Some man with a crew cut vs. a woman with a pixie cut while the salisbury steak simmers. Mmm, salisbury steak.

You are a hungry man in the year 1953 who just came home from work / the Korean War.  Your dinner isn’t quite ready yet, though it’s on the stove cooking.  Your wife, your property is in front of you. Fists are clenched.  Frank Sinatra is blaring from somewhere.  

Strip a mattress of all blankets/pillows and place a paper or plastic bowl filled almost to the brim with red-dyed water on the foot of the bed.  Don’t play this on one of those dumb memory foam beds. They didn’t exist in the 50’s and they’re dumb.  Place a single d6 about 1 foot to the right of the bowl.

You’re going to beat your wife.  While standing at the foot of the bed, roll the d6 three times to get phrase seeds for the verbal abuse that precedes the violence.  Scream these out loud while allowing your mind’s eye to churn out images of steak and frozen battlefields. If you repeat yourself, say the phrase louder each time.  Say other stuff if you want.

SEEDS:

1- “I FOUGHT IN WAR!”, 2- “I’M THE MAN.”, 3- “I’M HUNGRY!”, 4- “FUCK YOU.”, 5- “WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY.”, 6- “FUCK WITH ME!”

After you finish rolling, place the dice about 1 foot in front of you while still keeping it parallel to the bowl.  Set the dice to “1.”

Place your hand about 1½ feet away from the bowl.  Punch the bed once as hard as you’d like.  If the dice lands on a 6, your wife reaches for the rolling pin and knocks you out, and the game ends immediately*.  If the dice lands on another number, shout something unintelligible. If the dice doesn’t roll to another face, you didn’t hit her hard enough.  Try again. Are you a man or a mouse?

Move the dice away from you another foot, then throw another punch.  

If the dice lands on a 6, you’ll be seeing stars.  Rolling pin stars, that is. Ouch. If it lands on another number, tell your wife why this fight is her fault and move the dice ahead another foot.

Keep throwing punches and moving the dice farther away.  Say something each time you punch. Something angry, guttural, or true, or false.  Avoid that damnable pin.  

Whenever you throw a punch, move your hand closer to the bowl.  Relish the red stains on your mitts, but show some restraint. She’s the mother of your children, you son of a bitch.  

If you turn the dice over and flip the bowl, knock it off the bed, or drain all the water out of it, you kill her.  Go to jail, bastard.  

If moving the dice would move it off of the bed, she leaves you for a man who looks like John Wayne.  Sorry, pardner.    

If you absolutely can’t move the dice, hard as you may try, she’s able to escape and run to her sister’s.  Shame on you. Are you sure you can’t move it? Keep swinging until the bowl’s empty—you’ll just be hitting drywall—or abandon your efforts.  Weakling.  

“Red everywhere, yikes.” is what Joe McCarthy probably said, and what you might be saying now.

When the wifey is gone—or when you’ve done too much damage to your property—stop playing and think about how silly you looked punching your bed.  Think about other stuff, too. Like salisbury steak. 

*Variant Rule:  Knock the rolling pin out of her hands and keep playing.