A New Game with Ancient Roots

My colleagues at the lab and I have taken to a new game; the point of this game is to catch your friend off guard. It's called 'catch it or you get cancer,' and here's how it works. Some time when it is least expected, you turn to the person next to you (or on the other side of the room), shout 'catch it or you get cancer!' and hurl a bottle of some carcinogen (say hexane, or benzene - nothing too toxic) at them.

Of course if they miss, there is not immediate damage, at least after the environmental safety crew has cleaned up. In fact it is somewhat unlikely that a single exposure will cause cancer even down the road. So, you opponent is not penalized if he is too hungover a few days (aren't we all anyway?) or if he is sometimes carrying some radioactive waste that he determines should not be dropped while catching the projectile. No, Cancer will only be the result if a player repeatedly misses, and thus establishes a pattern of actually sucking at the game. That way it is fair.

Now these kinds of games have a long history. Modern philologists trace it back to the ancient Romans. One of the main weapons in the arsenal of the Roman infantry was a spear known as the pilum. The famous design trait of pila was that their tips were designed to bend or break on impact, such that they could not be thrown back. But soldiers needed practice throwing them, and this practice would require too many throws for it to be practical to destroy a pilum every time. They got around this by adding a second soldier, positioned in front of the first, who was charged with the task of catching the spear every throw. Now, this was a dangerous job and frequently resulted in injury. However, the soldiers enjoyed it so much that they made a game of it by hurling spears at their unsuspecting friends.

The game eventually caught on and continues in many forms today. These range in intensity from the common childhood practice of shouting 'think fast!' and throwing a ball to straight up Russian roulette. The first I find boring because there is not cost for losing, and the second is reckless; it leaves the loser with no chance to make his final arrangements. That is why I suggest 'catch it or you get cancer,' a perfect balance. Good times, good times.