Punch buggy, no punch backs
Jun 24th, 2007 by Accidental Thinker
Who remembers this classic childhood car game? We play it in our car a lot, minus the punching. Over time, however, Maia has evolved a complicated set of rules about exactly what you must say in order to receive credit for a punch buggy sighting; a script so complex that only she can remember it accurately, thereby hoarding all punch buggy points for herself. As best my feeble mind can remember, it’s something along the lines of:
“Punch buggy, got it, green one, got it, no punch backs, got it, got it.”
In our car, the game has also expanded beyond VW Beetles. PT Cruisers count, as do Orlando’s colorful public transportation buses, called Lynx buses. Though for the purposes of our game, these buses must be referred to as “paw print buses”—because of the Lynx paw print logo—to gain credit.
However, poor Noah has no hope of ever earning any points since he can’t quite remember exactly how to call his punch buggy sightings for proper credit according to Maia’s ever-changing rules. So he’s simply given up, and has instead taken to helping his sister in her spotting. He points them out to her, and she gets the credit for calling them. It’s teamwork at its finest, especially when playing against others in the car. And even though it’s to Maia’s advantage since she technically keeps the points, I’ll take cooperation like that over bickering any day.
Yes, that is much better than bickering. My kids play, without the punching as well, and there are always fights about who spotted what.
I haven’t thought of that in a long time.
We always said, “punch buggy blue” or “punch buggie green”, changing with the color of the car. And it was always a VW sedan.
Thanks for the memory.
Our kids called them “Slug Bugs.” We didn’t allow slugging. (I think they made up for it after we got home.)
Just wait until I teach them how to play Popeye!! Ray and have rules so complex we have a rule book! (well more like a legal sized sheet of paper) Everytime we take a trip, we add another cockamamie rule. It’s fun. Punchbuggy, headlight, fog light, parking light popeye! (12 points!)