The merits of Monopoly


Nat really loves playing Monopoly. I mean, REALLY. I don't get it. Maybe she enjoys beating me. For some reason, I consistently lose to her. We have a Disney themed set and instead of Chance cards, they're called Magic Moments or Show Time. And they must be rigged or something, because I keep getting "Hypnotized by Kaa. Pay $100." or "Caught by the dog catcher. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go." And Nat keeps getting "Dumbo's magic feather lets you fly. Collect $100" or "Tinker Bell transports you to Go. Collect $200". RRRGGH. It does not help that Mummy does not let me fleece Nat when it comes to bartering properties :P

On the bright side, Nat is starting to cotton on to the nuances of Monopoly, like, don't bother getting the properties which are too expensive, because you never have enough to build any houses. She is even starting to catch me when I try to fleece her.

Me (in a fake grudging tone): OK Nat, I'll be kind. I'll let you swop The Rescuers for Aladdin's Grotto.
Nat: Wait, let me check the back of the card... HEY! Rescuers is more expensive than Aladdin!
Me (beating hasty retreat before Mummy catches me too): OKOK...

While I don't question the educational value I'm getting out of Parker Brothers, these two-hour Sunday afternoon sessions are pretty exhausting! Especially when Nat realises I'm running out of steam (and patience after watching her take 5 minutes to figure out how much change she should get for her $100 note for a double rent of $14. And then doublecheck because she thinks I'm trying to cheat).

It gets worse when she knows the game is coming to an end (usually because she is driving me bankrupt). She deliberately stops building houses and castles. She even tries to cheat when I take a toilet break by rolling the dice on my behalf and pretending I've rolled a number that allows me to land on Go (we have a rule that says if you land on Go you get $500 instead of $200 - Mummy's idea). How endearing :)

It's also pretty frustrating for Dan, because he's still too small to really understand Monopoly. Apart from rolling the dice for me, his participation is pretty limited. So, to be fair, we usually end off by letting him play Super Mario or something. This is not to say that Dan is any good at Super Mario. He just likes *watching* it. Have you ever seen Super Mario completed in 5 minutes? The WHOLE thing? Dan loves it, and you should check it out on Youtube (search for Super Mario speed run). Incredible.

Games. What would parents do without them? Go nuts. Probably. Now, where did I put my Civilization IV CD...?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life as a pie chart

Image
Someone told me recently about a "life exercise" in which one compiles all the stuff that makes up your life, and puts it in a pie chart.  So let's say for me, something like this. The idea is to visually demonstrate to myself that, in the event I lose one of these things, then I can see that, hey life is not so bad, that wasn't such a big deal.  Say for example, if I suffered a blown ACL, and couldn't run or play basketball any more, like this: At first blush - I'd say, hey, I still have my wife, children, parents, career, church life - so, chin up, things are not so bad.  Pretty good life visualisation tool to bring some optimism back into play! ... But what if, a month later, something happens at work, and boom, career gets sidetracked, I lose my job, or get put in cold storage somewhere, like this: Oops, now only half my life is left!  With only half of life's meaning left to me, what do I do? And what if something happens to
Read more

Bullying? Stand up!

Image
When I was a kid, I remember being bullied a fair bit.  I was small for my age, bespectacled, shy.    The teachers didn't help by putting a target on my back by making me Vice Head Prefect.  I would get my stuff just taken away from me by bigger kids, dragged out into the field to be tickled until I collapsed (much less fun than it sounds), and pushed into the storm drains.  Not all the kids were full-blown bullies of course.  But I remember some of them standing by, and politely holding my spectacles (so they wouldn't be broken) while the bullies did their work on me. Most of this stopped when I got to secondary school, where a much larger proportion of my fellow students were now just as nerdy!  And of course I grew up too.  I don't really look back on those days with any kind of animosity, because I think it never occurred to me that it was unusual.  But I do think my experience made me a bit more sympathetic about people around me who are being bullied. When you
Read more

Family AND Team

Image
I heard an interesting viewpoint this weekend. A family is not inherently a team. Hmm.  Sometimes at work, often in church, and most of the time at home, you hear people say to each other that we are family. And often, we really are. We care for each other above and beyond transactional matters.  It matters to me when my colleagues and cell group members (and of course my actual family members) go through illnesses or family issues or work challenges. I root for their success at presentations and projects and relationships. I care about what they care about, even if it has little direct impact on my own life. In a way, a family is sort of an amalgam of people who support each other in pursuit of each member's personal goals. For example, as a father, I support my children in their academic, career and ministry goals. But where they go to school, the grades they get, and the careers and ministries they build - they're really their goals, not mine.  Ditto for my role as a church
Read more