Did you play MASH as a child to predict your future life? I remember the playground game culminated in the most important of fortunes: "in what type of housing will I live?". The game's namesake is derived from the four possible fates: Mansion, Apartment, Shack, and House...
Other categories included future spouse, profession, type of car (I don't think we even dared to include "no car"), and location. Each category would include one perfect scenario ("red Corvette"), two mediocre, and a worst-possible-scenario ("shack"). I barely remember how to play, but there's a little refresher here that got the memories flowing.
I'm getting some giggles out of looking back on childhood conceptions of adult life played out in this game. Did you always cross your fingers for the mansion in Hawaii or the apartment in NYC? The bike (god forbid!) or the Ferrari? How would your grown-up version of the game differ from the childhood one?
(Image: via You Spilled Milk on the Telephone)
The Ultimate Used Furniture Cleaning Kit
Ana Creates a Community at Home
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Z2 iPod Dock and Wi...
Soda Recipe: Homemade Ginger Ale
Recipe: Spring Fruit and Nut Tabouli
Oh my Gosh! I completely forgot about this! How fun would it be to pull out and play at a party as adults!
hahaha great post!
In my area we called it MARSH and the R stood for Ranch. It was an acceptable alternative to the mansion.
Aww... I used to play this over and over again on long car or bus trips! We'd do number of kids (with some absurd number like 2,000 being the worst-case scenario), color of house (pea green vs. hot pink, anyone?), pet, etc... I think I'm gonna play a round with my boyfriend when I get home tonight!
I loved this game! The most exciting part was the boy you were going to marry.
My friends and I would play this game all the time. We would always have one "undesirable" boy on the list, which made it very funny, albeit immature. I told my eight year old and her friend about this game, and they thought it sounded lame. Kids these days........
I used to love doing this - we did MASH, cars, # of kids and Husband/wife too. I also used to love the folded up fortune tellers (some people called the cootie catchers) that honestly, used to contain mostly mean fortunes!
I remember my worst car would always be "rabbit" or "pinto". lololol
i've never heard of this game... but i grew up in a small town in Northern Ontario. perhaps it's regional?
I loved this game, too. And, I remember in later years, we changed it to "CMASH", and the C stood for castle - I guess the mansion was just not big enough ;).
how timely! i was JUST telling my friend about this game, he'd never heard of it and i was trying to remember all the rules to explain it to him. hilarious.
Funny. Just a few years ago this we ended up spending all night at a party playing this game. It was hilarious to do it again as adult (was in my late 20's at the time.) Even the guys were playing along.
Wow, memories! This game was awesome, I'll have to show me niece how to play when she's old enough for it to make sense.
We did "MATCH." Mansion, Apartment, Townhouse, Cottage, House. Specificity was highly important to me and my friends. We planned our lives out to the nth degree.
I work with elementary school aged kids and they're still playing this game. I had completely forgot about it until one day one boy came up and asked me if he could do my MASH. They still want the nice car and the big house for the most part. That's what I was always jones-ing for; funny how things change.
It's really neat working with kids though and seeing how much hasn't really changed - especially in how they play, what they fight about, and what games are played. You'd think it'd be all Playstations and Nintendo DS's and whatnot, but when those things aren't allowed on school premises, they go right back to playing yards, grounders, MASH, chinese skipping, tag, etc.
Love it! Thanks for bringing back the great memories.
It would have been nice to explain how it played for those of us that have never heard of it.
Sorry spoke too soon
Local Celebrity makes a MASH Tshirt - hilarious! http://www.localcelebrity.com/products/womens/funny_t-shirts/mash_t-shirt/
I went to elementary school in a depressed blue collar neighborhood so the car options were: Ford, truck, motorcycle, bus. The most important part of the game was trying to figure out who the person was secretly rooting to marry. If you were their best friend and knew their crush you would deliberately include him. Because we half way believed in the power of MASH affecting our futures. Another important source of prognostication was apple stems. We'd twist the apple stem while singing the alphabet song. The letter it broke off on was the first letter of our future husband's name. This could be repeated to acquire initials. We also did daisy chain, coke tab, and eenie meenie minne moe predictions about the same thing.
What a great post! We also played MARSH though, where ranch was an option like ShopGirl said... funny though cause I always thought my friend made the R up!
I had completely forgotten about this too! I remember many of the games, and I know I am not close to acheiving in life what we played and ended up with in the game!
So many games to remember! I really want to go play MASH now!
you know, I tried playing this game for shits and giggles recently, and you're right -- it was TOTALLY different from when I was a child! the things I wanted as a kid (the limousine, the mansion, to be a doctor with 1 MILLION DOLLARS and married to Charles in Charge) seem so funny. Now my ideal MASH would look more like: the Prius, the home in New Zealand in last month's issue of Dwell, to NOT be a doctor... and have 1 million dollars. I guess some things never change.
JTT! hahahaha
MASH on the chalkboard at lunch on rainy days when we were stuck inside... Then someone would break out that origami-ish flower thing with the numbers and the fortunes under the flaps. What was that called?
definitely made one today with a more adult theme: http://jhische.com/blog/mash.jpg I have a feeling i'll be making these all the time now. nostalgia!
I loved this game!!!!! Most of my school notebooks where full of pages with MASH games on it. I think we did husband, # of kids, car, and city/country of residence.
desertacacia, coke tabs with the alphabet song! We did that too! Wow, now I feel like I'm 8 all over again. :)
hahaha nice!
Ah, memories.
I often wondered what was going on with the giggling girls in class and now I know. As an adult, and a scientist, am I most square if I call out that the math above may be wrong? For the number 8, I get Apartment, Ben Berger, Art, A, Smart, and Good. I can't believe I just did that...!
Must be generational. I never heard of this, either.
Here's an online version of MASH: http://www.espin.com/mash-game.php?trip=833
It's still fun!
Maybe Octomom took MASH too seriously and just got a really awkward outcome.
I looove the inclusion of 'JTT.' He was always at the top of my MASH wishlist.
Our "perfect" game was always a mansion in California with 2 kids, a Porsche 911 and married to A.R., the cutest boy in our grade. Great memories. :)
We played this constantly! If somebody got the boy they wanted, but also got "shack," we inevitably sang "Love Shack."
I still want my Jaguar.
awww... i loved to play this with my sister when i was little
I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and we played it too. Sometimes I sorta cheated by putting all the cute boys' names.
We used to have this as a skipping game... starting with WHO will I MARRY? Then you go throught the alphabet until you trip, and pick a boy you know with that name. Same with 'how many BABIES will I HAVE', etc. Except we were obviously not aiming as high. We had 'house, mansion, pigsty, toilet.'
In a similar vein, I recently played Hasbro's Game of Life™ and was bored out of my skull - also appalled! The little pink and blue tokens, everyone HAS to get married and have kids, you win the game by getting the mansion...
i was, like, what the?= oh yeah, i remember
HAHAHAHA OMG!!!!!!!!!!! I just got really nostalgic for a moment!!!! We played mash all through out elementary school and junior hs. It was pretty much THE TRUTH as far as we were concerned!!!! However, we had boys to marry (of course), how many kids, honeymoon location (it was always Hawaii, Paris, or New York... those were the off hand places we knew), what car (usually between a lambergini, carvette like barbie drove, or a jeep- and yes we spelled it just like that!), can't remember the rest! :'(
::tear::