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POLO RELAY
Other mints are available, but they don’t really work for this game.
The natural opposite of a toothpick is a Polo mint – it’s edible, circular with a hole and no pointy bit. Clearly then, we must combine the two in a game. Get your group into two equal teams, give each member a toothpick and get them to stand in a line, one behind the other. At the front of each line place a full pack of Polo mints, and at the end of the line place an empty dessert bowl.
Explain to the group that it’s a team race, where they compete to be the first team to transfer all the Polos from the packet at the front to the bowl at the end of the line. The rules are simply that the Polos can only be moved, one at a time, by toothpick, that those toothpicks must be held in the mouth (no hands allowed), and the Polo must be passed along by every member of the team before being deposited in the bowl.
The person at the front is allowed to hold the Polo packet in their hands, and open it - but the Polo must be placed onto the toothpick without being touched, and it must then be passed onto the toothpick of the person behind them without any touching it, and so on. Once the person at the back has deposited the Polo in the bowl (still without touching it) they shout out ‘Polo’, so the person at the front knows to start another Polo on its journey. Once the final mint is in the bowl the team sits down and shouts out ‘We’ve got the (w)hole packet in the bowl’.
Any dropped Polos have to continue their journey, being picked up from the ground still without any hands being used! If the journey of the Polo to the back of the teams is taking too long you could allow a new Polo to be passed once the previous one passes the midpoint of the line.
MARSHMALLOW CONSTRUCTION
A game that involves playing with food - your mother will be furious.
In fact, the real natural opposite of a toothpick is of course not the Polo, but the marshmallow – it’s soft, squishy, thick and edible. So once again, we must combine the two in a game. Get your group into small groups of two or three. Give each group a full packet of marshmallows and as many toothpicks as they want, and get them to make the most creative 3-D sculpture that they can in five minutes. It’s as easy as that - allow them to consume their creations at the end.
M&M MOVE
Using toothpicks in place of Chinese cooking utensils? WOK-ever next!
Guess what? The actual real natural opposite of a toothpick is neither the Polo nor the marshmallow, but instead the M&M – it’s small, round, edible, sugar-coated and multi-coloured. So unsurprisingly, we’re going to combine the two in a game. Divide your group into as many teams as there are different colours of M&Ms or some such other small, rounded, multi-coloured confectionery such as Skittles, Smarties, or, as it’s the correct time of year, Mini eggs. Pour a big bag or two of your chosen confectionery into a big bowl in the middle of the room. Give each team an empty bowl, placed equally far away from the central bowl in different parts of the room, and enough toothpicks for each team member to have a pair.
Explain that this is not exactly a game, but more of a generous move on your part to allow the group to consume some sweets, except you want them to earn their reward by demonstrating a level of skill, dexterity, and cultural awareness. Giving each team a colour of sweet to target, tell them that at the end of each round they get to eat all the sweets of that colour that they have managed to transfer from the central bowl to their team bowl, with the rule being that they can only transport one sweet at a time, and it has to be done only using the toothpicks. They can use these in a chopstick style, or holding one in each hand as a poor imitation of a knife and fork, but they cannot touch the sweets with their hands (or any other body-part).
Give them a bit of time to practise their toothpick skills, before giving them 30 seconds to collect as many of their coloured sweets as they can. At the end of the time check their stash, and for each one of the wrong colour that they have collected, take away one of their target sweets. Count up how many each team has collected before letting them consume their stash. Repeat this a few times, each time swapping the colours around, so that the teams are trying to collect different colours each time. Continue until you run out of sweets, or the group no longer wants to eat any more, which seems very unlikely. Make sure you pick up any sweets that fall between the central bowl and the team bowls so they don’t get trodden into the carpet / floor.
BALLOON VS TOOTHPICK: THE FINAL BATTLE
The most climactic and shocking finale since the last series of I’m a celebrity get me out of here!
I’m sure you can see where this is going, but the real, genuine, no arguments, actual, 100 per cent, bona fide opposite of the toothpick is the balloon – it’s large, rubbery, and filled with air. So obviously, we’re going to combine them into a game! In advance, collect an equal number of two colours of balloons (the more the better), inflate them, tie them up and put them into large bin bags for ease of corralling.
Divide your group into two teams, and give each team a colour and each team member a toothpick. Explain to them that the age-old battle between inflatable objects and pointy objects is to be settled finally there and then, and that you will be holding a contest to see which team can pop all of their coloured balloons using only their toothpicks the quickest - this isn’t as easy as it initially sounds. An added difficulty is that they can’t trap the balloons to keep them still. Scatter the balloons across your meeting space, step back, put your ear plugs in and start the contest. The losing team has to help pick up all the shards of popped balloon that will litter your otherwise immaculate meeting area.
