Punch Buggy

When I was a child, one of the magical and increasingly rare highlights of any day was to land a victory punch on an unsuspecting companion in the classic game of Punch Bug Spotting.

Never would I have believed, until five months ago, that there existed Americans who did not know of this game; cautious in my recent experience of punch-bug ignorance, however, I will explain the rules. They are but two: that (1) Whosoever espies a true, original, Volkswagon bug in any recognizable state of repair has license to [gently] punch their companion, while informing the victim of the color of applicable punch-buggy for their verification. Naturally, rule (2) follows that since any spotter can punch, after revealing the presence of the bug in question the punch initiator had better protect him or herself from an eye-for-eye reprisal by calling "No back-tacks". These are the only two rules, rendering the entire planet a free-for-all for whoever has the quickest eye, fist, and claim-calling combination (which I usually didn't), and explaining why the game was so enormously attractive to the five, seven, or ten-year-old versions of myself.

I say five, seven, or ten, but in truth I have never really stopped playing the Punch Bug Game. It is more the sad disappearance of true VW bugs around the time of their modern replacement than any onset of maturity that caused bug-punching to peter out of my life in middle and high school. My assumption at the time was that true punch bugs were nearing extinction, and that I had better get used to their sleek, shiny, more highly evolved strain and relegate the days of the true Punch-Buggy and bug-punching glory to the fond memory archives of my childhood.

But not so.. punch-bugs, I have been delighted to discover, live on in their own unassuming afterlife.. for Africa is where punch-bugs come to die.

I first noticed this on a side street in Khartoum, probably not more than a week into the trip. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a sight I hadn't seen in years, one that made my heart leap so suddenly with unexpected joy I almost forgot myself before leaping into action - had David already seen it?? - I flew to punch him first, hollering the triumphal cry of the puncher: "BLUE-PUNCH-BUGGY-NO-BACK-TACKS!!"

David stopped short, staring, bewildered at his lightning defeat. Well, of course I could sympathize with that - he had just missed the only punch-bug opportunity either one of us might see for the entire trip, and even in my impromptu victory dance I well understood that anyone would be upset.

David, however, was remarkably obtuse to the causes behind the swift and unexpected blow he had received. How foolish, to forget such a classic game - even in a ten-year lapse of punch-bug activity - or fail to apreciate the implicitly global nature of the playing field! I began to chide him mericlessly for it.

Difficult and slow was it for me to grasp that David - hold onto your hats here - had never played the punch-buggy game and - WORSE - did not even know of its existence. !!! The mind boggles. What about popular culture?? I demanded. Books, television, movies?? "Heck," I demanded in frightened defense of such a time-honored institution, "what'd you think we called them 'punch-buggies' for anyway??"

He denied ever even having heard such a term.

Well, I wasn't about to let his incomprehensible ignorance rain on my punch-bug parade; it was just too bad he was the only plausible victim within arm's reach for the next eight months and when we (incredibly!) saw another VW bug two weeks later, he was pummelled a second time. "Green-punch-buggy-no-back-tacks!"

The confusion of the first attack was now replaced with an annoyance that threatened to grow dangerous if my hit-and-runs were repeated. A small voice of reason piped that I should let it go; it wasn't worth it, it wasn't adult, and it wasn't fair in any case to play against an uninitiated. But punch-bugs were too deeply absorbed into my character - years of being punched by my quicker, smarter sisters and much quicker, smarter dad meant that a punch-bug victory was like a golden trophy, the pennant of glory for the youngest and slowest member of the family to wave in triumph for the few hours (or minutes) before it would inevitably be snatched back: the Holy Grail of my childhood. Despite losing almost every time, I had revered the Punch Bug Game with an ardency explicable only by my youth (but which the onset of adulthood has done little to erode). To let a VW-Bug pass quietly by with no comment, as if nothing had happened, was unthinkable.

And besides, I had fully explained to him both rules. He was just as eligible as I to be the puncher instead of the punchee. As far as I was concerned, the playing field was level, and let the punching begin.

Not even I expected the massacre that awaited in the capital of Ethiopia, however. The streets of Addis Adeba were lined with '60s Volkswagons in all shapes and sizes, and classic punch-bugs proliferated in every color of the rainbow. (No, really - favorites were burnished gold, turquoise with white racing stripes, and iridescent purple.) After perhaps his 20th time getting punch-bug-punched, David announced in a voice that brooked no discusion that he was through, and declared a moratorium on the Punch Bug Game.

I was nettled. This was the punch-bug paradise I'd been waiting for since age 10, when true punch bugs began to melt out of the West like roaches at a Raid party. No Punch Bug Game? On what grounds?? "You know, you can play too," I charged. "I don't wanna play!" he snapped. I was pretty sure the maneuver was illegal but could think of no, and mutinously began to count up all the punches I was missing out on. I made it to 77 before we left the capital a day later.

It was well into March before I ventured another punch. I had let about a dozen beautiful opportunities slip by, quietly tacking them on to my embittered total of Denied Punch Bugs, but as the memory of the Addis VW Spree faded I began to hope for a gradual and perhaps unnoticeable punch-bug recussitation. My first tentative efforts, quiet and delicate, won looks of contempt but no damning decrees, and soon we were back to the normal pre-Addis level of a few punches a week. I'm not actually a terribly observant person, but after a decade of scouring streets for a punch bug even the chancest glimpse of one of those pastel rounded roofs has the effect of a mild electric shock. Before long, it had a similar effect on David, who began to associate old VWs with vague yet impending danger. He never attempted a counter-attack, though, preferring to retaliate with snide comments relating to his being engaged in some other task, such as finding a taxi or changing money, which might have trumped vintage-car spotting. Such remarks always carried the unmistakeable whiff of superiority; the implication, of course, was that perhaps I ought to restructure my priorities.

I knew better.

But as always happens when one's competition is sub-par, I too got slower, and lazy. No need to race to the punch, really. It would still be there, and let's face it - so would David.

And so it happened one watershed morning about four months into the trip that, as I drifted in and out of cognizance in a share-taxi station wagon, David caught sight of a punch bug and thought : Red-punch-bug. With a stroke of brilliance he identified the ready opportunity and a negligent victim, and spluttering "RED PUNCH BUG! RED PUNCH BUG!" he began to wail on my shoulder with the zeal of a beaten-down underdog suddenly clawing its way to the top. He was so excited that he punched me six or seven times. Irked at the unexpected reversal, I archly informed him that You're only allowed one punch per bug, before punching him back because he had neglected to preclude that possibility by calling no back-tacks. He was oblivious to anything but his triumph. The impossible had come; he had beat me at my own game; anything could happen. I was similarly affected and began to keep greater vigilance, getting him back with another one a few hours later.

At five months, I have now probably punched David close to five hundred times (not counting, of course, the Lost Bugs of Ethiopia). For his part, David claims 24 victories, a modest total until I add that 22 were in the last fortnight, and 21 of those this afternoon in a memorable drive through what could only have been the Final Resting-Place of Punchbugs while the other passengers leaned away from us with looks of alarm and disapproval. Then the moment came - a white bug loomed up suddenly by the side of the road. Instantaneously, we both whirled in our cramped seats, fists almost colliding on their way to target, blurting "WHITE PUN--" Recognition dawned of mutual victory and mutual defeat, and I realized: He is worthy of the Punch Bug Game.

I suppose every master worth her talent must one day come to see herself challenged by her prodigy... but I pity the next person he takes to Africa.