“If you could halt time for a day, what would you do with those 24 hours?”
Max Smith of Lake Forest wants you to ponder that question and then share the answer with the people across the dinner table.
Smith, who has studied and taught theology and ethics, is also the inventor of Maximize the Moment, a new party-friendly game designed to get to some of life’s deeper questions.
Maximize the Moment consists of 32 questions printed on a deck of 2-inch cards. The queries “aren’t trivia, and they don’t have an actual answer,” said Smith, 53. “So they draw people out. It’s sort of like having an invisible hostess or another guest.”
Smith, who says she entertains at home as often as he can, suggests the cards can be used as place cards, hostess gifts or after-dinner conversation starters, for corporate retreats or hospital visits, in employee lunchrooms or anywhere an ice-breaker would be welcome.
The $10 packet is available at www.maximizethemoment .com, at MoonSpun Gifts in Lake Bluff and at Helanders Inc. in Lake Forest (the location as published has been corrected in this text).
Smith tested each card to make sure it would spark lively discussion–without pitting one opinionated partygoer against another. “I wanted people to be passionate,” she said, “but not to be offended.”
Most of the questions have the potential to evoke light humor or heavy-duty philosophy, depending on the players. Take, for example: “If a movie were to be made of your life, which actors would you cast to play the main characters?”
“It creates so much energy,” said Smith, who was pleased by the response to her game at the January Chicago Gift & Home Market in the Merchandise Mart.
At first, people didn’t know what to make of the cards, she said. But once they started reading the questions, “It was like a big party in our booth.”
