KashiaExplores: Tales of Discovery

There are places so boring that time itself seems to slow down, as if even the universe is taking a nap. I found myself in one of these places once—a frozen wasteland disguised as my friend Qna’s grandparents’ house.

Now, I had no idea what I was signing up for when Qna invited me over. Had I known, I would have faked the flu, a broken leg, or possibly my own disappearance. But naive and trusting, I said yes. Big mistake.

We arrived to find a black-and-white TV that probably predated dinosaurs, fields covered in endless snow, and no shops, no books, no crayons, no board games, no internet, and—brace yourself—no mobile phones. Just two elderly people with questionable hearing abilities, which meant all conversations consisted of yelling basic phrases like, “I SAID I’M HUNGRY!” while they smiled and nodded, probably assuming we were complimenting their doilies.

Trapped in this twilight zone of dullness, Qna and I had no choice but to entertain ourselves. We started with charades—classic. First, we did movies, then animals, then countries. Eventually, scraping the bottom of the entertainment barrel, we turned to acting out people from our class. We exaggerated their quirks, mimicked their habits, and probably became Oscar-worthy impersonators in the process. We laughed so hard that, miraculously, we survived the ordeal with our sanity (mostly) intact.

But what if we had been stuck there for a week? That’s where things get interesting. We might have re-invented Monopoly from memory, sculpted a full potato village, organized Grandma’s wardrobe (borderline intrusive, but desperate times call for desperate measures), or even attempted cooking—though, given our skill level, that might have ended in an unplanned kitchen fire. The boredom would have forced us into a new level of creativity, turning us into survivalist artists of entertainment.

Looking back, maybe boredom isn’t the enemy—it’s the secret ingredient to unlocking untapped genius. Or at least, a surefire way to discover that even pretending to be a classmate who snorts when they laugh is better than staring at snow-covered nothingness.

Moral of the story? If a friend invites you to their grandparents’ house in the middle of nowhere, ask questions first. And bring Monopoly.