The Spaghetti Handshake/Sick Princess

For all of you big sisters, or aunts or uncles, or moms and dads who are not familiar with the Spaghetti Handshake, heads up. It goes like this:

You ask your young friend if he knows the Spaghetti Handshake. Of course he doesn't, so you take both of his little hands in yours, and then waggle them up and down as fast as you possibly can. His arms and shoulders feel like limp spaghetti, so he breaks out laughing, which causes you to break out laughing, because the whole thing is so entirely silly.

We learned the Spaghetti Handshake from crazy Mr. Yonker when the girls were all knee high. I used to think that only little kids could be repeatedly amused by the Spaghetti Handshake, but last weekend proved me Wrong-O!

This childhood game lives on, but another one--Sick Princess--seems to have passed away. Sick Princess rules require two underlings to bear the Princess in her sedan chair (a large cardboard box), wherever the bossy monarch directs.

As the servants' arms begin to tire, rebellion creeps in. They slam the flaps closed on the cardboard box sedan chair, and begin rolling the chair very rapidly, end over end through the yard. The Royal Passenger screams her displeasure to no avail; the servants keep rolling the box until she is ready to throw up.

Then the sisters all clamor to be the next Princess.