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One of the aspects of marriage is learning about differences in how the other was raised.  For instance, one thing I learned early in the marriage is that you don’t need to refrigerate ketchup.  Everybody I know puts his ketchup in his fridge.  But think about it: no restaurants do.  And nowhere on the bottle does it say “Refrigerate after opening”.  But we keep ours in the fridge because we don’t go through it as fast as restaurants do, and better safe than sorry.

Another item involves the words to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Not the real words, but the extra, unofficial words that you learned as a child in school: “like a lightbulb”, “like Pinocchio”, “like hoofball”, “yippee”, and “like George Washington”.  It’s the part that follows “join in any reindeer games” on which my wife and I disagree.  She insists the words are “like Monopoly” instead of “like hoofball”.

I don’t know what part of Monopoly has to do with reindeer, but it is a common enough phrase in the US.  It seems that “George Washington” isn’t that popular either.  According to my informal survey of websites, more people claim “Columbus” than “George Washington” for the part following “you’ll go down in history”, and most people claim “Monopoly”.  “Hoofball” is obscure.

But how can a reindeer play Monopoly?  They can’t hold the cards!  And the names that Rudolph is called, either Dumbo or Pinocchio?  Why are they always Disney characters?  I sense a lot of stealth marketing, which might be why I prefer hoofball – there’s no one to benefit by promoting hoofball.

If you need more evidence, just look at the letter that Rudolph writes (it’s in section E).  When he discusses the reindeer games that he plays, do you see Monopoly listed there?  No, but you do see hoofball.

“So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the sons of Israel.”
– Deuteronomy 31:22