Week Three: The Automobile Party

On next Thursday night come to our blow-out;
Let's all be these and make it a knock-out.
It's an Auto Party -- and won't be joy ride!
So bring your husband, sweetheart or bride.
We believe this is all U auto know;
If we told you more, you couldn't wait to go.

As we introduce the Automobile Party, the last line of the suggested invitation poem is a bit anti-prophetic; I'm not sure I'd go to this party twice. But be prepared for hours -- well, at least an hour and a half -- of mirth involving cut-and-paste, peanuts, one per guest, and horn imitations.

First of all, of course, you're supposed to divide your group into four groups by automobile: Ford, Dodge, Buick, and Chevrolet, or as we know them today On the Brink, Bankrupt, Old Fart, and Insolvent. For decorations, well, the white-and-green crepe-paper you've had up for the last two soirees is looking a bit tattered. This time, spread out all the highway and city road signs you've swiped over the years. Cokesbury also suggests "favors of toy automobiles may be used." If you need any, any at all, let me know. I have two boys under 10 years old, thus, I have about 10,000 toy automobiles you could use as favors.

For games, Cokesbury says, bear in mind that what's offered in this book is far, far too much to cram into the 1 1/2 hours they suggest. So, as always, we'll pick and choose. Here's the first:

Auto Advertisements. Have cars cut from magazines pined on the curtains or other places about the room. Give each guest paper and pencil. As the names have been cut from the advertisement, he is to guess the make of the car. Give a prize for the one guessing the largest number.

Of any of the games suggested by Cokesbury -- and I have leafed through the book and read quite a few of them -- this is the one that shows the most marked differences between 1932 and 2009. Aside from a few makes and models, there is little overlap among the auto makes of then and the auto makes of today. To their Deusenberg, we offer a Hyundai. To their Pierce-Arrow, we offer Yugo. To their Hudson, we offer Toyota. Same planet, different worlds.

This next one is embarrassing, because it's very close to a game I've played with gusto at many parties. I credit an unfortunate collision between myself and another 300-pound beef with my trick knee. Here's the game:

Auto Fruit Basket. The names of makes of cars are given to the guests. "It" is the chauffeur. He calls the names of two makes of cars, and they have to exchange places. While the change is being made the chauffeur tries to get one of the places. If he succeeds, the one left standing becomes the chauffeur. When the chauffeur says "Auto turns over," all must change places, and the one who fails to get a seat becomes the chauffeur.

Auto Fruit Basket. Even the name is exciting. Or boring, depending on whether you think the other games Cokesbury proposes are any better.

Or not. Here's the next:

Filling the Gas Tank. Keep the same formation as in the preceeding relay. Each of the four groups face the leader. A peanut is given to each player and a vegetable dish placed about eight feet from the front of each line. Each player has one throw for the bowl with a peanut. Allow five points for each peanut that remains in the bow. If the crowd is not large, two or three peanuts may be given to each.

This is the kind of game wherein you really show off how cheap you are. One. Peanut. Each. Or three, if the crowd is small. Weed out unwanted guests for the next party by observing who eats the peanuts. You don't want those kind of frivolous, careless people at your next party, eating your party favors.

On to the next game, which could be made much more entertaining given the closure of 800-some-odd Chrysler dealerships and the more than 1,000 GM dealerships closing this year:

Putting Curtains on the Car. Secure from an auto dealer four large pictures of an automobile. Fasten these to the wall or draperies. Make a curtain of paper about the size of the front glass of the car. Have one of these for each of four contenstands. One contestnat from each group is blindfolded and given a curtain and told to put it on the car. The one who gets it nearest the right place wins.

Yes, you're entertaining your guests by, effectively, making them play Pin the Tail on the Donkey. So to make it more interesting, rather than borrow pictures of automobiles, borrow the automobiles themselves, as there are plenty of those lying around doing nothing much at all aside from filling car lots. Substitute paint-filled balloons for the paper curtains and suddenly your party is a lot more lively, if not also a lot more messy. Place a hedge fund advisor or bank CEO inside each vehcile and watch the line of paint-balloon lobbers circle around the block. This game might be best saved for the end of the party because it's during this game that it's most likely the cops will be called.

Now, on to testing your klaxon experience:

Sounding the Horn. Select one from each group. The elader migth say he wanted someone who could sing. They are then asked to tray one at a time to imitate an automobile horn. The one making the best imitation of a horn sound, in the estimation of the judges, wins a prize. A toy horn might be used for this prize.

Again, I have to say this sounds like the kind of boring game I'd force my guests to play at one of my boring parties. Maybe back then, with all the hoot-hoots, aa-oooh-ghaaas, boo-weeeeeps and whonks they had in individual car horns, each brand having its own, distinct sound, the game was much more entertaining. Today, the only horn I could replicate with any accuracy is that of my Toyota pickup, which makes a sound akin to the "Meep-Meep" of the Road Runner.

We need more horns like this today:





Now that everyone's all riled up from imitating the car horn of their choice, it's time for a more quiet game. Remember the cardboard card with letters on them that you've used for the last two parties? Get them out again and have your guests play:

Automobile Spelling Match. The four groups assemble on the longest side of the hall. Each one in the group is given a lettered card six inches square. Letters sufficient to spell all the names of cars pronounced should be given out. If there are too many letters to give one to each, give some two. The leader pronounces the names of cars, and each group tries to get its members in formation on the toerh side of the hall with the letters that spell the word pronounced. The leader pronounces the names of the following cars: Franklin, Pierce-Arrow, Rolls Royce, Paige, Hudson, Dodge, Lincoln, Buick, Nash, Austin, Cadillac, Essex, Ford, Chrysler, Chevrolet, Oakland, Studebaker, Auburn.

Imagine trying that today. We've passed from the world when cars were named after people or places to cars that are named as the result of complex audience surveys, marketing analyses and general mutations of the alphabet. Try to have someone then spell Aztek, Elantra, Celica, Hummer, or, heaven forbid, Canyonero. Again, same planet, different worlds.

Whew. Your party is over. And, you know what, maybe we've learned something. Cars then are as much a status symbol as cars now, though there are mutations -- take the SUV set versus the hybrid set, a real lineup of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Maybe Babbitt, in Sinclair Lewis' novel of the same name, seems a bit foolish when he buys his automobile cigarette lighter:

The effect of his scientific budget-planning was that he felt at once triumphantly wealthy and perilously poor, and in the midst of these dissertations he stopped his car, rushed into a small news-and-miscellany shop, and bought the electric cigar-lighter which he had coveted for a week. He dodged his conscience by being jerky and noisy, and by shouting at the clerk, "Guess this will prett' near pay for itself in matches, eh?"

It was a pretty thing, a nickeled cylinder with an almost silvery socket, to be attached to the dashboard of his car. It was not only, as the placard on the counter observed, "a dandy little refinement, lending the last touch of class to a gentleman's auto," but a priceless time-saver. By freeing him from halting the car to light a match, it would in a month or two easily save ten minutes.

As he drove on he glanced at it. "Pretty nice. Always wanted one," he said wistfully. "The one thing a smoker needs, too."

Then he remembered that he had given up smoking.

But is that any more silly than hypermiling, attacking SUVs wiath paint because they're gas hogs, or, conversely, believing that driving a Prius is really making a dent in erasing your carbon footprint? I don't think so.

Anyway, that's enough out of Cokesbury this week. Next week, be prepared for a swing in 180 degrees as you go from the manly Automobile Party to the Mother Goose Party which, as you suspect, is another costume soiree. Enjoy!