Saturday, April 30, 2011

Z is for The Dreaded Z



Long before the invention and acquisition of iPods, laptops and pounding your brother, we played car games on long trips.
You likely know these games. 
Punchbuggy is a favourite amongst my sons – at least until the bruising and bleeding begins. 
I Spy was OK until car manufacturers painted the interior of automobiles uniformly grey and that kinda took some of the spark out of it.
Another of our favourites is the Alphabet Road Sign Game
Here's how it works: Someone, usually the loudest and most obnoxious enthusiastic child, starts with the letter A. He has to find a road sign with the letter A in it and read the word out loud. So there's a sign up ahead for Anne St. He says, "Anne St.," usually at an ear-piercing volume and usually directly in my ear.
The next child looks for a letter B, I look for a C, Dave looks for a D, and then it comes back to the starter for E and winds its way through the alphabet until the final letter is found.
Simple, huh?
It is for some letters. A, for example, is dead easy. So is R and S and T. X is one of the easiest letters because speed limit signs all say maximum.
B isn't as common as you might think and the letters J and Q are as scarce as hen's teeth. Your only hope for Q is an antique shop and you wanna hope there's one of those JESUS SAVES signs along the way if you want a J.
They're so hard to find, in fact, that we call them "The Dreaded J" or "The Dreaded Q."
There is one other letter that is "dreaded" and that is "The Dreaded Z."
If you're going through town, it's no sweat – just find yourself a pizza shop and you're good to go.
If not, you can drive a long, long way to find a Z. There have been times when someone in the car has woot-wooted in excitement just because we entered a Construction Zone.
Today, though, I am not dreading the letter Z. 
This post brings to an end an entire month of the A-Z Blogging Challenge.
I did it, I did it! I posted every day in the month of April, except Sunday, with a different letter of the alphabet featured in each post.
Was it hard? Nah... not really. Then again, I didn't have a format to worry about. I just blathered about anything and then fit the letter with the blathering.
Was it fun? Yes! It was! The best thing about the challenge was visiting so many of the other participants, finding new blogs to love and follow, and discovering more followers for my blog. There's no way I could visit every participant – at last count there were 1,282 bloggers. 
Isn't that crazy? I know!
If you'd like to check out the Linky list, press the green A-Z badge on the right side of my blog. There's some good reading to be found and some really cool people.
Hey, I really do recommend the Alphabet Road Sign Game. It encourages young readers, it makes the car ride seem shorter and it requires no batteries.
Happy trails.

11 comments:

  1. Congratulations Cathy, you did it! And I must say it was the best trip through the alphabet I've ever had. Thanks for the Sandwiches, and the Yellow Jellied Salad that sustained me along the way. Thanks for Harriet The Spy, the Good Dog and the Damn Doors. Thanks less for the Colonoscopy and the Mammogram, and thanks mostly for all the fun!

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  2. Congrats on completing the challenge! Zipeedeedooda! :D

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  3. way to go Cathy!! Excellent achievement! And the memories were cool too, although I never heard of punch buggy until I joined the military, we played Beaver Wagon instead (false wood-sided vehicles)
    Take care
    XO

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  4. Well done - you took on the challenge and survived!

    I well remember car journeys playing alphabet games - I hated (& usually ended up with) 'Q' or 'Z' ! Now we're empty-nesters car journeys are more sedate - but maybe a little boring?

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  5. Congrats...you've Zipped up the alphabet. Hurray!!!

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  6. Well done, Cathy, for toughing it out until the deadly 'Zee'...or is it 'Zed'...

    Perhaps I'll give this a whirl next year.

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  7. Congrats, Cathy! Another survivor! It was fun and I'd do it again next year.

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  8. Cathy, we did it! Congratulations! I have an award for you!!

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  9. 1282 bloggers?? Awesome! And completely deserved, I might add. People know a great read when they...well, read it. I'm so behind...but you're absolutely on my short list...always.

    I'm still snickering at the idea of some overenthusiastic child SCREAMING in your ear. Good times...

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  10. Congrats on completing A to Z - it was fun - wasn't it?

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  11. I get punchbuggied every car ride. Then at some point it was decided that seeing a yellow car (banana) that meant a punch, too. Put a stop to that real quick, but the punchbuggy remains my nemesis.

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