got a chip in my semi-precious stone.

The important part was that I won that hand; I s'pose in more way than one.