And now, without further delay, I give you our conclusion! It's a little heavy at the beginning (continuing from our last portion), but we're back to our game towards the end, where we learn more about how the rules are decided, what happens when the game is paused, why the name has still yet to be decided, and our games conclusion!
*FYI - while the show Piggy is watching doesn't exist, the ones they are based on due and sadly, I can't find them anywhere. I know, and why this is later than I wanted, is because I spent most of the morning looking for them.*
Kermie: Risk. Or Stratego.
Piggy: Most people would just say ‘hey’
Kermie: I’m talking about the game. Had an awesome idea. Actually, I’m just gonna come over.
Piggy: How do you know I’m not busy?
Kermie: Are you?
Piggy: …Well, not anymore.
Piggy was enjoying the start of her weekend by catching up on her new favorite show, Ultimate Game Show Show, a popular Japanese game show in the same vein as Ultimate Banzuke or Ninja Warrior. Why the diva had taken to the show, with its ridiculous stunt rounds and even weirder prizes, she didn’t know but she was hooked and she couldn’t look away. She had ordered a pizza and had just sat down to start her marathon when her phone had gone off, alerting her to Kermit’s text.
The frog was not known to text – in fact, several times he had been adamant about
not texting – so it was strange, not unusual, to get not one but
several messages from him. Even more was the fact that within five minutes, said frog was walking through her door, holding a bag. “What’re you doing here?”
Kermit gave her a look. “I told you I was coming over,” he said.
Piggy sighed before rolling her eyes. “Usually when people say they are coming over,” she began. “They at least give a twenty minute heads up.”
Holding up the bag in his hand, he said, “And here I brought you ice cream. You have dinner yet?”
Just as she was about to answer, there was another knock on the door, signaling that her pizza had arrived. Standing, she directed the frog towards the kitchen to put away his ice cream while she went to go pay for what would most likely be their dinner. Kermit had just finished putting the container of chocolate brownie bits into the freezer when Piggy carried the pizza box to the kitchen, placing it on her dining table.
“Whatcha got there, baby?”
“It’s a pizza.”
“I can see that,” the frog said, giving the diva a smile, and opening the box. “That’s a good looking pizza. What kind is it?”
“As vous can see,” Piggy replied. “It’s a veggie pizza.”
The two stood for a few more moments, both gazing at the pizza, or rather, Kermit was gazing at the pizza while Piggy gave him a sidelong look. “Sure looks tasty…”
Heaving an annoyed sigh, the diva pushed the frog towards the kitchen. “Grab two plates and another wine glass. As well as your choice of whites. Actually, just bring the whole bottle.”
Doing as told, Kermit brought over plates, a glass, and a bottle of the white wine Piggy normally kept in the fridge for him – he was usually the only one who drank it – and the two proceeded to take their dinner to the living room, where Piggy unpaused her show as they sat down.
“What the heck are you watching?” Kermit asked, watching as a contestant began to go through a steps of alternating height on his hands.
“Ultimate Game Show Show,” came the response.
“What?”
“It’s a Japanese game show,” Piggy stated, as though that explained everything. “That should explain it. In fact, we should all just totally sit down and watch this, cause…I’m thinking we could put some of these to good use for the game. Like this? This is the Hand Walk, where contestants have to walk these steps on their hands. Very few people finish the level, like no one ever finishes the level, but can’t you see this as a level 2 event?”
Kermit was about to protest, but conceded that the idea had merit. “Okay,” he said, biting into his slice. “I could go with that, except for one thing. Fozzie and I can’t stand on our hands.”
“Then you should probably start learning how.”
“There’s also the issue of this not being a board game.”
“Details,” Piggy said, waving off the concern. “Speaking of which, what’s this think about Risk and Stratego?”
Kermit began to lay out his idea of adding in the game plays of the popular strategy games into their own concocted game play. The current episode of Ultimate Game Show Show finished and was starting up the next episode when Piggy asked, “So are you going to tell me why you’re really here?”
Kermit glanced at her. “I told you,” he said. “I wanted to tell you my ideas about the game.”
“Which you could have done over the phone,” she retorted. “You coming over means there’s something wrong.” Turning to look at him, she continued with, “Or you want something. And seeing as I fed you…”
“Do I honestly need a reason to see you?” Kermit asked, exasperated, huffing when he saw that she had raised a slim eyebrow in his direction. “Newsflash – I actually do this with Fozzie and Gonzo or Rowlf; you know, my other best friends?”
Piggy snorted. “You’re saying I’m your best friend now?”
“You’ve always been one of my best friends,” he insisted. “You might actually
be my best friend.”
“Okay, that’s enough…” she chuckled.
“Piggy, I’m serious.”
“Are you?”
The two looked at each other for a long moment. “You don’t think you’re my best friend?”
“You really think I am?” she countered.
Looking at her in surprise and surprisingly, hurt, Kermit whispered, “Piggy, no one knows me better than you. I thought you knew that.”
The joking atmosphere dropped immediately, as Piggy realized that this was actually a serious conversation. “You’re really serious,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Kermit, I…no, I didn’t know that.”
Kermit went to say something before stopping. Her not knowing about how much he cared – how he had always cared – was his fault; he always had trouble expressing his feelings with her, that is to say feelings that weren’t related to being annoyed, irritated, angry…
“Of course you’re my best friend,” he whispered. “And I’m sorry I hadn’t bothered to mention it until now. And yeah, I did come over because…I need your advice on something and you’re the only person I think can help.”
“Well when you say it so excited like that, I can’t help but be intrigued,” she quipped. “What’s on your mind, Frog?”
Kermit sighed, leaning back against the back of the couch. “Denise,” he whispered. “Or rather, she isn’t. On my mind, that is.”
“Oh, that’s not true,” she said, poking him in the side. “Or else you wouldn’t be here.”
Again, the frog sighed. “Do you think she’s right?” he asked. “About out ‘game’? I mean, it’s not like other board games…”
“Of course not,” she replied. “Or else it wouldn’t be ours. And it’s just a game and one we’ve been playing for literally
decades. We’re big boys and girls and we know how handle ourselves; yes, the rules probably only make sense to us, but we’ve played it, twenty-seven I might add, so we have it down pat. Denise’s resistance is cause she doesn’t play it, doesn’t know the…loving care we take in playing it…” Giving the frog a look, she asked, “This isn’t just about Denise and our game, is it?”
“No,” he muttered. “Yes. Maybe. I just…Piggy, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t think I can a normal life.”
“Darling,” she cooed. “You live in Hollywood. Whatever made you think that was normal?”
“Touché,” he chuckled. “I don’t mean that, I mean…sitting at home, playing board games…it’s boring. It’s so boring.”
Grinning, Piggy asked, “I take it you and Denise played some…standard gaming fare, this week?”
“Yeah,” he said, unhappily. “All week, me and her, me, her, and her friends…utterly mundane, utterly normal, utterly boring.”
“You do know that you two don’t have to share the same tastes or even the same friends, don’t you?”
“I know that,” he huffed. “But it’s so much more…
simpler when we do. I mean, if I were ‘Brazilian Spider Monkey’ you’d know exactly what I meant.”
And she did, which is why she couldn’t stop chuckling. “That…” she giggled. “Was an unfortunate situation.”
“Hey,” Kermit said, sternly, or rather he tried to, but couldn’t help his own giggles. “That monkey broke Gonzo’s heart.”
“And his leg,” Piggy laughed. “And his arm.”
The two couldn’t help but laugh over the incident, which had also been hilarious at the time, though they had done their best to reign in their amusement around said stunt weirdo. “Ok…ok,” Kermit gasped. “This is serious! Piggy, I mean it, this is serious now.” They both tried to calm their giggles, however looking at each other caused another round of laughter until they were both panting on the couch.
“I don’t have this kind of fun with Denise,” the frog admitted, giving his ex a very earnest look.
Shaking her head, she said, “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“Kermit,” Piggy whispered. “You can’t expect to have what we did with her, because believe me…it will not work.”
“I…I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” he sighed. “I do, I just…I’m starting to think that we have nothing in common.”
“That’s not exactly a newsflash.”
Giving her a look, Kermit groused, “Not you and me; I meant Denise. And…despite what others may say,
we – as in, you and me – actually, do have a lot in common. Maybe that’s the problem.”
“Kermit,” the diva said. “Nothing says you have to have everything in common with your girlfriend. So the two of you don’t spend your Friday nights playing board games; let her do her thing and you do yours, meaning you come over and play Game of Games. Moi is sure the two of you have more in common than your preference to board games.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say that their different choices in board games was just the tip of the ice berg when it came to things they didn’t have in common; in fact, it had come as bit of a surprise to Kermit when he actually thought about how few things they
did have in common and he was disheartened to realize that those things just weren’t enough to keep a relationship afloat. He wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go from there, though he knew the answer was obvious but he was just afraid of having to actually go through it.
Ultimately, he would most likely find himself back here – probably sooner than later – to get a final verdict on what he should do, but that was for another time. Instead, as was his way when he got nervous, he changed the subject back to the weird show they had watching in the background; luckily, the event of the ‘form bridge’ caught both of their attentions until they had managed to get through until three episodes before Kermit felt he should call it a night.
“Merci,” he said, standing from the couch. He started to make his way towards the door, waving off her motion to walk him to it. Instead, he stood behind her before draping his arms around her neck. “For dinner and…for the advice.”
Giving him a soft smile, she shrugged slightly. “That’s what friends are for,” she joked.
“And you’re the best of them,” he said, delivering a kiss to her cheek. Standing, he gave her shoulders a slight squeeze. “You can keep the ice cream. Gonzo’s tomorrow?”
“Why?” she asked, turning to look at him.
“We have a game to finish.”
“You’re unpausing?”
“Unpausing and…most likely, an admin session,” he said. “I wanna talk to the guys about adding in those games and…I’m…reconsidering the whole brownie thing. With concessions!” He added, when Piggy gave him a look. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“With bells on.”
“I hope not,” he quipped. “Cause that did not go over well last time.”
[hr]
11:25AM
SATURDAY MORNING
“Okay, so what do you think?”
As requested, the next morning saw the three teams of SoCo, Scientific Mayhem, and the Dark Alliance once again assembled at Gonzo’s house, getting ready for another game of the Game of Games or rather, they were hoping to finish their previous game from the week before. Kermit had just outlined his ideas for incorporating Risk and Stratego into their game play, added by Gonzo’s suggestions of Mastermind and Jenga or what he called ‘human Jenga’.
“I don’t see any problem with it,” Scooter replied. Both he and Janice were the official recorders of the rules and game play – in the past, they had both taken turns to make sure that the rules were not only written down, but updated should they ever change. The invention of mobile apps and tablets made the task of taking every rule, infraction, and score card into the modern age as Scooter took on the task of recording their rules into his tablet and cloud storage; it was probably better, as their overloaded and tattered binder had seen better days.
“Actually, while we’re at it,” Janice began, flipping the binder until she reached the page she needed. “The brownie?”
Kermit sighed. He had of course mentioned that he was rethinking the punishment for jail and that perhaps they bring back their pot brownie instead having to eat the ingredients. “I have conditions,” he began, sternly, pointing a finger at both Janice and Floyd. “More brownie than…whatever you’re putting in to it. And! Only one brownie and it has to be a decent sized brownie. Individual brownies, at that.”
“In our defense,” Floyd countered. “We didn’t know Bunsen would eat so many. Yes, we should have realized that would have been the ultimate conclusion, but we didn’t think he would actual crave brownies.”
“That was totally our bad,” Janice added. “We will totally shrink wrap the brownies. But you know, that does bring up a good point – perhaps we should an alternate in the case…brownies are forgotten.”
“Or ingested,” Floyd murmured.
“Or ingested.”
“Then we’ll go with the ingredients,” Kermit amended. “What’s next?”
“Should we bring up the name?” Scooter asked.
“Well, I don’t know,” Kermit said, crossing his arms. Glancing at Gonzo and then Beaker, he asked, “Should we?”
The actual reason they hadn’t officially given the Game of Games an actual name wasn’t because they couldn’t think of one – Gonzo had been correct that the original name had started with the team captains’ first names, however as Piggy pointed out, not only had the team captains changed, but so had the teams. Back before they had actually written down the rules and when it had only been made up by four people, Kermit and Piggy had been on a team – the Power Couple – while Fozzie and Gonzo had been on their own team – The Mezzianics, which meant the team captains had been Kermit and Gonzo; when the Scientific Mayhem was introduced to the game – this was when it had just been Bunsen, Beaker, and Floyd, the latter had switched back and forth as captains.
Since then, the teams had changed – with Piggy and Fozzie switching teams – and the name going through different iterations. The hold up – or arbitration as they now called it – hinged on Gonzo and Beaker. And it was a bitter divide – Gonzo wanted to keep the old name, while Beaker wanted it changed to You Blinded Me with Games and had even gone on a three-hour filibuster about the influence of the name (from the song
She Blinded Me with Science) to how it related to their game play, and a host of other things.
Also crossing his arms, Gonzo replied, “I refuse to yield to the gentleman.”
Beaker had something to say about that.
“You take that back!” Gonzo exclaimed, trying to lunge for the red head.
“Okay, so arbitration is still in effect!” Kermit shouted, trying to bring order back to their conversation. “Anything left on the table?”
Everyone seemed satisfied with the new additions and rule corrections, so Piggy asked, “So…un-pause?”
“Wait,” Fozzie interrupted. “What do we do again when we un-pause? It’s been a while since we’ve had to pause a game.”
Both talent manager and guitarist flipped through their perspective rule books on what to do during a game pause, with Janice finding the rule first. “Here it is!” she called out. “
Rule number 246 – in the case a game has to be paused, depending on the game play in progress, proceed in the following manner: if one or all teams are still on level 1, all teams advance to level 2. If one or more teams are on level 2, but one team is on level 1, that team advances to level 2. If one or more teams is on level 3, but one team is on level 2 or lower, all teams advance to level 3. In all of these cases, an all play must be chosen to determine the winner.”
“Well then,” Gonzo replied, throwing a look to SoCo. “Once again, you gentlemen find yourselves in the harsh world of level 3.”
“Should we start our pre-level ritual?” Floyd asked.
Looking up at the clock on the wall, Kermit made a grimace. “It’s almost 12:30,” he said. “I say we get lunch, finish the game, and…we’ll leave the rest of the day open.”
Level III – Spirit [re-do]
Emotional Battery and Public Humiliation
“Alright, cats,” Floyd said, pulling out one of the all plays that had picked out of the Level 3 card box. Turning the card around, he said, “Guess Who?”
Of all the cards that could have possibly been played, Floyd Pepper had to pick that one. Unlike it’s family friendly game reference, their version of Guess Who was guessing which one of them had taken a truth serum laced drink, depending on who made the drinks. At any other time, Rowlf would be in charge of distributing both truth serum and alcohol, but because Rowlf wasn’t with them, it fell to Floyd, who was known to pull a prank, even when drunk.
As part of their rules, should at any time Floyd, or Gonzo for that matter, happened to be playing bartender, whatever All Play was being done, it would be last man standing. In this case, all team members must blurt out a truth, usually an embarrassing one, in order to be counted out. And the drink of choice?
Everclear. The most potent alcohol
ever.
For the first time, Kermit actually felt SoCo had a shot at winning – while he’d most likely lose Fozzie in the process, the comic couldn’t lie to save his life and he was even more truthful when he had been drinking, Kermit could pretty much keep a lid on it.
He of course had to fight against Gonzo and Piggy, who could be equally closed mouthed; as always, it came down to SoCo versus the Dark Alliance.
[hr]
An hour and several embarrassing and uncomfortable truths revealed later, Kermit and Fozzie watched as the Dark Alliance burned their flag.
It was Kermit’s fault, actually it was all
Piggy’s fault and their recent conversation, that caused him to blurt out the most embarrassing thing he’d probably ever said during this game, not that he and Fozzie had ever gotten this far to actually play Guess Who, but with all the other things he’d done and said – even when he had raked Piggy over the goals, it had been more about
her and not
them per se – he had never said anything so personal outside of his chosen few.
Needless to say, not only did they
all know that he and Denise were having a bit of trouble, they were now aware of just how
far it went. As far as Kermit was concerned, that
totally trumped Beaker’s weekend with Mildred Huxsetter, Wanda, and BD – though both Gonzo and Piggy were all in on hearing that story. “I’m much more interested in hearing this.” “Like, we don’t have time.” “We should totally make time. Like right now.” – it totally trumped Scooter’s admittance he had once had fantasies about Piggy and Janice, though he tried to throw in every female Muppet they ever knew on top of that and swore on his parents’
graves that he had completely and totally stopped around the age of twenty or what Fozzie had done to his girlfriend’s father’s prized roses – “I’m not sure if I should be angry or proud.” “Oh my god, proud. Totally proud!” – none of that mattered, really, in the end.
Because they still lost.
Piggy gave a happy little sigh, watching at the smoldering wreckage of the SoCo flag. “That was oddly gratifying,” she said. “Play again?”
If this was any other time or any other day, SoCo would have adamantly denied it, stormed off in a fit of anger and would never speak the words ‘Game of Games’ for months until the urge to redeem themselves, or boredom, took hold. Today however, Kermit wanted redemption after his faux paus and to be honest, he didn’t think he could head over to Denise’s with his current knowledge and mortification.
“Of course we’re playing again!” he exclaimed. “This time with the new additions.”
“That suits us just fine,” Scooter boasted. “Cause you suck at Risk. And I’m gonna enjoy mowing over your pieces like I normally do.”
“Well, if we get Battleship again,” Fozzie complained. “I refuse to be shot in the stomach. The last time I had a huge bruise that made it look like I painted a target on my belly.”
“Then maybe you should start wearing pants,” Piggy admonished.
“
You start wearing pants!”
The group started going through their routine, setting up the game board, pulling out the first aid kit, calling Rowlf…
And the war continued.
THE END
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