How to play Egyptian Rat Screw. I first learned that card game at the Joseph Baldwin Academy, a sort of summer camp for smart kids I attended in Missouri after the 8th grade. I then taught it to lots of folks at my high school and we ended up playing it at almost every speech meet. Our version was a little more violent than this one, though, as it involved a “false slapper” being required to put one of his hands under the pile until the next double. Yowch.
Important Note
This site features content going all the way back to 2000. The posts you’ll read reflect my views and writing style at the time. While I have gone back to clean up a few of them, I think it’s important not to sanitise too much. This site is a record of who I am and how I’ve grown. Any blog post written years ago may not reflect who I am today, nor how I would write about the same topic today.
Comments
5 responses to “How to Play Egyptian Rat Screw”
OH MY GOD! I played that game one at band camp in high school, and forgot how–but always wished I could remember because I loved it! Thanks!
My students always busted out a game of ERF (oops, I mean “ERS”–puh-leez) to kill time at the end of the class period, before “Texas Hold ‘Em Fever” swept through Auburn High. I tried to pick up the rules by watching, but remained clueless. Finally I can be in the know!
I LOVE this game. We also played during breaks at band camp. When every break was over, we’d shove our cards in our back pockets until the next one. This boy named Andrew even bent my class ring when he slapped on top of my hand. But the important thing was that I got the cards 🙂
I forgot about that game! I always lost (and always got the “false slapper” penalty)….too slow on the processing of cards I guess! (Or Too ADD to pay attention to what was going on!) Anyway, I, too, had forgotten how to play and wanted to remember the rules…Thanks!
It’s funny that most of us have (and I mean this with love) geeky memories associated with this game. My memories are of playing this at the Science & Technology Governor’s School the summer after 11th grade.