How to play MASH

The fortune game from the back of every notebook. You need a pen, a page and a friend who's a little nervous about marrying their least favorite celebrity.

Set it up and play

1. Write M A S H across the top of a page: Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House.
2. Under it, write categories for the future: who you'll marry, how many kids, your job, your car, the city you'll live in, a pet.
3. Have your friend give four options for each category. Mix great ones with terrible ones.
4. Your friend closes their eyes and draws a spiral in the corner until you say stop.
5. Count the lines the spiral crosses, from the center out to one edge. That's the magic number.
6. Starting at M, count through every option, around and around the page. Cross out each one you land on with the magic number.
7. Skip anything already crossed out. When a category has one option left, circle it; it's safe.
8. Keep going until every category, and MASH itself, has one answer left. Read out their future.

Tips

• Always sneak one terrible option into every category.
• Spirals with lots of rings make the game go faster.
• "House" is the most boring possible outcome, and everyone knows it.

Do Not Read has MASH built in: you fill in your friend's categories and pass it, they draw the spiral, and the app counts it out the same way on both phones.