With summer just around the corner, you are about to take a trip to Freedom City, population: you. Free time is glorious, but free time without money can seem about as senseless as taking your cousin to prom. And with the recession, there’s a 97% chance that these days, you are poor. Does that mean you and your friends have to waste your free time watching Chuck Norris b-movies on TV or playing poker with only stale potato chips to bet?!
Thankfully, no. We’re here to help. Here’s a list of things you can do with friends that cost you nothing. Except, perhaps, dignity.
- Replace walking with skipping approximately one third of the time. Especially in groups of four or more.
- When walking by people, turn to your friend and loudly tell them, “No, I will not touch you there! You still owe me for the last time.”
- DANCE
- Try going through a fast food drive-thru on a bicycle or skateboard.
- Play one of the most enlightening games ever devised: Kill, Make-out, Marry. For instance…. Brad Pitt, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Chris Martin. You have to kill one of them, make-out with another and marry the remaining one. You don’t really know your friends until you play this game and force them to confront the really tough choices in life.
- Make up stories about people you pass. Think that hairy guy mumbling to himself as he runs by is simply crazy? Maybe he’s a foreign agent just escaped from the authorities, repeating a secret string of numbers to make sure he doesn’t forget the information vital to his country.
- Think of your classmates and imagine the weirdest couples possible. Then think of what their kids would look like.
- Play Jesus or Obama. Ask your friends if they would rather go to Six Flags with a) Jesus Christ, or b) Barack Obama. How about starting a rock band—would you rather have Jesus or Obama on vocals? Another opportunity to learn about your friends’ true feelings.
- Create a narrative one word at a time with your friends, each person saying one word and passing the story off to the next person. Bonus points for genre stories like sci-fi, romance, or slasher horror.
- DANCE AGAIN
- High five constantly. Just successfully rented a DVD? Finished drinking a Coke? That deserves a high five.
- Have everyone talk in rhyme until someone goes crazy.
- Every group of friends has a movie they collectively obsess about. Pulp Fiction, Garden State, Anchorman.... Start at the beginning of the film and see how long you can quote the lines before you get stuck. My sister and I once got through the whole Lion King. Yeah, it ruled.
- License Plate Summer Checklist! See if you and your buds can spot license plates from all 50 states over the course of the summer. Weirdly addictive.
- See how long you can list words beginning with the letter A. Last person standing gets an honorary English degree.
- If you’re out with your boyfriend/girlfriend and displaying your affections near other people, say something like, “Well, we better get back home, Mom and Dad are probably wondering where we are” as you leave.
- Assign parts and sing “Bohemian Rhapsody" in a public park.
- Bark at dogs if they bark at you.
- Go trick-or-treating with a group in July and look really confused when they get really confused.
- Tell pedestrians "I'm in love with you!" as you drive past them.
- Introduce yourself to people as Harry Potter.
What games do you and your friends use to pass the time?
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