According to Google, there is no reference to Ratchet Screwdriver, the legendary game played by young Quakers the world over (and, as far as I can tell, nobody else). How it can be that Quakers from Edinburgh to California all play the same game without ever having met is a remarkable achievement of nature of proportions similar to the the near identical shapes of sharks and dolphins despite their evolutionary separation.
Some people mistake Ratchet Screwdriver as being violent. Some people mistake it as being rather too intimate. Technically it is both of these but mostly it's just great fun.
Ratchet Screwdriver was banned by BYM's Children's and Young Person's Committee. There is no way of knowing when this happened or who was consulted about the forced destruction of our heritage because BYM's committees do not make their minutes generally available. However an explanation can be found at this thread on u19s qboard (search for `co-clerks'). An anonymous reply explains the fault in their logic:
Unfortunately what you have done is to drive it underground, to make it more popular than ever. Meaning it now happens without proper supervision, it has become something cooler.
The first rule of Ratchet Screwdriver is: don't talk about Ratchet Screwdriver.
The Game
First, remove all footwear, jewelry, watches, and especially glasses. I've never known a pair of glasses to come out of Ratchet Screwdriver intact.
Ratchet Screwdriver requires an odd number of people to play, usually numbering at least 11. One person sits on their own while the others pair up and sit in a circle one member of the pair behind the other. Those sitting behind their partner may not touch the person infront, but can otherwise sit as closely as possible.
One player sits on their own, the others sit in pairs one behind the
other
The odd one out calls the names of two people sitting in the front, and those two people must compete to be the first to kiss the odd one out. The partners of the two that were called have to hold them back.
The one who kisses the caller first is the winner and now sits behind the person they managed to reach, the partner they left behind becomes the new odd one out. The other pair swap places to let the person at the back have a chance at the front.
Oh the questions
But where did this game come from? Why is it thus called Will CYPC see the error of their ways? If you have the answers to any of these, any more interesting nuggets of information or tales of Ratchet Screwdriver please do e-mail me at ratchetscrewdriver@jriddell.org.
And apparently some of them call it wink. That page explains it quite well.