Hot S**t of the Day: POGS!

Last night I decided I was in much need of a few drinks....its been awhile.  As the social night turned into a full blown drink fest, one person in our group started recalling moments of his childhood days and the conversation quickly turned into a reminiscence of childhood toys and candy of the 80's and 90's.

I soon remembered my long forgotten love of POGS!  My first experience with POGS was in grade 5.  I went outside for recess one afternoon and noticed a few of the kids playing with this stack of chips.  I quickly learned that one must possess a number of POGS in order to play the game.  I knew my family would never buy me a set so the next day I went to one a geeky classmate and asked him if I could borrow a POG.  Knowing nothing about the game, he managed to separate from one of his most worn out, ugliest POGS.  He noted to me that I would need a slammer in order to play.  With one POG and slammer in hand, I made my way outside at recess to find someone who wanted to play.  By the end of the day I managed to earn more POGS than I could count and I returned the slammer and original POG to my classmate.  A new love soon developed!

Only two items were required to participate in a game of POGS; a POG and a Slammer (shown below).  The POGS were simple heavy cardboard playing chips with cartoonish designs on the front which were often laminated.  The Slammer was used to toss at the stack of POGS and were often comprised of heavy plastic or metal sometimes (metal slammers were the best for flipping the most POGS and winning!).

The rules of POGS were extremely simple.  2 players were required to contribute an equal number of POGS to a pile that were stacked vertically face down.  Usually a best of three rock, paper, scissors determined who would go first.  Each player then took took a turn throwing or "slamming" the stack of face down POGS.  Any POGS that you managed to flip over face up were yours to keep and the person who collected the most POGS after they had all been flipped up won the game.

This became almost a sport in my school, with almost everyone gambling for POGS at recess.  I remember one day I missed the bus because I was determined to be the POG champion at our school.  Eventually I collected so many POGS that my mom questioned where I had gotten all of them.  Soon after the teachers at our school banned POGS because it promoted gambling.  My love for POGS all began with one borrowed POG and Slammer.  Soon I had hundreds of them and eventually sold them all in a garage sale because POGS were banned in most schools in various countries and parents weren't too thrilled with the idea of their children gambling to add to their collection.

Nonetheless POGS taught children the importance of gambling at an early age and this makes it Hot S**t of the Day!