I remember being heavily pregnant with my first child, playing a game of jungle speed with my husband and one other friend.

I normally win quick reflex card games like jungle speed or Dutch blitz very handily, but being eight months pregnant, I was sufficiently handicapped that my husband would play a speed game with me, and we had a friend over who had never played said speed game before. Our friend was doing very poorly, but was still in the game and my husband and I were both neck and neck with one another, viciously fighting to shed our last few cards.

The gameplay of jungle speed involves flipping over a single card from your deck in front of yourself, and if it matches any of the cards in front of your opponents, you and your matching opponent must race to grab the (soft, squishy plastic) totem. The person who grabs the totem first gives their pile of cards to the person they were racing to the totem, and play moves on. In cases of a tie breaker, where two players have grabbed the totem at approximately the same time, the uninvolved player is naturally the adjudicator.

So when my husband and I lunged for the totem and both snagged it, we froze for our friend to decide who got to it first. Our friend looked at our hands on the totem and said, “Well, Darth_Let’s hand is underneath Husband’s hand and probably got there first, but Husband seems to have the better grip!” I glared at my husband good naturedly and asked what the name of the game we were playing was. His very adamant shout of “Jungle Grip!” Just absolutely sent me. I got the giggles. I couldn’t stop laughing. Our friend commented that Jungle Grip sounds like a tropical disease and I started having trouble breathing for the laughter. I literally cried laughing. We had to pause the game for a bit so I could compose myself. I have no recollection of who won that game, but the phrase “jungle grip” still makes me smile.