Stories From My Past: The Elf

Yahtzee just got weird

Back in college, there were a lot of folks who enjoyed Dungeons and Dragons. For those who might not know, it's a Role Playing Game (RPG)... participants pretend to be wizards or warriors or whatever, and sit around a table rolling dice and talking their way through a grand adventure. It's a bunch of people all reading the same fantasy novel out loud, except they are also writing the story.

I tried it a couple of times, but got bored and quit. On the other hand, I had a couple of friends who decided that imagination and dice were not enough. They started to LARP.

LARP is "Live Action Role Playing"... basically, the same concept as an RPG, except that the participants dress in costume and act out the roles.

In other words, it's the point where RPG's start to earn a certain reputation.

1791 was the year it happened...

There were three "buddies" of mine who thought it would be fun to act out their chosen characters all the time, not just while LARP'ing. They went to class in costume. One guy (I'll generously re-name him "Joe") wore his vampire cape and novelty-store pointy teeth everywhere.

Me: "Hi, Joe."
Joe: "Do not call me 'Joe'! I am 'Lestat'!"
Me: "No, you're an idiot."

There was one guy who decided that he was an elf. Not that he would play the part of an elf... No, he decided that he literally was an elf. He studied magic. He held his hands so that it looked like he had three fingers each instead of four. He practiced writing in an elvish script.

Loosely translates to: 'You have a boogey in your nose'

He was, simply put, messed up.

He claimed one day that he had "discovered" his name. He used some funky method to generate his character's name from elvish words, but to him this was his true name. He showed off the elvish characters and told everybody that it was a two syllable name, pronounced "Chi-Tos". ("Chi", like the first part of "kite", and "Tos", like the end of "tomatoes")

Then he made the mistake of showing the English spelling. It was "Chee-Tos". His LARP group nearly died laughing.

Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed elf

"Your name is 'Cheetos'?!?"
"What? No! It's pronounced 'Chi-Tos'!"
"Is your elf orange-skinned?"
"No! Do I *look* orange-skinned?"
"Do you come from a clan named 'Free-toe-lay'?"
"Shut up!"

For weeks after that, he'd find Cheetos bags taped to his dorm room door.

He never relented on what his true name was, but I think he did eventually modify the spelling.