Wanna Be Frustrated? Let's Play A Game!

 I am a little bored and a lot frustrated; for a variety of reasons and not just because the US is on fire.

I decided that I needed a distraction.  I chose a game I usually play around Thanksgiving, thanks to Ross Geller.  Click here if you have no idea what I'm talking about: States Game

Name all 50 states. That's it, that's the game.  Sounds simple, perhaps. I invite you to try.

I have a system, starting with:

The region where I live.  

Then I go down the coast until I run out states.

Now return upward to the next region, until I run out of states.

I am not so much good with the midwest/rust belt part of our nation so it starts to fall apart there.

Then I do the Deep South...and invariably miss one. (Tennessee, this time)

Then the Eastern Seaboard.

Now at this point I'm grasping at anything.  

I tried to name the 13 Colonies and am embarrassed to admit that I named eight.  I even tried thinking of Hamilton lyrics...and that's how I got New Jersey.  I always forget the southern colonies, for some reason.  

Now, using the alphabet brain superpowers, I named the states that begin with vowels.  That stalled out pretty quickly.

Hilariously - to me - I realized that I had forgotten TEXAS.

Okay, okay, I can do this.  SPORTSBALL TEAMS.  Nope, not a single one.

Next tactic: going alphabetically.  This got me Wisconsin and Vermont because Alphabet Brain started at  Z

Now I'm missing two.  Last time it was Michigan and I suspect one of the two forgotten during the last attempt and it didn't stick in my brain.

MISSISSIPPI

I tried  remembering Capitals and that was ADORABLE.

I've gone through categories: coasts, vowels, size, Colonies, regions, Places I have Been, Places where I know people....

And that gave me: KENTUCKY.  

Then I stalled out, I was at the point of no return.  I found the youtube clip for this post and watched it, wondering/hoping they would name a state I missed.  Nope.

I tried one last attempt: Canadian Border States, because I had a suspicion that was the region I was missing.  I could nearly imagine it clearly but it wouldn't come forward. GAH.

Finally after about 30 minutes, I gave up. The game in the episode is timed at like six minutes and that's impossible. It's one of those games that really, if you don't get it right away, you're not going to get it.

MINNESOTA