The Gross-Out Game has rules. We sit at the kitchen table. Dinner's done. Mommy's on the phone, the kids pick at what's left on their plates, dreaming of dessert. I spin the stem of my wine glass and decide to make up a game and so I start to speak before I know what the game is and what comes out of my mouth is: "Okay, let's play the, uh, the Gross-Out Game." Then I make up the rules. First rule is you have to use one food word and one gross word to make up the grossest thing you can think of. Second rule is each person gets a turn and then we see who wins. Whoever wins goes first for the next round. I'm judge and player. My daughter goes first. "Jelly worms." My son thinks a while. "Banana butt." I say, "Fart pickle. Okay, it's a tie, nothing's all that gross. I go first. Corn poo." "Corn poo is real." "It doesn't matter." "Potato crickets." "Like crickets sprinkled on mashed potatoes or potatoes squirted inside crickets?" "Ooh, mashed-potato crickets!" "Spinach caterpillar. Like squeezing the caterpillar and spinach comes out." "Uh, I don't know who wins. Go." "Head cheese." "Head cheese is real," I say. "Oh. Then, uh, orange pee." I seek clarification: "You mean pee juice?" "Yeah, yeah, pee juice!" "I had orange pee, after we took those vitamins." "You're up." "Okay. Um. Weiner hamburgers." "You mean like penis loaf?" "Oh, I want penis loaf." "You can't take someone else's." "Oh." "Okay, I say booger nuggets." "Like chicken nuggets?" "Okay, pee juice wins. Or whatever. Next." "Liver jelly." "Chunky testicle pudding." Laughter. We develop advertising for the product. "Chunky Testicle Pudding. Brought to you by Campbell's." "By Cannibals!" "By Can O' Balls!" "Okay, buddy, you're turn." My son says, "Salted boobs." Mt. Giggle erupts. Partly it's because we're primed by laughing at Chunky Testicle Pudding, but partly it's because his delivery is so flat and serious. He didn't think it was going to be funny at all, but we crack up. I think the visual of salted boobs on a plate in the middle of the table is so disturbingly wrongly gross that we have to laugh to keep the ickies at bay. I say something like when you salt them, the nipples shrivel up. This leads us into developing advertising for this product, too. Our favorite slogan we sing to the tune of the Lucky Charms jingle, the one with magically delicious. Except we sing--well, my wife hangs up the phone and comes back to the table and my daughter says, "Wait, all together. One, two, three." And we all sing, "Salted Boobs! They're nippley delicious!"