Charades

Phoebe and I are playing charades. The first card I pick up says "Ice Skating". Well this should be easy enough: she has been ice-skating before, so she knows what it looks like, and in fact she was telling me only yesterday that she would like to do it again. So I stand up, clasp my hands behind my back, and begin 'skating', leaning forward over my left foot as I 'push off' with my right, then shifting my weight to the right as I swing my back foot round to the front, letting my left foot drift 'backwards' so that I can push off with it. It is not long before I am simulating the rhythmic bobbing-gliding-swaying action that is unmistakably that of an experienced ice skater.

"You're a camel!" shouts Phoebe triumphantly.*

* Since I am not in fact an experienced ice skater, and since the only time Phoebe saw me on ice I accidentally did the splits and had to be assisted into a vertical position by at least three people, I accept that my mime - excellent though it was - might have been a touch misleading. It does not however explain why on my next go, when I had to perform the action of "Making a Sandwich", she again decided that I was a camel...