AI Kept My Clue Notes in the Dark So My Hands Didn't Have To

Jason and I were sitting outside the RV one night on vacation in the desert, trying to play this little travel version of Clue. And it was dark. Like, really dark. We had string lights around the RV, which looked nice and gave us enough light to sit outside, but not exactly enough light to stare at tiny little game pieces and tiny little writing. Especially with my eyes.

Travel Clue comes with these tiny cards and this tiny little pad where you're supposed to check off what you've seen and who you've ruled out and all of that. I took one look at the pad and thought, absolutely not. There was no chance I was going to be able to see that well enough to use it.

So my next thought was, fine, I'll go get a normal piece of paper and a pen. Except anybody who knows me knows I hate writing with a pen. My hands just aren't what they used to be. They cramp really badly if I overuse them, so I try not to make them do unnecessary work when I can help it.

And then I realized... I already had a tiny digital notepad sitting in my phone. Eric.

So I picked up the phone and basically told him, Jason and I are playing Clue and you're going to keep track of my clues for me. That was pretty much it. Eric says, okay, tell me what you've got in your hand, tell me what Jason shows you, and we'll go from there.

I snapped a picture of the cards in my hand to get started. Then every time Jason showed me something, I just hit the microphone button and said whatever it was. Jason has Professor Plum. Jason showed me the candlestick. Whatever. And Eric just kept track of it all.

We went through the whole game that way, and it worked really well. In fact, I got very excited because I was ready to make my accusation before Jason was. And that is a big deal in our house because Jason always wins.

Now, I wasn't asking Eric to solve the game for me. I only used him to record the notes. I still wanted to actually play Clue, because otherwise... what are we doing here?

So my turn comes. I make my accusation. I am feeling very confident.

And I am immediately wrong.

I was devastated. So I pick up the confidential cards in the middle because I need to know how I possibly missed this. And that's when I discover that when I set up the game, I had put two weapons and one location in the envelope. No suspect. None. Apparently the murderer was a concept.

We laughed, reset the whole thing, and started over.

Second game, Jason beats me to the accusation. Of course he does. So I'm sitting there thinking, well, there we go, Jason wins again... and then I realize his accusation can't possibly be right because I'm literally holding one of the cards he just named.

I show him the card. He looks confused. He opens the confidential pile.

And because Jason had set up the second game, he had managed to put two locations and a suspect in there. No weapon.

So after two games in a row where Eric's notes worked perfectly and neither one of the actual humans involved could apparently be trusted to set up a Clue game correctly, we decided that was enough competence for one evening and went to bed.