Rob Wilson has invented a game which he has called Kumo. It involves telling a lie, or making up a story, and if the person you tell it to believes it and repeats it to another party then they have been ‘Kumoed’.
Rob with son James |
When Rob's wife Louise was pregnant they were lying in bed one day when Louise remarked..."I feel like a sumo wrestler." Rob insisted that she should be called a Kumo wrestler because he convinced her that was what female sumo wrestlers were called.
At eight months pregnant Louise ran downstairs to check the word in the dictionary for the word Kumo...and Rob convinced her that the word would only appear in a Japanese dictionary. Thus Kumo was born.
" A real Kumo is to get somebody to believe something but that they pass it on and you hear them seeking validation from somebody else." They make up their own urban myths.
One of Rob's favourite Kumo's took place at work. He saw a work colleague doing some jogging near where she lives and he told her it belonged to somebody from work. He told a Kumo...saying that the book belonged to a work colleague who lived next door to him and he made up a street name, which resembled his own very closely. The next day in the canteen at work the colleague and book owner casually bought up the subject of their address, or lack of it - and his colleagues fell about laughing.
Louise really wanted a puppy and Rob told her that their new neighbours were buying one...Louise went bounding round to the neighbours all excited..only to find again..she'd been kumoed. There was no puppy!
They have spread the game amongst their friends. Paul and Kirsten have been the subject of a Kumo. Rob had told Louise that they got engaged and she didn't believe him. When they next met Louise jokingly said "hah,hah, you haven't got engaged. So, I didn't send you a card." Only, to be shown the huge rock of an engagement ring. That disbelief of something that is true is a double kumo.
When questioned about how this Kumo culture affects their relationship and their outlook on life, Rob says he does disbelieve news and Louise doesn't trust Rob to give her accurate football results. But when it comes to love and marriage..that they both believe in.
"Who else would we have to play Kumo with....I hope we'll be playing it regularly into our old age."
