My in-laws are doing what parents do as you get older and selling their house for something more manageable. This means all your shit they’ve kept in the basement for 20 years is now going to be kept in your basement…I need a basement.
My wife was completely uninterested in the box containing the remnants of “her awkward years”. She’s a super intelligent, extremely funny, charismatic, cute redhead, now. She did go through a period that was rough though, really rough. As we opened the box to find various bowling trophies, awards for horseback riding, and attendance certificates we were about ready to close it up and bury it along with her the rest of her childhood memories and sense of wonder when we came across some Pogs.
My daughter saw my eyes grow wide as I stared at the cardboard gold. She seemed confused.
Daughter: What are those?
Me: These are Pogs God damn it,
Daughter: Sometimes I pretend I live in the jungle alone.
Me: So do I. Now do you want to play the highest stakes game on the planet or not?
Daughter: Yes, Yes I do. How do you play?
Me: Pogs are like trading cards, but not as pretty, and you don’t trade them you gamble them. You stack them up and hit them with this bigger Pog called a slammer, all the one that flip you keep.
Daughter: Can’t we play for fun?
Me: No, Pogs aren’t about fun.
Daughter: Am I going to end up crying?
Me: If we play just right, we both will.
When Pogs first came out the little cardboard-trash-discs were cheap and easy enough to convince your parents to buy, but as popularity grew so did the cost. By the end, we were paying over five bucks for six Pogs with our favorite pop culture nonsense half-assed printed off-center across them. Then you’d find the appropriate place to hide and play. It was the childhood equivalent of a game of dice down by the docks. The things were banned by schools, churches, sports teams, international bodies, and galactic empires, and that only served to make the game more fun.
The trick to building your Pog fortune was to know your opponent. Since Pogs were won and lost no one had a collection that made any sense, and since they were loved by all the negotiations could be intense. I could be sitting across from a Power Ranger fan, having no love for them at all, and know for every one Power Ranger Pog I put down I could demand they add three X-men Pogs they had won off their brother the day before. Sure it’s a rough ratio but if they were good they would be walking away with all the Pogs anyways. Meanwhile, their brother, who hadn’t had the chance to win back his X-Men Pogs would sit nearby now cheering for his former rival. The underground Pog world was dangerous and violent and funded by our half-witted parent’s that didn’t understand what darkness their money was bringing into this world.
Inevitably, like in all gambling, you’d find yourself in debt to the wrong guy, or worse with all his Pogs and have to decide if you were willing to die for a few Pogs.
We were. I’ve ordered a thousand for the office, I wonder what my next job will be?