Telephone, Telegraph, Graph Paper, Bell Curve, Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath, Death!

Another from the "Overthunk Idears That Will Probably Go Nowhere" file:

Free association is a well known psychoanalytic tool. Telephone* is a well known party game. Let's blend them into a silly communal bloggy game used to while away the precious minutes of our lives.

It will go something like this:

1. I will give the first word.
2. The initial respondent will read it and then (free-associatively) write the first word that pops into his or her head in the comments section.
3. The next respondent will read that word and then (free-associatively) write the first word that pops into his or her head in the comments section.
4. And so on...

The shenanigans will continue until we grow bored or until we use up all the words in the English language, whichever comes first. We will then gasp in mutual horror at our collective psychosis.

And now we start with:

"monkey"**

Attaquons!***

* Until I'd read that Wikipedia entry, I'd never heard of its alternate names: Chinese Whispers or Arab Phone. (That last one sounds like it's going to get you placed on some Cheney-decreed black-ops watch list.) Had You?

** Would you expect me to choose anything else?

*** That's the phrase—if my memory hasn't gone all jumbley on me—that my grandfather would proclaim immediately after saying grace: "We attack!", more or less a Francophonic "Dig in!"