Over-the-Hill Party Game – R.A.S.H. (M.A.S.H. for the Middle Aged)

The other day I was teaching my kids how to play M.A.S.H. and I suddenly realized that it was totally not any fun for me. I already knew who I was going to marry, what car I was going to drive, how many kids I was going to have, and what kind of house I would live in. I decided that it was time to come up with a middle-aged version of the game. Consider it MASH for old people. My kids thought it was a riot as we dreamed up all kinds of senior predictions. While playing, I realized that this was the perfect 40th birthday party or Over-the-Hill Party Game.

Instead of doing Mansion, Apartment, Shack, and House, I decided to do Retirement Home, Apartment, Shack, and House. Hence the name R.A.S.H. I have always wanted to age-in-place in my own home, but this would at least let me know if a retirement home was in my future.

How to Play R.A.S.H. – The Over-the-Hill Party Game

The rules of R.A.S.H. are the same as M.A.S.H., we just have different categories.

Step 1

Get your paper ready by writing R.A.S.H. in big letters up at the top.

Step 2

Decide which and how many categories you want. You can come up with your own, but here were some of our retirement appropriate categories. As you pick a category, write the title above and list the number of options you want below. Make sure there are an equal number of options in each category. How long the game takes depends on how many categories and options you choose.

What’s in Your Candy Jar
All old people have a candy jar, but some have significantly better candy than others. Options you can list include: Andes mints, five-year-old starlight mints, bite-sized Snickers, Wether’s Originals, those disgusting strawberry hard candies that have a gooey middle and a wrapper that looks like a strawberry, gumdrops.

Medical Device
Very few of us will make it to the senior years without needing some kind of medical device. Options you can list include: hearing aide, glasses, diapers, dentures, pace maker, medical alert system (help! I have fallen and can’t get up!).

Weird Hair Growth
Growing old is synonymous with hair growing where you don’t want it to. Some options include: nose, ears, mole hair, belly button, chin, chest.

Mobility
Will I be one of those spry grandmas or am I destined to hobbling around? I want to know! Some options include: cane, walker, wheelchair, my own legs, motorized chair.

City
Deciding where you want to retire is a huge deal. I can use all the help I can get. I won’t stoop to making fun of any cities here, so feel free to add a few funny ones and a few that you want.

Car
Cars are also on the original MASH game, but what your senior wheels will be is important information I need to know.  Options include: Lincoln, golf cart, Buick LaCrosse, Impala, Cadillac, “my kids took my keys.”

How Many Grandkids to Send Birthday Cards To
Grandmas always send out birthday cards, so I needed to know if I have to start stockpiling cards now or if I will just have one or two grandkids to send them to.

We debated about doing life expectancy, but decided that was way too creepy. What if we did something super young like 50 and then I ended up dying at 50? And then my kids would never forgive themselves for playing this game.

Step 3

Now it is time to start eliminating options. You do this by having the person you are doing it for close their eyes. Start to draw a spiral until the person with their eyes closed tells you to stop. Draw a line through the spiral and count the number of lines in the spiral it crosses. In the example, we had 9 lines, so our number is 9.

Step 4

Starting with the letters in R.A.S.H., start to count each option until you get to nine. Cross out the ninth option. Keep counting until you get to 9 again and cross out that last option. Keep going around the page, skipping over all ready crossed out options until you have eliminated all but one of the options in each category.

Step 5

Circle the final option in each category as the others are eliminated. Once you have one option left in each category, you can now tell your future!

According to my R.A.S.H. prediction, I live in an apartment, I will have Andes mints in my candy jar (score!), I will wear glasses (my guess would have been hearing aides), I will have hair in my belly button (which is okay because most people won’t be seeing my belly button when I am 70), I will use a cane, drive a golf cart, and have 80 grandkids! Looks like I should start buying birthday cards now. Now that I know everything, I can start my retirement planning!

Have fun! Let me know if you use R.A.S.H. as your next Over-the-Hill party game and if you come up with any new categories.