Hold onto your butts ladies and gentlemen because this will be a long blog post! One day, Groupon posted a deal for an “Eco-Friendly Party Bus.” It was a really good deal, so one of my 2 roommates named Emily (yes, both are named Emily – it makes it super easy to remember), asked us other two if we’d like to split it with her. How could we say no?

As soon as we read over the fine print, however, we realized the bus had a limited capacity of 14 people. With the 3 of us as passengers, that only left room for 11 more people. How would we ever decide who gets those remaining spots?

Then, it dawned on us – The Thirst Games.

We’d host a day where all our friends could compete for entries into the reaping and then we’d randomly draw out 11 names. It was genius. Not only did it give me a nerd boner, but it also would ensure no one’s feelings got hurt by us hand picking passengers. AND it would make a kick ass party.

So, we announced our intent to host the Thirst Games on Facebook and those who knew they’d be in the running were overjoyed. The Facebook post got a ton of comments and likes but one comment stood out among the rest. Our friend Brittany responded, “I volunteer as tribute!”

Now, that’s just clever and clearly she deserves a spot on the bus for that.

We now had 10 spots to give and the Thirst Games were finally underway (months and months and months after we had actually announced the Games, mind you). Below is our itinerary. For every game won, players would get an additional entry into the “reaping,” where we would select our 10 riders. So in this reaping, you want to have as many names in as possible and you want to get selected.

1. Dodge the Fireball and Place Your Bet
· Players who took a fireball shot got a name in the reaping. Not surprisingly, every single person who came took the shot.
· Players bet on who would get the most points. The person who got the most votes from other players would get a name in the reaping. The people who guessed correctly were awarded points at the end of the games.

2. Collect Drinking Water
· Players ran to the lake (big bucket we use to ice kegs) and fill their spoon with water and pass it off to the next player in their team. The first team to fill their bucket on the other side up to the line won. There were tons of people at the park who thought we were all crazy. I won’t argue with you park spectators because you’re probably correct.

3. Save Peeta: Get Peeta to the cave of safety (Three-legged race)
· Players were split into teams of two and competed in a three-legged race. Get it? Because Peeta hurt his leg? We’re clever.

4. Sponsor Parachute Drop: Get your egg to your tribute
·  Players had 15 minutes to build their “sponsor parachute,” aka a device containing an egg that we drop from the balcony, ala third grad science. Whoever successfully got their egg to the tribute below without breaking the egg won a name in the reaping. Not surprisingly, everyone won this particular activity, that might be why it’s meant for third graders.

5. Bombing of District 13 (beer pong)
· A tournament of beer pong. We selected partners at random.

6. Interview with Caesar Flickerman
· Everyone participated in an interview with Caesar Flickerman (Brittany).

7. Outsmart Foxface (trivia)
· Hunger Games, Kim/Emily/Emily, Tracy Brown trivia. Basically, we made up Hunger Games trivia questions and asked various questions about ourselves and our favorite person: T-Brown.

8. Pin the Rose on President Snow
– Like pin the tail on the donkey but we had a large printout of President Snow and the tributes had to pin a rose as close to the rose on his chest as possible. Closest player got a name in the reaping.

9. Girl on Fire
· The fastest player to eat two jalapeno peppers won. Really, this was not our best idea. The winner was very, very sick and everyone who participated needed a long recovery. We also didn’t have milk or other fire-taming items on hand so many people were spooning Greek yogurt and downing pieces of bread to try to ease the pain.

10. District 12 Reaping Relay (ala Catching Fire)
· Teams of 3. The fastest team to complete the relay won.
· Peeta Toss: The first player must eat a hole in their pita and toss it onto a post.
· Needle in a Haymitch Stack: The second player must put on a blindfold and dig through a bowl of rice to find the nightlock berry.
· Target Your Inner Katniss: The third player must hit a target with an arrow.

11. Gamemakers Challenge (puzzle)
· The first team to complete their puzzle won.

12. Escape from the Tracker Jackers (Basically tag)
·  This Game was scratched due to time. It would have been: Players must wear flags and escape from the Tracker Jacker. If a Tracker Jacker pulls your flag you are out. After 10 players are out, the remaining players must move within the mulch area. The last player standing wins.

13. Fight to the Death
· Survivor flip cup, teams of 5. The winning team all got their name in the bowl. No one vomited so aren’t we all winners?

The Gamemakers were then supposed to watch the interviews and decide which player has the best interview, but this was also not done because of time. At this point, it was well after 10pm and nearly everyone was drunk or had hit a wall. Each player’s wins are totaled and names are added to the bowl. The Gamemakers went over the Betting of the Odds and  announced who won the bet. The Gamemakers then announced who won the “secret” points. The secret point list is:

1. First player to arrive

2. First player to give each of the gamemakers a drink

3. First player to quack ala Mighty Ducks

4. Each player who can eat at least 1 pepper

5. Each player who dresses up

6. The player with the best sportsmanship

7. First player to initiate a group shot

8. First player to get injured

9. First player to say “this is stupid” or “fuck this”

10. Drunkest player

11. Each player who initiates a cheers

12. Either last player standing in Battle of the Death

13. First player to put up three fingers for Rue

Then, we had the reaping and drew out 10 names. Unfortunately, the player with the most names in the reaping did not get drawn and the whole thing was a lot more awkward than we expected. Not so surprisingly, the drunkest player was also the first to get injured and the first to say “fuck this” and managed to get on the bus, probably due to all those extra secret points.

The odds were in favor of 10 lucky tributes and the party bus is this weekend. We couldn’t be more excited. Next time though, we might just want to host the Thirst Games and then surprise everyone with two party buses! Next time…