The Most Dangerous Game of All, by J. Edgertoon Smoot-Wisbley, Adventurer Extraordinaire

Ah, games! From the simplest children’s affair, where one ticks tacks in a toeing fashion, to the most convoluted of adult pastimes such as Van-Kloutenbeburg-Isle-style bridge, which has a bidding system so complicated that the rulebook itself has served as the holy text for two religions, each and every game presents its own perils. In the former, for example, a nasty splinter from a pencil could bring about not only a dissatisfying absence of rows of three, but also an infection through which a young tot could contract a most heinous bout of dysentery. In the latter, the poor eyesight of an elderly gentleman might anger him so that he is driven to send the table on which he plays flying across the room. Each game has its own thrill, and all are delightful to a true connoisseur. But I have long endeavored to find the so-called “Holy Grail” of gaming: the most dangerous game of all!

O, fair readers, I hear you cry out from your opera boxes, “But surely, J. Edgertoon Smoot-Wisbley, Adventurer Extraordinaire, you must know that the most dangerous game of all is man – or, specifically, hunting men for sport!” Ah, I bid you restore both your monocles, and your faith in me. For I too labored under this delusion. I said to my manservant, “Manservant, clear the minocentaurs from the Garden of Wonders, for I am to hunt man!”

I have never played such an easy game. I simply drew my rifle, and they all began to flee. But unlike the panther or even the simple stag, these peasants, no doubt accustomed to standing still as they labored at an assembly line in some cheesecake factory, were sluggish. I picked them off within an hour, and the payoff of the looks of despair and defeat upon their faces was barely worth the money I had spent on the ball and powder.

And so the search continues – the most ambitious upon which I have ever embarked! I have competed in Benadryl-chugging contests and tightrope-jousting tournaments; I’ve partaken in Norwegian pelvis duels and games of pattycake with Komodo dragons. At great expense and personal risk, I have finally limited the candidates to Bolivian Knife-Swimming, Bear-Plucking, and perhaps the most dangerous of all: Walking in New Haven after 9:30.

—M. Nobel

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