Let the Games Begin

I love games.  I was so blissfully happy when our neighbors agreed to come over to our place on New Year’s Eve for food, wine and Monopoly (it also meant we saved a bunch of dough on a sitter and a night on the town, but that is really and truly beside the point).  The love affair started as a child:  my dad’s family lived a three-hour drive from us in rural central Wisconsin, and there were several things guaranteed on every trip up to Grandpa’s house:  a refrigerator in the basement fully stocked with cheap caffeine-free soda, an empty offer of chewing tobacco from my grandpa—“It’ll put hair on your chest.” (never mind that if hair ever showed up on my chest I would pay huge sums of money to have it removed)—and a game of Trivial Pursuit every night.  It was always boys versus girls…always.  And there were habitual disputes and quarrels:  at what point did the answer have to be EXACTLY what was on the card and when approximate was acceptable was a big one.  Taking too much time to answer the question was constant fodder for argument, and—after Who Wants to be a Millionaire came on the air—the “is that your final answer” question became customary.  At some point during every game there was an accusation that one team or another had gotten the “easy box.”  As I got older, I graduated to staying up for the post-Trivial Pursuit games of cribbage, oftentimes paired with a glass of brandy, Grandpa’s drink of choice.  My Grandpa to this day checks everyone’s hands after they count out. 

I learned to play a fair number of other games as a child:  the perfunctory beginner card games of go fish and war, and then gin when I was a little older.   Monopoly, Life, Mille Bornes, Scattergories, Battleship and Uno were all staples of our game cabinet.  My mom’s mother lived near us, and we played a lot of Rummy Royal at her house.  I felt pretty cool playing Rummy Royal, because it involved poker chips.   We also owned Risk and Scruples, although we never played those two games with adults, and I’m pretty certain we reinvented the rules every time we played them.  My dad also taught me to play checkers and, a few years later, chess, neither of which he ever let me win. 

There is a now a pretty wide swath of distance between me and my game-loving family, and sadly my husband does not share my penchant for the board game.  (I have suckered him into the occasional contest, mostly when we were in college, and actually had friends over.  As a right-brained person, I have a special affinity for Cranium, probably not the best game choice for an engineer).  However I do have a four-year-old, and this past summer, on a whim during a Lincoln nap, I taught Alex how to play Uno.  He was instantly addicted.  He suckered everyone who came to our house into playing with him: Ben, the babysitter, our neighbor behind us, our next-door neighbor, the babysitter’s sister.  When somebody won he would immediately deal them another seven cards and continue the game.  Once he got comfortable with Uno, I showed him how to play go fish, Chutes and Ladders, Memory, and more recently Hi Ho Cherry-O, a Christmas gift from my sister.  Yesterday I taught him how to play checkers.  And, while I did allow him to jump me a few times, I kicked his ass.  He has been pestering for another game ever since.

Lesson:  if you don’t marry a game-lover, make one.