F.L.A.M.E.S.

Little girls are such funny creatures.

When I was a little girl, we used to play this game called F.L.A.M.E.S. It was strictly a girly-girly thing. However, from what I remember, it was more of an individual thing initially. Almost every little girl played it, but we didn't let on to anybody else that we were doing it--not even to our friends. Initially.

So, what was F.L.A.M.E.S.? The letters stood for Friendship, Lovers, Anger, Marriage, Engagement, and Sweethearts. Little girls are cute, but kinda pathetic at times. Especially when they play F.L.A.M.E.S. I used to play the game during those times when I didn't deem anything else was worth concentrating on--like math, for example. You can probably imagine how my math notebook was filled to overflowing with F.L.A.M.E.S. stuff, and other doodles that I thought (at the time) were vastly more important than isosceles triangles, the multiplication table, and at what point A would meet B if the train they were riding on were going at X miles an hour. When you're 10-12 years old (and you're a giddy girl like I was), many things take priority over silly logical stuff.

What one did to play the secret, giggly game called F.L.A.M.E.S. was this: you wrote your full name on a sheet of paper (or whatever writing material is at hand--I do not recommend you do this on your test paper, though). Then you wrote the full name of your secret love (at age 12 or below, it was always a secret love) below yours. Then you crossed out the letters your names had in common. You then counted the crossed-out letters and deciphered the meaning of the total according to the corresponding acronyms in F.L.A.M.E.S.

Let's take the famous star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet as an example. Crossing out the letters that their names have in common, we see that Romeo believed him and Juliet to be engaged, while Juliet thought that they were "friends." But if you take the total of all their shared letters, it comes to 12--resulting in Sweethearts (if the total amounts to more than six, just go back to F and count the remainder from there). And we all know that Romeo and Juliet were sweethearts; though they came to a tragic end. Stupid gits.

If your total came to an entirely satisfying result (that is, anything except Friendship and Anger) you'd encircle the outcome in lots of little fat hearts--lots of them, really--in pink or red ink. And trying your best not to boast to your friends that you and Mr. Perfect would end up getting engaged, married, or becoming lovers or sweethearts one day. But you'd always fail in your efforts to conceal the results (if they ended up the way you wanted them). By golly, if F.L.A.M.E.S. said that Reuben (name slightly changed to protect the somewhat-innocent) and I would become sweethearts, we sure as hell would! Ahhh, the simple beliefs of childhood!

[My friends tell me there's a similar game called C.A.N.D.L.E.S. Hmmm, never played that one. Probably came before my time.]

Okay, I can just see you now taking a piece of paper and doing F.L.A.M.E.S. Haha!