High stakes at summer camp

On the way home from their summer day camp, Alison, Alex and Hannah were updating each other on how they spent their day. Hannah, nearly an adult, is in the teen camp. Alex and Hannah took Safe Sitter this week. All three are now graduates and fully trained in the art of sitting with babies. But that's not where their education has ended. "Alex and I were playing cards and he bet half his life he could beat me, and then he bet his other half  that he could beat me. Now I own him." "What were you playing," Hannah inquired. "BS." "I was playing that once with my grandma and I didn't think it was appropriate so I told her it was called Tuna Fish," Hannah said. You could feel the eye rolls and gestures from the back seat as the card sharks tried to pass off the name of the game without getting into trouble. "It's called Baloney Sandwich," Alison volunteered. Sounded like BS to me, but I didn't issue any punishments. I was too busy thinking up ways to use Alex. I mean if Alison owns him, surely we can make him do chores or something. I mentioned the high stakes game to Jeff as Alison, Alex and I were leaving an Indianapolis Indians' game last night. He's also pondering what we might be able to do with Alison's newest acquisition. Jeff asked if maybe Alex might like to gamble with him. Proving that bluffing is not his forte, Alex, demurred. "Alison already owns me," he said. BS, by the way, is a game where you divvy up the deck and then try to get rid of all your cards by successively offering up what you have in aces, ones, twos, etc... If you don't have any of the number that you're on, you still have to contribute. Should someone call you on your BS, you have to pick up all the cards save the ace of spades that gets things started. I am the BS winner in the two games we played this morning here at Chez Reed. In this house, that's saying something.