remember when we used to play telephone?
we’d sit in a line, the first person whispering their secret phrase into the ear of their neighbor. one by one, the whisper is carried down the line, getting tweaked little by little—due partly to miscommunication, & mainly to silliness, sending sniggers and “what?!“‘s down the queue till the final person speaks the phrase out loud, warranting a burst of giggles from the whole group as the salvaged message is compared to the original. for me, most of the time, the fun of the game is in the cheating: the intentional ambiguity and slight alterations in our mumbles, to get the final product as far off as possible…


or sometimes the fun of the game comes simply from stolen closeness to the person you love.