A Different Blue(126)

verse. The Ha Ha Ha champion was determined at the end of the night by the number of stickers

accumulated, as well as how many you still had on your bracelet roll. I was relieved to see that

the kisses were all friendly pecks on the lips and cheeks with lots of “Happy New Years!”

thrown in. No one seemed to take advantage and lay a wet one on an unwilling recipient. Most

people were intent on collecting stickers. The game continued throughout the night, even when

other games were being played, and I became a bit of a target because the Ha Ha Ha's directed at

me weren't terribly funny, and I had yet to lose a sticker . . . or give a kiss. Tiffa and

Wilson kept going back and forth at each other, trying to get the other to break – occasionally

cracking into guffaws that were promptly rewarded with a chaste kiss to the forehead, followed

by a sticker. Tiffa quickly looked like she had the pox, her face was so dotted in stickers.

Alice's Ha Ha Ha was so grating that people laughed as they cringed, which got her several

kisses and stickers as well.

I don't know what I expected from a New Year's party with a bunch of Brits, but it wasn't Ha Ha

Ha, and it definitely wasn't the brown bag game. The brown bag game consisted of standing on one

leg like a crane, leaning over, and without touching the floor or the bag, lifting the bag off

the floor using only your mouth. Each round, an inch or two would be cut off of the brown bag

until there was only a thin lip of bag left. Alice ended up getting a bloody nose when she face

planted into the floor. Tiffa was like a long giselle, easily bending herself in half and

swooping the bag off the floor like it was a dance move she had mastered years before. Jack was

out after the first round. Alice's husband Peter farted every time he made an attempt at the

bag, his embarrassed “Pardon me's” almost funnier than the constant toots. Wilson attacked the

brown bag game with a single-minded concentration that his sisters claimed was how he played

every game, but he was out of his league after two or three rounds.

Apparently, the brown bag game was a Wilson family tradition and not an English tradition at

all. The late Dr. Wilson had been the one to introduce his children to the game, and they had

played it for as long as any of them could remember. It had been just over two months since I

had a baby, and I could easily have begged off, claiming that I was not up for such a physical

game. But I didn't want to pique the other guests curiosity or invite questions, so I joined in

and found my distaste for alcohol was a real advantage, as my balance was still intact when

everyone else was teetering. The final round was down to me and Tiffa, and Tiffa was talking

trash, sounding like Scary Spice, as she glided in for the win.

“Ha ha ha!” she said to me, nose to nose, her eyes crossed comically, as I conceded the

victory. This Tiffa was such a contradiction to Tiffa-the-Art-Connoisseur that I giggled and

pushed her away.

[page]“You laughed! You laughed at my ha ha ha!” Tiffa squealed and pranced around waving her

hands in the air. “Give me a sticker, Blue Echohawk! You have succumbed to my wit! Now I must

assign someone to kiss you and kiss you good! Wilson! Pucker up, luv!”

No one really paid much attention to the frozen look on Wilson's face. We were there together,

after all, a couple, so to speak. Tiffa's guests were more entertained by her gloating than by