At my sister’s request today, I dug up this little sentimental ditty I wrote in 1995 (-ish) about one of our favorite childhood games. I present it to you now without further comment.

I don’t remember why we made it up. I don’t remember who made it up, or how we came about it. But I do remember it – clearly. I will no doubt still remember it when I am old and gray and wasting away. It was the highlight of all the silly games I’ve ever played in all my childhood years. It was Coca-Cola Man.

This game was basically Hide-and-Seek with a home base. And of course, our suttle [sic] product endorsement. The home base was the steps by my back door (the game was always played at my house. It lost its magic anywhere else, it seemed). One person was “It.” He or she (usually she. The game only had 3 permanent players, me, my sister Amber, and our neighbor Cynthia) would curl into a ball in my driveway, cover her eyes, and start to loudly count to the designated number. Cynthia and I would usually count to 20, but we’d make Amber count to 50 at the least. The other players would run and hide. I remember I had many a strategic plan for hiding – doubling around the house, huddling by the steps so I only had to extend my arm to be ‘safe,’ all kinds of deceitful ploys. Then came the absolute greatest part of the game. When done counting, the girl, being “It,” would jump up and scream at the tops of her lungs, “I’m the Coca-Cola Man from Outer Space! Here I come!” then do a little dance. This ritual could not be altered in any way, it was set in stone in our minds. This was why the game never caught on as a neighborhood fad. All the boys who played, played once, deemed the game stupid, and left never to be seen again.

So, my entrepreneuring friends and I invented a variation on this game to lure the boys back. It was no doubt the spawn of countless horror movies combined with children’s total lack of shame. We christened it Booger-Woman. All the rules remained the same, except for the circumstance that the Booger-Woman (who was always Amber. She was still in that nose-picking phase) had to chase the ‘hiders’ around, with an arm & finger outstretched, preferably with the game’s namesake dangling from the end. If a hider was captured before they reached home base, they became It and got ‘wiped,’ for good measure. This game, although it brought the boys, didn’t last long, mostly because no one but Amber would ever be It. Booger-Woman soon died out altogether. Amber grew out of “that phase,” and we simply were disgusted by it.

But Coca-Cola Man lived on. New rules were made. Hiding in cars or houses was illegal. Looking under the vehicles in the driveway for feet was strictly prohibited. Cynthia often broke this rule. I was convinced she always broke all the rules, because she was hardly ever It. She would get mad and go home whenever confronted with this. Cynthia and Amber made hiding by the steps illegal, ruining one of my chief strategies.

However, the game was getting boring. We needed new things. We were growing up. The game dwindled, and eventually we quit playing altogether. But sometimes I’ll go sit on those steps, and I’ll swear I can hear a chant of “I’m the Coca-Cola Man…” reverberating in the distance.