You’ve certainly heard about it by now. The game that ruined friendships, reinforced trust issues, and had teachers wondering why the hell their students spent the last five minutes of class duct taping their phone to their pants. Now that the Spoon Game is finally over and the winner has officially been crowned (congrats Chloe Eng ’23!), I thought it would be a productive use of time to describe the top ten missed opportunities and strategies that the competitors did not consider — Juniors, thank me later.

1. Have two fac-brats stand on top of each other and wear a trench coat to pretend to be you

2. Paint yourself in full brick body paint and lay on the Senior Path

3. Tell everyone you’re eliminated, and that you’re just walking with books taped to your feet because you’re insecure about your height

4. Give your target some ice cream and offer your spoon to eat it with

5. Call your target from an unknown caller ID and say that you are trying to reach them about their car’s extended warranty, and that they need to go to the lot before their car gets towed

6. Hide in the tunnels running beneath campus

7. Try some cartoon-esque tricks, like getting a lasso and rounding up your target or leaving a banana peel for them to slip on

8. Make very backhanded compliments about your target’s sunglasses, such as “your shades really accentuate your nose” or “It’s really brave of you to appropriate blind culture so blatantly” until they get so insecure they take them off

9. Go to the mailroom and hide in a package with your target’s name in it

10. Sign up for a Senior Project that’s off-campus to escape the wrath of the spoon

There you have it. The top ten best strategies for the Spoon Game. Maybe if I had used any of these, I would’ve made it to Week Two.