LAST WORDS

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This one is kind of a nasty game, and also tricky to pull off, since it requires that the person being tickled know the rules and supply a maximum time limit; the element of surprise is essential.

The best approach is to explain the game to your prospective tickle-victim when you first start to get to know him. Explain that there is this game you heard about, tell him the rules, and then ask casually what kind of time limit he would demand if he were playing it. (I'd give a limit like 4 hours, but others might feel differently about it!) If he refuses to set a time and says, "I wouldn't play it at all," you should probably forget it. But if he gives you a time limit, remember it, but say nothing more about the game until the fateful day arrives. Don't let him know you're even thinking about doing it!

The game will work best if you have more than 1 tickler. Your victim needs to have already been restrained, but shouldn't have been gagged yet. Somebody has to be near enough to put the gag in, but if another tickler is, e.g., out of the room at the time, you can engage your victim in conversation during the "delay" to distract him from what you are about to do. It actually works best if you can get your victim engrossed in telling you something (e.g., a joke) that requires his concentration, or in responding to a remark on a subject that he feels strongly about, so that when "last words" hits, he will have to tear himself away from what he was saying to respond to it.

What happens is this:

Suddenly, without any warning, one of the ticklers holds a gag about 2 inches from the victim's mouth and yells, "Last words . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . 0" (counting off 3 seconds). The victim's task is to call out an amount of time. The person holding the gag can stuff it in the victim's mouth as soon as (a) the count reaches zero, or (b) the victim calls out a time (whichever comes first). If the victim calls out a time and isn't happy with it, he can call out a new time up until the gag is stuffed in his mouth, and that new time takes precedence (so the person holding the gag should stuff it in as soon as the victim calls out a time, to prevent him from changing it).

The scoring is as follows:

If the victim can't think fast enough to say a time before the gag is stuffed in his mouth, he gets tickled for the maximum time he specified. If the time he calls out is greater than the maximum time he specified, he gets tickled for the maximum time. If the time he calls out is less than the amount of time they were planning to tickle him for, the person holding the gag calls out, "Abort!" and pulls the gag away, and they tickle him according to their original plan. (It is legal to try "last words" a second time after an abort, but it's unlikely to work, since the victim is likely to be prepared for it.) If the victim calls out an amount of time that is more than they were planning to tickle him for, but less than the maximum he specified, they tickle him for that amount of time.

The theory behind "last words" is that the victim is unlikely to be able to think out a reply in 3 seconds. So there's a decent chance that he either won't call out a time at all, or else he'll call out the first time that comes into his mind (which could turn out to be a fairly long one!).

Hint: If somebody, for some reason, mentions an amount of time shortly before you pull a "last words", that amount of time may stick in the victim's mind and may be the one he calls out. But DON'T give your victim this hint when you are explaining the game, since, if he knows it, somebody mentioning an amount of time may warn him that "last words" is coming!

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