The Game! (or The Part of Me That Hasn't Grown Up)

I have recently been indoctrinated into a game played by many of my nines. It started last week when I was setting up before class started. One of my students suddenly said, "Shoot! I lost the game!" Puzzled, I looked up and she asked me if I knew about The Game. When I told her I didn't she said, "The point of The Game is that you forget you're in The Game. Once you remember that you're in The Game then you're out and you have to tell everyone around you that you're out of The Game. Then they're in The Game." I stared at her for a moment and then asked her to repeat it. They're quite used to this sort of reaction from me so she didn't hesitate to explain a second time. So then I ask, "So you just have to forget... that's all?" And she says "Yeah, that's it." So I'm like, "Does this mean that I'm in The Game now?" And she's all, "Yeah, now you're playing The Game and you have to forget that you're playing The Game." So I'm all super-confident and I'm like, "No problem! My brain's like a sieve, I'm totally going to do this!" I mean, I leave the house without putting gel in my hair and lots of other really important stuff like that. No way I was going to remember about The Game! Not one hour passed and another student was asking me about a point of grammar. I was saying, "Okay, when you're working with relative clauses, you have to remember..." I paused for a nanosecond to frame my next words and in that instant my ferret-like mind inserted "The Game." So I was out... and I was pissed. Since then, I've found out that The Game keeps going, even after you've fouled out.

BTW, now all of you who've read this are in The Game. Enjoy!